Sunny Friday, finally.

Friday mashup

- I saw Colin Meloy solo at the Somerville Theater. It was… intelligent. Here’s the Steely Dan version of Perfect Crime #2, or how Colin originally thought they would record it.

- A collection of 2 minute, 42 second songs, dubbed the perfect length (“anything else is a waste of time”)

- This fascinating story in this week’s New Yorker highlights what happens when you spend 41 hours trapped in an elevator.

- The Gin Blossoms want you to know that they are, in fact, still a band.

- Danny Federici, keyboardist from the E Street Band, died yesterday at age 58 after battling melanoma for three years. Rest in peace.

- This is the coolest faucet I have ever seen.

[Obama supporter in sunny Berkeley, CA, where I was fortunate enough to spend the earlier part of this week]

Rainy Friday (twice in a row?)

Friday Mashup, or This rain is messing with my karma

 - In this week’s Tears in Heaven moment, Boston’s The Paradise Lounge, little brother to the beloved Paradise Rock Club, has closed and will be turned into an “irishoid” bar. This is regrettable. I hate shipping over to Cambridge to see small, small acts, and The Paradise Lounge had the right ratio of grime-to-charm for me. Check out my videos of Howie Day performing there about a month ago.

- Willpower is like a tank of gas: once you use it to go one place, you can’t go another. This according to a pseudo-op ed in this week’s New York Times. This is really interesting and perhaps a good thing to remember as we all face uphill battles, “…people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task. ” New York Times via kottke.

 - Yikes. Cell phones might be worse than cigarettes.

- Yikes. Diet Coke might be worse than cell phones.

- All hail. Apple is the #1 music retailer. Take that, FYE. Not that they were ever in the running. Speaking of, does anyone remember The Wall and their CD return guarantee? Pretty sure that’s why that place collapsed. Update: apparently not. The agency who conducted the study has recinded the results, and Ars Technica, a fantastic technology blog, was asked to remove their leaked internal Apple documents regarding the study. File under: shady.

- Apparently, a 3G iPhone is coming sooner than I thought, or else I wouldn’t have bought one, oh, about a month ago. Thanks, Apple! I will be upgrading.

- Ape-ricot or app-ricot? This was a debate I had with my friends Will and Pete during sophomore year of college. Back then, we didn’t have Forvo, which has the goal of one day offering correct pronunciations for every word in the world. An ambitious quest. Of course, they don’t have apricot. Yes – I win! I’m going to add it as ape-ricot. [thanks, Lifehacker]

- The folks over at uber-Boston blog/community b0st0n.livejournal.com have abbreviated the Globe’s new Food & Arts section “Farts.” Okay, its funny because I have the sense of humor of a 12 year old.

- The New York Times’ ArtsBeat blog wondered, “Why was Rachel Ray at SXSW?” and questions her “indie rocker” status.

[image thanks to despair.com]

Rainy Friday

Friday mashup:

- Alaska in Winter is my favorite discovery from the past week. It’s like Beirut, but with serious downtempo dub.

- Photoshop Express was released yesterday. You get 2gb of storage and some of the more popular Photoshop tools in a convenient, Flash-based format. I still am hoping for Picasa for Mac.

- Yelp Boston asks, “When was the last time you threw up?“

- Divine Caroline posts the “Worst Artery Cloggers in America.” Yikes, Chipotle is on here. My favorite is the “Just wrong, mate: Outback Aussie Cheese Fries.” With 2900 calories and 182g of fat, now I understand why America has redefined the average ass size.

- The New York Times assures us that, yes, running can get you high. [thanks, Lifehacker]

- William Kowalski, a writer living in Nova Scotia, offers a Canadian perspective on an American classic: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsy. via Globe and Mail.

- Stereogum, et al debate the value of the Web Sheriff, a paid gopher who frequents mp3 blogs and politely asks users to remove select content by a certain record label ::cough Matador cough::. I really like some of the arguments made in this post about the role blogs that post mp3s play in spreading new music and, in turn, generating revenue for artists who are overcontracted and underpaid.

- What happens when you remove Garfield from Garfield comics? You embark on a journey “deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman.”

Photo credit: Bjorn Hegardt via This is That