#24: 30,000 Votes, Message in a Bottle, & Robots in Disguise.

First off, Nina's too modest to toot her own horn, but a few days ago she finished the painting on the right, a commission for a painting of a client's cat. It's one of my favorite paintings of hers, so I thought I'd share it here. On the art tip, NPR had a great segment the other day about the fate of the over 600,000 pieces of privately owned art that were looted by the Nazis during WWII.

As I'm typing this, we're receiving vote 30,000 on our site, which means that we're 3% through this crazy project of ours. Some perspective: our current President only received 21,256 votes in Washington, D.C. when he ran for re-election in 2004. I'm tempted to make a joke about our approval ratings, but I'll refrain (oh wait, I just did). Anyhow, this increased voting rate has me wondering when the 1,000,000th vote will be tallied. Perhaps we should start a betting pool?

Speaking of actual governmental elections, yesterday I discovered this page on The Washington Post's site. The U.S. Congress Votes Database allows you to see how every member of Congress voted on every single issue throughout their career. It's wonderful to see all the ways in which the internet is empowering voters. And please, if you haven't already, register to vote--there's still time!

This story about a little girl who has twice successfully sent messages in a bottle (including one from Scotland to New Zealand) is a little cutesy, I know, but it's a nice reminder of the spirit of childhood.

We've been listening to a British/German duo called Robots in Disguise for a few years now--I sometimes find myself wanting to listen to them when we're out and about and it's getting a little too late in the evening. There's a rough edge to their songs which lends itself to that time of night. Unfortunately, I think their records are only available as imports in the U.S. Here's the video for "Argument":



There's a lot to be said for how they capture the basic ridiculousness and circularity of fights ("You always... You never...") in a manner that is both keen and playful. Great track.

xoxox
Danny