New feature on Google Maps

Now offering virtual street view. Watch the goofy demo here.

Stock your bar for $300

Three hundred clams will, allegedly, get you through the summer.

Unless any of my friends and relations come to visit you.

Paul or John?

Well, Paul's all we got left, so... Sir Paul!

For $326

The set from the Family Feud could be yours.

Plus $5000 shipping.

QUIZ: Reverse image album covers

Go here and see whether you can tell which images from famous album covers have been reversed and which are the real deal. (Franko favorite Steve Miller is represented.)

I got 13 out of 15 correct.

All hail Two Buck Chuck

The story of cheap wine.

In Rememberance

Washington Post columnist on losing his son in Iraq.

Charles Nelson Reilly is no longer with us

The "Match Game" superstar is dead at age 76. In his later years, Reilly showed his versatility with a guest spot on "The X-Files."

Happy birthday, "Star Wars"

Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of the original "Star Wars." I still remember standing in line at Fashion Square theaters to see it.

Watch the trailer to recapture those bygone times. Read about what happened to the cast. And continue efforts to pretend the prequels never happened.

From the WTF files

• Iraqi kindergartners want to blow you up. It's all about hearts and minds....


• The 2008 election may already be stolen.

Precious Photos

• Pulp Fiction -- Insanely cool book art; use the arrows around the "view" tag to scroll through.


• Deep sea photography -- some vicious fishes.


• Proof of alien life forms -- Scott & Mona get a ... dog?

"Lost" recap

The season finale has come and gone, with a flash-forward replacing the flashback. Here's a quick, fragmentary review of key moments:

• Bakunin as Rasputin.
• Jack and Juliet.
• Kate: "Kiss me — not her!"
• Blast 'em, Bernard!
• Got Oxy?
  
• Desmond: diver down.
• Bloody, bloody Ben.
• Hurley's heroics.
• Sayid's scissor-kick stranglehold.
  
• Rousseau's reunion: "Help me tie him up."
• Sawyer's spite: "''That's for taking the kid off the raft."
• El loco Locke.
• Driveshaft is dead.

DULLARD RATING: Rocked!

Trent Reznor hating on the record industry

Gotta love Trent Reznor. Not too into the music, but he's a great interview.

POP QUIZ: Live albums

Match the live album* with the venue. Answers are in the comments area.

1. "Live at Leeds" — The Who
2. "Stop Making Sense" — Talking Heads
3. "Frampton Comes Alive!" — Peter Frampton
4. "Secret World Live" — Peter Gabriel
5. "The Song Remains the Same" — Led Zeppelin
6. "Alchemy" — Dire Straits


a. Palasport Nuovo, Modena, Italy
b. Madison Square Garden, New York
c. Pantages Theater, Los Angeles
d. Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco
e. Hammersmith Odeon, London
f. University of Leeds, Leeds England

* "Live" is a relative term. The liner notes for the Dire Straits album claim "no re-recordings or overdubs of any kind." Peter Gabriel, on the other hand, admits to plenty of post-show tinkering.

Happy birthday, Moz!

Former Smiths singer Morrissey turns 48 today. An object of derision in some quarters, he's a hero to the lonely and lovelorn — and to the Latinos, if Chuck Klosterman is to be believed. (The link is to comments; to read the full article, you have to read "Chuck Klosterman IV.")

Morrissey's career in three acts:

• "This Charming Man"
• "Suedehead"
• "Irish Blood, English Heart"

Gin Tasting

I love this article, probably a little more than is good for me.

Kucinich has game

His wife? A 6-foot tall, 29-year old redhead with a tongue stud.

I can't wait until she's the First Lady.

Sign up for victory

Make your own presidential sign here.

Ah, crap.

Bo Diddley hospitalized after stroke.

A Wii bit of fun

The very clever Nintendo Wii allows you to create characters (or avatars, if you prefer) that you can use from game to game. Nintendo calls them Miis.

We've made the celebrity Miis seen here: Jacko (the latter-day Michael Jackson) and B-Fed (a bald Britney Spears). It turns out we are not alone, based on this Mii collection inspired by the great and near great of popular culture. This site has more examples and gives you tips on making your own celeb Miis.

LISTS: Things we'll miss about Bob Barker

A decent list from "The Best Week Ever" on E! It fails, however, to mention the yodeler game, which was the best part of staying home sick from school and watching "The Price Is Right." The second best part was watching the show's lechery, from Barker asking female contestants to reach into his pocket for money to the "Showcase Showdown" strutting of "Barker's Beauties."

He's seen things

Nerve.com interviews Rutger Hauer (safe for work, though much of the site isn't).

Gamera rocks!

Sing along with the flying turtle. Key lyric: "Let's cut and poke."
(Thanks to Gort of the departed Evil Androids for the tip.)

Jerry Falwell is no longer with us

Dead at age 73. Outlived by Larry Flynt, his nemesis in court. So it goes.

UPDATE: Chris Hitchens takes over this "Hannity and Colmes" segment on Falwell.

Screamin' about Scientology

The BBC is defending its expose of Scientology, which has been overshadowed by one overheated moment of a reporter for the program. He explains his outburst here.

DULLARD TAKE: Yeah, the BBC guy shouldn't have lost his cool, but given that he was trying to get real answers from Scientology, can you blame him for getting frustrated?

End point for "Lost"

The end in sight: 48 more episodes over three seasons.

Nine Inch Nails meet "Star Trek"

Kirk and Spock get "Closer" in this clip, which is probably NSFW. It's an interesting use of the song, but I am still waiting for C-SPAN to use it during roll-call votes in Congress.

David Byrne talks to a neuroscientist

More interesting than that headline would suggest.

LISTS: Hoaxes and sci-fi

• Entertainment Weekly counts down its top 25 science-fiction movies and TV shows of the past 25 years.

• PC World counts down the top 25 Internet hoaxes.

LISTS: Worst geographically named bands

It's an axiom of rock 'n' roll that bands that take their identities from proper names of places are certain to be wretched. It doesn't matter whether the geographic reference is real (Boston) or fictional (Styx). But who is the worst of the worst? We break it down for you, starting with bands with the smallest "land area" and building out. (Links go to YouTube clips.)

WORST CITY

CHICAGO: The brassy jazzy-funk that the band made its name with in the 1970s was bad enough. (Their Roman numeral album titles were irritating too.) Then they went soft with a string of early 1980s ballads such as "Hard Habit To Break." Their attempts to maintain their AOR credibility with "Stay the Night" fell flat as singer Peter Cetera proved himself to be fake rocker similar to Billy Joel and Dennis DeYoung.

WORST STATE

KANSAS: As dull as the shape of the state its named for, this not-so-clever band sought to offer great profundity with "Dust in the Wind." But such nihilistic sophistry was annoying, not enlightening, and ultimately insulting to the audience. "Carry on Wayward Son," the band's other warhorse, is a seemingly endless amalgam of bad '70s guitar crunch, keyboard stabs and insufferable harmonies.

WORST NATION

AMERICA: "A Horse with No Name" is third-rate poetry, with a vocal that tries to fool listeners into thinking they are hearing Neil Young. And that's the high point of this band's career. America was actually three British guys, and they somehow managed to string together a chart run in the early 1970s by tagging along to the singer/songwriter trend of the time. Like Chicago, America used a gimmick in the naming of albums — by choosing a word with the letter H, culminating in the inevitable greatest hits collection, "History."

WORST CONTINENT

ASIA: The term "supergroup" was born with Cream. It died with Asia, or it should have. The band consisted of a collection of refugees from art-rock wretchedness such as Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. "Heat of the Moment" was a slice of calculated bombast that briefly made Asia one of the biggest bands on the planet. (It was later put to good use in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin.") Predictably, the band faded amid lineup changes and ego clashes. Just as predictably, a reunion is under way. "The Smile Has Left Your Eyes" wins the award for most awkward song title of the 1980s, followed closely by "The Sun Always Shines on TV" by a-ha.

Romney-El Ron '08

Mitt Romney's favorite novel? "Battlefield Earth" by L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology fame. A Romney spokesman later clarified that the book is one of many favorites. Watch Colbert's take on the whole thing.

UPDATE: Rudy G. hates ferrets as much as Romney loves El Ron.

Herbert Kornfeld is no longer with us

Onion columnist dead at age 34. Foul play suspected. So it goes.

Read Kornfeld here.

Mayday! Mayday!

Heck of a job, Bushie.

Pick your day

• Happy Law Day.

• Happy May Day.