Now you know.

Just finished watching the global live webcast of U2 from the Rosebowl Stadium in Los Angeles. The fantastic streaming quality made it seem like I was really there. Except for the crappy new songs, the uniquely U2 mix of large screen trickery, Bono’s political peppering and good ol’ rock and roll made this a good show.

Just checked the site again at 6pm: Slightly more than staggering 17 million people watched it online.

A run of four defeats got every Championship Manager playing armchair critic talking about how lousy Rafael Benítez was and how Liverpool were absolutely dependent on their two star players. A solid win against the reigning champions will surely shut some people up, until the next crisis at least.

Stuff like Fake AP Stylebook is about the only times I hang out on Twitter. (Also see Shit My Dad Says and the cruel but now inactive Stevie Wonder Tweets.)

[Via Wired]

I only knew Dick Bruna as the guy who drew Miffy. I didn’t realise how sad and pathetic that was until I recently uncovered a lot of his work that didn’t involve Nijntje. His work is minimal, clever and simply beautiful — exactly the things that make Dutch design so special.

Great note from Mick Jagger which can be found in Andy Warhol’s Pop Box collection. In the end, despite Mick’s warning, the cover that was eventually created had a zipper. I’ve never seen the original record cover before — now, I am itching to find out how it turned out!

On another note, it would be great if we all had clients like that from time to time…

[Via the swissmiss]

A nice Lego kitchen which Captain Slow would have liked for his insane Lego house.

Early this year, two men started on a quest to save the Polaroid film after it was discontinued. Now, it seems Polaroid are going to team up with the brave folks from The Impossible Project to relaunch some of the classic instant cameras from Polaroid.

When you’re young, anyone a decade older or more can seem like a gauche joke, tragically unaware of their own crashing irrelevance. They’re either hopelessly out-of-touch (LOL! He’s never heard of Lady Gaga!), embarrassingly immature (Ugh! He listens to Lady Gaga!) or hovering awkwardly in-between (Pff! He uses Lady Gaga as a catch-all reference for youth!).

›› Charlie Brooker on the unbearable lightness of ageing

The release of Screamadelica in 1991 brought decadence and hedonism crashing into the pop charts. With Andrew Weatherall (of Two Lone Swordsmen fame) at the controls, Primal Scream transformed from a bluesy rock band into sonic pioneers of beautiful noise that you could rock and dance to.

While “Come Together” and “Loaded” probably received the most air play, I’d rate “Higher Than The Sun” and the 13th Floor Elevators’ cover, “Slip Inside This House” as the best tracks on this album. I remember reading a review back in the day that said that this album was ‘of its time, and yet timeless’ — there’s probably no better way to describe this ’90s classic.

Excellent commercial by BETC Euro RSCG for the French pay TV channel, Canal+.

Weirdly brilliant, yooouuutuuube.com takes a YouTube video and cuts it all up into some bizarre lomo action sampler-like strips. I used the Doves‘ excellent Black and White Towns video to try it out but I think it’d probably work better with psychelic or cheesy 80s videos.

I’m fairly certain I recently passed a rather pathetic tipping point, and now own more unread books and unwatched DVDs than my remaining lifespan will be able to sustain… The bastard things are going to outlive me. It’s not fair. They can’t even breathe.

›› Charlie Brooker is a really funny guy

Download the song.

A good topic for discussion on It’s Nice That. I think I may drop by and anonymously comment on how awesome the topic is…