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Or the kudzu in the southern United States.

http://overstated.net/photos/kudzu/kudzu-car.jpg
http://images.google.com/images?q=kudzu

That sort of thing can happen in under a year. This stuff grows fast and it was imported from Asia because of that for use in erosion control. It turned out to absolutely love the climate down here and it exploded out of control.

It actually is not that bad of a plant. It isn't poisonous and doesn't cause allergic reactions nor does it have thorns. You can make tea out of the leaves, and jelly from the flowers and vines. Also the vines are useful when dried for basket making and for animal fodder.

The best method to control kudzu is herds of sheep or goats. In fact there are a few groups of people down here who rent sheep to people to clean the stuff away.
http://static.highbeam.com/n/nationalgeographic/ju ne012002/weedwhackingsheeptestattackskudzuinfestat ioninflor/

thers no way in hell im downloading anything if thers the slimmest chance of them finding me

http://overstated.net/media/RIAA_PSA.mpg

be afraid be very afraid

I guess it's basic 15-second mainstream digestible keystone of mash-up'dom.

Of course this is old as hip-hop itself. Dancehall exists on the idea of a riddim becoming popular itself and multiple deejays rap/sing over it. Now hip-hop, R&B and Reggeton artists get in on it. An example from '04: Pitbull "Culo", Mr Vegas "Pull Up", Nina Sky "Move Ya Body" and many others all used the Coolie Dance Riddim.

The pop culture clash of using a very recognizable outer-genre instrumental (the "mash-up") got big in clubs two years ago (making this Wire award a bit like John Wayne's Oscar). A popular one was Whitney Houston ("I want to dance with somebody") over Kraftwerk ("Numbers") forming ala Voltron to Girls on Top's "I Want to Dance with some Numbers". Nigh unreleasable due to copyright considerations but interesting none the less.

Of course now MTV is in the Official Mash-up business by creating things that aren't Mash-ups at all (that Jay-Z and Linkin Park thing is, due to original parts by both artists, a collaboration).

I still think Chopped and Screwed is going to hit the mainstream consciousness soon as T.I.'s disc just got the treatment and it sold amazingly. And kids are chop n' screwing all sorts of tracks now. Many on laptops and then distributed into the public conscious via P2P (so Wired could give it an award and be a bit ahead the bellcurve). Of course this is a decade old style too.

is likely to give you many seemingly uncanny correlations between multiple events. The outcome of Washington Redskins home games prior to the election has predicted all the presidential elections since 1936. The sale of Halloween maks of the presidential candidates have predicted the elections since 1980. Does this bear any significance to this election? No. However, on the surface, this new prediction seems interesting. A person's word usage is a reflection of his character, education, and background. And there's been plenty of analysis of the word used by Bush and Kerry in this year's debates.

Yeah, well whatever. The thing that bugs me most about presidential candidates is that they always say "when I am president" and not "if I am elected president", even the ones who know they have no chance of winning (like Kucinich). I know their speech coaches or whoever tell them it makes them sound more assertive and confident and blah blah blah, but shut up already. NBC did this too, with their "MUST SEE THURSDAY" crap. It always sounded like a threat to me. Oh. Also, have they done an analysis of whether the person who repeats the same damn phrases over and over again the most is more likely to win? Because that seems to be the strategy of both camps.

If you have MP3s on your PC, fear! Jackbooted stormtroopers from Herr Ascroft's Ministry of Justice may come to your door. Here is actual footage of a raid!

> "Blogs," "moblogs," and "plogs" are not words. They are ill-conceived marketing creations, no better than "information superhighway" and "top-speed technology." They exist to perpetuate the myth that personal publishing is going to reinvent the web as a means of communication.

This is ridiculous. Just because they are trendy and some blowhards make some outlandish claims about them, doesn't mean that they aren't concepts or words. In fact, the use of the words "weblog" and "blog" in the popular press has increased dramatically in the past four years. Standing in the way of contractions just makes you look like a liguistic luddite.

RIAA Public Service Announcement
"Home searches begin 12/24/03"
http://overstated.net/media/RIAA_PSA.mpg

http://overstated.net/media/RIAA_PSA.mpg

However, the lower limit of this service pack/previous version approach will be Windows95.
Ballmer says that the regression will stop short of reverting to 16 bit code, or his name is Adam Osbourne

My bad, here it is.

While you're waiting go ahead and download this
little mp3. If you've ever played counter-strike, I'm sure you'll relate.

Some guy recorded his nieghbor playing counter-strike and put this together. Funny as hell.