If you're unfamiliar, The Protomen are a band that has been around for 20 years - starting out as a concept band about the Megaman videogame series but evolving into a band writing high concept songs about dystopian worlds, fascist leadership, oppressive technology and trying to pursue hope through it all. They also wear some awesome silver makeup.

They released their first album back in 2005 - an album that could not be more about Megaman, quite literally. The followup, Act II: The Father of Death, served as a prequel and injected a lot of liberties into the storyline. It was great growth to see. And everyone expected even bigger things from Act III, the grand summation of the tale as promised by the band. But.. it never came. Years passed and the band kept saying work was underway but no one heard the fruits of that labor. They released a Queen tribute concert, a score to a stageplay, a compilation of covers but no Act III. In 2015 - ten years ago - they released two new songs from Act 3. Hope emerged. In 2022, another song. Could it be possible? On Oct 3, 2025 - the band announced Act III: This City Made Us will be released on January 9, 2026. Seventeen years between Act 2 and Act 3 but they actually did it. They are slowly rolling out the record two songs at a time, really letting fans savor in it. This also encourages poking around to see additional art.

I can't wait to hear the entire record in full and have already ordered my copy of the CD. I'm sure I'll order the vinyl whenever they make that, too. The artwork is by John DeLucca and Caspar Newbolt - longtime artwork collaborators to the band. I've no doubt they created an immersive package to contain the record.

The Protomen have never really stopped releasing music but they created a very high bar for themselves with Act 3. As a fan, I'm glad they stepped up to the challenge and saw it through.

I've been a longtime fan of Makeup and Vanity Set (and even had the chance to help release some of his music and his collaborations). Over the last few years he has withdrawn from social media. Frankly, I respect it! He's got a family. He's got a very busy music-making schedule. And a lot of it is toxic or just a hassle. This retreat also has the benefit of creating some real surprises when he drops something new.

Case in point, he just "Daikatana" - a new single from his collaborative project Wavefinder (in conjuction with Sferro). There was probably a way for me to know about this before it dropped but I was completely ignorant. The song is great and the surprise drop was an extra treat. Win win.

TDLR: new music you should hear.

I recently realized that the last bit of personal / job news I provided here on the site was about IAC divesting from Mosaic. Back in 2023 I left Vimeo after 11 years and started at Mosaic; trying something new with app development. A few months later the company was sold to Bending Spoons - a surprise to myself and many others. I never mentioned that I later got work at a different app shop and stayed there for a year setting up a new suite of apps. I also never mentioned that I left it after a year because of a bad fit.

I really haven't mentioned that I landed a new role at Uscreen. This is a subscription video platform helping creators power their busines. It is quite similar to the work I did at Vimeo OTT / VHX but a bit more focused on community minded sellers. I'm 8 days in and it's a blast so far. Familiar but entirely fresh too. I still think about my Vimeo crew quite often and miss working with them but I've got a great feeling about these Uscreen folks.

I don't add too many personal updates here but for big events, it's worth noting. Now you know!

As an aside, it's worth noting that Vimeo is also being acquired by Bending Spoons. Strange coincident or are they just eating the world??

I mentioned this quite recently but Trash Man (Alex Mojaverian) has a new EP out today called Cool Until It's Not. It's a big riff blast of rock seeped in existential ponderings. You can find it on Bandcamp, Ampwall, Spotify, Apple Music, et al. It's also available on blue cassette! We did not make a ton of these, so if you want one - snag one!

Trash Man is also playing a release show here in Nashville on Oct 15th at Vinyl Tap. It's gonna be good and it's totally free!

Enjoy!

I have only recently become a regular viewer of longtime YouTube channel vlogbrothers but I do consider myself a "fan." This latest piece really got me pondering. I have waffled back and forth many times - do I agree with this sentiment or not? Do I disagree simply because of the emotional connections I foster or because it's not practically true? I'm still not sure.

In this video, Hank Green compares Ghost Towns to The Web - proposing The Web is Going to Die. There are countless examples of abandoned destinations online - Geocities, Homestar Runner, Vine, NeoPets. We've all seen vacant YouTube accounts and social media that hasn't been updated in years. Twitter became X, effectively jettisoning an entire destination. I even have created my own with Whiskerino and its ilk. Much like physical ghost towns, these places exist but they're devoid of life.

Specifically, Hank says:

And now with the way content can make itself, I wonder what keeps the web alive? The decentralized place where anyone can create a little forum or a blog. The web is becoming a ghost town where we visit to remember the structure that used to exist, what life used to be like, how things used to be shaped.

I want to disagree with that quote - The Web is vibrant! The Web is still full of life! But, realistically, the web is at best second tier to social media. Why bounce around the world wide web when you can just tap through an infinite number of stories? It feels safe to say that majority of people online are primarily using social media, no?

The pedantic nerd in me wants to point out that Homestar Runner, Geocities or even Twitter should not be categorized as "The Web." They're on The Web, not the foundational structure itself. But that's getting lost in unnecessary detail. The core notion here is that it takes real effort to partake in The Web these days. Even if you're armed with an RSS reader, it's not likely to be your primary vehicle of entertainment or education. I still don't think The Web has been fully supplanted by social media but that's not what he's saying - he's just saying he can see the directionality of it.

I remember building my first AOL website when I was a young teenager. That's three decades ago. I have a serious fondness for The Web and its decentralized nature. I love that I can make whatever I want on it, with the right research. Or that I can simply stumble on to something inspiring, ridiculous or thought provoking without an algorithm feeding it to me. I'm not ready to write a eulogy for The Web yet but it's certainly interesting to realize we are at the crossroads of change.

Last year at this time, yk Records and Trash Man teamed up to release Moment of Bleakness, an EP of rock songs that were all blasts of infectious goodness. I think the longest song is roughly 2minutes, 30 seconds.

This year, we're doing it again! Trash Man's new EP, Cool Until It's Not, will be released October 10th. It'll be available as a download, as a blue cassette and, of course, streaming. There are two preview singles available now and it'll take you less than 5 minutes to watch them both. Less than 4 minutes!

The first is "Eventually," a track that ponders the brevity of our time on Earth while Trash Man makes a hoagie from scratch. Existential crisis' and sandwiches go surprisingly well together. The second is the title track which remarks on the outlandish idea - what if everything isn't going to be OK?

Both topics are fairly heavy to read about here in blog form but each track is infectiously listenably and highly enjoyable.

More than ever, a little levity is a welcome gift. Maybe a lot of levity? Here's a bunch of treats for you that I hope bring that for you.

• Knorr Soup Schloup - sometimes an ad emerges online that is absolute perfection. Both pure joy and pure terror. No notes.
• James Brown's Japanese Miso Soup Commercials - speaking of soup commercials, here's a pair of classics.
• 2001 Nissin Milk Seafood Noodles - speaking of classic Japanese commercials. Nothing will ever top ole Cheesieboy and Pepperman. Well, maybe this? Tough competition.
• The Legend of Beavis - can you mix footage from The LEgend of Zelda cartoon and Beavis? Turns out the answer is, "Yes, perfectly." Huge props to KhalidSMShahin for the amount of work this must have taken. I know ten minutes is long for a Friday vid but if you enjoy a Beavis, this hits the right spot.
• Introducing A Toilet In The 18th Century - I'm happy Mitchell & Webb are back with a new series, mostly because I'm always on board to see David Mitchell be impatient, incredulous and perturbed.
• Your neighbor is playing DK Bananza at 3am - silly but amusing.
• LinuxCon Worldwide 2021 - so many Linux jokes I do not get but I appreciate the execution.
• Tom Jones & Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - can you mix Tom Jones with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young? Turns out the answer is, "Yes, perfectly."

I put the Knorr soup guy on a loop. I can watch it forever.

I don't consider myself a Nirvana completionist by any stretch of the imagination. I'm of the age where Nevermind was a big deal. I'm also of the personality type that I certainly listened to as many b-sides as I could get my hands on (hi, "Marigold"). But I've never heard From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah nor thought for a moment about picking up any anniversary boxsets. After Cobain passed away, I moved along and was happy with my level of fandom.

Ironically, that lack of interest paid of! This Live at the Paramount concert popped up in my YouTube feed the other day and I was quite intrigued. A 70-minute show from Halloween 1991, filmed in 16mm and performed just four weeks after Nevermind was released?! Incredible!

Turns out it was released back in 2011 as part of a Nevermind anniversary release and I was just completely ignorant to its existence. Whoops! Regardless, my brain is ready for a revisit on this material and maybe yours is too.

I rewatched Mars Attacks! the other night for the first time in maybe 15 years. If you are somehow unfamiliar - it's a 1996 comedy directed by Tim Burton with absolutely perfect special effects and an absurdly stacked cast. It's silly, it's absurd, it's great. Go watch it.

One thing that had not registered with me previously* was the opening credit that the film was based on a series of Topp trading cards of the same name. Browsing through the set, it's impressive how much they took from the card stories. There's plenty left out but the martian & saucer designer are spot on. The shrinking ray. The robot suit. Even the idea that the aliens are enjoyable watching from afar was in the cards!

If you haven't seen the film in awhile, it's a fun browse to augment your viewing.

* OR, I forgot

Ars Technica has this exhaustive article on the emerging Tiny Vinyl format. No, not the 3" Records you may have seen pop up at Record Store Day or in other novelty situations but 4" records manufactured by... Tiny Vinyl.

The article covers every aspect of the process, going as far as to describe as how all vinyl records are made and what challenges face this new format. Primarily, the biggest hurdle is that automated record players can't play them because they take up the same physical space where 12" LPs have a label - so the player assumes it should not play. Maybe bigger still is that the minimum order on records is 2,000 units. Lemme tell ya, that's a giant hurdle for any record company unless you've got the deepest of pockets.

All of those challenges are covered in the article but I can't be mad that companies are continuing to experiment with the format. I have a They Might Be Giants Mini CD for "They'll Need a Crane." Why do I own it? Because it's tiny!

I hope that more companies start to lean towards what Good Neighbor is doing with environmentally friendly processes. Maybe ole Tiny Vinyl and Target can get on board?

Twenty-one minutes of Richard Ayoade talking with the one and only David Letterman - who, surprisingly, seems to be a genuine fan of Ayoade. It's good chat. Full stop.

It's also an abbreviated chat. It seems to cut off mid-sentence on Ayoade! But don't worry, there's a Part 2 that lets you continue the goods.

As a random sidebar, this is also a bit of a testament to the power of YouTube thumbnails and how bad they can be! Maybe this change in the future but the current thumbnail looks like this - some nice type with some quote bubbles around it. If you are cruising YouTube in 2025, this is barely going to catch your eye. Why not put a still of Letterman and Ayoade in the image? Facial recognition is going to happen quicker than text comprehension. C'mon folks! Who knew I had this rant in me? Certainly not I.

If you're a fan of the art of Nine Inch Nails, you'll likely familiar with the name Rob Sheridan. He played a big part in the visuals of With Teeth, as well as several other albums. I'm partial to his work with How to Destroy Angels.

He's launched a Kickstarter project for a book of his works The Glitch Art of Rob Sheridan. It's $100 for the first edition but I imagine that'll be a small price to pay for the final work. The pitch video is insightful and entertaining - particularly the little easter egg at the end.

There's no shortage of weirdo art kids doing interesting projects in NYC. History is teeming with them. Fortunately, that doesn't make the rate of return any less interesting! Weirdo art kids doing weirdo art things never gets old!

The U-Haul Gallery is the brainchild of James Sundquist and Jack Chase. They rent a U-Haul, put up some fake walls, real art and then illegally park it for anyone to enjoy. This profile encapsulates it quite well.

I am sure U-Haul will eventually catch wind of this and order some sort of cease and desist but there's always Penske.

Lots of designs to enjoy from Sicknik Productions but I'm particularly drawn to this Devil Topstone Mask and Witch Topstone Mask. The textures, the colors, the illustrations - all fantastic.

I'll admit I wasn't that familiar with the term "Topstone Mask" but it's a real vintage mask set that is quite haunting. Seeing the real things makes me enjoy these prints even more.

Here's a rundown of some recent musical enjoyments that I believe you'll also appreciate. I never know if these should be their own individual posts or one megapost. Hit me up if you have an opinion. Regardless, tap through and give yourself a little sample of each.. your future self will appreciate it.

Count Bass D - Bells Majestic
Mostly instrumental album from one of hip hop's finest. I love Count's lyrical albums but there's a special production quality to his instrumental records that can not be denied. He did include a cover of "Maneater" on this one - an outlier among the others that I am sure will be enough to draw folks in. Outside of that, be sure to hear "Hunker Down", "Hear We Grow" and "Affirmative."

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Patrick Cowley - Hard Ware
Patrick Cowley died in 1982 due to AIDS-related illness. Prior to that, he wrote and recorded a lot of music. Tons of synth pop and disco tracks. Since 2009, Dark Entries has been working with his family to unearth and revive that treasure trove of music. The latest in that series is Hard Ware - set for release in mid October. Only one track is available at this time but it's a damn good enticement to pick up the release.

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Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament - Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament
Some years ago I came across the shoegaze band Tape Deck Mountain, the pseudonym of Travis Trevisan. I think he was in NY or San Diego at the time but moved to Nashville at some point. I've followed his work regularly and he's become involved in many other projects; including this new four piece. It's steeped in shoegaze, psych and atmosphere. It's not bombastic or aggressive, it's a wall of sound that envelopes you. I recommend putting on headphones and turning it up. Then turning it up some more.

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Shiner - BELIEVEYOUME
I don't recall when I became a fan of Shiner but they've been in regular rotation for as long as I can remember. Generally when a band breaks up and reforms 9 years later, my pessimism says they won't be able to capture their original magic but the second wave of Shiner has been every bit as enjoyable as the first. BELIEVEYOUME is their sixth album and, judging from the two available songs, it will be every bit as good as their previous five. "Asleep in the Trunk" is sinister, spacey and completely captivating.

Absolutely riveting longread here from retired venture investor Jerry Neumann - AI Will Not Make You Rich. The disruption is real. It's also predictable.

The first two thirds of the piece give a lot of historical context to the waves of innovation we've seen over the last few hundred years and frames up some phases of innovation - Irruption, Frenzy, Synergy and Maturity. I realize in describing this it sounds extremely droll but I was riveted.

The final third tackles this idea:

Let’s grant that generative AI is revolutionary (but also that, as is becoming increasingly clear, this particular tech is now already in an evolutionary stage). It will create a lot of value for the economy, and investors hope to capture some of it. When, who, and how depends on whether AI is the end of the ICT* wave, or the beginning of a new one.

Now, I'm not smart enough or investor-minded enough to say what the answer to that question is but the position that Neumann puts forth is hard to argue with; we're in a maturity phase of technology and not in a phase with massive disruption. Tho, he does state that AI could lead to a new phase. I don't have concrete takeaways here, just an urging for you to go read it.

Comparing AI to the globalization of shipping containers was not something I thought I'd be riveted by but here we are. I think you'll enjoy. Link via jmsdnns.

*ICT = Information and communication technology

Cal Newport posted this short article on Saving Civil Society in the wake of the most recent gun violence activity and I gotta tell you, it's the most concise and good insight I've seen in some time. It will take you 2 minutes to read the entire piece but I'm still going to extract my favorite bit here to preserve it:

We know these [social media] platforms are bad for us, so why are they still so widely used? They tell a compelling story: that all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time.

But this, for the most part, is an illusion. In reality, you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory, while billionaire overseers mock your efforts and celebrate their growing net worths.

After troubling national events, there’s often a public conversation about the appropriate way to respond. Here’s one option to consider: Quit using these social platforms. Find other ways to keep up with the news, or spread ideas, or be entertained. Be a responsible grown-up who does useful things; someone who serves real people in the real world.

To save civil society, we need to end our decade-long experiment with global social platforms. We tried them. They became dark and awful. It’s time to move on.

A simple bit of advice that I think, deep down, we all know we should heed. I don't think I could quit using them completely but I can say, without hesitation, that X and Threads are bad for me. I quit X some time ago and I think it's time to pull the plug on Threads.

Much respect to Robert Ashley - host and producer of A Life Well Wasted, one of the finest shows about videogames both in terms of production quality and content covered. The show started in 2009 with six extremely captivating episodes. Another dropped in 2013. Another in 2022. And now, it's back again in 2025 with "Game Over" - an episode that actually catches up on a previous topic and the tumultuous events that have occurred between breaks. Pardon the Apple embed - I have no other good option!

Ashley also makes music as I Come to Shanghai, who have multiple albums also worth your time.

I largely respect that the episode makes no mention of the gap in time between episodes. Ashley owes no explanation but a "typical" podcast would certainly say something to acknowledge the gap. Major respect to him for knowing it's not necessary in the slightest. Just glad to hear a new episode.

The headline really says it all - BogdanTheGeek has figured out how to Host a website on a disposable vape. The blog article is a technical deepdive into the components inside of a vape and how Bogdan was able to put just the right software in place to allow the vape to support serving files over the web.

Even if this sort of information does not appeal to you, you must admit the phrase "Hosting A Website On A Disposable Vape" is something we all needed in our lexicon.