Category: Web

Regular readers of the The Cartoonist blog will have come across Ralf Zeigermann’s ‘fast fiction’, glimpses of an ’60s sci-fi narrative starring somebody called The Roper. I don’t like most mini-fiction, but Zeigermann gets it right. Now he’s collected 50 of his short stories and is making it avalable free as pdf download, now with illustrations. Sorta would like to hold this in my hand, but you can’t knock the free stuff.

What I’ve been reading this evening:
Mapping Hacks a blog on tweaking Google maps and other online mapping services.
Urban Cartography is a self-explanatory blog of new urbanism.
Made In USA is an essay about how Americans value speed over design and that’s why most of our housing sucks. On the other hand, when design is important (like the iPod), America rocks…
All links sprung–I think–from reading the City Comforts blog.

Artist-thinker-person Paula Levine has created a Flash presentation that combines a map of Baghdad with a similarly sized map of San Francisco and then demonstrates how much we decimated the former city. This is a good way to conceptualize the damage that we inflict on other cities. The next step would be to allow the user to replace his or her own city for San Francisco. “They bombed my favorite bookstore? Waaah!” etc…

I love it when things I dreamed of as a kid come true. Check out this super snazzy home arcade unit this guy made.

45 days since I posted! What a twat I am. Due to kind friends saying “but Ted, we rely on your wit and links to get us throught the day,” I’m putting out this post of recent links.
Dennis Miller’s show gets cancelled. Good!
Spamusement made me laugh so much that I was incapacitatd by tears and lack of breath. It was like a fit of the stoney giggles.
One of my favorite singles from last year was Pet’s “noyesno”. Here’s the video.
Nine Inch Nails vs. Ray Parker Jr. This mashup works well. It also reveals that Trent Reznor could have fronted Journey.
K-Punk is one of my favorite, recently-discovered blogs. He knows his Zizek, fulminates about British Politics, and has been very good at applying theory to the excellent new season of Doctor Who.
This cereal comes with a free surprise in every box.
Despite BoingBoing’s warning, Google’s new Web Accelerator has been working out for me.
Your tax dollars at work. At least let me sit on the committee.
Okay, that’ll do for now.

While researching a Koreatown bar called “The Prince” I came across this website, a lost list of Los Angeles bars & restaurants of the 40’s & 50’s that still stand and serve to this day, mostly with the original decor and flava. My list of places to check out has increased tenfold! Pictured above is the Blue Room in Burbank. How cool is this?

The ImprovEverywhere folks are at it again in another wonderful piece of street theater: Look Up More.

Webby site APerfectWorld.com lovingly scans pages from The 1971 Sears Catalog. I swear my parents bought everything out of this book.

I’m currently reading Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell’s “King Solomon’s Carpet,” a thriller set in part in the London Underground. (Hence my interest.) A lot of Underground trivia is mentioned, including this: 23/24 Leinster Gardens, a housing facade that hides an open stretch of track where excess steam and smoke can be vented. Looks like a real block of flats from the street, but it’s not. A quick search on the Internet found this page on Cut and Cover Disused Stations (scroll to the end to find it), and a photo that you see above. Cool, eh?

First Tucker Carlson loses his job. Now this. Damn, today was a good day, as Ice Cube sez.

‘L.A. Times’ Drops Daily ‘Garfield’ as the Comic Is Blasted and Praised
Gene Weingarten, a humor columnist for The Washington Post and Washington Post Writers Group, praised the Times decision during his weekly washingtonpost.com chat yesterday. He said the paper displayed ‘the kind of cojones missing in too many places’ and described ‘Garfield’ as ‘a strip produced by a committee, devoid of originality, devoid of guts, a strip cynically DESIGNED to be inoffensive and bad, on the theory that public tastes are insipid. Now we need others to follow suit. Like the Post.'”

Is this a good excuse to link to Farfield again?