Sometimes our brothers really are fucking dudes in the supply closet.

[Thanks, LAA]

I liked the idea enough to pitch it to O. O liked it enough to run the story. And someone liked the story enough to call Darren and invite him to give a TED talk at a local SoCal event. Well, the circle was completed when I got an email from Darren asking if I’d work with him to write his speech. He was having trouble putting his thoughts into words and hoped I could help. A big fan of both Darren and TED, I was more than happy to collaborate. We went back and forth for a few days and here’s what we came up with. Darren was nervous about the talk, but I think he pulled it off swimmingly.

It’s important for observant jews to adapt to the evolution of modern technology. But remember, you can’t block God. He’ll totally know.

I love it when I see two of my favorite things put together. In this case: proper punctuation and going out for Japanese.

For more on how to use the semicolon, please see the Oatmeal’s summary lesson.

For another pleasing paring, watch the okonomiyaki robot in action. Okonomiyaki, a type of Japanese omelette-pancake, roughly translates to “your favorites, grilled.” Try not to drool; he might short circuit.

I love the taste of egg and innovation.

Whether or not you speak Spanish, you’ll understand the simple elegance of the product being presented in the video above. It’s a truly transcendent technology. Transplendent, even.

[Thanks, Kate.]

an open letter

Dear everyone else on the subway,

Your headphones suck. So does your taste in music, but that’s not the point. The point is that I shouldn’t know you listen to crap because I am a stranger. But I do know, because your headphones are garbage and in order for you to hear music at your desired audio strength, you have to crank your volume so goddam high that I can hear it on the other side of the goddam train car. Sometimes I can even hear your blasted techno mariachi over my own music.

It’s really bad for your hearing, you know, to listen to your music that loud all the time. Nor is it any good for society — like there isn’t enough grumbling animosity without your subjecting a closely contained cadre of commuters to your autotuned Top-40 and nü metal rubbish.

Here are a few ways you can help make this city a less miserable place to be at rush hour — and maybe save yourself some hearing loss and cred-damage in the process:

Tip 1: Press play and hold the speaker openings of your earbuds together. What you hear emanating from between them is roughly what I hear sitting across the car from you — and it’s why I keep glaring at you.
Tip 2: Steve Jobs isn’t god. Don’t use iPhone headphones. They’re better now? Sure. But still terrible. Upgrade that shit. Stat.
Tip 3: A little isolation goes a long way. You won’t need to turn up your jams so high if you can more effectively cut out background noise. Go for earbuds with some rubberiness to ‘em that go a bit into the ear. If you’re really resistant to a new pair, or are a total cheapskate, try something like acoustibuds, which slip over the speaker heads and guide soundwaves more directly into your ear — so you can turn it down, for pete’s sake — and block them from escaping into the earholes of innocent bystanders.
Tip 4: Everyone on this train is judging you by your music. Just keep that in mind. Especially on the L.

The Unhappy Mediator is really disappointed by our collective priorities.

Related: Facebook Status Reveals Humanity’s Descent Down (Storm) Drain

See that post called 19 January, 2011 22:58? I didn’t write that. My email did. My blog host, WordPress, offers posting-by-email. And YahooMail has shitty security. Put those together and you get me spamming my own blog.

I broke the link so you won’t click on it and virusize yourself, but I couldn’t resist keeping the post up. Moral of the story: Fucking technology.

In yet another curious renaissance for heavy metal icons, a video game has helped deliver Megadeth and Soundgarden back atop the pedestal of rock. Sayeth the press release:

Megadeth’s “Sudden Death” and Soundgarden’s “Black Rain” – have been nominated for Best Metal Performance and Best Hard Rock Performance, respectively, at the 53^rd Annual GRAMMY Awards. Inspired by, composed exclusively for, and debuted in the game, “Sudden Death” marks the first time an original track created for a videogame has been nominated by The Recording Academy for the prestigious awards.

This is Megadeth’s 9th Grammy nod since the institution of the category in 1989. They’ve never won. Soundgarden hasn’t even existed since 1997, two years after nabbing the Metal award for Spoonman (along with Hard Rock for Black Hole Sun). Black Death debuted simultaneously in the game and on their first new album in a decade, Telephantasm, which went platinum in a day.

If you’re interested, starting tomorrow through noon on Sunday, you can get a free download of each Grammy-nominated song at facebook.com/guitarhero. All I can hope now is that if either band plays at the awards, they’re playing the song, not the game.

The future, in the past.

Today Engadget celebrates the 10th anniversary of iTunes with a touching look back at Steve-O’s initial front in the digital music revolution. Look out for cutting edge buzzwords like “MP3,” “rip” and “playlist.” This “playlist” thing Jobs describes as a way to rise up against the record companies who want you to submit to their fascist decrees on track order. Forget the long-honored tradition of the mixtape, the queuing functionality of Winamp (which iTunes has yet to beat, in my opinion) and the hindsight we now have of this pretend sans-culotte cum digital despot now ruling ironfistedly the virtual airwaves. (Apologies to the historically-minded readers who just cringed at my willy-nilly employment of revolutionary terminology.)

And in harmonious timing with the big birthday, tomorrow’s likely announcement sealing the long awaited arrival of the iPhone to Verizon. I’m inclined agree with Engadget’s prediction that the iPhone will not immediately run on Verizon’s new LTE 4G network and that if you “rush to buy a Verizon iPhone, you might be locking yourself into a contract you’ll be dying to break when the iPhone 5 launches in the summer.” Units ought to start shipping next month. I’ll be curious to see how this affects Android’s recent market share gains, especially given improvements to the hardware and app offerings in the interim. I mean, um, I would be, if I were a huge dork.