What was it like back in 2006?

Does anyone agree that myspace is crystalizing into a snapshot of what the world was like in 2006?

Best Practice: Soul

Watch this clip of Bill WIthers, being perfect. You will never be this good at whatever it is that you do. Thanks to Jesse Thorn (TSOYA Blog) for the find. Enjoy.

Alberto Gonzales: No Constitutional Right of Habeas Corpus

Allow me to pick up my jaw from the floor.

Chairman Leahy

To know that Patrick Leahy chairs his committee and is no longer a minority party outsider gives me a sense of optimism that AG Gonzales and W will be held accountable in the year to come.

YouTube and Blogs

They don't seem to mix. [Edit- maybe they do?]

Best Practice - Baked Potato

"Hot potato, pass the potato"

The baked potato is a great New Sincerity food. Best practice? Wash, poke a few times with a fork, coat with canola oil and coat modestly with kosher salt. Bake at 450° for 60-70 minutes directly on the oven rack. Put some foil or a baking sheet in the rack below the potatoes to catch the stray drops of oil. From there, you're on your own.

5 things

So I was tagged by Mike Brown, but like any pyramid scheme, someone has to be at the bottom. There are no bloggers left to tag, so I feel like a lowly Herbalife recruit with a bag full of magic potions, but no takers. Start blogging now! Ask me how!

At any rate, did you know...

1. ...I genuinely like my job, but I find my course of employment to be the least interesting thing about me and I probably think it's the least interesting thing about you? [note to readers: not you specifically, but most other people]

2. ...after 28 years of near-absolute abstention, I've become an insufferable coffee snob in 9 short months?

3. ...liberal/progressive blogosphere be still, but I still think there are a couple of presidents worse than W, even if none served two terms or after the invention of the telephone? OK, maybe one, but still.

4. ...I've never eaten mayonnaise in an unadulterated state, nor as a condiment?

5. ...I've owned music in many media? Yes I have. First tapes (simultaneous purchase, Singapore 1983) were Billy Joel's "An Innocent Man" and Michael Jackson's "Thriller", which was also my first LP. First 45" single was "We Are the World" (Philadelphia 1985). (I don't remember my first 12", as my first and only 20 were bought in the space of a summer, Hollywood 1995). First cassingle was Neneh Cherry "Buffalo Stance" (Saugus, CA 1989). First CD was Bobby Brown "Don't be Cruel" (Valencia, CA 1989). FIrst CD single was Public Enemy's "Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya Man" (Newhall, CA 1990) with the non-album solid B-side "Get the F@% Outta Dodge". First illicit download- Usher "My Way"(1) (Davis, CA 1998), first legit download (single) Neil Young "Old Man" (Valencia, 2003) and (album) James Brown "Live at the Apollo" (2004).

Footnotes
(1) In my defense, I didn't pay for Usher and 1997/1998 was the worst musical era of my lifetime, by a longshot. Also, this was pre-napster (for mac at least) and finding MP3s was like casting a net and taking what you got.