Constantines and Feist - Islands in the Stream - Made famous in 1983 as a duet by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Islands In The Stream was originally written by the Bee Gees. A favorite of Constantines and Feist, the song was recorded together in Toronto one chilly day in early February following a game of ice hockey and a round of hot chocolates.
Thanks to Jewelgurl for tipping me off about this.
Super Bowl Logos - This is kinda neat. It's every Super Bowl logo to date. It's interesting to see how design has changed over the past four decades.
Every so often I come across a blog with a premise I wish I had thought of. Today, I discovered White Whine and wondered why the hell I didn't think of that first.
It's essentially a new white person complaint every day. Today's complaint is “My chiropractor has the worst selection of magazines in his waiting room; I mean, thanks, but I already read November’s issue of Golf…back in November!” Last week the complaint was, “It takes over 300 dollars in gas to get from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas and back. If I knew that I wouldn’t have bought the damn boat, it’s cheaper to fly.”
They're all pretty funny. Here's one I can relate to. “What’s wrong with Nintendo that they can’t get enough Wii’s in for Christmas. They had the same problem last year!”
You'll want to check out this list of the 10 creepiest old ads. It's got babies smoking, babies shaving and this ad that doesn't quite work post 9/11.
9/11 did change everything...
50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2007 - I enjoyed this list of the 50 most loathsome people in America. #1 wasn't a surprise at all.
1. George W. Bush
Charges: Is it a civil rights milestone to have a retarded president? Maybe it would be, if he were ever legitimately elected. You can practically hear the whole nation holding its breath, hoping this guy will just fucking leave come January '09 and not declare martial law. Only supporters left are the ones who would worship a fucking turnip if it promised to kill foreigners. Is so clearly not in charge of his own White House that his feeble attempts to define himself as "decider" or "commander guy" are the equivalent of a five-year-old kid sitting on his dad's Harley and saying "vroom vroom!" Has lost so many disgusted staffers that all he's left with are the kids from Jesus Camp. The first president who is so visibly stupid he can say "I didn't know what was in the National Intelligence Estimate until last week" and sound plausible. Inarguably a major criminal and a much greater threat to the future of America than any Muslim terrorist.
Exhibit A: "And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I'm sorry it's the case, and I'll work hard to try to elevate it."
Sentence: Dismembered, limbs donated to injured veterans.
I wonder what a traffic chart for noradsanta.org would look like? For 11 months of the year it would be pretty dead, then for the month of December traffic would increase with a massive spike on December 24th.
If you want to track Santa's journey across the world today, you can't beat NORAD Tracks Santa 2007. The dude's been busy, having just hit Broome, Australia.
Here's a grand ol' time. Upload a pic and create your own magazine cover. Here I am on the cover of the Rolling Stone.
I'm sure I've linked to this before, but it's worth another visit. If you work in an office where people can see your screen, and you want to surf the web without being obvious about it, try workfriendly.net.
It disguises your browser as Microsoft Word, suppresses images and spits the content out as plain text. Here's the link for this site: http://workfriendly.net/browse/Office2003Blue/torontomike.com.
The 25 Greatest Moments from "The Office" - All the best scenes, from Dwight's Mussolini speech to "green is whorish". I was very pleased to see this great little scene come in at #2.
I'm a For Better or For Worse fan, and I recently discovered a great blog for fans of the strip. It's called The FOOBiverse! and every day the strip is discussed in a very snarky and hilarious manner. It's the kind of blog I wish I had started.
Speaking of For Better or For Worse, Grandpa Jim had another stroke and is in bad shape. Lynn Johnston is doing a hybrid of old and new strips these days, and it's working out well. We just revisited a younger Grandpa Jim from the days when Michael was a baby and then we came back to the current day to see him suffer another stroke. The juxtaposition of the younger, vibrant Jim with the unresponsive, elderly Jim was pretty jolting, and damn effective.
Note to Self: You may feel fit right now in your youth, as if you can take on the world and accomplish anything, but one day, if you're lucky, you will get very old and die.
TGIF everyone!
Watch Every Episode of The Simpsons, Ever - I don't mean to go heavy on Simpsons links this morning, but season 19 premieres tonight and you might want to catch up on what you've missed thus far.
I nominate this one for best link of 2007.
Simpsons Scenes and their Reference Movies - As a Simpsons fan and movie fan, I love this collection of 66 scenes from The Simpsons beside the movie scene to which they refer.
Now someone just needs to add a column for movie name...
When John From Cincinnati got canned earlier this week, I shared the opening credits of that show because it featured a very cool tune by Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros. That got me thinking about television theme songs that are too cool to be confined to the small screen and are good enough to stand alone.
Sometimes a song is a created for a tv show and sometimes it's simply licensed, as is the case with most of the songs below. However you slice it, here are my favourite television theme songs.
An honourable mention goes to the three Who songs used for various CSI shows. The Who songs are great but having not seen a minute of the shows that use them, I felt weird putting them on this list. All ten shows above are actually shows I watched and enjoyed.
The top 100 reasons it's great to be a guy - It's funny because it's true. I can vouch for the following:
Today's Front Pages - The Newseum displays these daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form.
680 Traffic and Weather - This is actually pretty handy to have around. It's the most recent 680 News traffic as an MP3. This one is for locals only.
2007 Free Agent Signings - A real-time list of player signings since noon on July 1. The Philadelphia Flyers just signed Daniel Briere. No news from Leafsville yet...
Airline Complaint re: Seat 29E - This thoroughly entertained me. There are even handy illustrations.
Images That Changed the World - These are powerful.
Michael Moore's Sicko on Google Video - Get it while you can.
Update: It's now here.
passive-aggressive notes from roommates, neighbors, coworkers and strangers - I just stumbled upon this blog and I found it quite entertaining. It reminded me of my cup.
Doors Open Toronto - This coming weekend is Doors Open Toronto, the one weekend of the year when up to 150 buildings of architectural, historic, cultural and social significance open their doors to the public for a city-wide celebration.
This link is to a great Toronto Star Google Maps page showing all the buildings taking part in Doors Open Toronto 2007. I see the Lambton House is on that list...
101 Greatest George Carlin Quotes - Because the world needs Carlin, here are 101 of his best quotes.
Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky, who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer and burn and scream until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
Attractions Ontario E-coupons - This link I found on jewelgurl's blog will come in handy this summer.
Cool Optical Illusion - This is not an animated gif. It's not animated at all. Cool, eh?
The Top 15 Most Embarrassing Photos of George W. Bush - I used to write about my pal Dubya all the time, but now that he's won his second term I don't see the point in it. It's like shooting fish in a barrel, he's an easy target and that's no fun.
Still, as he enters winds down his reign it's fun to view these classic photos. Below is my favourite of the bunch.
Photoshopping Toronto City Hall - From FARK.com, our city hall is remixed.
Star Wars in Five Seconds - Good stuff.
From Hockey to Basketball in Three Minutes - The Air Canada Centre is the home venue of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors. In as little as eight hours, a crew of 18 to 25 workers can transform the NHL ice to NBA hardwood. This video was recorded in a time span of over sixteen hours, compressed to under three minutes.
Late Night With Conan O'Brien Bumper Art - I've always been a fan of Conan, tuning in nightly when he first scored his late night gig. I've always loved the bumpers they'd show coming out of commercial breaks, and this gallery has 17 pages of them, capped from a high definition feed. Enjoy them in all their HD glory.
Hey Steve, remember this one?
SeeqPod - I've been totally digging this link lately. It's why I'm so glad Al Gore built them tubes in Chicago.
Toronto Google Maps Mashups - What do you get when you take a great city, the Google Maps API, and creative individuals with coding skills? You get 30 fantastic Toronto "Google Maps Mashups".
2007 Super Bowl Ads - Here's where we can catch the spots we missed yesterday.
Here's a neat Coke commercial.
Tangerine Panic - WHY ARE THEY SO BIG?
Premature Death of Rock Stars - This is a very thorough listing of dead rock stars. It includes their age at the time of death and how they died. Heart attack seems to be the biggest killer, followed closely by drug overdose. The average age of death is a remarkably low 36.9 years old.
Catalog Card Generator - I had fun with this one.
20 of the most amazing short animations you need to see before you die - This is precisely what it claims to be. It's a great collection, complete with some NFB and PJ.
10 kick ass opening credit sequences
- This guy put together a pretty good collection of the best credit sequences you can find in film today. Many of my favourites made the list, including this credit sequence from Fight Club.
Toronto transit map - This map contains public transit (bus, subway, street car, train, and LRT) lines for much of the Greater Toronto Area on a map provided by Google. Data for TTC, GO Transit, VIVA, Brampton Transit, Mississauga Transit and Vaughan Transit is included.
This is a useful tool Mr. Ian Stevens. The TTC should thank you, but knowing them they'll send you a cease and desist order instead.
Top 50 Music Videos of 2006 - This is the big one folks. The link of the year!
Comedy Central - iFilm has legitimate Comedy Central clips available from their best shows: Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Colbert Report, Chappelle's Show and Crank Yankers.
Sexual Consent - Very, very funny. Trust me.
The Most Famous Photographs - Simply a great collection of the world's most famous photographs. Here's my favourite.
On-Line Anagram Generator - Throw your name in this online anagram generator and watch hilarity ensue.
I'm "I'm Bone OK" unless you prefer the cleaner "Moon Bike".
Free flu shots - Torontonians will want to note that free flu shots are available November 13 to December 9, 2006 and
January 12-18, 2007 and you can see a list of vaccination clinics on this page.
I got my flu shot last week so you'd better get yours. Revisit my 2003 rant and 2004 rant.
NHL on Google Video - This is HUGE. The NHL has announced a multi-year deal to provide NHL video content to Google Video. We'll see where this goes, but the premise is outstanding.
Creative commercials that you'll never forget - This is a nice collection of some great commercials, including the Toronto-produced Dove ad that's been receiving a lot of press lately.
World Container World Album Premiere - Since today is national Hip day, I thought this was a cool link to share with fellow fans of Canada's band. This is Gord and the boys discussing the new album while they play each song. There's great insight and another opportunity to hear this fantastic new album that hits stores today.
World Container streamed - If you're patient and let this thing load, you can listen to World Container, the new album from The Tragically Hip.
If you just want to check out the first four songs, "Yer Not The Ocean", "The Lonely End of the Rink", "In View" and "Fly", you can hear them on the Hip's MySpace page.
Slang of the 1920s - Have you ever wanted to talk like Mr. Burns? I know I have, and now I can. This list is the bee's knees.
How To Make Roses From Maple Leafs - This link is in honour of a most glorious game. Right now, everything smells like roses.
NPR 100: Master List of top 300 Songs - This list of 300 songs was compiled by members of the NPR News and Cultural Programming staff and several distinguished music critics and scholars. "Loser", "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Jeremy" all made the list.
All The Simpsons You Need - This link is too good to be true. I'm so happy I could cry. Ok, I am crying... buckets. I'm so happy!
Elliott Brood's The Bridge Video - I fell in love with "The Bridge" the first time I heard it. Deeming it SLS-worthy, it appeared on our 15th edition. Today, I discovered this blog with a very cool video for the tune. Check it out.
Free Movies Fallen out of Copyright - This is a neat little collection of films that have entered the public domain. That means the copyright or patent restrictions have expired and we can do whatever we want with them.
Tim Horton's Locator - Powered by Google Maps, this is a handy little tool for tracking down the nearest Tim Hortons. My mom will love this.
the last 12 hours of edge music - I've been waiting for this feature to return to the 102.1 web site. They used to have a module on the front page that told you the song currently being played but this feature disappeared for some reason. This new page lists the songs played and the time they were played over the past 12 hours. CFNY fans will get a kick out of this.
911 Anniversary on Google Video - It still gives me chills.
Online Alarm Clock - I'm not sure I'd actually need such a thing, but it's nice knowing it's out there if I do. It even works.
Cassette Generator - I totally dig this. It's like, so 80s. It takes me back.
The Tragically Hip's "In View" from World Container - I was tipped off that the new Hip song "In View" was being previewed on the official Hip site. Here it is.
PDF Online : Create PDF - This is cool. Upload a document or image, give it a .pdf file name and have the pdf emailed to you right away. There's a 2MB max, but I think this might be awfully handy when you're at a PC without your PDF creation software.
Obadiah Parker - Hey Ya - I'm totally digging this sweet acoustic cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya". The guy's name is Mat Weddle. Let me know if you don't enjoy this.
Is Bush an "Idiot"? - Is the president of the United States of America intelligent? I have a few thoughts on the subject.
700 Hobo Names - Alexi threw this MP3 at me months ago, and I listened one day while I worked. It's not much more than John Hodgman running down a list of 700 hobo names, and it's pretty darn long, but it's strangely compelling.
It's because of this bit that I root for the PC guy in those Mac vs. PC ads. The PC guy is John Hodgman.
Penn & Teller: Bullshit! - I recently started watching "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" on TMN and I dig it. It's quite entertaining how they debunk topics like hypnosis, creationism, capital punishment and The Bible. This link is to 23 full-length episodes of this very cool show.
TurnHere - BoingBoing linked to this site recently and I discovered several cool little films about Toronto neighbourhoods.
Britney - What's wrong with me that I've watched this twice now and can't wait to watch it a third time? I ♥ Britney.
workFRIENDLY - This is neat. The page you're reading is disguised as a Word document. The images and CSS mark up is suppressed so someone passing by your office computer will think you're composing a work-critical mission statement.
Every once in a while, I stumble across something in cyber space that makes my day. Today, I learned about Superkids. You can read this "Stupid Comic" here.
Superkids was published by the Office Of Energy Conservation of the Department Of Energy, Mines, and Resources of Canada. A couple of kids find a magic rock and it makes them Superkids. They then learn that we'll be out of oil by 1986 and by 1996 things will be really dismal. There will be cold, dark buildings, little public transportation, few cars, no movies, and so on. 1996 Canada is definitely something to fear.
My deductive logic tells me we should thank these Superkids for the fact we still have movies theatres. On second thought, these kids did us no favour.
The Simpsons Maker - Build yourself a Simpsons character in your own image. Here's me. It's not quite as accurate as my South Park image. Doh!
Mysteries of Ontario - Actually, this site, which looks like it was made in 1997, is entitled "Mysteries of Canada", but I'm focusing on the Ontario section. From Robertson screws to the Diefenbunker, there are 31 tales here about our province.
The fucking short version of The Big Lebowski - The F bomb x 281 = Dude.
South Park Studio - Build yourself a South Park character in your own image. Here's me. The stubble is because I've been off work all week.
Dark Side of the Rainbow - For your reference, here's a cheat sheet of the coincidental events when you synchronize PInk Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon with "The Wizard of Oz". Personally, I think it's much ado about nothing, except for 19:37 in when it's a pretty cool jive.
National Film Board of Canada: Play films - "Fifty NFB animated shorts, including several animation classics, can be accessed directly from this section. You can search them by title, director and year of production." There are so many classics here: "Neighbours/Voisins", "The Cat Came Back", "The Sweater", "The Big Snit"...
Zidane simulator - Ohhh, so this is what I missed.
Johnny Cash, American V: A Hundred Highways - AOL is streaming this entire new release from the Man in Black. If you're a fellow Firefox user, you'll have to install the ActiveX Plug-in or use IE. You've got to hear this disc, especially his cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind".
I think Cash could have sang the alphabet song and I've have dug it. As I wrote upon his death, the Man in Black really struck a chord with me. He sang for the working man and downtrodden. He sang for the prisoners and the hurt.
Family Guy's Greatest Hits - Somebody pieced together the best scenes from "Family Guy". The Kool Aid man is here, Peter's fight with the chicken, and that priceless scene when the doctor tells him he's fat.
City of Toronto Archives - "Every generation lives in a different Toronto. Someone lived in your home before you—who were they? What did a city street look like before cars and electric lights?" If you've ever lived in Toronto, you'll find yourself getting lost here. I recommend starting with these virtual exhibits.
Have you noticed yourself visiting YouTube more and more often these past few months? I've certainly been watching more videos over there, and if you look hard enough, you're bound to find some gems.
Below are some of my favourite videos currently available at YouTube. As I review my selection, I see there's an awful lot of Canadiana here, so it's fitting I share this on a long Canada Day weekend.
Unable to find a single reference to Bill Barilko, I took it upon myself to upload a few clips I've collected from other sites. He's our Buddy Holly, immortalized by the Hip's "Fifty Mission Cap", and scorer of the 1951 Stanley Cup winner for my beloved Maple Leafs. Every year, his legend grows. Here is Bill Barilko's last goal.
Update: Here are a few more gems that either came to me later or were suggested in the comments.
These are a few of my favourites. Please share yours in the comments below.
Andre's NES Emulator - The screen's a little small and the sound isn't very good, but it's still a wonderful trip down memory lane playing these old Nintendo games. I have fond memories of the simpler, 8-bit NES days when my favourite game was probably Ice Hockey. Sadly, Ice Hockey isn't on Andre's list of emulated NES games.
Free Web photo editor - This is a handy web-based app for resizing, cropping, rotating and touching up your photos. I gave it a quick test drive and other than the annoying 2MB size limit which will prevent me from actually using it, it was pretty slick.
Psycho complains to city about "rogue helicopter pilot" - This is too good to be true. I could watch it over and over and over again and never get bored. If our city council meetings were like the ones in Charlotte, I'd be glued to Cable 10.
LIVE TV ONLINE TV - This link is almost too good to be true. Here you can stream 120 television stations live. It uses an ActiveX Control to embed Windows Media into a web page, so Firefox won't play it without a plugin and even then you'll have to make sure that the setting for OBJ-TABS is disabled in your Adblock extension. This might be the one time it makes sense to use IE.
100 Awesome Music Videos - I've linked to a lot of music video portals lately, but this is the king. This is a killer collection complete with reasoning and the video itself. Take on me!
Mozilla Firefox Cheat Sheet - My goal is to memorize every keyboard shortcut listed so I never have to touch my mouse again.
Music Videos From the 80's :: Over 1,400 Videos - This is a pretty cool collection. The more I revisit the 80s the more I fear it was a solid decade of crap. At least 99% of it was crap. "So Alive" from Love and Rockets was pretty good though, and you can watch the video at this link.
Extortr - This is an amazing idea. Unfortunately, the most efficient way to blackmail in the world is only a joke... so far.
You're Pitiful - Weird Al Yankovich - Weird Al takes on James Blunt's overplayed "You're Beautiful". This link is directly to the MP3, so you might want to save the link to your PC and play it from there. Of course, if you're not a Weird Al guy, you're gonna hate this so fuggetaboutit completely and move on.
Musicovery - I should warn you before you click this link that you'll likely spend a great deal of time at Musicovery sampling tunes and playing with the settings. It's a very cool interface.
Big Spanish Castle - Stare at the dot for 30 seconds then, without moving your eyes, move the mouse over the image.
Adtunes.com - If you've ever heard a song in a television commercial, film trailer, movie, tv show or video games and wondered what it was, this is where you go. The answer you're looking for is probably in the forums.
Krun.ch - "Krun.ch is a simple tool that simplifies the process of compressing and sending your files online. Krun.ch isn't a replacement for the traditional desktop compression tools, but its just a tool that makes things easier by cutting down all the 'krunching' hassles!"
Hallelujah - My entries about Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" are several. References to the song have made it into nineteen entries. This link, sent to me by Jill, includes many covers of Cohen's classic.
Sadly, Gord Downie's version isn't there, but Imogen Heap's is. It was recorded for the season finale of The O.C. and was the topic of discussion last night while Jeff Buckley's version played. I'm going to listen to it right now.
Darth Vader calls the Emperor - If you like Star Wars, you'll enjoy this. "Death Star blown up by a bunch of %#$% teenagers".
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Lots of bands cover Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart". Here's a pretty good list complete with MP3s.
10 Things I Hate About Commandments - Imagine "The Ten Commandments" as a teen comedy. Now, imagine the trailer. This is damn funny, I swear.
Milinkito :: El que tuvo, YouTube : 'Los Ochenta' - Don't understand that title? That's okay, neither do I. But I do know this web page has links to dozens and dozens of 80s music videos. Many of these take me back, like XTC's "Dear God", Love And Rockets' "So Alive", Duran Duran's "Wild Boys" and Danzig's "Mother".
TV Cream Themes - Hot damn, a whole bunch of TV show theme songs in MP3 format. Go get 'em!
I Want To Believe Generator - If you watched The X-Files, you'll enjoy this.
Every Playboy centerfold from December 1953 through May 2006 - This is important for historical purposes. There is much we can learn about a culture from the evolution of their centerfolds.
Watch TV Shows Online - From The Sopranos to Thundercats and many in between.
CBC Radio Podcasts - Here you'll find the best of CBC's national Radio One shows, new regional podcast magazines, exclusive musical talent from Radio 3 and special podcast-only features. All the goodies are here, Quirks & Quarks, The Best of DNTO, The Best of As It Happens, The Best of The Current and more.
Lyrics from LyricWiki - LyricWiki is a free site which is a single source where anyone can go to get reliable lyrics for any song from any artist without being hammered by invasive ads.
Neil Young - Living With War - Neil Young is streaming his new political disc over the web for free. Very cool.
Brent Runyon’s folk cover of Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” - Those who know me know I know every word to this song and will rap it on command. This is a nice little folksy cover of the classic Public Enemy tune.
195 Free Online Programming Books - From Ada to XML. But first, know the practical theory.
GTA Bike Retailers - This is an awesome and thorough list of Greater Toronto Area bike shops.
The Worst President in History? - Here's an excerpt from this Rolling Stone cover story.
The president came to office calling himself "a uniter, not a divider" and promising to soften the acrimonious tone in Washington. He has had two enormous opportunities to fulfill those pledges: first, in the noisy aftermath of his controversial election in 2000, and, even more, after the attacks of September 11th, when the nation pulled behind him as it has supported no other president in living memory. Yet under both sets of historically unprecedented circumstances, Bush has chosen to act in ways that have left the country less united and more divided, less conciliatory and more acrimonious -- much like James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Herbert Hoover before him. And, like those three predecessors, Bush has done so in the service of a rigid ideology that permits no deviation and refuses to adjust to changing realities. Buchanan failed the test of Southern secession, Johnson failed in the face of Reconstruction, and Hoover failed in the face of the Great Depression. Bush has failed to confront his own failures in both domestic and international affairs, above all in his ill-conceived responses to radical Islamic terrorism. Having confused steely resolve with what Ralph Waldo Emerson called "a foolish consistency . . . adored by little statesmen," Bush has become entangled in tragedies of his own making, compounding those visited upon the country by outside forces.
I'm not gonna say I told you so.
LINUX Guide for newbies - This guy put together a neat little guide for those making the jump from Windows to Linux. I've been running Fedora Core 5 in a virtual machine with the intention of blowing Windows XP out of the water for good. If one more family member calls me because their PC is choking on viruses, spyware or XP's excessive weight, I'm dropping by with an FC5 disc in hand. I will never purchase a Microsoft license again, so help me God.
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