I’ve written here in the past about the ever-popular website Cute Overload that posts photographs of ridiculously cute animals—usually baby ones—that people sit in their cubicles and coo over. But where one trail is blazed, others are soon to follow, and riding on the coattails of Cute Overload comes the semi-spoof website, Ugly Overload. I […]

The first time I became aware that pre-fab housing could be something other than disgusting was a number of years back when the magazine Dwell sponsored a pre-fab home design competition, then sold—through the magazine—the winning blueprints. Since then, the idea of mass-producing good design (think Apple tech design applied to architecture) has fascinated me. […]

YouTube proper may primarily be the domain of lowbrow workplace procrastination outlets along the lines of “Obama Girl” or “My Son Is Gay,” but a little bird just alerted me to the VIP section of YouTube and, as in the real world, a little selectivity goes a long way. The YouTube Screening Room may not […]

This column is susceptible to nothing if not to accusations of extreme nerdiness, and the site I want to point you in the direction of today is no different. Fortunately for you, there’s a significant population of Charlottesville who will actually find this site quite useful. There’s a fair number of professors, researchers, students and […]

When I think about the three things I would want if left alone on a desert island, my first thought is: “A sense of humor.” I would also need my one true love, and either an endless supply of alcohol or water (it’s a tough decision between the two when faced with spending the rest […]

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who care about fonts and those who have never heard of such a ridiculous thing as caring about fonts. Those who care about fonts care passionately. For example, my father’s font is Helvetica; my friend Abbye’s font is Garamond; my friend Bridget’s font is Book […]

Every week, I consider writing up something about the Huffington Post for this column, and every week I postpone it because, I tell myself, “It can wait. The HuffPo is a perennial.” And it’s true: “HuffPo” (as those in the know refer to it) is a good read for Internet newsies, 24/7/365. Its readability does […]

It’s probably common knowledge that the two best places to catch up on your light reading are the bathroom and the office. Any bathroom worth its salt has somewhere among its various reading materials a copy of Our Dumb World: The Onion’s Atlas of Planet Earth, which patient bathroom-goers can flip through as they wait […]

The other day the old “Have you read…?” “You should read…” “Let me loan you…” conversation started up at a friend’s barbeque, when our gracious host announced that she never loans books, she simply gives them away. Another friend then piped up that there was a website in existence that fostered exactly that road to […]

The Gawker Media empire gets a lot of attention from the media. Why, just the other week, former Gawker editor Emily Gould was sprawled out in a “Come hither” pose on the cover of The New York Times Magazine. And yet, I think it’s time the youngest member of Gawker Media (the Condé Nast of […]