Everyone claims to be at the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell: And yet, this venue has no mayor! THE BLOGOSPHERE IS FACT-CHECKING YOUR ASS, Das Racist!...

For about ten years, Slate has had an intermittent series of articles that explain how to pronounce names of people who are in the news . As someone whose (fi...

If you don’t follow me on Twitter , you’ve been missing out. But fear not! I take care of my loyal blog readers as well, by offering you the highlights of the...

I have some things to share with you. Alice Marwick ‘s extraordinary keynote speech on internet celebrity from last year’s ROFLCon. It was the highlight...

Those of you who liked my post the other day about not missing anything while I was offline might also enjoy a conversation I had with CBC Radio’s show Sp...

I have to admit, I was a little bit gobsmacked when I saw that our little nerd world is becoming so mainstream that Jimmy Fallon had a gadget blogger featured...

While listicles (articles that are simply lists, as cataloged on great sites like Listicles ) are often the laziest form of journalism, they can also be among...

Whoa Is (Not) Me is a site that’s a little over a year old, dedicated to defending the career and reputation of Keanu Reeves. It is distinguished from other...

What makes lolcats appealing is that it’s simultaneously obscure and accessible. It’s an inside joke told in an online lingua franca, but with a bit of effor...

I’ve found some nice responses to conversations I’ve had recently that are probably worth checking out. First, and most importantly, Soundwave: The Touch ,...

My fellow nerds, the moment we’ve waited more than two decades for has apparently arrived. Soundwave has arrived . He really transforms. And he really plays...

In the New Yorker, Bruce Wagner tries to live my life : The performance began at two in the morning and took place in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hote...

I don’t know if it’s just that I went to lousy public schools, or that the xenophobic maniacs who resent the common ideals of humanity were successful in their...

Behold, It’s (K)not Wood . I hestiate to make such a bold prediction, but it just may be the best blog dedicated to fake wood and woodgrain that you’ll see to...

If you’ve been on the Internet at all in the past, oh, ten years, you’ll have seen the ad for Classmates.com that features an improbable matrimonial matchu...

Since everyone’s sending it to me, I’ll post the prescient Onion video from last week. The highlight, for me, is two minutes into the clip. Breaking News: A...

Nedroid recently got challenged to draw 200 Bad Comics . You can see the results for yourself , and to paraphrase Run-DMC these aren’t bad meaning “bad...

Rives is a charming spoken-word artist whom I had the chance to befriend before I spoke at Taste3 this year. He’s got a true gift for speaking to an audien...

From the “OMG!” files, a humpback whale giving a piggyback (?) ride to a dolphin . I am just patting myself on the back for avoiding any “blowhole” joke...

Accidental Blogger captures Discover magazine’s list of The 7 Most Wondrous Moments in Science . The entire post is worth a read, but the featured list is:...

From Mike’s Cruftbox, Bud Light + Clamato = Chelada , a recent and spectacularly gross bit of research from Cruft Labs. Meanwhile, Skot’s Izzle Pfaff offers...

I’ve been holding off on updates about lolcats and related memes for a while because it’s easy to get burned out and probably as boring for you as it is for me...

Following up on Indian Mango Alert Level: Orangish-Green and A Matter of National Security , some data points: The national flag of India has stripes...

Indian mangoes have arrived in the U.S. for the first time, and for me, my family, and my friends, this is a big freaking deal . I’ve got a lot to say a...

This one’s sublime: “ What’s your favorite kitchen sound? ” This one’s the truth, finally. The most eloquent dismissal of User Generated Discontent (or in...

If you have the particularly first-world American problem of trying to find your way Europe, and then, say needing a place to stay while in Paris, don’t worry:...

Following up on Cats, Comics and Closure , Meowchat and PetSpeak (which, surprisingly, came up during a panel on race and class on Friday), and of course...

As it turns out, there’s more to say about kitty pidgin , and thanks to all of those who’ve emailed and commented with additional links. First, a great exam...

If you spend any time at all observing net culture, then you’ll have been unable to miss the recent explosion in popularity of lolcats . This relatively recen...

Following up on the conversation about accountability, january one discusses the dark side of blogging from the perspective of the knitting blog community....

Because it’s still relevant, and people enjoyed it so much last year, I call your attention to Your April Fool’s Joke Sucks , from a year ago. Let’s revisit:...

I wanted you to read this thread on Stripper Web (you know, the community site for strippers?) where the women share stories of farting on their customers. A...

Adults take note : You may wish to not open the box around your children if they may be frightened by a box with a decapitated horse inside. …I probably di...

Background: I once wore a funny t-shirt for a photo that appeared in the New York Times, and a bunch of people thought it was kind of amusing, albeit juv...

I’ve learned some great insights into human nature from spending a lot of time interacting with people on the web. You know how, whenever they interview a seri...

Erin McKean , frock star and lexicographer, offers some wisdom : You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co...

Interested in the pre-history of the coolest bounty hunter in the Star Wars universe? The Birth of Boba Fett chronicles some fascinating backstory, including...

I’m not much of a sports fan, much less a student of sports journalism. But I know petty bitchiness when I see it, and I figure it’s worth identifying its trai...

There’s been a great hue and cry about the debate over the definition of the word “planet”, and Pluto’s recent change in status. Frankly, I think the whole...

Whitney Houston, insane former pop star and provider of bail for Bobby Brown, is a remarkable woman. No, not because her most successful song was spun out from...

What horrifically entertaining punchline finishes this Family Circus take-off at the Perry Bible Fellowship ? You’ll just have to click through and find...

Over at Threadless, “ Hooray Cholesterol! ” I particularly enjoyed the chainsaw-wielding cupcake....

Way back long ago, when the Internet was still in black-and-white, I read Jamie Zawinski’s report of a fire in a tire warehouse across the street from where...

As has been evidenced before , I sometimes wonder strange things about celebrities. So, part two in the series: Do you think Michael Winslow resents Rahzel?...

You want links? You got links. Seth Stevenson defends the word “sucks” in Slate. This seems relevant to me because my keynote at the O’Reilly Open So...

Divebars. Jukeboxes. Allen Iverson. Beerball. Super Mario Kart. NetFlix. LiveFuckingJournal. The way my girl looks in that skirt. Everything great abou...

Why are half the pizza joints in New York City named Ray’s? I think A Full Belly had the definitive answer to this question as part of a series of pizza p...

Right now, the most important thing you could be doing is reading these web pages: Jeff Clavier celebrates his second blogging anniversary and quotes me...

I enjoy links myself, so I thought you might want some too. Here, then: Graphs as art : Werner Vogels picks up the site graph meme with some nice visualiz...

Speaking of memes from a year ago , last year I created a site called ishavingamassage.com. (That’s “Is Having A Massage”, not “I Shaving…”) The domain is a (...

A little over a year ago, I wore a funny t-shirt while posing for a photo that was published in an article in the New York Times. The shirt ‘s a reference...

Zinedine Zidane’s savage headbutt of Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final has touched on many things : Race, family, country, terrorism, sportsmanship. But...

Mr. Henninger, I had the good fortune to review your column , in which you express, at length and in some detail, your extreme distaste for people publish...

Hey, there! I’m your friend, so I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. But someone had to: Your April Fool’s Day joke sucks. Really, it does. April Fool’s...

I’m pretty sure that dressing one’s child in this manner constitutes child abuse. If you’re interested in committing sartorial offenses against your own prog...

These are hyperlinks to internet websites you should read. Rhino is doing a Prince retrospective . Though there’s certainly more than enough retrospective...

Even though Jason asked me to write four things, suddenly I’ve got one thing stuck in my head. And I’m amazed this meme jumped from LiveJournal to the publ...

Hey kids, do you like links? Me too. Chris Anderson revisits the death of the blockbuster , which is of course astute and correct, but is mostly interesti...

Needless to say, after watching the first season of Lost as well as all the episodes of the season thus far, we’ve become fans of the series. I’m not a huge...

So, I’m in the New York Times today, as part of the story called Loosing Google’s Lock on the Past . I’m not a huge fan of how the story turned out, mostly be...

I talk to a lot of consultants, freelancers, and small businesses who do web work, and I used to be a freelancer myself, so sometimes I get asked for advice on...

Other than amusing animations, the web was given to us that we might post cat pictures. (I picture Tim Berners Lee getting his liver plucked out by an eagle da...

What’s that? Oh, you like my brown bracelet? Why, thank you! It signifies support for tobacco-free colorectal and colon cancer survivors . Once the sun fades...

Any time a piece of writing begins with “ Yesterday I wrote a little program to play Minesweeper… ” you can tell there’s some serious productivity going on. Es...

If I were Vanessa Williams, I think I’d be damned bitter about Paris Hilton’s popularity....

“HEALTH WARNING: Care Should Be Taken When Lifting This Product, Since Its Mass, and Thus Its Weight, Is Dependent on Its Velocity Relative to the User.” An...

Today, as an exercise, we will contrast Peter Merholz’s ruminations on Konfabulator with the lyrics to Ghostface Killah’s feelings about the Sun , as expres...

When I used to work in music promotion, we talked a lot about pre-loading PCs or other devices with music videos and songs. Sippey did the best job of describ...

Behold, it’s Microsoft Decathlon ! It was like Epyx’ Summer Games, but crashed more....

Dear spoiler queens : It’s your worst nightmare ! Bwa ha ha ha ha....

Howard Stern moves to satellite radio . Jeff Jarvis swoons, buys Sirius stock, petitions Apple to add Sirius downloads to iTunes....

Sometimes when I see the creativity that my friends display, it makes me wish I had a hammer ....

I don’t use gmail, but if I did, I’d route the Atom feed of new messages to my inbox....

Somewhere, at this moment, I suspect Elvira is gearing up for her busy season. I’m picturing crates of wigs, boxes of eyeliner, and a whole truck full of push-...

There is only so much room for innovation or creativity within these design constraints, it seems....

Which Golden Girl Are You?...

If you’re in town tomorrow night, come by and help us say goodbye to NYC before we move to San Francisco. (The move is next week!) We’ll be at the Westside Ta...

A while back, Gillette released the M3Power Razor , a motorized razor based on their fan-favorite Mach 3. Now, as many of you may recall, I care about ra...

The beautiful thing about Cory’s speech being in the public domain isn’t merely that I could make an HTML version called Cory Doctorow: Microsoft Research DRM...

The following is a brief list of things that you should not do at that point, long in the future, when I have died. Do not display my dried-up, beef je...

In honor of my Indian heritage, but with a nod to my status as a contemporary progressive American, I’m going to create a new service that blends the best of b...

Since so many people are still out there hunting for jobs in this tough economy, I would like to offer a bit of advice based on an unfortunate situation that I...

Sometimes egosurfing has its rewards. Some files named anil.jpg: anil.jpg , and a superior anil.jpg ....

My friends, let us all come together on the one day of the year that unites us all, regardless of color, creed, or nationality, and join voices in harmony to s...

No, no, wait… even better than " Chicken Soup for Dummies " is a self-help book aimed at the terminally unfunky, which could be called "Chicken...

Just a quick note to my few friends in Spain… I had my first chance to visit your beautiful country last year, and though I didn’t get to Madrid, I did get to...

Clearly, there is some bizarre behavior that I’m not privvy to which requires travelers to make use of vast quantities of ice. I don’t have a particularly pr...

I think we can definitely say the terrorists did not win if the current momentum continues and gay marriage is legalized. It finally feels like it’s going to h...

Whenever I visit someone’s house and go to the bathroom and see that they have Herbal Essences shampoo in the shower, it makes me want to grab the bottle, wave...

What if Microsoft shipped "Linux for Windows"? On Friday, Microsoft released a free download of Windows Services for Unix version 3.5, a signific...

So we’ve got the Deskbar and the Google Toolbar and they’re great. I’m assuming one of you geniuses can probably fill me in on a larger question, though: Can G...

My cat just crawled completely into a shopping bag that was sitting on the bed. The bag has drawstrings, so it isn’t inconceivable that it will get tangled up,...

[ Hint: This isn’t funny unless you read it in an Andy Rooney voice.] Did you ever notice how some people just like to complain on the Internet? I hear a lo...

The current bane of my existence? Spoiler queens. "Don’t tell meeeeee!" they shriek. You know you’ve got one, too, someone who insists that the wor...

The thing that alternately fascinates and infuriates me is the sheer arrogance, gall and insensitivity of the assumption that we all believe in a god, and that...

Today is the New York City Marathon , and of course the biggest question of the day is not wondering which Kenyan will win, but who will win the heated compet...

A relatively recently development in my life has been the fact that I’ve been spending a lot of time on airplanes. I’d travelled a good bit as a kid, going b...

I’ve been following Russell Simmons’ political ambitions for over a year now, and it seems like his self-promotion campaign has kicked into high gear in the...

I recently renewed my driver’s license, and I of course checked off the organ donor box because I’m a big believer in recycling in general and there just seems...

We’ve got a pretty good sense of humor at Six Apart, but I knew that Ben and Mena were understandably a bit nervous before their appearance on CNN Headline Ne...

A few random thoughts that have occurred to me of late: Whenever I wonder about random things like "Why are commercial toilets shaped differently than...

Google’s AdSense program is fantastic, a category killer. A good way to make money, a tasteful way to do ads, and a dramatic new way to turn hobbyist or pers...

Well, looks like I didn’t choke to death in a pool of my own vomit . That ‘s good news....

I’m very fortunate to get the chance to go around and talk to people who helped create the tools that have shaped the weblog medium, and so I tend to notice tr...

Google’s new text-based microad service looks really, really interesting, but why do the Program Policies specifically state "AdWords ads may not appear...

I know I’m not the only one who’s looked at the Google home page and started humming Temple of the Dog. Right? "I’m feeling luckaaaay…"...

One of the best things about my job is that I get to go to conferences, meet interesting people, and then watch all their wifi-enabled laptops’ screens turn bl...

I have brought sunshine to Gotham with my weblog! Huzzah!...

Dear Mother Nature: On most days, I strive to write about something that I think is thought-provoking or amusing, something of merit which will please the su...

One of the great thing about having dorky friends is that they come up with ideas that even I recognize as being too geeky for human consumption. Such as a d...

I have, I must concede, a bit of a sympathy for barley. I’ve probably always known it, but it wasn’t something I was conscious of until last year some time w...

My cousin in California sent me the following email, but I haven’t kept up enough with our local hip hop stations enough to know if we’ve had the same trend on...

Those of you attending Friday’s GEL Conference here in New York City who are going to be in town Thursday night might want to join us at the aptly-titled GE...

Given the fact that the area I was born and raised in is the area that elected Rick Santorum , it suddenly becomes much easier to explain why that part of Pen...

The cereal that I eat most days has a big blurb on the back of the box that says, "Just two bowls a day for two weeks and you can lose six pounds!" a...

Sometime early this morning, I realized that the dog was on one side of me growling and the cat was on the other side of me purring, and both of their low rumb...

One of the things that troubles me about my daily routine is that we seem to have devoted a disproportionate amount of our culture’s scientific resources to th...

Here at the Voice on the Net conference , I just attended a panel by Doc , David and Duncan , which Kevin moderated. The topic was decentralization, and...

You know, if you had a band, and you were really determined to stay an underground band, instead of putting a vulgarity in your band name like in the olden day...

Since, as expected, AOL Time Warner is pulling its most popular magazines behind its subscription walls , I figure it’s only a matter of time until someone se...

About two weeks ago, I did a panel at SXSW with a couple of friends , and the topic was the future of personal publishing. There were a handful of point...

One of the great things about working at home all day via WiFi is that I get to waste my time in true guy fashion, sitting on the couch surfing the web and wat...

My, you’re all a sensitive bunch! I wrote a little ha-ha peevish thing yesterday and now everyone thinks I’m mad. This is what I do for fun , kids. Since ever...

There’s a couple of things I ought to share with you. "Charlotte’s Web 2"? I think I’ve already stated my opinions on unneeded sequels, but what...

So I got a copy of another extremist " manifesto " today, this one by a bunch of anti-American idiotarians who just don’t seem to understand the ba...

I was thinking about the fact that browsers have to fix up a page internally in order to render it correctly if elements are incorrectly nested or are left u...

Frankly, I don’t understand why skin care products have to masquerade as food. It’s not a recent development, of course, but it’s been getting worse the past...

Don’t be suckered in by the non-news of the CBS MarketWatch story on AOL providing weblogs to its users. This is a rehash of the weeks-old Rick Robinson int...

Most of the people I know celebrate Christmas, and the majority of them are still sweating out a few last-minute gifts for friends. One time-tested trick for t...

This is a partial list of great dogs I have known over the years, in vaguely chronological order. Ooloo Nanda Max Dash Snowball Buyakowski Reba Smith...

I redid the way my Daily Links work, so I’ll be able to do a lot more with them. For the 99% of you who don’t know what those are, the sidebar here is what’s...

Here’s today’s ha-ha funny AIM conversation. Woman I Am Very Fond Of: \ | / \ \ // // \ ######## /// \ ### ### // -- ## ## -- -- ## squish ## -- -- ## ## -...

"The Holidays" are upon us! (I just love the navel-gazing presumption it takes to refer to two arbitrary holidays with a royal "The". But I...

You know, Bill Gates had a public appearance next to a giant inflated condom more than 24 hours ago, presumably with a dot on his forehead as he’s been wearing...

Another in my occasional series of great emails sent to our customer service address at work: From: [Name Redacted] Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 2...

Sometimes you win....

Speaking of mental illness, I am, right now, listening to a dance remix of Whitney Houston’s version of "I Will Always Love You". It’s not merely one...

There’s a good bit of information that I think my readers should know. To those who come here for the silliness, the ramblings about New York, the pontificatin...

Sometimes following the links into one’s site reveals precious little gems of the web. But then again, sometimes you just get NETQUEER . Apparently, when they...

This month’s New Architect has a great piece called Devil in the Details describing some IT implementation failures. The article’s focus is on examples lik...

Congratulations to Ben and Mena on Movable Type ‘s one year anniversary and the release of MT 2.5. Amazing that they’ve gone in one year from launching a...

Dear Danger HipTop T-Mobile Sidekick brand mobile internet access device: You suck. I know, I know, I’m your target demographic. A super geek who’s looking f...

We get the best random emails to the webmaster account at work. Today’s: Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 5:49 PM To: Webmaster Subject: comment I p...

Nick claims (archives are broken, follow the first link. Yay, Blogger!) “the earnest left urges its members to blog more to demonstrate political commitment...

Weblog central: "Alaina Browne can’t get enough of Anil Dash on technology, politics and more." I’m intrigued by this "and more" part!...

A fairly telling sign of my work ethic: During this weekend when I decided to stay home, and be responsible and finish up all the tasks that I’ve been procrast...

I just got out of the shower, and these are the things I thought of. I am somehow unable to take a shower in anything less than thirty minutes. I say to pe...

Looks like Yahoo! Search has dropped Google results. Not that I’d ever use Yahoo’s search anyway, but it’s a bad sign for the big Y....

Jane advocates improving the intelligence of the Amazon Gold Box , but I say no! I like that it’s so random. Though it has been getting better, recognizin...

It’s not that we must have bendy straws, it’s that we can have them. There are simpler ways. There is the "good enough" of a utiltitarian assis...

This is the thing: bendy straws are like little plastic tubes of unfulfilled promise. The articulation, the flexibility, that’s the appeal, right? But is it su...

Understand this: I am an unapologetic Michael Jackson apologist. I was that guy, the one still holding on to hope. Michael Jackson has had a third child, app...

One wouldn’t think it possible, but today, someone we know discovered CSS’s a:hover class, which lets you change the color of a link, or worse, its background,...

I support letter-writing campaigns ....

you gotta be the curtain puller…...

A Network World story entitled Blogs finding fans in business world alleges that Phillip Windley, Utah’s state CIO, is testing weblogs in a business environm...

I am going to make a bad action movie about the Internet and it’s going to be called "Inbox: Klezstorm!"....

Hey, are you a straight Asian female with a weblog? Try this bit of innovation: Refer to your boyfriend as "The Boy" when referencing him on your sit...

I went to buy a sandwich tonight and the young muslim boy behind the counter was making a concerted, but not entirely successful, attempt not to laugh as he as...

Interesting. About a year ago, I wrote Pardon Me For Being Forward , which got a pretty decent amount of traffic. I’ve still never gotten it forwarded to me b...

It doesn’t take a scientist: Ain’t no skinny people at the KFC....

Jeff Jarvis revisits some copy desk stories from his days in the paper business in Chicago: On my first day at Chicago Today, I made the mistake of going...

Sometimes friends ask me why I make geeky things, or spend my free time programming on little projects that I never show to anybody. And the reason is because...

There is a bee in my bonnet....

Stewart posits a generic interface between games , and the implications are mind-bending and potentially quite fun: Use this system as an intermediary for...

A tip for the straight guys, when meeting your girlfriend’s mother: Do spend all day shopping with your girl and her mom. Do not draw too much attent...

The unfair part in the ongoing battle of Mena vs. Ben is that Mena plays up the "cute little ole’ me " thing so much that poor Ben doesn’t have...

BotSpot reviews and lists a hell of a lot of Bots for your enjoyment. And over here is another long list of bots. Fun!...

There’s this theory that’s been tumbling around half-formed in my brain for the past few days. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it basically has to do wi...

Anil Dash :whooo! andretorrez : yeah? Anil Dash :whooo! Anil Dash :It takes two to make a thing go right… andretorrez : yeah Anil Dash :It takes two to m...

Success! If you’ll kindly look back to 11 September , you’ll see that we had sent a message to Shaun Reilly, proprietor of ReillyBurger.com to congratulat...

Everything that rises must converge. If pressed to recite a short list of some of my favorite pop musicians, that list would undoubtedly include Prince , A...

Prepare to be impressed. There exists among us a man like no other. Sure, we are all exceptional in some way. But truly few are as blessed with a gift as th...

An interesting experiment in pervasive hyperlinking is taking place at GuruNet . (No relation to guru.com ) What they make is a small program, sort of like...

Interesting parallels between my area of expertise and the area in which most of my clients work, or Information Architecture vs. Spatial Architecture . I was...

Whew! After a long Labor Day weekend hiatus from updating this site, I have finally returned. Lots of new ideas, but oh so little time to upload them… Firs...

Ask.com ponders the unanswerables. Since being renamed from Ask Jeeves , one of my favorite search sites, ask.com, has taken on what I feel could be an ov...

While traveling back to Pennsylvania today, I had occasion to reflect on a recurrent observation of New Jersey that I have every time I go through the state....

Thanks to the design excellence and automotive auspices of the Ford Motor Company , I am in scenic Throop, Pennsylvania . Yes, this town is exactly what one...

A Guide to Gratuities : While I’ve always been a generous tipper, (almost inappropriately so) I have definitely come under the sway of my much more miserly...

An unsolicited word of advice for all you triskadecaphobes out there, superstitions are for idiots. This concludes today’s rant....