• Best rundown I’ve seen yet of where Apple went wrong with the release of the much-reviled Final Cut Pro X. (This issue caused NYTimes tech writer David Pogue to call me “snarkyface” on Twitter.)
• Apparently I’m the only person in Burlington, Vermont (who isn’t a city counselor, that is) who thinks giving city counselors free parking downtown isn’t the worst idea in the history of humanity.
• Steve Benen and Matt Yglesias point out that policy making is a lot easier when the institutions lawmakers work in are not broken.
• The SCOTUS yields yet another 5-4 conservative ruling, this time taking the definition of “free speech” and twisting it into a corporate pretzel. Justice Kagen’s dissent is worth a read.
• Delicious timelapse, motion-controlled astrophotography (which will be featured at the Vermont International Film Festival this year).
• All four parts of Dan Harmon’s exhaustive walk through Community season two are worth your time (link to part one). He pulls no punches about the sausage-making nature of network TV.
• What? Vermont has a toy museum? How awesome is that?

Nearly every ounce of Kraft cheese product—from Velveeta to Kraft Singles—spends part of its life in a 680-pound container inside this 400,000-square-foot subterranean fridge. It’s not about aging, it’s about cheap storage: Moving refrigeration underground saves massive amounts of energy, since the temperature 100 feet down is a constant 58 degrees Fahrenheit. An aboveground pump sends 13,000 gallons of chilled brine through the system every day, keeping the warehouse at a cool 36 degrees. The Kraft facility is actually part of a massive complex that started as a limestone mine in 1946. (The mine is still operational, but a substantial earthen buffer shields the employees of Kraft and other companies from regular explosions.)

Read about how it was made here.

It’s worth mentioning that this blog was the runner-up in the 2010 Seven Days “Daysie” reader’s choice awards again this year. The sisters LeMay took the top prize for the second time in a row. I was shocked to have made the runner-up spot despite the utter lack of any serious blogging around these parts lately. Thanks, if you voted for Candleblog!

I’m a filmmaking fool these days, having just completed the Baruth campaign film (see it in the previous post), and now I’m deep into a short web video for an environmental start-up. Also, the Pants projects are rearing their heads and gaining some slight momentum. I hope to have something good to report on that front soon.

You must now go and vote for my SXSW panel proposal! You have to register to vote and comment, but I swear it’s really quick and easy. My thirst for hanging out with alpha nerds and rock stars must be slaked.

And if you’re not already following Emily’s Tumblr blog, you should go there now and subscribe. It’s a continuous linkdump of cute awesomeness.

And look at this crazy shit!

• Justin Bieber slowed down 800% sounds ethereal and awesome. They should have used this in Inception.
• Wil Wheaton has quit W00tstock in a fabulous way.
• This short film teaches you How to be Alone.

Tim Blake Nelson and I made eye contact at JFK this morning. He was on my flight to Austin. I passed his row on my way to the lavatory and noticed he was watching a 1970s Roy Scheider movie on his laptop that may or may not have been Marathon Man.

On the Supershuttle to the hotel, the guy sitting behind me happened to be a fellow named Charlie who emailed me several days ago about bringing me to Sheffield, UK to talk about community media at a film/doc fest there in November. We had a nice chat about English steel towns and international soccer.

My hotel room has a mini bar.

Stood in line with Ian for a first look at Robert Rodriguez’ Predators reboot but just missed getting a seat. I got the chance to chat in line with Annalee Newitz from io9 and a bunch of other fine folks too, including a writer for the Hollywood Reporter who was really funny and who showed his man boobs to a packed house at the Alamo Ritz later on.

We did make it into Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and it was AWESOME.

Between these events, I hung out some Vermont peeps at three different bars and had lots of yummy beer.

I’m too tired to add links to these things. Do some Googling. Especially Tucker and Dale.

Sleep now. Another big day tomorrow.

• MSNBC political commentator and analyst, Rachel Maddow
• Comics writer and illustrator, Brian Wood
• Political blogger, Matt Yglesias
• Actress and web video pioneer, Casey McKinnon
• Blogger, academic and political/sci-fi wonk, Gerry Canavan
  

We’ll also be joined by our regular cast and crew, and as always, we’ll discuss the week’s big items in political and genre-related news.

It’s kind of hard to believe we’ve done 100 episodes. That’s 200 hours or political/sci-fi talk! And we don’t get paid! What are we thinking?!

Tune in live on Sunday at 4:00 P.M. eastern and join our live chat here.

For those of you who miss the live stream, the podcast of the episode will be posted on Tuesday evening.

As the kids say, ZOMG!

Today is guitar genius Jean Baptiste “Django” Reinhardt’s 100th birthday.

Treat yourself and listen to some of this music. Django was incredible — and only had two usable fingers on his left hand (that’s the hand that makes chords). Django is on my short list of greatest guitar players of all time.

Seriously, take a few minutes and play some tracks below…

Cue the mad knitting.

And for that very special someone in your life, Robot Kasten is offering the best t-shirt of the holiday season.

Actually, it’s not so much of a crush as a recognition of this woman’s talent and likability. Jenny Slate got on my radar just last week with the season premiere of SNL. She did a hilarious “biker chick” character who hosts a Wayne’s World-esque TV show in her basement with her frickin’ best friend and her frickin’ mom’s best friend as guests. She famously let an F-bomb slip during the sketch, (accidentally saying “fuckin’” instead of one of the dozens of “frickins”) but that’s not what got my attention. What I noticed was her 100% commitment to her character and the nuance with which she delivered it. She was totally believable and awesome.

So today I happened to follow a link to a short that Slate stars in. I’m going to show it to my film class on Wednesday. It’s a 20-minute romantic comedy that’s sweet, charming and full of really juvenile humor. Here it is…

[UPDATE: Vimeo is breaking my blog, so I'm linking to the film instead of embedding it. Click here.]

Coincidentally, another short I show my students each semester is this wonderful little piece starring Nasim Pedrad, who was also recently added to SNL’s line-up…

Click here.