Welcome to another installment of Monday Start Your iPod-equivalent!

Shuffle, describe the first five.

Like so:

1. Adrian Belew - I Wish I Knew. This is a slight little sketch of a song - four words, five guitar notes, an electronic drum track. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear Thom Yorke singing over it.
2. The Cars - Since You're Gone. Man, these guys could sure write a pop song. The thing is just bristling with hooks. It's not even close to my favorite Cars song, but still, its genius can't be denied.
3. The Sea And Cake - Weekend. I though this was a Broken Social Scene song, until the vocals started. It's that uptempo jammin-on-a-single-chord + electronics thing that BSS does. Not bad. I dig that video: upstate NY represent.
4. Digable Planets - Where I'm From. I'm loving this album, these days. I have a feeling it's gonna do well in this upcoming Top 100 list. There was something in the air in 92-94 - all the hip-hop albums that I really like came out in those three years.
5. Elmore James - Find My Kinda Woman. Well, if you like one Elmore James song, you'll like them all. But what a great guitar tone!

Now, you do it!

Battlestar Galactica RPG

What film buffs have to do with buffaloes?
Buffalo is originally derived from the ancient Greek word boubalos, used first to refer to the African antelope, then later the buffalo. Hunters of the European buffalo referred to the animal’s leather as ‘buff’. This leather was useful for polishing, which is why we still buff things until they shine. When something has been properly buffed, it looks in good shape. Buff leather also happens to look like human skin. That’s why naked people are referred to as being in the buff. In the 19th century, the uniform of New York firemen was made from buff; soon, the firemen themselves were known as buffs. Calling the fire service out was also referred to as calling in the professionals, and soon ‘buff ’ became another word for expert. Thus, in time, we began to talk about film buffs, music buffs and so on.

Is that true? Beats me. Neat story, though.

PepsiCo, the soft drink's parent company, defended itself against a man who claimed he found a dead mouse in a can of the citrus soda. Experts called in by PepsiCo's lawyers offered a stomach-churning explanation for why it couldn't be true: the Mountain Dew would have dissolved the mouse, turning it into a "jelly-like substance," had it been in the can of fluid from the time of its bottling until the day the plaintiff opened it, 15 months later.

All across the interwebs, people are squealing about how this demostrates just how horrible and caustic Mountain Dew must be, and why nobody should ever ever drink such horrible stuff, etc.. And yes, the acid in Mountain Dew will dissolve stuff (though very slowly). It has a fairly low pH: 3.22. But plenty of other common drinks are much more acidic. Cherry Coke is has a pH of 2.52 (and remember pH is a logarithmic scale: 1.0 lower = 10x as acidic), Pepsi is 2.49, cranberry juice is 2.3. All of those (and many more) will 'dissolve' a mouse, or your teeth, quicker than Mountain Dew. And don't even think about eating a lemon or lime (pH of 2.0)! Yipes! But stomach acid comes in at 2.0 and it's already inside you, right now! And, should you have a taste for it, battery acid has a pH of 1.0 (or less). Now that's acidic. Mountain Dew's 3.2? Bah. Brush your teeth once in a while. You'll be fine.

Make a pony with the Pony Creator.

New Commodore 64s!

We Are The 1%!

Fishing under ice from Juuso Mettälä on Vimeo.

Ha ha, you married a carrot

This does not sound right...

A judge has stated that Muslim students who allegedly harassed Jewish students and even assaulted a woman with a cart was engaging in protected political speech.

Jessica Felber claimed in a lawsuit against the University of Berkeley that a leader of a pro-Palestinian group rammed her with a shopping cart as she staged a counter-protest to the anti-Israel “Apartheid Week” conducted by the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine in 2010.

Felber and another Jewish student claimed the University did not do enough to prevent the harassment which included the Muslim group conducting checkpoints around the campus. Students were asked if they were Jewish while passing the checkpoints.

On Thursday U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg said the harassment, even if true, constituted protected political speech and dismissed the case against the university.

I'm going to have to assume there's more to the story. Otherwise... WTF?