Motel de Moka: It's like having a rotating pool of personal FMU deejay-bots serving up tasty platters of gumbo ya ya-- free-form in the best sense of the word, i.e. defying the second law of thermodynamics to create higher order out of the musical soup. Worthy of Rob Weisberg, I declare! And best of all, they leave behind a CD-R of the playlist.

For a while, I downloaded all of the content obsessively and organized it into an iTunes playlist, but it gradually dawned on me that doing so is really contrary to the spirit of the enterprise, right?

Back in my rocker days, I collaborated with a guy who recorded every practice and performance of our bands, frequently both audio and video recordings, and I used to joke that, at some point, there wouldn't be hours enough remaining in our lifetimes to review everything that had been committed to tape. And why would you want to do that, even if it were possible? The eternal conflict between creation and the nostalgia for what has already been created...

My son has a puzzle of the solar system that he loves to put together. Occasionally, I'll watch him at the task, and share in his joy as he finishes the puzzle triumphantly. Of course, I want us to revel in his triumph for a little while, but he has other plans: he immediately sets about pulling it apart so that he can put it back together again.

It's that time of year in Austin when the brutal heat, lack of rain, and general torpidity combine to create an olfactory minefield in certain parts of town, particularly on the periphery of Town Lake, where my son and I jog in the early evenings (well, I jog-- my son simply kicks back in the jog stroller). I'm not sure about the mechanics of it, but I can only assume that, as the amount of water available in the sewer system drops, certain things fester longer...

However, describing the underlying conditions and processes that result in such hyperpungency is not the reason for this post; rather, it's the fact that sewage smells differently in different parts of the world. I've spent some time in Japan and Singapore and the smell of sewage wafting up from below has a distinctly different odor than the smell of sewage here in the US (I might add that, in my experience, you're far more likely to smell sewage in the US and in Asia than in most European cities, with the exception of certain Metro stops in Paris...). I have no idea why this is the case, and a couple of quick Google searches have made me none the wiser. Could it be due to differences in diet? Differences in treatment processes? If you happen to have any knowledge about this, I'd appreciate it if you were to drop me a line...

"The key to Marvin as a supporting actor is that he manages to be menacing and unpredictable even when he's playfully sending up the conventions of the genre, doing his own jazzy thing."

"LONDON - NBC News has learned that U.S. and British authorities had a significant disagreement over when to move in on the suspects in the alleged plot to bring down trans-Atlantic airliners bound for the United States.

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports."

Hat tip to Talking Points Memo and Crooks and Liars.