Cyrus Farivar

Slashdong: Amazon Sells Sex Toys: A Sex Toy Modder’s DREAM 79 CENT VIBRATORS. 7 FUCKING 9 CENT VIBRATORS. Who CARES if you fuck it up, the motor inside the thing is worth more than 79 cents! Buy a bunch! Mod your brains out! AND YOU CAN BUY BACON THERE TOO! Bacon and Sex Toys, together at last! Also of note: SF Chron (Aug. 19, 2005) on Amazon selling sex toys. Regina Lynn on Slashdong. (June 3, 2005)

University of Arizona: The current warming trends in the Arctic may shove the Arctic system into a seasonally ice-free state not seen for more than one million years, according to a new report. The melting is accelerating, and a team of researchers were unable to identify any natural processes that might slow the de-icing of the Arctic. Such substantial additional melting of Arctic glaciers and ice sheets will raise sea level worldwide, flooding the coastal areas where many of the…

Bold means I’ve already bought tickets. Sept. 7 Bimbo’s 365 (SF) Ted Leo and the Pharmacists Sept. 11/12 The Fillmore (SF) The Decemberists Sept. 27/28 Bimbo’s 365 (SF) The New Pornographers Oct. 15 Bob Hope Theater (Stockton) Cake Oct. 25 Yoshi’s (Oakland) Arturo Sandoval Oct. 29/30 Mountain View Amphitheater (Mountain View) Bridge School Benefit Nov. 11 Warfield (SF) Death Cab for Cutie Nov. 11 Zellerbach Hall (Berkeley) Youssou N’Dour

Sweet! East Bay Express: But from a powerpop standpoint, it’s the New Pornographers’ world to create or destroy as they see fit, and Twin Cinema succeeds primarily because it doesn’t come on too strong at first. Pop tends to overwhelm people with its saccharine exuberance — as fabulous as Fountains of Wayne are, you can’t really blame people who flee the room in terror when “Stacy’s Mom” cranks up — and the first couple Pornographers albums are similarly daunting. Whether…

Casual Car Pool News: Evening car pools leave San Francisco from Beale St. between Howard and Folsom. These car pools run every weekday from San Francisco to the East Bay. Between 3:30 and 7 PM, passengers and drivers can meet on Beale St. between Howard and Folsom in San Francisco. Signs are posted on Beale St. for different East Bay destinations — passengers and drivers can meet at the appropriate spot. The most popular East Bay destinations are Richmond, Hercules,…

LA Times is podcasting now. The good folks at Slice have gotten even cooler, with their Google Maps hack of their NYC pizza review database. Maybe this will push me into doing proper reviews of Bay Area pizzerias. NYT has a massive article on the whole “intelligent design” hoo-ha. Xeni pointed me to the latest in Pastafarianism, the parody of these ID guys. And for those of you who’ve followed my work closely since my Daily Cal days, might remember…

Yesterday, before going to a show at Café du Nord, Becky, Leila and I had pizza from Zante’s, which is basically Indian food but on a naan-style dough, in pizza form. Amazing. As Becky said: “I like pizza and I like Indian food. But together . . . oh, man!” While at Ton Kiang down on Geary in San Francisco today with Garett, Rachel, Eric and Ari, while we were having dim sum we saw Robin Williams for a second…

Now that I can afford proper hosting, and am sort sick of the fact that I can’t have comments turned on in my blog unless I want to be subjected to comment spam in Moveable Type, I’m migrating to WordPress. Subsequently, I have a new, cleaner layout. All the old posts since Jan. 2004 are in the archives here. If I did this correctly, the Feedburner feed should stay live, (I just edited what it points to), and the cfarivar.org…

My co-worker, Jen Berger, popped by to tell me that she saw Adam “The Podfather” Curry at Caffè Centro, just over in South Park, near the Macworld offices. I wonder if he’ll make an appearance at the OPML Roadshow in Berkeley.

For those of you who have been following this blog for awhile now, may remember that I was going to be a book editor back in December 2004 for a new book about Persian blogs. My editorship ended up not working out, as the publishing house had their own. However, the book is going to be coming out in a few months under the name We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs. Pre-order the book here. Congratulations to Nasrin!