Around the web in 80 lines

Before we get to the cool stuff I’ve seen around lately, some blatant cross-promotion. Brittney, my girlfriend, is the likely reason for nearly all the non-familial traffic around here, but if you aren’t checking out her sites, you’re missing some cool stuff. CBS5’s Eye on Blogs is where she writes professionally, sharing the best of the Bay Area bloggers as well as her own pieces, and despite it maybe not being everything she had hoped (I blame the lack of vitriolic hatemongers in this stupid, tolerant place) I think it’s a great site and a harbinger of our future relationship with local news. And last night before bed I read this summary of June on her personal page. Being an experienced traveler and a guy who’d already lived in four different states by the time I was 19, it’s sometimes hard to remember that all of this – this being California, or anywhere but Tennessee – is so new to her, and I think she does a great job of bringing perspective to the differences. I remember the days when I marveled at the weather and the ocean and the every day and didn’t take this place for granted, and it’s been invigorating to be next to that enthusiasm once again. It’s also always nice to see myself complimented in print. So make sure you check her out too; she’s way better than she cops to.

• OK, enough of the mushiness and more of the things I like. First up: An interview with Liz Phair about the reissue of Exile in Guyville:

I have no idea what a new listener would think of it. I couldn’t even imagine. Probably like, “she can’t even sing.” After “American Idol”, they’re probably like, “I don’t get it.” I have no idea, but it can’t be that different for a fan as for me. It can’t be that dissimilar. I think there’s something great about resurrecting your past. Each listener will have associations with it if they really cared about the record– that was the summer they were dating this guy or driving cross-country with their friends or whatever. It was far enough away that I hope it has that feeling and doesn’t threaten you. Good ol’ nostalgia.

For me, this record was all about my first year at Trinity University in Texas. I listened to a decent amount of female artists back then – Ani, Tori Amos, I even owned a couple Indigo Girls cds – and Phair was the middle ground, a closing argument when someone tried to tell me women didn’t rock. Here’s an excerpt from the reissue DVD and here’s the song Flower, which was about the boldest thing I’d ever heard a woman sing in 1996.  [via]

• Infoporn: Noise pollution in San Francisco [via]. Also, you might want to check out EveryBlock if it’s available in your metropolis. If it can be tied to your area code, it can be RSS’ed to you, including Craigslistings, Yelp reviews, Flickr photos, and many, many reports of arrests for rock cocaine possession.
• Anil Dash – the Jay-Z of blogging – wrote a very interesting piece on Bill Gates and his philanthropic work:

Bill Gates has pulled off one of the greatest hacks in technology and business history, by turning Microsoft’s success into a force for social responsibility. Imagine imposing a tax on every corporation in the developed world, collecting $100 per white-collar worker per year, and then directing one third of the proceeds to curing AIDS and malaria. That, effectively, is what Bill Gates has done.

• I met Nick Douglas very briefly last Friday, and the funniest thing I’ve seen on his blog thus far is The Friends with Benefits Benefit Summary Prospectus. That said, it’s cool to be able to find the best Lifehacker posts quickly and easily, but I was dismayed by the saturation of [this is good]. As funny as Nick is and as much as I like Deadspin I’m kinda grossed out by the Gawker empire these days.
• I’d rather never see the Twitter failwhale again, but this was kinda neat. [via]
• If you have the time to read Foreign Policy articles and the budget to afford them, I’d love to know what’s behind the walls of 12 things the next president must do.
• Finally, nearly every year I go to the hill country outside Austin, Texas, and spend a weekend with two families worth of friends that I’ll have known for 15 years next month. There’s a couple that’s part of this platoon that hasn’t been able to make in the past couple times I’ve been, in part because my friend Jana has been battling Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I’ll understand if you don’t want to read about it; I’m not sure why I’m linking to it. But Dr. and Mr. Reynolds, I’m thinking of you guys and I know you will pull through.

Enjoy the 4th, everyone. I’ll be trying to enjoy the great outdoors without a sense of entitlement or assumptions, with some really good friends, and fixing to find some new revenue streams.