John Cox

Blogs · @wyome

Tagged entertainment · everything

nytimes.com

36 Hours in Houston

This travel guide to Houston showcases the city as a dynamic destination where visitors can experience world-class art museums, diverse cuisines reflecting its multicultural population, and overlooked African American history alongside Texas culture. The itinerary highlights everything from the contemporary Kinder Building at the Museum of Fine Arts to Viet-Cajun food in Chinatown, historic Freedmen's Town walking tours, legendary Tex-Mex restaurants, and scenic bayou parks. Rather than treating Houston as merely a stopover, the piece invites travelers to embrace its "beautiful complexities" by moving fluidly between high-end cultural institutions and casual neighborhood discoveries.

Permalink foodtravelentertainmenttexas

Catch My Fame

jQuery Before/After Plugin | Catch My Fame

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems use pre-recorded voice prompts and keypad inputs to handle high volumes of incoming calls, and have been adapted for dating and social connection services like Friend-O-Phone and ChatlineDating. The piece also discusses common IVR design failures—such as overly complex menu trees, counterintuitive routing options, and lack of callback features—that frustrate callers and diminish service quality.

Permalink entertainmentdevelopmentpluginsjquery

Boing Boing

Ray Manzarek, founding member of The Doors, dies of cancer at 74 - Boing Boing

Ray Manzarek, the legendary keyboardist and founding member of The Doors, died of bile duct cancer at age 74 at a clinic in Germany. Beyond his iconic work with The Doors, Manzarek was also known for co-producing the first four albums of the late-'70s/early-'80s L.A. punk band X, helping establish some of the earliest vinyl punk records. The piece includes archival footage and monologues from Manzarek reflecting on his life and musical career.

Permalink historymusicentertainmentrock

www.grantland.com

Alan Sepinwall on the origins of 'Lost' - Grantland

Lloyd Braun, an ABC executive, conceived Lost as a high-concept survival drama after watching Cast Away on a Hawaiian beach, then shepherded it through an impossibly accelerated development process despite widespread skepticism about its viability. J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, brought in at the last minute with only weeks to produce the pilot, deliberately crafted a show that blended character-driven drama with mystery and sci-fi elements, keeping most of the mythology unmapped so they could focus on making audiences care about the survivors themselves. The result was an 18.6-million-viewer premiere that became one of television's most thrilling dramas, though the writers' decision to withhold answers about the hatch in the season finale provoked backlash that revealed the risk inherent in building a show on accumulated mystery.

Permalink televisionhistorydramaentertainment

touch.bossip.com

Bossip

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Boing Boing

kottke.org

www.youtube.com

Ecommerce-Platforms.com

The funniest 25 'Twits' you must follow right now | Inspired Magazine

This appears to be a collection of article previews and headlines about ecommerce website design, Shopify and WooCommerce themes, and related topics like logo design and dropshipping. The snippets cover practical guides such as finding free Shopify themes, selecting WooCommerce themes after testing hundreds of options, and essential design elements for successful online stores, alongside articles about mobile ecommerce design, website redesigns, and designing for corporate clients. While individual pieces offer specific advice—like mobile-first design principles, the importance of good web design for conversion, and business models like dropshipping—this excerpt is primarily a table of contents or blog archive rather than a cohesive argument.

Permalink social mediaentertainmenthumor

the Guardian