Bizarre Major League Baseball themed urns and caskets

I thought people shaving their favorite NASCAR driver’s number in their back hair (link) was a sign of going too far to show your devotion to a sports team, but Major League Baseball just found a way to be even freakier about your sport of choice. “Starting next season, fans of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers will be able to have their ashes put in an urn or be lowered six feet under in a casket emblazoned with their team colors and insignia.” I would have included a witty reference or pun in the title, but ESPN stole all the good ones (To die for? MLB fans can take team devotion to grave).

Link

Crazy Visuals of Aircraft Flight Patterns

Aaron Koblin, a MFA graduate of UCLA's Design|Media Arts program, created these amazing visuals of U.S. commercial air traffic. The visuals "are the result of experiments leading to the project Celestial Mechanics by Scott Hessels and Gabriel Dunne. FAA data was parsed and plotted using the Processing programming environment. The frames were composites with Adobe After Effects and/or Maya." One looks like what I imagine fireworks look like on acid, another like a strange microscopic shot of an amoeba.

BoingBoing's Inner Circle

I love BoingBoing. Don't get me wrong. But recently I've sent them two notes about items I thought were BB-worthy. One about some Steve Erwin memorial graffiti (see earlier post) and one about a kick-ass album cover mash-up (again, original post here). The gang at BB proceeded to sit on the Erwin story for a week and the album cover mash-up for five days before posting about them -- but only after someone else wrote in. The Steve Erwin graffiti photograph they posted was even the exact same location I sent them a photo of.

A while back when my brother and I were working on nyc2123 we sent them the press release about the series launching. CC licensed graphic novel for the PSP -- we figured it was right up Corey's alley, but he didn't post about it until our friend Cal (who used to work on Second Life and knows the BB crew) wrote them about it.

What gives, BoingBoing? You guys don't read suggestions unless they're sent in from people you know? How many other trivial but interesting stories are out there that you guys are glossing over because they aren't submitted by your inner circle?

South Park - Make Love, Not Warcraft

South Park Season 3 kicked off on Wed and it was one of the best episodes I've ever seen. The kids are hooked on World of Warcraft and spend the episode training to defeat a middle-aged looser who has become so powerful he can break the game rules and kill anyone ... kind of the Neo of WoW. Half of the episode actually takes place in what I'm assuming is the real WoW game engine (I can't claim to have ever played it). This could be one of Cartman's best episodes as he takes command of the clan he and his friends form and issues some of the nerdiest (and most hilarious) lines imaginable. I think it re-runs a couple more times this week but you can catch the entire episode on YouTube.

Album Cover War

My buddy Chaco sent me this link to an amazing album cover mash-up/war. Hard to describe, so just head over and check it out yourself.