Lights Out was a suspense and horror radio show that had its debut in 1934. It was one of the first shows to develop distinct sound effects and scripts specifically aimed at an audience that could only listen and not watch the action. more inside

Bookjetty is an integration platform that helps you search Amazon (.com, .co.uk and .ca) for books you want... to borrow from your local library. It covers over 300 libraries worldwide, using the Z39.50 client server protocol. more inside

Free Burma October 4th is International Bloggers' Day for Burma more inside

Reason #681 for loving Jon Stewart.

Play with your food The Art of Food Carving as collected by Ivan Minic. Some very pretty and intricate stuff to be found here. If you prefer something larger, there's always watermelon carving. The Egg Man prefers to carve and sculpt eggshells of different kinds. I'm especially fond of his filigree eggs. more inside

Any of you chaps up for tea & scones? October 21 or 22? more inside

Isolated Building Studies

Flight of the Bumblebee (YouTube videos ahead.) As God intended. On an electric guitar at 201 bpm. On a 7-string bass. On the accordion. On 8 pianos. On the marimba. Played by Europe. Played (in a manner of speaking) by high school students on a banjo, baritone saxophone, an E flat clarinet and an accordion.

SF/Bay Area Meet-uppery Your presence is required in the city of San Francisco, in the county of San Francisco, in the state of California, in the country of United States, on the planet of Earth, third planet from the Sun, which is a yellow dwarf star near the inner rim of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, which floats in space somewhere left of Ceti Alpha V. more inside

"I am now a heavenly body..." An asteroid is named after the fabulous George Takei. (He just keeps getting more and more awesome -- you Americans should make him your King or something...)

Flesh for Fantasy The Living Canvas paints patterns of projected light on nude models. (Images obviously NSFW) Kim Joon fully paints nude models and poses them for some beautiful and amazing photos. (NSFW) At Flesh and Color, Dewayne Flowers also does photographs of painted nudes, in categories like metallic and skinscapes. (NSFW) Tatiana Parcero at Cartographies paints old maps and other images with an old world flavor on her models.

Sam Harris Said WHAT? One of the most famous of those danged "atheist thinkers" has some suggestions that Dawkins and Hitchens ain't gonna like... but it gives me some food for thought that's very - chewy. more inside

First Concert Memories. What people remember is all the stuff around the concert; begging your mom to let you go, sitting next to intimidating weirdos, rocking your concert T-shirt the next week at school, etc. These are the memories that endure. From the blue.

Haunting 101 For some, it's not enough to buy a cardboard witch to hang on the door for their spooky holiday decorating. They're coating armatures (and, accidentally, themselves) in monster mud to build the Grim Reaper or a well. They sculpt tombstones and make glowing water (YouTube). My favorite is the flying crank ghost(YouTube). more inside

Mutating pictures.

The Birotron Keyboard was inspired by the Mellotron but ran via 8-track tape cartridges. The story of it's creation on the cusp of electronica is a great read. And there's a famous musician in it, too. (Not the keyboard.) via, as usual, The Blueotron

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain in their rendition of Wuthering Heights (yootoob) more inside

nunfight!!!!

Madman Bush 'Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing' Seymour Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen. You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have the Shiites in the South.

Miss Moneypenny dead. So long, Lois Maxwell.