It's Monday. You need a little lunchtime music love. You know you do. The Avett Brothers are just fun, fun, fun. (If you're unfamiliar with the Avett Brothers, picture a trio-sometimes-quartet of punkers playing bluegrass-influenced rock.)

These aren't the most slickly produced videos on YouTube, but they're a pretty good idea of what the live show must be like.

The sound quality of the second video isn't that great (lots of noise) but catch it about three minutes in to see Joe Kwon shred his cello bow over the course of a single song. The third video is the same song with better audio quality, but it's not quite the all-out stompfest of the version in the second video clip.

I think my frustration with the modern-day obsession with princesses has been noted, right? I fluff my feathers and squawk a bit every time I see grown women sporting clothing that proclaims them worthy not by dint of action or personality, but just by the sheer fact that some bint with a title chose to spawn, and they are the undeservingly-privileged results.

I can understand it in children -- fairy tales are fun when we're kids -- but entitlement stops being cute around age ten.  In adults, though?  Come on.  Princesses are born; women are made -- made through the kind of boring and dreadful Growth Experiences our shrinks keep encouraging us to have.

Thus this article on CNN ("Enough with the princess nonsense!") made me laugh.  A quote:

Those of you who have been reading here for a long time know that I don't often just post links to other articles. It's not my style to publish things without writing my own commentary, but I'll say this:  Take ten minutes out of your life to read this.

http://jeff.viapositiva.net/archives/2009/06/thoughts-murder

It won't go in the direction you probably think it'll go.

Take a moment—we none of us do that action enough, really—and think about who you are today, and who you once were.  Are you the same?  How have you changed?  Do you carry your life, your actions, your words with grace? 

Jeff—my Jeff, the spouseling, not the Jeff Eaton of this blog post—said something to me over the years that I have greatly appreciated: you cannot be the person you are today without the person you once were.

I've been thinking about my colleagues today. This article pretty much says it: "Public libraries see more people, but are having to slash costs"

"There are more people, and there's been an increase in computer use," said Kristal Holmes, director of the Auburndale Public Library. Holmes said she has seen many people applying for unemployment and filling out job applications on the library's computers, as well as people filling out forms for Florida Department of Children and Families benefits, such as food stamps, Medicaid and temporary cash assistance.

It's a nasty double whammy. As soon as people can no longer afford to buy books and DVDs, they remember public libraries ... right around the time that library funding gets decimated due to falling tax receipts.

I admit, this is a shameless reblog from SassyBlonde's YouTube Roundup, but I'm with her on this one: Oren Lavie's video for "Her Morning Elegance" just makes me happy and I can't even explain why.

Anthony Bourdain rails against the current crop of TV chefs and names names:

We KNOW she can't cook. She shrewdly tells us so. So...what is she selling us? Really? She's selling us satisfaction, the smug reassurance that mediocrity is quite enough. She's a friendly, familiar face who appears regularly on our screens to tell us that "Even your dumb, lazy ass can cook this!" Wallowing in your own crapulence on your Cheeto-littered couch you watch her and think, "Hell…I could do that. I ain't gonna…but I could--if I wanted! Now where's my damn jug a Diet Pepsi?"

Via Jody, of course.

This morning's topic of discussion in the sysadmin chatroom led me to If programming languages were religions

C would be Judaism - it's old and restrictive, but most of the world is familiar with its laws and respects them. The catch is, you can't convert into it - you're either into it from the start, or you will think that it's insanity. Also, when things go wrong, many people are willing to blame the problems of the world on it.

...and it builds from there.  Normally I'd dish linkfood like this up at solecist.net, but y'know, sometimes I just like to keep you guys guessing.

This album is madness and I feel like inflicting it on as many people as possible.

New album: Girl Talk's "Feed the Animals." Adam described it as what happens when all of the music you've liked in the past 30 years gets in a room and has a giant mashup orgy. It's an accurate description.

A bit of a laugh just now. Someone in the sysadmin chatroom pointed me to this thread on aethereverywhere, detailing how to discover your band name, album title, and album artwork. I rather liked mine.

Parviz Parastui's "Trifling Investment of Fact"
[photo 'Wednesday, not Wednesday!' by {manda}]

Stephen has struck again. He presents LOLcards for Valentine's Day. My personal favorite? "I devour hearts"

You need this. So do your twisted friends. Spread the meme.