Tiny Bits of Funny

I bow at the feet of the genius who wrote this tutorial on LOL Kitteh as a Second Language. This is an absolutely virtuosic display of utter ridiculousness. I could have used the help when I was making this sign. That "have" is just crying out to be a "has."

I fully support Mimi Smartypants's suggestion that we all start using "SCIENTIFIC!" as happy-exclamation slang.

LOL, "Radiohead (my generation’s Arcade Fire)".

Also, it was just announced that the Long Blondes will be touring through the Subterranean in early June. Sooo much good live music coming up this spring and summer. I can't believe Someone to Drive You Home still hasn't been released in the U.S. yet.

RIP, Old White Guys

Both Boris Yeltsin and David Halberstam in the same 24-hour period? That's not a news story; that's a term-paper anxiety dream I had in college.

They Never Came Close to Guessing

I know I'm a day late at this point, but RIP, Mr. Vonnegut. I've never been the biggest fan, but that's nothing more than a simple error of omission on my part. One of my fondest memories of non-assigned reading during college is of the weekend I spent pouring over Breakfast of Champions, after reviewing the execrable film version for the IU newspaper. I've inscribed this much cherished quote from the novel on the inside covers and in the margins of many notebooks since then: "Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne."

"It's much work, measuring turtles."

Come rock out at the Subterranean with me tonight, kittens, and catch the Bound Stems, some of Chicago's finest, in action. (Eight o'clock rock shows are very appealing to my creaky old lady bones these days.)

Great Turns of Phrase and Other Witticisms for the Day

"OK," says my subconscious, "give me one more reason to be looking forward to the National's Boxer." And MySpace, surprisingly, obliges with many, many more reasons, including the fact that the band "nods toward" Wrestling Entropy fave writers F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jonathan Ames on the album. Oh. Em. Gee. I'm coming dangerously close to completely ruining my first listen with anticipation now. (Stereogum issues a favorable premature evalution, Boxer drops on May 22, and the band journies to Chicago on June 7.)

How much are you loving this dustup (::guffaw::) about Keith Richards snorting his dad's ashes?

I give you the genius that is Just a Little Guy. (Thx, Michelle.) Go for the otters holding hands, stay for bons mots like "[T]his baby rusty spotted genet is about to snuggle his way right into your colon so he can eat you from the inside out. What are you going to do huh, punch yourself in the colon. Good luck with that."

S/FJ issues a memo to rappers.

I don't know how many of you have, like me, gotten completely sucked into Merlin Mann's online universe, but, for those who haven't, I'd hate for you to miss his excellent, and excellently funny, recent video podcast with J-Rod of the Long Winters. The one with Mountain Goats' bassist Peter Hughes is really good, too. (Thus ends my barely restrained interweb crushing-out for the day.)

Sean Fennessey on Battles' drummer John Stanier: "Like John Bonham on oxycontin, Clyde Stubblefield on steroids, Buddy Rich on calculus."