Wow, has it been busy here at the Thorn Industries’ home office. Hard to say where it really began, but I do know that I first realized I was kinda crazy busylike last weekend on the trip to see amazing Nick marry amazing Emma in Queens, New York. It was a great wedding, and I got to know a few of Nick’s friends, who’d only been kind of acquaintances before this weekend, lots better. Turns out that not only are Nick and Emma both equally amazing, but so are pretty much all their friends and family. I’ve known Nick’s …

Kasey Kazee, accused of wrapping his face in a clever duct tape disguise and robbing Ashland, KY’s Shamrock Liquors of two rolls of change, is one smooth talker. Make sure you watch the unedited interview with Kazee, linked to from the same page. Then you’ll know who I went to high school with and what they looked like when they were explaining that not only were they not out drinking the night before, but were in fact doing their homework, which they’d have now but for the Act of God that so improvidentially bereft them of it. …

My wise friend John recently targeted a Giuliani quotation for outraged indignation. I do kind of tend to agree with him on one level: this is precisely the kind of corruption of language that Orwell held up as a hallmark of the proto-fascist state aborning (Freedom is Submission to Authority! Obedience is Liberty!), and it’s precisely the sort of thing that ordinarily makes me barf a mediumish amount. But after a full 15-20 seconds of careful and studied reflection, I’ve come to suspect that something else is going on here entirely, something a little more interesting and worthy …

I saw the Simpsons movie this weekend and enjoyed it, more than I thought I would. I do have to wonder though, how closely the writers actually meant to follow the Montgomery C. Burns formula for popular cinematic success: “Just give the great unwashed a pair of oversized breasts and a happy ending, and they’ll ‘oink’ for more every time.” (Season 3, Episode 5, “Homer Defined”)

It was on its way downhill before this, but when everyone Yahoo acquired Flickr, and everyone with a YahooID™ also automatically got a Flickr account, it stopped going downhill and shot out off the edge of a cliff and into empty air. I used to feel like I was on the Internet when I went to Flickr, but now I feel like I’m walking into a WalMart. There used to be a great mix there of artists and hacks, critics, enthusiasts, the educated and self-taught, the articulately erudite and the folks who just liked pretty pictures, but no …