The Scrabbled: Making Fun of Each Other since '99

Music

• Jonathan Coulton has a new album. You may know him as the dude who wrote those portal songs or that guy in that ze frank video where they did all his songs with a guitar.
• Buke and Gass have done an incredible NPR Tiny Desk concert that has made me love them all the more.
• The Flaming Lips and Lightning Bolt teamed up to spit out a quick 4-song EP and an incredible, seizure-inducing video called “I Want To Get High, But I don’t Want Brain Damage”. They also did some awesome hand-pressed LPs (and I totally scored one).
• I usually make an effort to checkout Pitchfork’s Best New Music picks, but oh my god, this John Maus album is fucking stupid. And they try to justify it by calling it “outsider art” or some shit. Case in Point.
  It’s a shame because the keyboards are pretty cool. I just can’t get past this idiot behind the microphone.
• Tom Waits has a new album coming out. I am beyond thrilled.
• Cookie monster mashed up with Tom Waits. Perfection.

Movies

• I haven’t been paying attention. Have you? Tree of Life was the last thing I saw and it was pretty amazing.

Politcs

• I’ve really kind of given up here, guys. Three years of this flaccid Obama administration has done more to destroy my optimism and desire to “take part in the process” or whatever than eight years of Bush. At least our Senators seem to have good, ballsy voting records?
• Slavoj Zizek gives a pretty thought provoking summation of the London Riots in his usual circuitous, reference-laden fashion. It’s a hard read, but one well-worth reading.

Games

• Borderlands is maybe the most fun I’ve had playing a video game in a long time. I think Paris summed it up best by saying it’s essentially Diablo in the body of a first-person shooter.
• Finally played From Dust and it’s very very cool, though the PC port is kinda shitty (rejoice, console-fans). It’s sort of a little bit Populace, a little bit Lemmings, a little bit Peter Molyneux craziness (e.g., Black & White). Very worth checking out.
• Has anyone played Bastion yet? I hear nothing but great things.

Tech

• Yeah, so, Mac OS Lion fucking sucks. This is, however, coming from a power user who had all his servers and weird Spaces configurations ruined. I suspect the old fogie parents of the world love all these new iOS-y features that make their computer act more like their iPhone. I fucking hate them.
• So Steve Jobs retired. Should be interesting to see how the next few years go with Tim Cook in charge. Apparently Tim Cook has been mostly running the show the past year or two anyhow, but then, look at Lion. Hrm.
• I found this breakdown of Microsoft’s ribbon UI to be hilarious.

Sports

• The Phillies did an It Gets Better video. Also, 40 games over .500. Jesus Christ.

Misc

• WHOAH EARTHQUAKE! I am very disappointed to say that I didn’t feel it because I was in a big ol’ rickety rented pickup truck at the time. They did, however, interrupt the Foo Fighters’ admittedly awesome cover of Darling Nikki to tell me I had just missed said Earthquake.
• WHOAH HURRICANE. How did everyone make out? We got some water in our basement, but that’s about it.
• With a shit ton of help from Sammy and Paris, I built a brick patio with my week off last week. It was crazy hard, and not made much easier by the growing Hurricane concerns.
• Barcade Philly is finally happening!
• hehehehehhehehehehheheheheheh