Boston.com's recent new photojournalism blog The Big Picture is a must-see. The image above comes from the recent entry on the 2008 Olympic swimming trials and is representative of the high quality photography on the blog. Definitely check it out; it was an instant RSS subscription for me...

I think it's mind-boggling that people actually thought that the "airline" Derrie-Air was real. Their website is hilarious, although originally it didn't have the disclaimer there... :-)

I know that I already talked about the controversial finale to The Sopranos in a previous post, but this supposedly Definitive Explanation of "The End" is worth reading if you're a fan...

The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century is right on the money in its description of these Gummi Lighthouses (probably/unintentionally NSFW) "candy design [gone] terribly, hilariously wrong." :-)

MuchMusic.com's list of the 10 Worst Ways To Behave At Concerts is pretty much spot-on, although I feel like a crotchety old man for agreeing so wholeheartedly... ;-)

With all of the controversy surrounding steroids in sports, Jack Wilkinson's Sports Illustrated article Griffey's journey untainted was quite refreshing. Ken Griffey, Jr. recently became the sixth person in major-league history to hit 600 home runs, and as Wilkinson says, "Junior's achievement was not only extraordinary, but untainted." Well said.

Sloshspot Blog's list of 10 Drunk Photos You Don't Want To Be In is right on the money... :-)

McSweeney's Internet Tendency latest list Lit 101 Class in Three Lines or Less makes classic literature fun. ;-p

FeedFlix.com claims to "Make The Most Of Your Netflix Subscription," and by all accounts it does a decent job. As Lifehacker summarizes:

See how many people are renting what you're renting, track the actual cost of your rentals, and satisfy your data-nerd tendencies with FeedFlix, a free Netflix-tracking service that puts Google chart-generating API to good geeky use.

Weezer's recent single Pork And Beans is a fun song, and the music video (YouTube video) is awesome. It's chock full of Interweb personalities, including "Numa Numa, evolution of dance, K-Fed, the dramatic chipmunk, Will It Blend, Lauren Caitlin Upton, the Mentos and Diet Coke guys, afro ninja, Tay Zonday, and Chris Crocker;" Buzzfeed has conveniently linked to all of the original videos. Also check out the Wired magazine interview with Matt Cullen, the director of the video.

Slate Magazine author Christopher Beam's article Rumors Barack Obama's campaign shouldn't try to correct offers some tongue-in-cheek advice on how to defuse rumors.

Hilarious. :-)

io9 presents When Humans Punch Aliens: The Video Remix:

Sure, we come in peace and all that. But sometimes, when we encounter alien life forms, the only way we can communicate is by using our built-in universal translators: the ones with five knuckles and a thumb. Here's our compilation of the greatest scenes from movies and TV where a human socks an alien. (To the tune of Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J.)

How did you do in the quiz game How many sequels were there to the film?

I believe that Waxy.org coined the term Supercuts, a "genre of video meme, where some obsessive-compulsive superfan collects every phrase/action/cliche from an episode (or entire series) of their favorite show/film/game into a single massive video montage." The post has collected many video links for your obsessive viewing pleasure... ;-)

Download Squad reports that OVGuide:

indexes online video sites ranging from Hulu and YouTube to TV-Links, Sidereel and SurfTheChannel. The layout is a bit busy, to say the least. But if a video's online, odds are you'll find it. You can browse a category list, navigate a tag cloud, or use the search bar which looks for videos on dozens of sites. If you know a site that isn't indexed, you can suggest a link for inclusion.

Firefox 3 has officially been released; download it now and help break a world record! (Connections may be spotty, as I figured they would be; here's an alternate link with mirrors just in case...)

Why download this version? dria.org has a nice Field Guide to Firefox 3 that explains most of the new features. Webmonkey has a post entitled Why you should download Firefox 3 right now making the case for the browser if you haven't already been convinced. I myself have been a devout user since version 0.3 or so, and I am very much looking forward to using this latest release.

I wish I knew who was responsible for this awesome Futurama cast image, as I want to give them the credit they deserve.

This photo is but one of many stunning images in the Boston.com feature The Sky, From Above.

The lyrics in the YouTube video Star Trek [TNG] Rap (feat. Prime Directive and Galaxy Class) are a bit NSFW, but it's worth a watch... :-)

Fox "News" sinks to a new low, throwing out the term "Terrorist Fist Jab" to describe Obama's fist bump with his wife during a recent speech. No, really, I'm not kidding.

The YouTube video History of Video Games is chock full of arcade goodness. How many can you identify?

The video featured at the web site I'm Voting Republican is a bit heavy-handed, but it gets its point across...

Although Pluto was stripped of its planetary status two years ago, it is now regaining some measure of respect, as similar newly discovered distant bodies will be named "plutoids." The IAU is defining plutoids as "objects that circle the sun and are too small to be considered planets, but big enough to have a level of gravity that keeps them in a near spherical shape." By this definition, Eris, an object discovered in 2003, will also be designated a plutoid.

This is all well and good, but I tend to agree with Ralph McNutt, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University, who said, "I grew up with nine planets, I'm sorry." :-p

Update: A Space.com article has some more information, including concern by some that this pronouncement is "just one more confusing term in the cosmic lexicon," considering the fact that:

The term plutoid joins a host of other odd words -- plutinos, centaurs, cubewanos and EKOs -- that astronomers have conjured in recent years to define objects in the outer solar system, whose appearance seems to grow more complex every year.

Inspired by Princess Leia's line "Darth Vader. Only you could be so bold," Ironic Sans showcases some typographical Star Wars art in the post How bold can Darth Vader be? The Princess Leia graphic is pretty good, too...

Although the feature Photo Tampering Throughout History concentrates on more modern examples, it covers almost the entire history of photographic journalism:

Photography lost its innocence many years ago. In as early as the 1860s, photographs were already being manipulated, only a few decades after Niepce created the first photograph in 1814. With the advent of high-resolution digital cameras, powerful personal computers and sophisticated photo-editing software, the manipulation of digital images is becoming more common. Here, I have collected some examples of tampering throughout history.

If you liked the previous CSS Homer post, you may want to check out Ned Batchelder's CSS Homer: Animated, in which he slows the rendering of the image so that you can see that it is only constructed of characters.

Nerve.com's feature The 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time will keep you entertained for some time...

Before you throw away your next musical greeting card, you may want to consider the Instructables feature Make an iPod Speaker from a Hallmark Music Card. This sounds pretty cool; I'm going to have to try this...

Beer Suggest is "a niche wiki/social community for beer lovers." Beer Advocate and RateBeer are also excellent sites along the same lines.

Way to look presidential. :-p

The Huffington Post's Frank Schaeffer posted an interesting article entitled Why This Fifty-Five Year Old White Lifelong Republican Wants Obama To Win.

Curious to know why the price of a barrel of oil continues to skyrocket? Some more recent events are an obvious part of the picture, but The Big Picture contends that "for the past 3 decades, we've had a George Costanza Energy policy [see this episode if you're not familiar] -- every decision we have made as a country has worked to drive energy prices higher." It's an interesting list that we can only hope will get some scrutiny by our next administration.

Topless Robot presents its list of The 11 Best Songs from Geek-Movie Soundtracks, including videos for most. Overall, I think it's a decent list, even including Stan Bush's The Touch from Transformers: The Movie, a craptacular sentimental favorite for me... ;-)

Epicurious.com has a nice Peak-Season Map for produce etc., allowing you to "see what's fresh in your area, plus find ingredient descriptions, shopping guides, recipes, and tips."

Now that's a cool "crop circle"...