Link Wray - Godfather of Rock

One of the most talented and influential rock musicians of all time died on November 5, 2005 at his home in Denmark. His name was Link Wray and he is the acknowledged inventor of the Powerchord. Perhaps his most famous song was "rumble", a early rock instrumental showcasing his growing talents. Although he wasn't as well known as Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis, his influence was just as great. He toured for a number of years with a band known as The Wraymen, and in fact was still playing concerts at the time of his death. If you are a fan of Roots Rock you need to go out and get one of his CD's.

If you haven't heard his stuff you can download a few mp3s of some of his classics here. Also, check out the Link Wray obituary and tribute page at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame website. Listen to an audio interview with Link from a Fresh Air program in 1997.

Painting Iraq: Steve Mumford

I saw a segment on the NEWS HOUR about this guy who is an artist and painter. He's gone to Iraq several times to draw scenes of life during the war. Definitely a unique way to view it all from an artist's perspective. You can view portfolios of his Baghdad Journals here.

Css:Focus

I've been working on an experimental page to showcase Micro Fiction. It utilizes the :focus pseudo-class to display hidden content, and although it's got a few bugs to work out it's an interesting way to present short text stories. Check it out over at The Empty Head.

A couple of new del.icio.us type link aggregators out there today. The first one, called Diggdot, looks kind of promising. The second one is called TorrentSpy and although it has a flashier interface I think it has a ways to go as far as usefulness is concerned.

Forgotten Children

Source: Kirwan Studios

Sometimes I Google a word or phrase just to see what I come up with. Todays phrase is Forgotten Children: A child's letter to Santa the forgotten children of Afghanistan the forgotten children of Romania Lost Futures: Our Forgotten Children picture from Uganda Chinese handicapped children not available the Chernobyl Children's project and an image of Romanian Orphans underground the Forgotten rural poor children of America and the Street Children of Bombay. And finally the Czechoslovakian man who educated Jewish Children during the Nazi occupation.

The Micro Fiction mini site

I am building a mini site dedicated to Micro Fiction. Although there is a fine site that talks about very short fiction, I wanted something specific to Micro Fiction so...The Micro Fiction mini site is being born as we speak.

Today I read The Ten Evilest Blogging Hacks and found it to be extremely funny and useful. You will too. Grappa is a cool online tool for making tracing graphics. Just follow the directions and hit the print screen button, then paste it into Paint or another graphics program. I recommend saving as a .png file. There is also a white version.

Useless but amusing: An image created by averaging 100's of Playboy Centerfolds. And for the non-goyim Jewlicious is a sweet concept.

Micro Fiction: A Hypertext

I've just completed a Hypertext for one of our authors at rumble called End Fraction. For those of you who don't know, Hypertexts are web-based stories that are non-linear in nature and enhanced by the use of Javascript, Flash, images, and creative linking of text. I had a lot of fun doing it. Why not take a look?

"For two weeks, the White House's talking-point monkeys in the press and Congress had been dismissing Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation as much ado about nothing except politics and as an exoneration of everyone except Mr. Libby. Now the American people have rendered their verdict: they're not buying it."

—excerpt from We Do Not Torture Source: Spitting Image

Speaking of web fiction, on online story by Cyberpunk master Bruce Sterling called We See Things Differently and a new, possibly interesting interactive story-construction site called Glypho. Curious but strangely addictive: Overheard in New York. Sci-Fi freaks and others will like Coverpop, an interactive display of cover images from Sci-Fi pulps, among other things...

Like Spring Rain

Okay, so I couldn't stand the old template for the blog anymore. Not that it was terrible but it just wasn't good enough. I'm putting up this new template; it may be just temporary, but the old colors were depressing me; this is a little better.

Did the U.S. military use White Phosphorus as a chemical weapon during the attack on Fallujah? I saw this debate on Democracy Now and you can read the transcript and judge for yourselves. Also, a photo gallery from the italian news organization that filmed the documentary Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre.

Nearly Nice: A page of links to beautiful CSS-styled websites. A newly unveiled plaque marks the location of the first Sex Pistols gig at Central Saint Martins School of Art in London, England. Awesome! Boycotting Yahoo because of an incident involving human rights abuses

I recently read The Lovely Bones even though I'm not much into modern fiction. I thought it was going to be horrible but turned out to be a highly readable novel, well worth my time. I am currently working my way with some glee through The Corrections.

Michael Brown's E-mails

The photo above is from Neueurform's Gallery A link to Former FEMA director Michael Brown's e-mails during the Katrina Crisis, in PDF format. Simpson's World: A list of all the made-up, invented, and garbled Simpsons phrases [neologisms], along with their definitions and origins at Wikipedia

Nice: Pia Frauss' Fonts