Today we have an extra-special extended Tab Sweep. I have tons of tabs waiting to be closed and no time to post longer entries. Enjoy...

Life imitates The Onion, part 23: Man gets Windows Vista to work with printer. (via Daring Fireball.)

In skyscraper news, Tokyo Sky Tree (what a perfectly Japanese name!) will be the second-tallest building in the world. (via Giz.)

The New York Times has the story of an amazing NYC apartment that sounds like something out of Myst: Mystery on Fifth Avenue.

Edith Macefield, Rest in Peace. Edith refused to sell her little house in Ballard to developers, so they built around her. (via Every Seattle web site under the sun.)

Severed foot number five washed ashore up in BC earlier in the week. Number six turned out to be a hoax. Seattlest has the latest theories.

Another cool building in Dubai: Zaha Hadid's Dubai Opera House. (via Giz.)

In Vestimentis Ursum. There's a robot beneath the fluff.

No longer content with a tiny little rover, NASA is building a lunar truck named Chariot and an RV called ATHLETE (All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer). They're being tested out in Eastern Washington. (via Telstar Logistics.)

How To Nap. Thanks Boston Glob!

Woo Hoo! The Eames Stamps are here. Too bad there's no "Powers of Ten" stamp. (via Kottke.)

Airlines are charging for the wrong bags. "Charging to check bags, then, is foolish because it is an attempt to get passengers to pay for something that they don't want to do anyway—and will seek to avoid by trying to bring more of their baggage on board." I couldn't agree more. (via Slog.)

First the General Manager, then the manager. The Mariners have fired John McLaren. Bench coach Jim Riggleman will replace him for the remainder of the year.

National Geographic: "Amazing" Dinosaur Trove Discovered in Utah. "In just three weeks of work on federal land near Hanksville, Utah, paleontologists say they unearthed at least two meat-eating dinosaurs, a probable Stegosaurus, and four sauropods..."

You know how restaurants all sing their own lame song instead of "Happy Birthday to You" when a customer celebrates a birthday? It's because the original is still under copyright. Well, maybe not so much.

On Father's Day yesterday, we went to a Mariners game. It was a beautiful day for baseball: just about 70°F and nary a cloud in the sky. We had a great time despite the pain involved in watching the worst team in baseball struggle against the nearly-worst. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. When the umpire made a completely non-controversial call in the 8th inning, giving the Nats a three-run homer, the fans unleashed the longest and loudest round of booing I can ever recall hearing at Safeco Field. Now, I'll grant that on a day like Father's Day, it's entirely possible that quite a few people attending the game may not know that the foul pole is fair, but I'm inclined to think the booing wasn't really so much about the call to begin with. It was like the fan's collective rage over several squandered years finally burst to the surface.

Apparently, the booing did some good! Or maybe it was the teams position at 20 games under .500. Either way, the Mariners announced today that they have fired incompetent General Manager Bill Bavasi. Mariners' VP/Associate General Manager Lee Pelekoudas will take his place during the search for a permanent replacement. Pelekoudas has been with the M's for almost 30 years. Of course, real change will take time and we still don't know if Bavasi's replacement will be any better, but it's a good first step. Go M's!

In case you're wondering why it has suddenly gotten very quiet around here, there's a very good explanation: I'm in San Francisco this week at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference. Regular posting should resume shortly.

Gizmodo has a look at Hasbro's new Millennium Falcon today. Why a new Millennium Falcon toy now? Well, partly because the new Clone Wars movie is coming, but mostly because the original mold they'd been using for the last thirty years finally broke. Henry would love this thing. Unlike the Lego Millennium Falcon he's been salivating over, it probably won't take up his entire bedroom.

Language Log covers another family of Cupertinos today in a post titled "High Flatulent Language." This time it's highfalutin that's getting mangled:

Clips of former President Bill Clinton and former candidate John Edwards are also used. "Rhetoric is not enough. High flatulent language is not enough," says Edwards from a debate appearance.

I wonder whether Max Supernova ever uses high flatulent language.

Steven Heller at Design Observer has a wonderful paean to Letraset lettering today. In the days before WYSIWYG and Pagemaker and Laser Printers, these sheets of rub-on letters were like magic. I remember going to a graphic arts store down on Rockville Pike and buying sheets and sheets of the stuff for various projects. It was like being in a secret cult with amazing powers; people outside the cult would have literally no idea how you could possibly have produced such fine lettering. (via Coudal Partners.)

Fun with Pie Charts! at mental_floss.

When I read about the Bungalow in a box, I expected something like the old Sears catalog homes. (via Coudal Partners.)

The Friday night bike racing season has already begun over at the Marymoor Velodrome. We'll have to make sure to go on a Kiddie Kilo night so Henry (and Charlie?) can race. (via Citizen Rain.)

Rail Runner - a human-powered rail vehicle and recipe for disaster. (via Make.)

About ten years ago, I remember reading that the modern banana, the Cavendish, is living on borrowed time. The Scientists reports that time might almost be almost up. (via Slashdot.)

Soda Pop! - A set of pictures of old soda cans, bottles and signs. Remember the old look of Mountain Dew? And whatever happened to Pepsi Free? (via A Whole Lotta Nothing.)

The Mystery of the Carolina Bays (at Google Sightseeing).

According to the Brookings Institution, Seattle has the 6th smallest carbon footprint in the US. Not too surprising, I suppose. Louisville is 6th, too. 6th highest carbon footprint! What's wrong with those people? And what's LA doing up at number two? (via Seattle Metblogs.)

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Language Log has news today of a particularly egregious case of The Cupertino Effect, the unfortunate result of blindly accepting a spell-checker's suggestions (named for a certain spell-checker's tendency to suggest "Cupertino" for a common misspelling of the word "cooperation").

It seems the folks at Taylor Publishing let loose the power of their fully armed and operational spell-checker on the poor defenseless Middletown Area High School yearbook. Names were Cupertinoized on four pages of the 176 page yearbook. Alessandra Ippolito became Alexandria Impolite, Cameron Bendgen became Cameron Bandage, and Max Zupanovic became Max Supernova. I think Max was the winner in this mixup. He certainly came out ahead of Kathy Airbag (Carbaugh).