My Job is So Awesome Sometimes

Today I spent 20 minutes or so judging seattlepi.com's Holiday Pet Photo Contest. Here's one of my favorite pet photos ever, of a golden retriever names Stelah:



Come on, is that AWESOME or what. Can you say "new desktop art?"

See the rest of the awesomeness at myseattlepets.com.

The coolest viral thing I have ever seen

O my god, This is the most incredible piece of viral marketing I have seen in 28 years -- no wait -- make that my whole life!



Wow. Flight of the Conchords, my favorite band and TV show, is inviting fans to lip synch to their song, Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros. They'll edit them together to make a "megamix" fan piece, and air the best of on HBO Jan. 18th. They're calling it the Lip Dub Video Fansterpiece. I am a fan and I approve this message! Check out the other fan vids so far here.

Geeks rap about upgrading

This is so stupid, yet I couldn't look away.

Best movies, A to Z

In another nod to The Cooler (and because I feel guilty about not participating in the awesome Politics & Movies Blogathon), I recommend checking out Jason's latest meme, a list of favorite movies, by letters of the alphabet.

It's tougher than it sounds. Forces some difficult choices.

Here are mine. Feel free to add yours here or over at The Cooler. Or both.

Annie Hall
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Chinatown
The Deer Hunter
Easy Rider
Fargo
The Godfather
Heat
It's a Wonderful Life
Jaws
The King of Comedy
Lawrence of Arabia
Magnolia
North by Northwest
On the Waterfront
Pulp Fiction
Quiz Show
Raging Bull
Singin' in the Rain
Taxi Driver
Unforgiven
Vertigo
The Wizard of Oz
X, Malcolm (a cheat, I know, but I'm thinking of the poster)
Y Y tu Mama Tambien
Zodiac

And a bonus, beginning with a number:
2001: A Space Odyssey

Cat Fights Printer

This is all over the internets this week. I thought it was pretty funny, but then I noticed there are many, many cat vs. printer videos on youtube. It's like, a genre. America is weird. Or maybe it's the world.



Watch with the sound ON.

Twitter Testing 1-2-3

If I were twittering, as Clive Thompson seems to be suggesting I should in his NYT piece today -- and as I realized after watching people twitter their way through Gustav, I probably should be, since in the event of big news this is probably the very best way to give people incremental updates -- here's what I'd be twittering today (how's this for a Faulknerian sentence?):

Starting a new screenplay today. "It was a dark and stormy nite..."

67 characters. Well within the 140 limit allowed on Twitter ...

Are you twittering? Tell me why or why not. I'm trying to decide if it's time to take the leap.

Wordle Rocks

Wonder what you're writing about, really? Now you can feed a chunk of words through this awesome tool Wordle, and it will spit out a tag cloud for you. Here's a Wordle of M&M's recent posts. Cool, no?

Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends

You so need to take 1 minute out of your day to read McSweeny's Hamlet, the Facebook news feed edition:

"Horatio thinks he saw a ghost.

Hamlet thinks it's annoying when your uncle marries your mother right after your dad dies.

The king thinks Hamlet's annoying.

Laertes thinks Ophelia can do better.

Hamlet's father is now a zombie.

- - - -

The king poked the queen.

The queen poked the king back.

Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends.

Marcellus is pretty sure something's rotten around here.

Hamlet became a fan of daggers."

More here.

Wow

I can't believe that M&M is the No. 2 search result on Google for "behind the green glass door." That so rocks.

Here's our original post on that riddle, with riddlemaster Allison.

Battle of the tech whores

Wham. I can't believe Kaye just rushed right out and bought an iPhone without any warm-up angst or anything, and then announced it with such a cool post on the newly resuscitated NiteNote.

Like she says in a comment on her own post, I'll have more to say about my iPhone "when I can tear myself way from it long enough to form a thought other than - ooooooooo or aaaahhhhhh or wowee!"

New Obsession: Google News Reader

The other day I stumbled across Google Reader, which apparently has been around for years, but somehow I failed to notice its tasty goodness. 48 hours post discovery, and I'm wondering how I ever lived without this humongous time-waster.

Basically with the reader, you tell Google what you like to read, and instead of you having to trudge all the way over to that Web site, Google delivers up all the new headlines from your favorite sites, as soon as they post!

Yah, no big deal, right? Feedburner and a million other feed collectors have done this for geeks for years. The difference here is that all those other feed tools require you to download stuff, and then you have to have this thing living on your computer -- and if I'm remembering correctly, you had to download them on every computer you use. Anyways, ho hum -- none of them quite passed the ease of use test for me.

Google has got this puppy exactly right. Google Reader lives on the Web. And not only is it easy to sign up for new feeds, it's also easy for you to publish them on your blog -- look left! -- or on a separate site. You can also add snarky commentary to stories, or post notes that have nothing to do with news stories.

Your friends can keep tabs on your obsessions by using Google Reader to subscribe to your feed, and see what you're reading about right in their own Google Reader. I'm following my friend Ricky's feed, and I've noticed that we're often reading exactly the same story at exactly the same time. Creepy.

And handyness of handyness, iGoogle is my default Web page, and two things are front and center on it: Google's Most Searched terms (a great app that lets you know what people are obsessing about way before most mainstream news operations report it) plus my Google Reader. Sweet.

The amazing thing is, instead of helping get me through my daily reads quickly, it's actually increased my Web reading time, because now I'm adding all kinds of fringe reads to my daily diet. Before I bounced around between about 15 sites throughout the day. I'm up to 36 -- shit, no, wait -- 44 subscriptions, and growing. Someone, stop the madness!

The bonus is, though, I get to learn about all kinds of things I never would have known before: Someone invented a way to put a push lawnmower on the front of a bike! There's new windows in Japan made out of solar panels strong enough to keep your laptop charged! On the downside, I get 12 versions of the same story when some big geek news happens, like today's Facebook confab.

If you want to try it out, first you need a Google account, which you can sign up for at google.com. Then just follow the directions to sign up for Google Reader and to make igoogle your default page. You can find my shared items here. If you start "sharing" too, let me know so I can add your feed.

OMG

Here's the new commercial for the portable Guitar Hero. The device doesn't look that great, but the commercial Rocks the House



I think this is the guy from the Real Men of Genius campaign, which was incredibly genius.

(... A quick trip to YouTube ... )

Actually, it looks like a different guy, but same genius concept.

Idol Across America

Who needs Tivo? Turns out we can keep up with the latest Idol updates on Youtube. We heard already, of course, that Tattoo Girl was kicked off the show this past week. Tonite after the fabu dinner at Kay and Val's, we loaded our bloated bellies into the bed and cozied up to the computer to see the performances that were behind the vote.

The internets are both cool and convenient.

Announcing: MySeattlePets

The behind the scenes beta for myseattlepets is live -- this is the new section we're hoping will bring mondo new traffic to Seattlepi.com. We've been working on it for 3 months or so. I know most M&M readers aren't in Seattle -- but if you feel the urge, go ahead and add your pups anyways. :)

At the moment everything's done but the front page. In phase II we're adding a database of pets looking for homes. What do you think? Is the top of the page too dark? I've been thinking for months that the black is too much, but I let myself be talked out of it. Should I have stuck my landing, or is this okay?

Thanks in advance for your reviews!

'I've got that going for me ...'

The big news around here today is that the Dalai Lama is in town, part of a five-day visit about compassion. Cool. Free Tibet!, "See Yourself as You Really Are," and all that, but me, I'm celebrating by re-enjoying this classic scene from "Caddyshack" and one of the world's truly great spiritual leaders, Bill Murray. (Thanks to Michelle for sending the clip.)

Yet another new FOM&M

Kaye informs us that our Long Beach friend Laurie, an occasional commenter here, has launched her own new blog too, lauriesue.com.

Her first post, "Crap-Shit," is terrific. Check her out.

Another new FOM&M

This week we've already announced one new Friend of M&M -- The Freda Blog -- and now there's another: Wish I Were Here, by Jim Thomsen.

Jim showed up in the comments yesterday, remarking first on my post about Ellen Craswell. As night news editor at the Kitsap Sun, Craswell's home paper, Jim had crossed paths with Ellen too and had a few thoughts to share.

I searched around and found his blog, which I immediately liked. I recognized Jim's name but couldn't quite place him; in fact I had to ask him in a comment thread on his site whether we knew each other. Turns out no, but he was an intern at the Seattle Times the year I started there; we may have met at an orientation or a writing workshop somewhere along the line.

Anyway, Wish I Were Here is a smart and eclectic blog about stuff going on in Jim's life, with topics that will be familiar to M&M readers: writing, music, the news biz, ethics.

And he's already shown up in several comment threads here, with good points or discussion joggers about whales, Stones, politics and more. Hey, anybody who shares my disgust for Richie Sexson is more than welcome.

Here's what we need ...

for the big M&M road trip. The title of this xkcd comic is "Cheap GPS."

Announcing a new mom blog

Hey everybody,

Freda, a frequent commenatator on the M&M blog -- and also my mom -- has launched a blog of her own. Check her out at The Freda Blog.

scary

What homer would look like if he had ... human skin.