On April 12, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the Open Government Act ... [which] would strengthen the federal Freedom of Information Act...

The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a similar measure in March - but that bill was blocked from reaching the Senate floor for a May 24 vote because an unknown senator placed a secret hold on the bill.

A secret hold. On a bill that would help the public have greater access to public information. Think about that for a minute.

Well ok that's pretty fucked up, but the Society of Professional Journalists has come up with a quick and innovative way of weeding out the culprit

Now really - if you don't know how your elected, paid representatives are voting, how are you supposed to decide whether to continue electing and paying them?

- Z

So, for a while I had a high-concept idea for sneakers: Chuck Taylor rental bowling shoes. But the thing is, it would be extremely difficult to get them dyed right - red on one side, blue on the other, beige in the middle. Also, you can't take the shoe apart because the sole is melted on.

Enter Converse's latest marketing scheme: custom kicks . They actually have a pretty respectable number of designs to choose from [Hi-top and oxford Chucks in canvas, leather, and suede, extra hi-top Chucks and Jack Purcell in canvas and more]. Each panel can be a different color, and certain designs are part of (PRODUCT)RED .

And so, finally, I present to you: Dave's High Concept Chucks [allow 3-4 weeks for manufacture & delivery]:



UPDATED TO ADD: (e:twisted,36796)

- Z

We got any early adopters here? I'm putting together a little toy for work and I'd like some real preliminary feedback. Concept: all-local Internet radio - runs as a tiny window on your desktop while you're working & shows who's playing. Currently 137 songs, ~10hour playlist.

Known bugs:
- loading message doesn't show [you have to wait a couple minutes before it starts playing]
- volume slider doesn't work [use system volume]
- a number of the songs have f*d up ID3 tags [these won't show any info]
- the mysterious white box doesn't show ads yet
- pause/fast forward buttons don't exist
- a lot of the music is crap*ola

- Z

Ya so I started talking to B-52* on our trip about an idea i had a while ago (e:zobar,37324) and now it's bugging me, beacuse I'm totally convinced I'm a visionary genius. I've even given it a name that I think is quirky yet compelling: The Muckraker & Picayune.

The idea is, I'd start out with a cryptic classified ad in the paper [since I kind of get the five-finger discount here] and maybe craigslist that basically just says:

INTERESTING PEOPLE WANTED for new publication. www.* for info or mail submissions to *.

Submissions: limit one per issue, 8.5"x11", anything else goes. Then I'd collect the entries and get them printed up & distributed every full moon. [Not that that's really significant or relevant in any way, but 'Sturgeon Moon 2007' sounds cooler than 'v6n32.']

But here's why: the newspapers around here are for shit, present company included. A long time ago my paper had a real DIY feel, but now it's old and stodgy like NPR. The editorial at the Buffalo News is idiotic, and they'd be better off just reprinting the AP feed. The Beast, if they're still in business, is only in it for shock value. The guys at Buffalo Rising are political space cadets** and really, you can only be so elitist when you run a meet-your-merchant magazine. There's a new one called Block Club, and I wish them all the luck in the world but Buffalo Rising will not tolerate another meet-your-merchant in this city, and I doubt the public is really that interested in the private lives of potential future advertisers.

The Muckraker would at least be a fun & hopefully interesting diversion. At RIT there was an approximately similar publication which at one point enjoyed greater readership than the 'official' magazine. Only problem: how the Hell do you pay for something like this? I don't think it'll cost much, but it'll still cost something. You can't really sell advertising, because [theoretically] anybody can get anything printed in it for free. You can't really sell subscriptions, because you can get it free at the coffeeshop. Voluntary donations just don't work. Merch? An expanded edition for subscribers?

Any ideas? Any writers?

- Z

_______________

• Well, if (e:dragonlady7) is B-17 then I guess that makes her younger sister B-29 and her next younger sister B-52. Makes sense to me.
  
• You want proof? In 2005, Newell donated $5000 to each mayoral campaign - Brown, Calvaneso, Einach, Flynn, even Jackson. Who the fuck does that?

Today is Cinco de Mayo. Do you have any idea what you're celebrating? I'll give you a hint: it is totally unrelated to Mexico's independence from Spain.



Last night we went to the Lewiston Waiting in Line Festival - er, Smelt Festival at the Silo on Water St. The food was good, but the combination of the weather and the view made it much awesome. The problem was: there were separate lines for smelt, beer, real food, and ice cream, and they were all kinda long. So you'd get a couple [small but free and really good] bowls of smelt and then ... wait in the beer line to wash them down. Nevertheless, we had a fun mellow time. They crowned a Smelt Queen. She was wearing an elegant dark green floor-length dress with a subtle fishscale pattern, with matching dorsal and tail fins. It was well-executed and too awesome for words [and I say this with utmost sincerity].

We decided that many of the salient aspects of life in Buffalo are like the punchline of a weird joke. The people who either get the joke or who don't realize it's a joke are the people who stick around. The people who don't get the joke or who don't think it's funny are the ones packing their bags. Outsiders typically smile and nod, and they can go either way. I think it depends on whether they've got a warped sense of humor and whether they're too cool for school.

- Z

...from Brandon Bird I can't tell which is better: his Law & Order coloring book, or the Special Victims Unit valentines.



...tangentially related, from Chris Dimino


- Z

It turns out that buying a laser printer for your house is not like buying an inkjet printer for your house. First off, you don't so much buy an inkjet printer as find it slipped into the packaging for some other major purchase you've made, like a Cracker Jack prize. [They are also like Cracker Jack prizes in that they are worthless pieces of crap, except that you need to keep feeding them $40 of ink every 150 pages.]

But when you buy a laser printer, even if it's just going to end up in your living room under a stack of papers and dirty laundry, Xerox sets you up with an account manager. I was not prepared for this. I emailed a question to, like, sales@xerox.com and got a response that said, hey, give me a call and we can chat. OK, spaz.

The punchline of this post is that since I use Gmail, Google's algorithms have determined that the following advertisement is somehow germane to the differences between the Xerox Phaser 6120 and 6180:



- Z