John from Washington, DC! Thank you! As I prepared to sit down and write this post last evening, I was readying myself to write about how nobody donated to my cause yesterday, but I awoke this morning to your generous donation! But What about the rest of you? Why aren’t you donating funds to my charity? Are you spending time with friends and loved ones? Because you should be right here, hanging on my every word. Valued readers, the contest has been running for three days, and so far I’ve received at least one donation on each day! If one of you beautiful, loyal readers helps with my fundraiser today, I might start to feel like this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. In case you have not heard, my roommates are moving out and taking their turntable with them, and I don’t have money to buy a new one plus the new phone/contract I have to buy next week. If you love the music you hear on this page, and want to continue hearing it (that’s not a threat, it just means I will not be able to rip weird, rare, vinyl-only releases anymore), you should donate to this page so that I can purchase a new turntable. There is a Paypal link at the top left corner of this page. Or, you can bid on one of my eBay auctions. Or, you can e-mail me and I’ll provide you with a mailing address if you want to send a check instead of using Paypal.

And now, the news:

• It was only a matter of time. Best Buy is going to start stocking vinyl LPs. They won’t be the first major chain retailer to devote floor-space to new gramophone records. Costco and Wal-Mart have already both begun to fill shelves vinyl, the same media format that was declared dead a decade ago when compact discs hit the market. I’m not one to make a bold (and somewhat inaccurate) statement about how music “sounds better” on vinyl, but I will boldly state “told ya so!”. You can’t kill of the vinyl record. It’s just about the coolest thing in the entire world, at least from a materialistic/consumerist standpoint.There aren’t many things I’d rather spend my money on than records. I guess that’s why getting a new turntable is so important to me (cough cough donate cough cough). [story]

• Cracked has a list of the five most baffling explosions in movie history. Really? they could only find five? What abut the one from American Psycho where Patrick Bateman shoots at a car while being chased by the cops and it explodes into a huge ball of fire? Even the character looks at his gun as if to say, “Did I just do that?”. What about all those fires in the movie Backdraft? Can they happen in real life? I remember walking through the Backdraft lot at Universal Studios when I was younger, but I don’t remember if the tour guide told us about how plausible the plot of the movie was. Oh well. I’ll bet that shit doesn’t happen in real life. I’ll also bet that dogs and cats will never earn the right to marry, and Jews will always control the media. [story]

• Forbes has created a list of America’s (and the world’s) best brewery tours. The US list includes Stone (Escondido, where I will be traveling shortly), Rogue (Newport, OR), Wynkoop Brewing (Denver, CO), Brooklyn Brewery (NY), Mendocino Brewing Co. (Ukiah, CA), Flying Dog (Frederick, MD), Anchor Brewing (San Francisco), Brewery Ommegang (Cooperstown, NY), Dogfish Head (Milton, DE), and Magic Hat (Burlington, VT). Of those, I’ve only visited the Magic Hat brewery (and not the Brooklyn Brewery, which is odd considering all the time I’ve spent in Williamsburg), and that place is very cool. I was drunk by lunchtime…talk about generous samples! I think if you read my blog with any regularity you will recognize a lot of those breweries from my various posts. Do you know why? I’ll tell you why. It’s because I know what the fuck I’m talking abut. Whether I’m railing against shitty music or rallying for great beer, I just know what the fuck I’m talking about. Ya dig? [story]

• Podcast Jack alerted me to this article detailing how “faceless aliens” have been spotted at Wimbledon, and I’m not talking about the homely lesbian women who are competing in the tennis tournament. Zing! Take take, women who enjoy competitive sports! [story]

• Last night at a party, I walked onto the front porch of a house and strolled up to two girls standing near the food table and asked, “Jesus, have you two been standing here and eating all night long?” When one of them asked, “Are you calling us fat?” I responded by saying, “I’m not calling both of you fat,” and then trained my eyes on the one that looked more self-conscious. It worked like a charm, I tell you! I just wish I had that girl’s phone number so I could send her this article about how “scientists have provided the strongest evidence yet that the anti-aging benefits of calorically restricted diets can be duplicated — minus the near starvation — by a pill.” That would make for such an excellent follow-up fat joke. [story]

• What would a post dedicated to weird news stories be without a reference to this article from the Daily Telegraph (UK). “A license to create human-pig embryos to study heart disease has been issued by the fertility watchdog.” The article does not contain any photographs of human-pig hybrids, but I went on a date with Miss PIggy last week and she let me finger her pussy, so if things continue escalating between us maybe I’ll send you a picture of my illegitimate bastard pig-child nine months from now. [story]

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