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We will flirt for you for free! Virtual Wingman will write a funny email to the hot girl or guy you just met and will try to sweep them off their feet for you. Or apologize to your date for being a boor. Just fill out a form. Also, totally free.
posted by onlyconnect at 11:03 PM PST - 11 comments

A hundred years of “The Protestant Ethic.” Elizabeth Kolbert on Max Weber in The New Yorker.
posted by semmi at 10:53 PM PST - 13 comments

Sold, for 28,000! Remember that Virgin Mary in the Grilled Cheese? Well, an online casino bought the famed sandwich on e-bay for $28,000 and now you too, can put a face on a grilled cheese sandwich. Blessed Virgin Elmo, perhaps?
posted by erratic frog at 10:45 PM PST - 20 comments

ça va faire une maudite poutine! In order to prepare yourself for the upcoming holiday gastronomical binge-fest, you may want to warm up with a few feeds of this winter-friendly, carb-loaded, heart-clogging goodness. That said, where the hell did disco fries come from? ("Oh Tony... I love to watch you dance, and eat poutine!")
posted by Darkman at 9:30 PM PST - 27 comments

The ever-gracious Ann Coulter on why Canada is "lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent." A foreigner's (can anyone figure out where from?) incisive media-mash highlighting some [more] nauseating drivel from rockstars of the far right. (via wonkette)
posted by Lisa S at 8:27 PM PST - 131 comments

Every holiday seaon, some little web outfit puts together a really cool flash app. Make-a-Flake is that app. Here's my stab at a pirate themed snowflake (note the anchors, which was an accident).
posted by mathowie at 8:13 PM PST - 30 comments

"THE YEAR was 1906, and the citizens of San Francisco must have found it a wildly incongruous sight--grown men at child's play in the midst of tragedy. Less than three weeks before, the earth had shaken and the city had burned. The disaster began with an earthquake in the early morning of Wednesday, April 18, and when the fires were extinguished three days later, at least two hundred thousand San Francisco residents were homeless. Yet on the afternoon of May 5, a small group of men was flying kites near Folsom and Sixth streets."
posted by Cryptical Envelopment at 6:30 PM PST - 27 comments

The Comic Bubble and the Crash: Did you buy comic books in the 90's? Did you start speculating? Did you buy issues just because they were a #1? Even though there were 12 million of them out there? Did you buy all the multiple covers? Did you buy the the holofoil covers? Chromium? Did you start buying collectable card games? Like many nerdy teenagers of this time, I got sucked into a lot of this stuff. Read how the scam worked. (Read all the posts in the thread by the poster named "noun").
posted by McBain at 6:13 PM PST - 53 comments

Photos of an aftermath in progress (graphic). How a search for weapons of mass destruction has lead the U.S. so far. An informed citizen has an amazing right to see what is going on.
posted by omidius at 6:10 PM PST - 25 comments

"Why you should always brush your teeth." Soldier, shot in the face point blank, survives quite literally by the skin of his teeth. Some not-too-bloody photos. (via dangerousmeta)
posted by brownpau at 6:07 PM PST - 30 comments

Sore Thumbs - A webcomic featuring a liberal girl, her ultra-conservative brother and mother, her ditzy best friend, and a love interest who lost his manhood in Iraq (and the love interest's pet bear). All (sans mother) working at a video game store. Well drawn, and very funny (and not just liberal humour, although there is plenty of that too)
posted by hopeless romantique at 4:53 PM PST - 24 comments

Listen to nature. If the sadness of life makes you tired, remember that in California, all the treetops are bursting with birds, and be happy again (unless you don't like pages that load with sound, or commercial sites, or Flash; don't go adding to your sorrows).
posted by melissa may at 3:53 PM PST - 12 comments

Street photography. Beautiful photos of urban life and decay.
posted by cmonkey at 2:31 PM PST - 11 comments

"Other ingredients include BEEF TRIPE, BEEF HEARTS, AND 'PARTIALLY DE-FATTED COOKED PORK FATTY TISSUE' How does one de-fat fat? Bizarre. God knows what else is in here."
posted by Specklet at 2:09 PM PST - 51 comments

Ever wondered why they use K to record a baseball strike? How about the origin of eavesdrop? What about vamping on a piano? All this and more at the Online Etymology Dictionary.
posted by xmutex at 2:06 PM PST - 18 comments

The Deadly Necklace. The current issue of the New Yorker has a fascinating story about Richard Lancelyn Green, a preeminent Arthur Conan Doyle/Sherlock Holmes scholar who died under mysterious circumstances in March. At the time of his death, Green had been looking into the provinence of an archive of Conan Doyle’s papers [reprint of a NYTimes article], which he believed (perhaps wrongly) had been stolen, and he'd hinted that there had been threats to his life. Soon afterward, he was found garroted by a shoelace in his room. The magazine does not provide the article online, but does offer this Q&A with the author. I cannot recommend it highly enough, but to get you started while you're still at work, here's some more about Green's death from a Holmes message board; a discussion of the curse of Conan Doyle, which holds that Holmes scholars can meet an untimely end; and info on Doyle's belief in the supernatural.
posted by owenville at 1:40 PM PST - 13 comments

Disney's War Against the Counterculture. Parody Mickey Mouse and see your life turn to madness, even if things are more or set straight in the end. “The main point,” O’Neill says, “was to buck corporate thinking. We just didn’t like bullshit.” [via]
posted by Sticherbeast at 1:27 PM PST - 8 comments

The complete guide to isometric pixel art - from the basic line to the interior of a kitchen, now you can produce your very own eboy-scapes...
posted by tpl1212 at 12:57 PM PST - 19 comments

Don't put a restraining order on God the toughest challenge of living in a democracy is to respect the freedom of other people to live according to values that are not your own. Real freedom, however, does not thrive in a moral vacuum (the ardent secularist) or a moral straightjacket (the ardent theocratic). What does my ideal of democracy look like? I can sum it up in a single sentence: A person arrives at faith freely, practices it openly, and uses dialogue with others about their own life path to deepen their understanding. another interesting read from the same webpage: God is not a Republican or a Democrat: the Religious Right does not speak for you. Remind America that Jesus taught us to be peacemakers, advocates for the poor, and defenders of justice.. this article is a little dated, but it is relevant for people who choose to accept Jesus as the Christ but do not want someone's political agenda attached to their belief system.
posted by Hands of Manos at 11:59 AM PST - 127 comments

Fried Beyond Belief: You're disgusting. But why shouldn't you be? If Elvis were on the blue today, WWES?
posted by ewkpates at 11:28 AM PST - 18 comments

When Santas Go Bad. Apparently, they brawl.
posted by dismitree at 11:05 AM PST - 10 comments

Mom finds out just how kinky you really are? Prepare for the consequences: phone calls, awkward questions, threats, revelations, and some stuff you don't want to hear. Get ready for the tough questions, and a conversation you'd definitely like to forget. Advice? Just accept it. Is it easy? No.
posted by Paddle to Sea at 10:48 AM PST - 18 comments

Game Boys used to calm down kids heading into surgery. I have been replaced, as a parent, by a Game Boy, and have come full circle.
posted by adampsyche at 10:48 AM PST - 7 comments

Palaverous Diatribe on the ethics of lobster consumption by the equally equanimous David Foster Wallace.
posted by svenvog at 10:38 AM PST - 55 comments

Oh yes - what i have been looking for, via odinsdream which btw, negates what i've said previously
posted by sourbrew at 10:13 AM PST - 54 comments

The New Games Journalism is a manifesto written earlier this year in an attempt to re-shape the way that video game reviews are written, moving away from a stats-based view (these are the weapons, the graphics quality is X, the A.I. is as good as Y), and toward a more narrative approach. The goal, essentially, should be to convey to the reader what it's actually like to play the game. Be sure to follow the link to "Bow, Nigger" as an example. This review of Eve Online (pdf) is another good example. Are other areas of media criticism in need of a revolution?
posted by mkultra at 9:01 AM PST - 20 comments

Fluffy Kittens' Lunar Wheel Calendar gives a different turn to scheduling for 2005. Download high-resolution images -- free under Creative Commons license -- and construct your own, or opt for a ready-made color poster. Disclaimer: No actual fluffy kittens involved in this post.
posted by LinusMines at 7:47 AM PST - 17 comments

Hugh McIntyre has died. The retired librarian was the bass player for The Nihilist Spasm Band, widely considered the first noise band. Started in 1965, the band operated way underground for most of their career, but achieved no small notoriety in the 90s, ran their own noise festival for a few years, had a great documentary made about them, and jammed with REM (!) about a month ago. My favourite memory of Hugh would be watching him time noise improvs with his stopwatch to make sure they weren't too long. RIP big man.
posted by stinkycheese at 7:25 AM PST - 7 comments

Nightclub Shooting in Ohio kills "Dimebag" Darrel Abbot, formerly of Grammy Award Winning band Pantera. His new band Damageplan released a their debut album 8 months ago. [I know music filter, news filter, etc]
posted by Numenorian at 6:37 AM PST - 133 comments

Limmy: Pop star, Betamax Jockey [Macromedia Flash, video with sound]
posted by SpaceCadet at 6:08 AM PST - 9 comments

David Brudnoy -- Boston-area political commentator, film critic, and memoirist -- is close to death. After a debilitating illness ten years ago, Brudnoy has given a public face to living with AIDS, and has used his renown to found an organization for AIDS research. Last night, his final interview served as a public wake for his friends, his loyal listeners, and local government officials who sparred with him on his show.
posted by pxe2000 at 4:21 AM PST - 9 comments

Ron Morris' 2bangkok.com (and related sites) is the news from Bangkok covered like nowhere else. It has a beautiful, strange, odd and interesting collection of photographs from Bangkok, his story of Black May, translations of Thai language newspaper stories, news on the latest infrastructure projects (like the Mega Bridge or the world's highest open air restaurant) . Plus photos from the latest events, like the King's birthday, or old time, like the trams from the 1960s.
posted by AnnaRat at 2:49 AM PST - 11 comments

"Kriminalz?" Appears to be two German guys attempting to rap while wearing construction hats. German or not, how can this be for real?
posted by asbates2 at 2:32 AM PST - 22 comments

Verdier, a very geeky proposal for the redesign of the VW Westfalia. I think my brain just exploded. It has solar panels, an integrated pop-top tent with a huge awning and an attached screened enclosure, a fold-out kitchen with tables and chairs and more. [Flash-based, English translation link available at the bottom.]
posted by loquacious at 2:18 AM PST - 34 comments

One Block Radius is a psychogeographic survey of a block in New York using a variety of tools and media. See also Urban Songlines, and related MeFi discussion.
posted by dhruva at 12:45 AM PST - 6 comments