Long before it was vogue, I have always had a USB drive on my keychain for the longest time. It’s admittedly a geeky thing but with Lacie’s USB key drives, designed by 5.5 Designers, things can change a bit. Carrying a USB drive with your keys is now slightly more fashionable or it can make the fact that you have a USB drive among your keys completely invisible. Either way, people won’t be readily alerted to your geekiness so easily anymore.

The Republicans are like an arsonist who complains that the fire department is wasting water.

›› Paul Begala, a Democrat (of course!)

For those of you who don’t know them, Phoenix are a French rock band who sing (mostly) in English and are masters of the retro-rock sound. United was their debut album and the track ‘If I Ever Feel Better‘ was the only reason that made me buy this record a couple of years ago. I am not a big fan of bands with pansy/effete vocalists but for this bittersweet beauty of a song, I am glad I can make exceptions.

Pissed off with the rainy weather? Can’t stand the sun’s rays bearing down on you? Fight them all off with the Ninja Umbrella! Just be prepared for the suspicious stares from the ignorant masses (and revered looks from those who know) when you have it strapped across your back on that nice windy day.

[Via Josh Spear]

If you got a minute, you should check out The Workerman’s T-shirts. Other than two Watchmen inspired T-shirts, he’s got some great typographic t-shirts too!

This is quality stuff: a movie made with origami models that tells the tale of Kihachiro Onitsuka and Asics.

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.

›› John Kenneth Galbraith

[Via Heavy Backpack]

Warp Records are asking fans to vote for the tracks they want to see in the upcoming 20th anniversary Warp compilation. I’ve already voted for Aphex Twin’s Alberto Balsam and Squarepusher’s Port Rhombus…

Wrong is the first single from Depeche Mode’s new album, Sounds Of The Universe, due out next month. I already like the the dark, dark look of things to come.

Brilliantly bizarre and absolutely hilarious.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have been quite a rabid U2 fan ever since I bought Achtung Baby in 1992. The alarming enthusiasm I had for U2 started ebbing away with All That You Can’t Leave Behind. Here I am nine years later, struggling to locate my fan pulse with No Line On The Horizon.

U2 are still excellent musicians and the production values for this album are not bad. But with the songwriting, Bono seems a spent force. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois are credited with writing some of the material and Bono, once the poet, is now singing about OS X (“Force quit! Move to trash” is an actual lyric) and reflecting on ATM machines.

There were days when people discussed about other bands trying to be like U2. With this album (including the album photography), U2 seem to be trying to be like themselves from their glorious Achtung days. They are some good tracks (Magnificent lives up to its title) and some great moments on No Line On the Horizon but the sophisticated songwriting is just nowhere to be seen.

As my once favourite lyricist penned many years ago — “Look, I gotta go, yeah I’m running outta change / There’s a lot of things if I could I’d rearrange”.

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.

›› Niels Bohr

‘World of Logotypes’ is an out-of-print book from the 70s that chronicled the logos of that era. Eric Carl scanned some pages of the book and has put it up on the internets for the world to marvel at.

[Via ISO50]

The worst thing has been the injuries to Torres… He has been our main striker and scored a lot of goals for us last season. And this season could have been totally different with him.

›› Rafael Benitez, the same man who sold a top striker after just six months

What a fun poster for learning the alphabet! The hiding “M” is a cute touch (which no doubt helps the aesthetics, too).

Very nice work from Liverpool-based design studio, Burn Everything.