Kanye West

"Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-
absorbed. I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's
autograph. . . . I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get
information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and
living real life."

from BODY COUNT, by Christian Jungerson

We all know that the bottle of wine we've drunk tonight could have
paid for vaccinating twenty kids and saving the life of at least one.
I very much hope that the world will become a better place. And if it
does, our grandchildren may look at us the way young people today
regard the generation who collaborated with the Nazis. They'll say, "I
do not understand you." We will explain that life simply was the way
it was. "Famines came and went and no one did anything about it.
People died of hunger to provide us with cheaper coffee." We'll have
to admit that we knew but chose to do nothing about it.

heita3

To steal a line from Knocked Up: I wish I was as excited about anything in my life as this guy is about his musical instruments. 

Reese Cake

Yum.

Scott Sternberg's Rules of Style

The Top Ten Rules of Style, by Band Of Outsiders head designer, Scott Sternberg.

Don't Wanna Be Alone...What For?

I think I understand why people in the 80s--Don Delilo, J.G. Ballard--felt like Western Culture was coming to end:

1985 Plymouth Duster Commercial

I hope one day we get a feature-length Boogie Nights-style biopic about the filming of this ad. (PS: Whatever you do, don't start clicking on Related Videos, because it will seriously eat up half your day.)

Pevear and Volokhonsky really make the text come alive, don't they?

via Wikipedia and Waxy.org, the correct translation of Zero Wing's "All your base are belong to us" cutscene:

AD 2101: War has begun.

Captain: What was that?

Engineer: Someone has planted a bomb on the ship!

Communication operator: Captain! Receiving transmission!

Captain: What?!

Communication operator: Incoming visual on the main screen.

Captain: Y...You!

CATS: You look busy, gentlemen. With the help of the Federation Government forces, CATS has taken all of your bases. Your ship is about to meet its doom as well.

Captain: This...this is ridiculous!

CATS: We are grateful for your cooperation. Cherish these few remaining moments of your lives. Ha ha ha ha ha...

Communication operator: Captain....

Captain: I order you to launch all ZIG units! We have no choice but to entrust them with our hopes for our future. We're counting on you, ZIG!

UPDATE: Don't miss the always-hilarious Wikipedia discussion page about whether or not this translation truly belongs on a fake encylopedia created by amazing gaylords.

We Don't Die, We Just Get High

We Are Supervision has an utterly fantastic gallery of business cards created by Chicago street gangs of the 70s.

"The TV shows of the Nineties have so much to offer style-wise."

BREAKING: This week's Teen Vogue Girl Of The Week from Estonia; Has picture taken in what I've always imagined all of Estonia looks like.

Mynah Bird

An excerpt from Cecil and Jordan in New York: Stories by Gabrielle Bell. These frames are from the dream-like story "My Affliction." Our unnamed protagonist heroine has just been given a little wooden man named "Charlie" by her therapist, who tells her to try to fall in love with it. Then this happens:

Capitilization of Titles and Headlines: A Special Baby Ruthless Grammar Insert

This morning I had a question about whether a word in a headlines should be capitalized or not. So I looked up the Capitalization of Headlines and Titles section of the Chicago Manual of Style. I'd been meaning to do this for a while, and I figured today was the day.

The rules are pretty straightforward, so I thought I'd compile a cheat sheet for you guys to use. We'll deal with the words that have to be uppercase first, then the lowercase words.


Uppercase

First and last words of the title

• This rule supersedes all the others, so even if the word would otherwise be lowercase, if it's the first or last word of the title, it's always uppercase.

Nouns

Pronouns

• I, You, She, He, It, We, You, They


• Me, Her, Him, Us


• Mine, Yours, Hers, His, Its, Ours, Theirs


• This, That, These, Those


• Who, Whom, Which, What


• Whoever, Whomever, Whichever, Whatever


• All, Another, Any, Anybody, Anyone, Anything, Each, Everybody, Everyone, Everything, Few, Many, Nobody, None, One, Several, Some, Somebody, Someone


• Myself, Yourself, Herself, Himself, Itself, Ourselves, Yourselves, Themselves

Adjectives

Verbs

Adverbs

• Hint: if it ends in an -ly, it's probably an adverb. But there are other adverbs, too:


• Well, Fast, Slow, Late


• Too, Very, Really, Almost, Little, Much, Rather


• Perhaps


• Downstairs, Upstairs, There, Outside, Above, Away, Below, Down, Here, Inside, There, Up


• Always, Never, Sometimes


• However, Therefore, Also, Anyhow, Furthermore, Moreover, Otherwise, Still


• Early, Never, Now, Often, Soon, Then, Today, Tomorrow


• Why, Where, How, When

Subordinating Conjuctions

• Though, Although


• If, Unless


• Until, While, Before, After


• How, When, Whenever, Where, Wherever


• Since, Because, As


• Than, That

Lowercase

Articles

• a


• an


• the

Coordinating Conjuctions

• for


• and


• nor


• but


• or


• yet


• so


• (A good mnemonic device to remember coordinating conjuctions is FANBOYS)

Prepositions

• about, above, across, after, against, along, alongside, among, around, as, aside, at


• before, behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, between, beyond, but, by


• circa, concerning


• despite, down, during


• except


• failing, following, for, from


• given


• in, inside, into


• like


• near, next, notwithstanding


• of, off, on, onto, opposite, out, outside, over


• pace, past, per, plus


• regarding


• since


• than, through, throughout, to, toward, towards


• under, underneath, unlike, until, up, upon


• versus, via


• with, within, without, worth

That's it. This list seems pretty daunting, but it's really pretty easy. There are a bunch of little fiddly rules, but this should cover most of the capitalization questions you have.

Bang

The joy of exclamation marks!

(I really like this guy's breezy style. It's like what a million shittily-written blogs are trying for but never get right.)

Focus On The Quasar In The Mist

Couple of kids on their way to karate, singing Pavement's "Stereo":

SOME PEOPLE ARE TOXIC AVOID THEM.

The important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.

Milton Glaser
from Ten Things I Have Learned