Streaming USA v Algeria via Univision at work + USA scores at the last moment:

I saw MC Lars for the first time when he opened up for an Aquabats show at B.B. King’s in  the summer of 2007. Lars and his live band put on a great show; I enjoyed the set so much that I took the time to meet the band afterward, and bought a copy of  MC Lars’ 2006 release, The Graduate, from his guitarist for $5. Continue Reading…

A Michael Vick promo during In Living Color’s Lassie ’90 skit? I salute you, BET, for your comedic timing.

Oreo balls are the tastiest things I’ve had in a while. Miranda, a coworker and friend, brought some in to the office a while ago and everyone instantly became hooked. After spending weeks thinking and asking about them, she agreed to make a couple of batches with me!

Prep Time: 1 hour, inactive prep time: 2 hours, cook time: 0 minutes
Yield: 24 pieces

• 1 package of Oreo cookies
• 1 8oz brick of Philly cream cheese
• 6oz milk, white or dark chocolate

The majority of the prep time consists of waiting around while the Oreo balls freeze. You can easily scale the recipe without adding too much extra prep time, so go ahead and make a ton. Trust me, you’ll be happy you did.

While these are called Oreo Balls, I guess that any other chocolate wafer cookie with a cream filling could be used. We made two batches, one using original Oreo cookies and a second with Oreo cookies filled with mint cream.

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Jaguar Love’s new release, Hologram Jams, is streaming at Buzzgrinder right now. Go.

I haven’t heard the album in its entirety just yet, but it’s immediately apparent how much their sound has changed in Jay Clark’s absence. While I haven’t formed much of an opinion just yet, “Cherry Soda” is pretty sweet. Unfortunately, “Everything is Awesome” isn’t.

Past Lives, another band formed out of the split of The Blood Brothers, released an album last Tuesday, and tracks are available for listening at their site, www.pastliveslife.com.

I’m really not a fan of playing games on my computer. The first guy I ever answered to in IT always stressed that the computer is a tool, not a toy. While I don’t exactly agree with his thoughts, I’ve always kept my gaming to consoles. He also would say that he only drank water if it was in his coffee or scotch – a truly wise man.

Canabalt is a seriously addictive game. A friend sent me a link to it a few nights ago, and I ended up playing for over two hours. It’s sort of like a 2d version of Mirror’s Edge, minus a bad story line and vomit inducing visuals. The game’s obstacles are generated randomly, so you can’t quite memorize when and where to jump, which keeps the game play, as simple as it is, quite fresh. The music fits in with the fast pace of the game and really doesn’t get old, even after continuous play. Canabalt can be played online and is also available as an iPod app. Check it out!

Canabalt

Last week is one that I wouldn’t mind forgetting. It certainly wasn’t the worst week in the world, it was just one that felt like it would never come to an end.

I began learning how to etch metal last Saturday, for the ledouche flasks, and managed to get hit in my right eye with some sulfuric acid. The solution I was using had an extremely low concentration in it, so I was fine, but my eye was sore for most of the week. I had goggles on, but they weren’t the kind that form a seal against your face. I seriously hate wearing those, but now realize that I’m just going to have to. I’m not letting something like that happen again.

Sure, the title of this post doesn’t make a ton of sense just yet. Keep reading.

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I spend nearly half of my day listening to music. My iPod is running during my 3-4 hour commute back and forth to work plus the majority of the time I’m in my office, which adds up to somewhere around 12 hours. Being a bit tired of the music I’ve been listening to for the past few weeks, I decided to take a look through an old box of cds in my closet and found a gem I haven’t listened to in years – City of Caterpillar’s self-titled album.

This is the kind of music you listen to and never quite forget. There’s nothing life altering about it, it’s just one of those albums that makes you wish that the band managed to stay together long enough to release more material, instead of moving on from something so incredible and different from most of the other music in it’s genre.

City of Caterpillar was a band from Richmond, Virginia that created music together from 2000-2003. Their only full-length release is 44 minutes of twists and turns from brooding, dark melodies to vocals that seem to loom underneath the surface and finally launch an attack on your eardrums as tracks come to explosive climaxes.

After disbanding in 2003, members of City of Caterpillar moved on to other projects such as Malady and Ghastly City Sleep. If you’re digging what you hear in the video below, be sure to check out the aforementioned bands, as well as Pg.99.

In America, a kid drops out of high school every 9 seconds…

Imagine if they didn’t.

This is the compelling question behind award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio’s newest project Ten9Eight, a thought provoking film which tells the inspirational stories of several inner city teens (of differing race, religion, and ethnicity) from Harlem to Compton and all points in between, as they compete in an annual business plan competition run by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).

Ten9Eight airs on BET today at 12PM Eastern

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I ran in to a situation at work today where an advertiser, wanting to place a tracking pixel on a sponsored piece of Web content, only wanting to know about visitors who have been on the page containing the content for at least one minute. The advertising system we use doesn’t offer a solution for this out of the box and I didn’t think it would be terribly difficult to make happen, but was surprised to not find any quick how-to guides anywhere.

The code snippet below outputs markup to a visitors browser 60 seconds after the page they are viewing loads. It was tested in Doubleclick’s Dart for Publishers as a piece of custom creative targeted to a ad zone used exclusively by the piece of sponsored content:

<script languagage="Javascript">
/* %u - keep Dart from complaining about no url */
setTimeout("firePixels()", 60000); //60 second delay
function firePixels(){
	var tStage = document.getElementById('trackerstage');
	if (tStage){
		tStage.innerHTML = "<img src=\"http://www.100781.org/happles.jpg\">";
	}
}
</script>
<div id="trackerstage"></div>

This solution worked perfectly, after replacing my test image with the advertiser’s tracking pixel, of course. This is also simple enough that it should be able to work just as well when delivered by any advertising system. Have a similar solution or tip? Share!