Grant Shellen

"Michael Ginsberg: ‘I feel bad for you.’ Don Draper: ‘I don’t think about you..."

Tue, 15 May 2012 22:51:00 -0700

“Michael Ginsberg: ‘I feel bad for you.’
Don Draper: ‘I don’t think about you at all.’”

- “Mad Men” s05e09: “Dark Shadows”

“Clear alcohols are for rich women on diets.” -Ron...

Sun, 13 May 2012 22:44:58 -0700

“Clear alcohols are for rich women on diets.” -Ron Swanson

Good Rush, Bad Rush, the shirt

Tue, 08 May 2012 12:00:44 -0700

Good Rush, Bad Rush, the shirt

lauraglu: morganmissen: After four years tumblogging as...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 23:16:02 -0700

lauraglu:

morganmissen:

After four years tumblogging as atari, Tumblr is revoking foursquare engineer Pete’s web address; with ostensibly no attempt to suggest Atari Inc. use a custom domain like tumblr.atari.com, blog.atari.com, atariinc.tumblr.com, atari.com/tumblr or atari.com/blog, which are all free and theirs for the taking.

Pete has one week to change his web address before it is changed for him. 45 million tumblogs have been created since Pete chose his username, so hopefully his second choice is available.

atari:

I’ve been a Tumblr user for just under 4 years. Personally, it’s one of the best blogging platforms around, having solved the problems associated with services like blogspot or self hosting. This is coming from someone who started with greymatter in 1999.

Of course with a service like Tumblr, there are compromises. And that’s part of its charm: with less there is more. And though Karp has moved from unknown, to little-shit, and currently media darling, Tumblr still keeps most of its rakish “for you” community spirit.

So with this duality I am disappointed to see that Tumblr is is pulling my atari.tumblr.com subdomain and handing it over to Atari™ as part of a mostly tepid request on Atari’s part. Rather than educate Atari on it’s custom domain name services and maybe suggest tumblr.atari.com, it is quick to service brands no matter how far their fall from grace. Legally, my site does not barrow on the Atari brand or content so I’m not acting in bad faith. But unlike owning a top level domain name, Tumblr (not the user) owns the subdomain so ultimately it’s their decision. And since they probably don’t want to defend subdomains on the behalf of the non-trademark holder, the choice is pretty clear.

To a point, who cares? I’ll just get another sub-domain and have a silly story to tell over drinks right? So yes, it doesn’t really matter.

But in the micro-context of the web communities, it does.

Tumblr has very much built the same sort of McLuhan global village that began as Geocities muck and has ended up with Facebook brass. It proudly represents a range of content and is striving for great. And with great comes growth and a change of priorities, mostly financially driven. But is Tumblr’s way to to financial freedom simply the process of servicing brands with a hurried social pitch over a community of that hopes to build an archive?

To this I have no real answers and no real attacks, just conversation. Will the new atari.tumblr.com have an interest in conversation?

Nope.

Unless 4-square is hiring engineers who just signed on to The Internet, HE SHOULD KNOW BETTER.

Grow up and don’t choose major brands as your blog name.

Totally with Laura on this. No disrespect to Pete, who I don’t know. But word. This is not even a thing.

She has my vote.

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:19:31 -0800

She has my vote.

emptyage: @RickSantorum Well then I look forward to being...

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:24:38 -0800

emptyage:

@RickSantorum Well then I look forward to being reimbursed for any of my tax dollars that funded the Iraq War.
— Gina Marie (@ginambakkun) February 17, 2012

These albums all came out in the same year (1970):

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:56:00 -0800

Stevie Wonder - “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”
The Beatles - “Let It Be”
The Who - “Live at Leeds”
Led Zeppelin - “Led Zeppelin III”
Black Sabbath - “Paranoid”
Nick Drake - “Five Leaves Left”
Chicago - “Chicago II”
Carole King - “Tapestry”
David Bowie - “The Man Who Sold The World”

And here I’d been romanticizing 1977 in my head all this time.

Christ, what a list.

This may have broken my mind a little bit. khuyi: The Lions...

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:36:29 -0800

This may have broken my mind a little bit.

khuyi:

The Lions Mane Jellyfish is the largest jellyfish in the world. They have been swimming in arctic waters since before the dinosaurs (over 650 million years ago) and are among some of the oldest surviving species in the world.

The largest can come in at about 6 meters and has tentacles over 50 meters long. Pretty amazing when you think these things have been swimming around for so long.

They have hundreds of poisonous tentacles that it used to catch passing by fish. it then slowly drags in it’s prey and eats it.

That is terrifying.

never ever.

This kind of dumb (sorry) (not really) Quora thread about...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:47:14 -0800

This kind of dumb (sorry) (not really) Quora thread about “epic” (please stop using that word) guitar solos reminded me of this epic (dammit) guitar solo that turned a very ignorant me into a very Prince fan.

I’m not one to geek out over guitar solos (I totally am), but this is pretty incredible. Looks effortless and sexy and now I’m going to quit guitar.

The whole thing is great, but the badassery really starts around 3’30”.

I've definitely eaten there

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:39:05 -0800

Heather and I watched the Portlandia Season 2 premiere last night, and was relieved that it did not disappoint. A sketch about a fake restaurant called Around the World in 80 Plates (third video down in this post) had us literally dying with laughter. We literally had to call 911 we were laughing so hard.

What I love about this show is it sometimes takes everyday frustrations with stupid little things or moments and blows them way out of proportion. Which I think is a principle Portland was founded on (I kid!)

Anyway. TiVo it. Or whatever you internetty kids do these days to watch television programs on your computing devices and/or telephones.

"Police Officer: [trying to describe the Batmobile] It’s a black…tank!"

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 14:35:17 -0800

“Police Officer: [trying to describe the Batmobile] It’s a black…tank!”

- I forgot that Christopher Nolan, despite the dark, dramatic take on the Batman story, maintained some of the canonical corniness of the superhero genre. Not that it doesn’t work.

Batman Begins - Wikiquote

"Insulate yourself… from anonymous angry people Expose yourself to art you don’t yet..."

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:14:00 -0800

“

Insulate yourself…

from anonymous angry people

Expose yourself to art you don’t yet understand

Precisely measure the results that are important to you

Stay blind to the metrics that don’t matter

Fail often

Ship

Lead, don’t manage so much

Seek out uncomfortable situations

Make an impact on the people who matter to you

Be better at your baseline skills than anyone else

Copyedit less, invent more

Give more speeches

Ignore unsolicited advice

”

- Good advice from Seth Godin.

(via Seth’s Blog)

"She could go on in this way for extended periods of time without mentioning any actual people,..."

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:18:31 -0800

“She could go on in this way for extended periods of time without mentioning any actual people, actions, or thoughts. There’s a business version of this illness. It involves the use of words such as “space,” “around,” “synergy,” and “value-add” with a healthy dose of equivocators like “sort of” and “kind of” to ensure that there is no commitment to anything being said: “I’m in the sort of sustainability space around kind of bringing synergistic value-add to other people’s work around this kind of space.” Oh, OK, that explains it.”

- I’ve sort of noticed this kind of speechification patternizing in the kind of online applications e-biz.

I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore - Dan Pallotta - Harvard Business Review (via Mark Hurst)

"Let me break it down for you. Everyone loves bacon."

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 09:18:38 -0800

“Let me break it down for you. Everyone loves bacon.”

- It’s Time for Everyone to Shut Up About Bacon (via Hodgman)

"Some coma patients are being awoken by Ativan and Ambien and paradoxically so…both are..."

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:11:00 -0800

“Some coma patients are being awoken by Ativan and Ambien and paradoxically so…both are sedative drugs used for treating insomnia.”

- Wow. Family, friends and doctors reading this: remember this, just in case.

Insomnia drugs waking people from comas (via kottke.com)

“Oh my goodness. This is Kenny G and Miles Davis. I cannot...

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 09:42:39 -0800

“Oh my goodness. This is Kenny G and Miles Davis. I cannot imagine a better picture than this. I love this so much.” -@pennjillette

Fancy Grilled Cheese 9 Ways - A Beautiful Mess

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:14:02 -0800

Fancy Grilled Cheese 9 Ways - A Beautiful Mess

chainsawsuit by kris straub - first-timer massage

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 10:41:04 -0800

chainsawsuit by kris straub - first-timer massage

"Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from..."

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:08:50 -0700

“Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them…Somewhere, in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.”

- Charles Bukowski’s apt take on censorship.

Letters of Note: Charles Bukowski on Censorship

Her mom was either Indian or cruel

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:57:53 -0700

Female coworker: she keeps trying to be best friends
Me: who is she?
Female coworker: Kavita or Samitha or Vagina or some name like that