Last Saturday, Randy Johnson (who typically throws at 95+ mph) threw a wild pitch which hit a dove that happened to be flying by. This is the most insane QuickTime Video I have seen in a while. (via Plastic)

Handy dandy hints for making a 30sec skip for Tivo. (via a whole lotta nothing)

Highly entertaining Salon article on Wizards of the Coast. This mirrors in a lot of ways our experiences over the past few years, although we definitely should have had more games of truth or swill.

I was talking with a (non-industry) friend today about how much fun the past few years have been and how much we had accomplished. She then asked me how well the companies I worked for were doing. I danced around it a little, but did find the following reports from our favorite dot-com deadpool on PlanetAll, Amazon and Abuzz.

Feed has an interesting article on the similarities between old-skool folk and gangsta rap. It’s always nice to see recognition given to one of my all-time favorite purchases, Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. With the success of the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, maybe this music will be making a big comeback.

The New Yorker has a fun story on the epidemic of Classical Concert Rage. “Unfortunately, the indignation of the annoyed has itself become annoying”. (via Plastic)

Russ, Mike and I went to a fun show at the Paradise last night featuring Meghan Toohey and Jess Klein. It was a good time and Russ got a couple of good pictures from the audience (click for larger).

Meghan came on first and did her typical hard rocking set. A special surprise was having Deb Talan on-stage to do some of the background singing. We saw her last week at the Lizard Lounge with Pamela Means and she is very good in her own right.

Jess came on later and did an energetic set, despite the fact that the microphones were acting up, so we couldn’t hear Meghan or Lori McKenna when they came up to sing on stage with her. Jess has great stage presence, and she had a really fun set.

Also, don’t forget that you can see both of these women, and many, many more, at Faith Soloway’s Miss Folk America on May 19th.

Set myself on fire.

First of all, there are effective ways to do marketing which aren’t evil. Unfortunately, not all companies have discovered them yet.

I cannot overstate how much Business Week is annoying me this morning. First of all, when you leave their site, they launch a pop-up window, proving that they have learned well from the porn sites. But what is even worse is the window itself.

Look at what those slimy bastards have done. They put a picture of the Windows “close X” within the page, so that people will click on it thinking that it will close the window but will be transported to the Business Week sign-up page instead. Oh those tricky web guys! Do they honestly think that anyone tricked like this will feel so happy with Business Week that they will immediately subscribe? Brain-dead morons.

A clever look at what News.com might look like in the Amazon style. This is kinda clever, and certainly better than the recent redesign of news.com. I’m not sure I’m happy about how they ripped off the rating stars from Abuzz, though… (via Webword)

The Times has a story about how Canada is considering a law allowing business to jam cell phones. I would be very excited to no longer have shows interuppted by idiots jabbering on their phones.

One more interesting tidbit in here is about how cell phones can interfere with medical equipment. When I was at Mount Auburn a couple of weeks ago, I saw that they have signs everywhere telling you to turn off your phone because it can mess with the medical machines. Of course, when they asked one lady to turn her phone off, she threw a fit. Some people are just obnoxious about this.
(via Plastic)

Been doing some research for New Zealand (leave in a week!!!). Since we will be staying in Rotorua, I hope that we will be able to do some Zorbing. Because, I need to be able to roll down a hill at 30 miles per hour in a big bubble…

This is a sad Canadian story about a vet putting the wrong dog to sleep. And then, his cat got run over? (via Fresh Hell)

What I have been missing in my life is definitely portable entrees.

I was doing a little research on my Africa trip and I came across a lot of interesting information about Victoria Falls. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World. Best of all, you can bungee jump off of it.

The Times has an interesting article on customer support folks in India who have made-up American lives to fool callers. That’s pretty sad.

This is going to be a devastating hit to Seattle, both in terms of jobs and morale. Seattle has been Boeing city for a long, long time. Here is the Seattle Times story.

It looks like our Eliza is going to be in the next Kevin Smith movie.

The BBC is reporting that you will be able to have Coke piped into your home like tap water. (via Plastic)

Badly handled dot-com layoffs is another tired story, but the Times did rip themselves a little on Sunday on a topic a little close to home:

New York Times Digital, which operates the Times Company’s Internet properties, based in Manhattan. Around 70 employees were laid off in January; several found out from articles in The New York Times and on its Web site. Lisa Carparelli, a spokeswoman for The Times, said: “While it was an awkward and unfortunate circumstance that some of our employees learned of the news from an article in The Times before we had a chance to tell them in person, it demonstrates the editorial independence of our news-gathering operation and the objectivity with which it goes about covering itself.”