Shortly after their appearance on Gilmore Girls, Sonic Youth, the dinosaurs of indie rock, released their 21st full-length album, which is supposedly their last contractually required album on Geffen Records. The youth are back to their original line-up, with Jim O’Rourke missing on bass and keyboards, having moved on to other projects and rumored to be continuing studies into Japanese film and music. The album is brilliant (IMHO) and features over 50 minutes of the type of melodic rock and roll that Sonic Youth became so well-known for during the late-80′s / early-90′s.

• Stylus Magazine (91/100). “It’s not just their most energetic, immediate, and pop record in a dog’s age, it’s also—and I love this—their most honest. The Yoof seem to have finally realized their fixed spot in the landscape of modern rock and have all but jettisoned, except where absolutely necessary, the high art pretensions that have weighed down much of their recent output—save Murray Street, the exception that proves the rule—in favor of streamlined, bell-clear FM-radio rock: Badfinger, Thin Lizzy, Big Star.”
• Entertainment Weekly (83/100). “From Kurt Cobain to Steve Albini, Sonic Youth have played with loads of way-hip musicians. But one they’ve missed is Roger McGuinn, ex-leader of folk-rock progenitors the Byrds. They really ought to, especially since the now-middle-aged Youth’s latest album sounds an awful lot like that band in places.”
• Dusted Magazine (70/100). “Every few years, this Sonic Youth puts out a new album. These albums generally appear near summer’s commencement. Some have harbored jarring, experimental flourishes. This one, not so much. Although not the less-than-inspired retread that was Sonic Nurse, it’s a fitting overview of everything that’s always worked for Sonic Youth in the past (a description that also fits the long track “Pink Steam” by its lone). It’s, in a word, firm. The hooks are tight. The melodies are just as “compelling” to the heart as all that SYR jibber-jazz is to the heads of those who appreciate it.”

[Rather Ripped @ Metacritic | Buy it @ Insound | Sonic Youth | Sonic Youth @ Wikipedia]

Tetris lovers of the world listen up, next time you’re redectorating your flat, skip Ikea (though we love our Expedit here in the HQ) and go straight for the Tetris-inspired bookshelves from Brave Space. The Tetris unit is lightweight and modular, allowing owners to mount the blocks on the wall, leave them free-floating for life-size gameplay, or stack the blocks on top of one another. There are also colored backshapes available to match your interior color choices.

[Brave Space Tetris shelves] (Via Netdiver)

Episode World is a diamond in the rough of community sites, allowing users to update, track, and discuss their favorite television shows. Registered users control the content, by submitting new episodes, synopsis, episode and season numbers, and reviews. Some nifty features on the site are abilities such as bookmarking your favorite episode for quick access to season and episode guides, as well as being able to track which episodes you’ve recently watched. For instance, after watching the last episode of Deadwood (which I hope you all did), you are able to go and checkmark the episode as watched, and this way, you don’t forget which episode you left when it comes to watching again. Kudos to you Episode World.

From the EPW FAQ:

EPisodeWorld.com (short EPW) offers information about TV-Shows. The information offered includes but is not limited to plot outlines, airdates, episode names, main as well as guest cast, and more to come. It’s best described as an online TV Guide, so you can read up on your favorite shows and will know when the next episodes will air. Registered users can actively participate in keeping the information up-to-date by submitting changes to existing episodes or submitting new episodes. Registered users can also customize the information displayed (e.g. language) and can keep track of their favorite shows via bookmarks and mark episodes as watched.

[Episode World]

Surfing around, I came upon this huge archive of cartoons, various television shows, and internet videos, stored on an extremely easy to navigate interface. The page is part of UmmYeah, a personal social news aggregator, where users are free to sign-up and create their own personal feed in minutes. The video page currently hosts 2,802 videos in 88 different channels, all from online video sharing services (YouTube mostly), with old-school cartoon favorites such as Transformers, Super Mario Brothers, Pinky and the Brain, and Ren & Stimpy, to almost every 80s music video ever shown on MTV.

[UmmYeah Video Channel]

As you’ve probably come to realize, we love sci-fi here at Bunch of Nerds HQ. Well, fancy my finding out that eBay book store, Murder-a-day, has revealed that they’ve come across a very large collection (50 boxes!) of good-condition vintage science fiction novels, and will be posting many vintage sci-fi novels at extremely bargain prices. I’m already eye-ing some vintage Asimov for around 2 bucks!

[Murder-a-day Bookstore on eBay]

Ok, after some of those pizza bombs from a few posts down, it’s time again to get back on track. First, I love this place. I haven’t been there in over a year, but, I assume it’s still just as amazing, at least from what I hear from those luckily enough to have visited lately. Golden Era is a must for any veggie-friendly visitor to San Francisco, bringing an animal-friendly view to traditional Vietnamese dining, from rice dishes to clay pot to amazing soups and appetizers. Voted some of the best vegetarian meals in the Bay Area by, well, everyone really. All meals are prepared without meat, poultry, fish, egg, and MSG.

The first human-spaceflight mission since the disastrous explosion of the shuttle Columbia has begun it’s 3-day countdown to launch. The astronauts prepping for mission STS-121 aboard the space shuttle Discovery are assured the ship is safe to fly it’s 32nd space flight, after year-long testing of the craft. STS-121 will spend 12-days in space, delivering new supplies and a new ESA (European Space Agency) tenant to the International Space Station, performing various in-orbit repairs, and performaning general maintenance and tests. Those interested can watch the launch online via NASA TV, Saturday, July 1st.

[NASA shuttle missions page | NASA TV]

[Update 2. Today's launch was again scrubbed due to weather. The next open-window will occur around 2:38 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, July 4. If the launch takes place on this day, it will be the first space shuttle launch performed on the U.S. Independence Day holiday.]

[Update 1. The Discovery launch has been delayed due to weather concerns around Cape Canaveral. The launch has been rescheduled for July 2nd, at 3:26pm EDT]

Pizza or football. It’s a tough choice. Well, no not really, it’s pizza. So for those who aren’t aware, the past few weeks has seen Germany hosting the 2006 football World Cup championships (soccer for those stateside). In anticipation for the games, and since pretty much every other product in Germany is football-branded right now, German pizza franchise “Call a Pizza” has prepared a 32-item menu of localized pizzas from every country involved in this years championship. Those of the veggie / vegan persuasion need not apply, but, I for one couldn’t resist looking at the variety, from the traditional ham, pineapple and cheese of Costa Rica, to Hollandaise sauce on the Saudi Arabian pizza.

[World Cup pizza (ingredients translated into English) | World Cup pizza menu] (Via The Coudal Partners)

Going around for awhile but we’re still amazed by them! Artist Michael Paulus has put together a collection of drawings, displaying popular animated cartoon characters from pop culture next to what might be their skeletal systems. The drawings are actual gallery pieces, two-part with a hinged translucent overlay, which when lifted reveal a line drawing of the character’s skeleton underneath. Paulas has begun creating approximations using Photoshop in order to save space for the online gallery. I’ll never look at Charlie Brown the same way.

[Cartoon Character Skeletal Systems]

Liz over at the amazingly cool WFMU radio in New York has posted an article full of spooky (at least we think so) classic ice cream truck jingles in downloadable MP3 format. You know, those songs you’d love to hear coming down your street while simultaneously panicking at the thought that your dad couldn’t get a dollar out of his wallet fast enough for you to run out and buy that bomb-pop? Unfortunately listening to them today, they just make me think of that scary clown monster from Stephen King’s IT mini-series (Tim Curry in clown makeup!), but, maybe some of you will be able to re-live some fond memories of hot summer days with a sticky melting ice-cream in your paws.

Read more: Ice cream truck music