The Clash was a British punk band which formed during the 1970’s. Their album “London Calling” is considered to be one of the best albums of all time.

Fun fact:
Before they started playing live shows, members of the Clash saw the Ramones play their first British show in 1976. After meeting up, Johnny Ramone told them, “We stink. You don’t have to be good, just get out there and play.”

Another fun fact:
The font for the “London Calling” album is in reference to Elvis’ self-titled debut album.

I don’t really have much to say. Here’s their last.fm page. If you haven’t heard of them, or listened to the “London Calling” album, you’re uncultured swine.

On that note, here are some videos:

Continue reading this post…

“Behind The Housing Crash: Confessions From an Insider” is on its way in the mail and it looks like a really interesting read. This independently published book is written by Captain Capitalism, a blogger who’s been in the game for a long time. I’ve been following him for several years now, and if the book is anything as indispensable as his blog, its guaranteed to be good.  Listen to the talking heads say they saw this crash coming all you want, but the Captain’s been talking about it for a good while and the release couldn’t have come at a better time.

Here’s Amazon.com’s description:

“Behind the Housing Crash – Confessions from an Insider” is the authoritative book on the housing crisis. It is an expose written by Aaron Clarey, a credit analyst who worked at various banks in the Twin Cities and saw first hand the unethical, if not, illegal dealings that led up to the housing bubble and subsequent crash. Stories of commission-addicted bankers, bribed appraisers, FBI investigations, IRS raids, offshore bank accounts and more regale the reader with a blood-boiling story of corruption, incompetence and limitless greed. However, the book goes beyond exposing those responsible for the housing crash, and does an exemplary job of explaining, in clear and simple language, the economics behind the housing crisis and the consequences for us all. If you are looking for an excellent expose on the banking industry, an explanation why your house is worth $100,000 less than it was before, or are just curious as to what happened, look no further. This is the book to read.

If you’re interested and you want to support the Captain, you can buy the book here.

If, by the title alone, you didn’t exclaim to yourself “That M*****F***** is BALLIN,” then either something is wrong with you OR you were never a child. Ever.

Please, I beg you, check out the clip below (Also, please mind the 15 second advertisement, as marketing tends to be a blood thirsty merciless beast. I suddenly want chocolate).

Jetman Set for Channel Flight

Google is offering a grand prize of 10 Million Dollars (and because it definitely bears repeating) TEN MILLION DOLLARS towards a PERSON’S IDEA which would benefit the world. Don’t let me explain, here’s the article a buddy of mine showed me.

10 Million Dollars for your thoughts

I like the idea. There is a HUGE monetary incentive behind helping the world out, and I think that this will challenge the intellect and ingenuity of our knowledge based economy and the other economies of the world to think of something which can help ALL OF US. (Even though 10 million dollars on a grand scale is peanuts).

Good luck!

Team Fortress 2 is a first-person shooter (FPS) modification based off the Half-Life 2 engine. There are a lot of things that make this game awesome, but for this post I will focus on Valve’s advertisement campaign - their videos.

The first video introduced the Heavy Weapons Guy (or “Heavy” for short). It was originally just a tech demo to show some new technology that was developed for the game: facial animations and speech. Pay attention to his face in the video:

It was released to the public and was highly praised. Valve eventually followed-up with a second video, this time based on another class: the Soldier. As with the style of the game, the video was done with a lighter, humorous tone.

Continue reading this post…

“There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue.”
- Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, Sept. 1929

Technorati is releasing their annual State of the Blogosphere over the next 5 days. Today, Day 1, they talk about who us bloggers are. Let me pull out some highlights that would interest the bloggers of this nine people blogging blog: Continue reading this post…

Theres a TON of buzz going on about the financial crisis.  If the crisis had a myspace page, it would say that its “kind of a big deal,” and it would be right.  However, the problem is really complicated, and even for people who work in the industry, it can be difficult to grasp exactly whats going on.  I’ve complied some assorted links under the fold that try to explain the situation to laypeople like me.

Continue reading this post…

I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Apparently Homeland Security has been developing a screening system to detect possible threats by reading your mind. Called MALINTENT, the system examines your body temperature, heart rate, respiration, and a bunch of non-verbal cues to determine if you’re a terrorist. Am I the only person that thinks this is fucking ridiculous, if not a huge potential threat to freedom?  Continue reading this post…