September 2009
17 posts
How to talk to complete idiots / Three basic... →
There are three basic ways to talk to complete idiots. The first is to assail them with facts, truths, scientific data, the commonsensical obviousness of it all. You do this in the very reasonable…
World Domination →
World Domination (Flash animation - click to play)
This is a difficult letter to write / Of course it... →
Stiff joints. Inexplicable pain. Kidney stones. Increased squinting at the tiny type on the bottle of lubricant. Crow’s feet. Too many gray follicular protrusions. Acute increase in recovery time…
Presented By: →
Who's afraid of big black dogs? / It ain't easy... →
Our big, ink-black, stupendously cool, absolutely extraordinary family Labrador was named Shadow, of course, because it was simple and obvious and when you’re seven years old you don’t really know…
Crashiversary →
Crashiversary (Flash animation - click to play)
Greetings, Golden Gate Bridge jumper / Guess who... →
I am, apparently, in deep trouble. I fit the profile. I fit the average and the typical and the increasingly unsettling norm. I apparently contain all the ingredients for the ultimate in fatal and…
Spank me, then let's do lunch / How many... →
In my more subdued moments of delighting in the pathos and adulterous whinings of incalculable greasy right-wing politicians, I oft wonder at the threshold, the limit, if there is some sort of karmic…
RSS Links Widget →
The Happiness Engineers had a great time in London last week. We worked on some cool projects and came up with a lot of great ideas. We’ll bring more updates to you over the coming weeks…
Balms Away →
Balms Away (Flash animation - click to play)
America: Arms dealer to the stars! / Who's the... →
And then along comes one of those stories that makes you cringe down to your very core, that makes you see our semi-fine nation and the world around it through a bleak and unforgiving lens indeed. No…
After the Deadline Live for WP.com →
Last week you guys published 1.4 million new blog posts, but you only ran the spell checker about 204 thousand times. Ahem. The two possible explanations for this are that we’re all…
RSS in the Clouds →
Clouds from my trip to WordCamp Dallas
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it’s a way for people to subscribe to updates to your blog using a client like Google Reader…
The end of monster sushi / Soon, no more giant... →
It won’t be long now. That’s what they say, the people in the know about such things, the people who track the various crashing fish stocks in the abused and plastic-swarmed oceans of the world….
August Wrap-Up →
I’m back in San Francisco after a trip to London for the Happiness Engineer meetup. It’s serious business, but the group has managed to have a little fun along the way.
Our…
Cash-for-Karzai →
Cash-for-Karzai (Flash animation - click to play)
The psycho rapist freakshow conundrum / The Dugard... →
As a passionately jaded observer of news media and the insane human spectacle it is so painfully wont to wallow in, I find there are always a number of choices when it comes to analyzing something…
August 2009
19 posts
The life lessons of Burning Man / Is there... →
As I’ve been lured back to the sweltering, dusty sexed-up madness that is Burning Man again this year — my sixth time — by a gaggle of delicious friends, I am hereby reminded of a few hundred…
Support Hours and Updates →
In the coming week, the Support crew (seen among the lovely faces here) will be meeting in London to brainstorm new ways of providing you with the resources you need. While us Happiness…
Presented By: →
Dogboy & Mr. Dan →
Dogboy & Mr. Dan (Flash animation - click to play)
The young lion goes to Vegas / Can you hear the... →
This is what you already know: Some things never change. This is the other thing you already know: What a glorious, preposterous conceit of man to think we are so separate from, so far above and…
Down with crab cakes! Ban Whole Foods! / On the... →
So it is that the latest absurd micro-furor comes down the pipeline of misplaced lefty outrage, a rather bizarre eruption of wrath aimed at poor little John Mackey, humble and wacky CEO of saintly…
New Theme: Sandbox 1.6.1 →
Sandbox 1.6.1 is now available to all WordPress.com blogs.
Alongside Sandbox 1.6.1 you’ll also find the older Sandbox versions. We’ve left them intact. If you’ve been using them, don’t worry,…
Rage-Ex →
Rage-Ex (Flash animation - click to play)
All depression to end by 2025 / Entire nation to... →
Hey, want a fun thing to do when you’re just sittin’ ‘round the zeitgeist, waiting for a bolt of enlightenment or maybe just the apocalypse to rain down destruction and locusts and Godspit on your…
Dick Cheney rolls in his grave / Of course, he's... →
Did you feel that? That sickly sort of rolling wave, that disquieting, genital-shriveling temblor of seething grumpiness that swept through the land and made dogs spasm, trees shudder and giant SUVs…
SoundCloud →
We are big fans of SoundCloud, a really useful service that is part Flickr for music, part professional music collaboration hub. Artists such as Beck, Moby and Sonic Youth now use the…
WP.me — shorten your links →
Check out this address:
http://wp.me/sf2B5-shorten
If you visit it, you’ll end up right back here. The nice thing about it is that it’s a short link, about 70% smaller than the …
New Theme: iNove →
iNove by mg12 is one of the top themes used for self-hosted WordPress blogs, and a commonly requested addition to our offerings here on WordPress.com. We’re always doing what we can to…
Reform Madness →
Reform Madness (Flash animation - click to play)
Marijuana, gateway drug to Jesus / Does pot lead... →
Behold! I believe I have found it, a flawless specimen, a place where it all collides and coheres and comes together in a madcap, slapdash, whirlwind hellstorm of entirely bogus hype and spin and…
10 amazing truths you already suspected / Go... →
Let’s start out easy. How about a big, dumb, obvious, forehead-slapper of an of-course-you-already-knew, shall we? 1) Let’s start with, say, tanning beds. Turns out they cause cancer like a mofo. I…
Law & Disorder →
Law & Disorder (Flash animation - click to play)
July Wrap-Up →
We kicked off July with an open vote on new media features. Thanks to all of you who voted and submitted comments. Your feedback determines the future of WordPress.
Later in the month we…
Jesus fears your Facebook profile / Social... →
Another day, another slightly confused, curmudgeonly older white male stepping out from behind the drab, heavy curtain of a massive, dying religious dogma haunted by millennia of abuse and homophobia…
July 2009
22 posts
Change you can freak out about / Or: How parkland... →
This is the amazing thing about rabid global economic recessions combined with volatile environmental collapses combined with a tasty national identity crisis combined with a truly historic,…
Archives Shortcode →
You publish a lot of quality content (trust us, we know). And so we understand that making it easily accessible to your faithful readers is very important for you as a blogger. Sure, our …
Beer →
Beer (Flash animation - click to play)
Republican nutball fringe wants you! / The... →
These are the kinds of things that ooze into your mind and infect your consciousness like some sort of unwelcome but fascinating worm, a cute little parasite you didn’t notice for the longest time…
God is not your bitch / This just in: It is hugely... →
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, still clinging to office after admitting to an extramarital affair, wrote in an opinion piece released Sunday that God will change him so he can emerge from the…
Healthy →
Healthy (Flash animation - click to play)
Gravatar Widget →
Say goodbye to messing around with HTML in a Text widget just to get an “About Me” in your sidebar. With the new Gravatar widget it only takes a few seconds to achieve this and stamp…
The evolution of hate mail / They had it in the... →
So I’m up at the family summer lakehouse getaway in northern Idaho recently, and tucked way back in a rear guest bathroom for years and years is this quirky little novelty book of the kind my mother…
PollDaddy ratings and polls →
PollDaddy joined the Automattic team last year, and we have been working on adding some of our great features directly into the WordPress platform ever since.
Ratings
The PollDaddy rating…
Me and my 5,000 Facebook friends / What happens... →
There were no bells, just so you know. There were no alarms or whistles or charming notifiers, no clowns or sparklers or strippers, not even a measly congratulatory phone call from the zippycute…
Jobless Jack →
Jobless Jack (Flash animation - click to play)
One big multivitamin orgasm / One to make you... →
It cannot be too much to ask. It cannot be too much to require, in this damnable godless hellstorm wide-open eat-you-alive multitasking firebreathing global culture, that some brilliant mad…
Don't go, Sarah Palin! / A nation turns its lonely... →
I know, I know, we all said we were entirely sick to death of you, Sarah, never wanted to hear another folksy, semi-coherent peep, were hugely grateful that you had mercifully receded like a perky…
Presented By: →