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Banned Books Week

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It’s the final days of 27th annual Banned Books Week here in the US. Created by the American Library Association, the event was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries.

Since 2001 bans on 3,736 books and other materials have been requested. And according to the ALA, there were more than 500 “challenges” to specific books in schools, stores, and libraries reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2008.

In solidarity with this student who is running an banned book library out of an empty locker at her school, I thought I would post this list of the top ten most challenged books for each year back to 2001. A link to their Amazon page is included so you can collect them all or buy copies for your local library or school.

2008

  1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
    Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
  2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
    Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence
  3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
  4. Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
    Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence
  5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
    Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, and violence
  6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group
  7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
  8. Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
    Reasons: homosexuality and unsuited to age group
  9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
    Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
  10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
    Reasons: sexually explicit and unsuited to age group

…

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Definitive List Of The 99 Things You Should Have Already Experienced On The Internet (+10)

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Greg Rutter has created a definitive list of the 99 things you should have already experienced on the internet unless you’re a loser or old or something. At the end are ten additional ones that I thought should be added.

01) Grape Stomp
02) Charlie Bit Me
03) Chocolate Rain
04) Dancing Baby
05) Post Secret
06) Charlie The Unicorn
07) Mentos and Diet Coke
08) Numa Numa
09) Peanut Butter Jelly Time
10) George Lucas In Love
11) You’re The Man Now Dog
12) Yatta
13) Star Wars Kid
14) Bubb Rubb
15) The Flying Spaghetti Monster
16) Dramatic Chipmunk
17) Homestar Runner
18) GI Joe Pork Chop Sandwiches
19) Fail Blog
20) Skateboarding Dog
21) All Your Base Are Belong To Us
22) Winnebago Man
23) We Like The Moon
24) I Can Has Cheezburger
25) Barney Vs. Tupac
26) Shining
27) Cute Overload
28) Rick Roll
29) Lazy Sunday
30) David After The Dentist
31) Powerthirst
32) Christian The Lion
33) Bert and Ernie Rap
34) Lady Punch
35) Leprechaun in Alabama
36) Where The Hell Is Matt
37) Boom Goes The Dynamite
38) Breakdancing Baby
39) Drunk Jeff Goldblum
40) Scarlet Takes A Tumble
41) Sepultura – Refuse resist (cover) By Gauchos
42) Gay Mount Everest
43) Afro Ninja
44) Cop Shoots Himself In Leg In Classroom
45) Tron Guy
46) “Leave Britney Alone”
47) Laughing Baby
48) I’m the Juggernaut Bitch
49) The Chairperson Falls
50) Take On Me The Literal Version
51) Bill O’Reilly Flips Out
52) Don’t Tase Me Bro
53) The Landlord
54) Breakdancing Baby Kick
55) The Pet Penguin
56) Ms. South Carolina Answers A Question
57) I’m F*#king Matt Damon
58) Will It Blend
59) Spaghetti Cat
60) Tom Cruise Kills Oprah
61) Tom Cruise Scientology Video
62) Chad Vader
63) Pretty Much Everywhere It’s Going To Be Hot
64) I Like Turtles
65) Who Needs A Movie
66) Jake E. Lee Shreds
67) Hawaii Chair
68) Aussie Party
69) Hitler Plans Burning Man
70) Flirting with Magic
71) Look At The Horse
72) Asian Backstreet Boys
73) Leroy Jenkins
74) Pinky The Cat
75) Monkey Sniffs Finger
76) Sneezing Panda
77) Prison Inmates remake “Thriller”
78) Techno Viking
79) Ask A Ninja
80) Best Man Trips and Ruins Wedding
81) Best Wedding Toast Ever (Amy’s Song)
82) Kitten Surprise (how to break up a cat fight)
83) Katana Sword Infomercial Goes Wrong
84) Matrix Ping Pong
85) La Pequeña Prohibida
86) Angry German Kid (translated)
87) Evolution of Dance
88) Ok Go – “Here It Goes Again”
89) Battle at Kruger (lions vs. buffalos vs. crocodiles)
90) Daft Hands
91) Human Beatbox
92) Most T-Shirts Worn At Once
93) Zero G Dog
94) Cuppy Cakes Song
95) George Washington
96) Scary Maze Prank
97) Gay Referee
98) Tranquilized Bear Hits Trampoline
99) Reporter Gets A Fly In The Mouth

An Additional 10 Websites that seemed missing from the above list:
100) Leek Spin
101) Nintendo Sixty-Fooooooooooour
102) Fighting Giraffes
103) IED Close Up
104) Little Superstar
105) Banana Phone
106) Badgerbadgerbadger
107) QVC Ladder Blooper
108) Drinking Out Of Cups
109) Artifacting

Bonus NSFW Links
01) Meat Spin
02) Two Girls One Cup
03) Goatse (mirror)
04) Lemon Party

Also pretty funny is that hidden in the source code, Greg has this to say about his list:

Check the facts shithead. This isn’t some half assed attempt to blow your fucking mind. This is a bold, desperate, and awe-inspiring attempt to cover you with your own brain matter. I’m talking full on inside-out head act. The doctors will look at you and go ‘hmm, the brain is on the outside, then some veins, then the skull, and then the face is on the inside’. I’m trying to give you something on par with viewing God for the first time. Your eyes will melt and your heart will turn into glass. Some fucked up shit. Now start scrolling through the big list and stop reading my code, nerd.

Seven Facts

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I’m definitely not too cool for a meme. If anything memes are too cool for me. But Bree over at Sweet & Bitter went ahead and tagged me for this one, apparently because my steeze smells good or something.

The whole idea is to tell you seven (hopefully interesting) things about me. Here are the rules:

  1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
  2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
  3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
  4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

Depending on who is reading this, you already know everything about me or you know nothing about me, so this might be tricky. I’ll do my best. I did something very similar to this two years ago. Go check it out if you want to get caught up. Now, without further ado…

  1. I’d rather be too hot than too cold.
  2. In elementary school I played trombone. Unfortunately my arms were too short to fully extend the trombone outward to reach the lowest bass note. As a result, the slide would continually fly off the horn and hit the first chair trumpet in the back. She was never pleased. This didn’t last long though – only about a year.
  3. I was once a carny. I worked the “Throw A Dart, Pop A Balloon” booth.
  4. My karaoke repertoire includes: “Back in Black” by AC/DC (which by the way, if I had my druthers, would play anytime I walked into a room full of people), “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” by Bonnie Tyler (always with a female friend), “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee (I’ve actually pulled this duet off solo before, it wasn’t pretty), and pretty much anything by Wings.
  5. I don’t necessarily hate Art Garfunkle, but I definitely don’t like him.
  6. For the most part, I have lived in Colorado all of my life.
  7. I have a chip in one of my front teeth acquired while showing off, of course. As a kid I lifted my bike above my head. That would be the showing off part. I then released the bike from that height, letting it free fall. After landing on it’s wheels it bounced straight back upwards. It the punched me in the face.

I’m going to go ahead and skip parts three and four of this meme because you are clearly too cool for this.

2008: The Year In Blogging

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Readership here has steadily increased over 2008. Below is a graph of my total number of absolute unique readers which totaled 104,026 throughout the year. I have no idea why there a sudden drop off in August. I also have no idea what caused the huge spike in November 11th.

The top ten referring sites to Artifacting (with search engines removed) during 2008 were:

Below is a chart of referrals to Artifacting throughout 2008:
Referring Sites 2008

Below are the top ten most visited posts published in 2007:

General stats for Artifacting are as follows:
Posts 989
Categories 65
Comments 3,610

2008: The Year In Cities & Towns

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Taking a cue from Jason Kottke, this is a list of cities and towns I’ve visited in 2008. One or more nights spent in each place. Those cities marked with an * were visited multiple times on non-consecutive days. Travel for me this year was probably slightly above average for my life. None of my traveling was for work last year, it was all for leisure and fun.

Vail, CO
Edwards, CO*
Denver, CO*
Niwot, CO*
Frisco, CO
Breckenridge, CO
Henryetta, OK
Tulsa, OK
Salt Lake City, UT
Philadelphia, PA
Napa Valley, CA
Santa Cruz, CA
Big Sur, Ca
San Luis Obispo, CA
Los Angeles, CA
Laguna, CA
La Jolia, CA
Jacksonville, FL

2008: The Year In Music

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According to last.fm these are the bands that I listened to most during 2008. There are a few bands that were also on last years list, namely Ween and Modest Mouse, however both have slid down in there positioning.

    1. Ween (4th last year)
    2. The Beatles (9th last year)
    3. Nirvana
    4. Pixies
    5. Peter Tosh
    6. Gomez
    7. Built To Spill
    8. Neutral Milk Hotel
    9. Pennywise
    10. The Raconteurs

Below is a wave graph of the top 75 artists that I listened to over the last year (click for a larger image). It’s a great way to visualize the trends in my listening habits throughout the year. And it sure is purty.
2008 Wave Graph

And these are the songs I listened to most:

    1. The Raconteurs – Together
    2. Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
    3. The Raconteurs – Intimate Secretary
    4. Ween – She’s Your Baby
    5. Peter Tosh – Get Up, Stand Up
    6. Nirvana – About A Girl (Home Recording)
    7. The Raconteurs – Yellow Sun
    8. Pixies – Alec Eiffel
    9. Built To Spill – Goin’ Against Your Mind
    10. The Rolling Stones – She’s So Cold

As far as live music goes, here are my 2008 top four:
1. Ween
2. Bishop Allen / The Republic Tigers / Electric Owls
3. Widespread Panic
4. The Police / Elvis Costello And The Impostors

Last.fm is the service I use to track my listening habits. I’m always trying to discover new music so please go ahead and friend me over at last.fm.

And if you are really bored you can check out my Twones account which tracks all of my music listening on Hypemachine, MySpace, Youtube, and Favtape.

Acceptance Speech Word Visualizations

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Above are the word clouds for the acceptance speeches from Obama and McCain (on top for you colorblind readers) that I created using Wordle. The larger the word, the more often it was said by each candidate. I think both the words “promise” and “fight” are too large for any candidate this time around.

The New York Times does a great job of visually distilling the acceptance speeches. I think of particular note is the fact that Rudy Giuliana (of all people) saying, “Of great concern to me, during those same four days in Denver, they rarely mentioned the attacks of September 11, 2001.” The total count of the time the phrase “September 11th” was said by Obama: 2, by McCain: 0.

The Official Comprehensive List Of Slurpee Flavors

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Today is July 11th. That means it’s 7-11. And that means it’s free Slurpee day. It is also supposed to get up 99 degrees in Denver today, so the timing couldn’t be better. Take note of the flavors in the store you went to and add it to the SlurpeeFlavors.com Flavor Map. Below is a comprehensive list of current (and past) Slurpee flavors. If you know of a flavor I’m missing, put it in the comments and I’ll add it to the list. Be careful out there kids.

Slurpee Flavors
7-Up
7-Up Green
7-Up Ice
7-Up Tropical
Amp Energy Freeze
Artic Burst
Banana
Banana Split
Black Cherry
Black Pina Colada
Blue Berry Blast
Blue Meanie (Australia Only)
Blue Raspberry Rush
Blue Shock
Blue Vanilla
Blue Woo Hoo! Vanilla
Bruisin’ Berry
Bruisin’ Berry Grape
Bubble Yum
Bumblebee Blast
Café Latte
Candy Cane
Cherry Coke
Citrus Splash
Code Red
Coke
Coke Classic
Cotton Candy
Cranberry Sprite
Cream Soda (Barq’s)
Crystal Light Berry Pomegranate (Sugar Free)
Crystal Light Cherry Limeaide (Sugar Free)
Crystal Light Orange Pineapple Ice (Sugar Free)
Crystal Light Passionfruit (Sugar Free)
Crystal Light Peach Mango Fusion (Sugar Free)
Crystal Light Raspberry Ice (Sugar Free)
Crystal Light Strawberry Banana (Sugar Free)
Crystal Light Tangerine Lime (Sugar Free)
Diet Pepsi
Dr. Pepper
Fanta Banana
Fanta Birch Beer
Fanta Blue Cherry
Fanta Blue Raspberry
Fanta Ginger Ale
Fanta Grape
Fanta Green Lemon Lime
Fanta Green Melon
Fanta Kiwi Strawberry
Fanta Mandarin Tangerine
Fanta Orange
Fanta Orange Cream
Fanta Pina Colada
Fanta Pineapple
Fanta Purple Berry Cherry
Fanta Raspberry
Fanta Red Licorice
Fanta Super Sour Apple
Fanta Super Sour Cherry
Fanta Super Sour Watermelon
Fanta Vanilla
Fanta Watermelon
Fanta White Cherry
Fanta Wild Cherry
Fanta Wild Cherry Reduced Calorie
Frawg
French Vanilla
Full Throttle Blue Demon
Full Throttle Frozen Blast
Game Fuel
Grape
Grapefruit
Grapermelon
Green Apple
Gully Washer
Hawaiian Punch
Hawaiian Punch Fruit Juicy Red
Hawaiian Punch Green Berry Rush
Honeycomb
Iced Tea
Jolly Rancher Sour Apple
Kryptonite Ice
Lemonador
Licorice
Lime
Liquid Artillery
Livewire Orange
Mango Bango
Margarita
Mellow Yellow
Minute Maid Blue Cherry
Minute Maid Blue Raspberry
Minute Maid Blueberry
Minute Maid Cherry
Minute Maid Grape
Minute Maid Lemonade
Minute Maid Orange
Minute Maid Passionfruit Orange
Minute Maid Peach
Minute Maid Pineapple
Minute Maid Raspberry
Minute Maid Strawberry
Mocha Chocolate
Monster Black Ice
Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew Blue Lightning/Shock
Mountain Dew LiveWire
Mountain Dew Pitch Black
Orange
Orange-Pineapple
Pepsi
Pepsi Blue
Pepsi Samba
Pina Colada
Pineapple
Pitch Black Grape
Powerade Ice
Purple S-cream
Radiation Rush
Raspberry Crystal Light
Red Cherry
Rootbeer
Rootbeer (Barq’s)
Shrekalicious
Sierra Mist
Slurpucchino
Slurpurita Pomegranate
SnowBawls (Bawls)
Sobe Citrus
Sour Peach
Sour Strawberry
Sour Watermelon
Sprite
Sprite Ice
StawberrWii Banana
Strawberry
Strawberry Banana
Strawberry Cream
Strawberry-Kiwi
Tropical Punch
Tropicana Twister Berry
Twizzlers Strawberry
Vanilla Coke
What-a-melon
Wild Cherry Pepsi

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