Coachella’s coming! Dates have finally been announced for the artsy music fest that brings everyone and their ex-boyfriend’s momma’s uncles out. Spend your college savings for three days of unforgettable, blazing hot magic here.
LA folks, win tickets to see Flosstradamus. Subdrive is giving two tickets to see the Chi-town DJ duo at the Avalon on Friday [...]

I’m pretty sure the debates would be a whole hell of a lot more interesting if the candidates did Extreme Activities Competitions instead of putting East Coasters playing the “My Friends” drinking game into a drunken stupor.

Was the Palin pic too realistic? Newsweek is catching flak for not retouching a cover photo of the Alaska governor and Republican V.P. candidate because they have supposedly gone out of their way to make Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama look good. Apparently (and you have to see the magazine in person to notice) Palin’s [...]

October marks the advent of autumn* and the approach of Halloween. But since 1901, it’s also heralded the annual announcement of Nobel Prize winners.
The five categories under the prize umbrella are those of peace, chemistry, physics, physiology and medicine and literature.
This year, Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, the Nobel committee awarded the prize for physiology [...]

WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Come on down, folks! Take a ride on the awesome-super-cool-fun MARKET MADNESS ROLLER COASTER!! Go around the world! From Iceland to Italy to Russia to Brazil to Japan, I can guarantee this will be the ride of your life!
(FYI, Russia halted trading again today. Evil Empire? How about floundering joke?)
The Fed cut rates this morning, [...]

A few notes about the debate last night:
1) McCain needed a win, and he didn’t get it. Most  post-debate polls pointed to a clear Obama win, and on CNN — still using those absurd blue and red circular scorecards — even the Republican strategists handed it to Obama.
2) McCain still hates earmarks. Tagged at about [...]

Recently my friend and fellow critic Amy Linden and I were discussing the joy of finding buried treasures in the closet; which, in our case means discovering music we haven’t listened to in ages. She recently began spinning the brillant 1995 Society of Soul disc Brainchild, and couldn’t be happier.

From time to time, all of us have been guilty of sending an email we didn’t mean to send. You know, a gushy love letter to a guy or girl we just met. Or perhaps you sent a piece of “rage mail” to someone who really pissed you off. We really didn’t mean to send [...]

My friend, venerable music critic Michaelangelo Matos, has a good piece in Good magazine, titled, “Who’s A Dilettante?” It’s about how, despite the fact that he likes jazz, and listens to it, he’ll never be an expert on it. Which, for a critic, is sort of like admitting total defeat, because critics are supposed to [...]

The McCain campaign shows no shame in engaging in a tired guilt-by-association tactic as Sarah Palin accuses Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” This desperate calumny derives from Obama once serving on the same non-profit board as former 60’s radical Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the Weather Underground.
But what about McCain’s [...]

Something kooky could still happen … The second presidential debate airs tonight, and the town-hall style is designed to keep the candidates on their toes. John Dickerson, Slate’s political correspondent,cautions John McCain and Barack Obama to watch out for “Ponytail Guy,” an audience member who scolds the candidates about the tone of the campaign. The [...]

With one presidential and one vice presidential debate behind us, a pattern is emerging: each time, the Democratic candidate has come to the table armed with facts and policy proposals, while the Republican catered to pundits and the public with an amalgam of attitude and atmospherics, colloquialisms and avoidance-by-way-of-personal-anecdote.
And in tomorrow’s town hall meeting in [...]

Larry Wilmore of The Daily Show questions Barack Obama’s “blackness” while highlighting John McCain’s recent show of flavor. With tongue in cheek, Wilmore says he only wants to vote for the black candidate but is now seriously confused because of John McCain’s recent behavior. He is left with having to examine the issues. Enjoy!

The Soup has produced a fake-trailer for what should be the next installment of the number one movie in America.
I will not spoil it for you. Via DListed!