DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

This is currently my favorite DVD: Almost Famous: The Bootleg Cut

I liked the movie, and I like the DVD is even better. The second disc contains the “director’s cut” of the movie, which is 36 minutes longer and seamlessly great. The commentary track features the screenwriter (Cameron Crowe) and his mom — which is totally appropriate, as you’ll realize if you’ve seen the movie — plus a bunch of production guys who serve as the chuckling chorus because they can’t get a word through Crowe’s animated monologue.

There is a huge amount of supplemental material here (including an audio CD of the music from the movie). This is the way DVDs ought to be.

The Dave Matthews Band website offers the full-length video to the title track from their latest CD, Everyday. It’s a great album, a great song, and a clever video, with a brief cameo by the Blue Men, which is why I mention it at all.

A plot summary of the video can be found on the website for the DMB mailing list, in the 10/24/01 entry. Additional info on the filming can be found in the Cavalier Daily, the newspaper of the University of Virginia.

A study released yesterday by Harvard School of Public Health claims that people following a “western” diet — red meat, fatty dairy products, refined grains… fast food, basically — were “heavier, less physically active, more likely to smoke cigarettes and had a substantially increased risk for type 2 diabetes. “

Here’s the press release: Study Links Western Dietary Pattern with a Greater Risk for Type 2 Diabetes in Men. And here’s the abstract from the Annals of Internal Medicine, a copy of which I think I sat on during my last visit to Dr. Jellyfinger: Dietary Patterns and Risk for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in U.S. Men

My only question: why is this news? Even people who eat that crap know it isn’t good for them. Just for fun, let’s review the symptoms of diabetes: heart disease, kidney failure, and blindness. Do you still want to supersize those fries?

If you have not already, please read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. It is stunning, and relevant.

Of interest to web designers: Chris Casciano is using Cascading Style Sheets (and only CSS) to redesign the homepage of his website every day this month. See the version with no style, and then cycle through them all using the “switch style” form at the bottom of the page. It’s shocking what CSS can do. (Link seen at Zeldman.)

When I designed this site (Fall of 2000), early frustrations with spotty CSS support led me to rely on HTML tables for basic page layout, even if CSS is used here for typesetting control. Now I see I’ll have to redesign without tables… the possibilities illustrated by Casciano are eye-opening.

Tired of aspirating formaldehyde from that spiffy new ergo-desk? Clean your air with these ten eco-friendly house plants, “chosen for their ease of growth and maintenance, removal of chemical vapors, resistance to insect manifestation and transpiration (humidification) rates.”