Lisa Katayama's NYT profile on otaku with "2-D lovers" — it's okay to love cartoons, as long as you don't love cartoons (via) #

Comic themes for iGoogle — Renee French, R. Stevens, Jeffrey Brown, Dan Clowes, James Kochalka, Jim Woodring, and more #

One-Man Rock Band — playing Rock Band's guitar, bass, drums, and vocals at the the same time #

James Paterson's 3D illustrations with Rhonda — from the creator of the Sonic Wire Sculptor (via) #

Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition released for iPhone — $7.99 and 350MB of space #

Tanaka's Friendly Adventure — tiny, adorable freeware Windows game #

Steven Frank's Internet Garage Sale — I keep waiting for someone to replace eBay, since fraud made it completely useless #

Sam Raimi to direct World of Warcraft movie — two hours of the protagonist grinding to level 60 (via) #

Khoi Vinh on two projects reviving newspaper comics in print — see also: Newspaper Club and the upcoming McSweeney's newspaper project #

Kevin Spacey shows Twitter to David Letterman — Letterman gets about 3.5M viewers nightly, about 425% more than Spacey's followers #

Kernest — like Typekit for free, legal typefaces #

MapQuest releases driving directions web service — as Adam points out, now someone could overlay MapQuest routes on Google Maps (via) #

Threadless prints Three Keyboard Cat Moon shirt — the meme mashup earned the highest score and most votes ever (via) #

WSJ on Michigan credit unions using the lottery effect to encourage saving — they offset the winnings with a slightly lower interest rate (via) #

Engine Yard's SHA-1 programming contest — the approaches include crowdsourcing from Zappos and Dolores Labs, but the current leader is using 4 Nvidia GPUs #

Retro/Grade, rhythm-based shmup played in reverse — you can optionally use your Guitar Hero controller to play #

Apollo 11 lunar and command module software open-sourced — hand-typed from original scans by the Virtual AGS project; in the comments, numero mysterioso and hope hope hope #

Jonas Jaeger's augmented reality business card — also, James Alliban's talking augmented card #

Pterodactyl Squad's 8-bit tribute to Weezer — the Tugboat, PDF Format, and OxygenStar tracks are all great (via) #

DJ API's algorithmic remixes — created entirely with the Echonest Remix API, no audio editor required #

Apollo 11 live TV coverage — 40 years to the second, starting at 1:10pm PST #

YouTube removes PS22 chorus' account for violating "Terms of Use" — over 7 million views, gone with no clear explanation why; they're being added back here #

Threadless Cakes — highlights include Noah Express, Catburger, Long Journey, Children Under the Bed, and Piece of Cake #

NYT's texting while driving reflex game — the virtual version of this non-scientific test (via) #

Crazy 4 Cult 3D, artwork inspired by cult movies — too many amazing ones to list, reminiscent of I Am 8-Bit #

Prove You're Human  #

Origins of videogame character names — staggering amount of research into name etymology #

David Rosen on meta-games and creating the illusion of accomplishment — "does our game make players happy when they play, or just make them sad when they stop?" #

ConfCon 2009 — phone phreaking conference held, appropriately, on a five-hour conference call (via) #

Spotify to expand to U.S. in late summer  #

Amazon ironically removes books from the Kindle — they should remove Fahrenheit 451 next; related: Amazon's Final Message to Its Creation #

Janey Thomson's Marathon — like Desert Bus meets Track & Field; send me a screenshot if you win (via) #

Image: Vague Scientist — "the magazine for people who try to have conversations about science news" (via) #

The Google Doodle Triforce Conspiracy — the artist has been hiding a triforce in the logo illustrations #

Global Gaming CEO confirms Pirate Bay switching to pay site — "If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it." #

Slate on Spotify — best streaming service ever, the celestial jukebox done right #

Citizen Media Project on the legality of Techcrunch publishing stolen Twitter docs — publishing trade secrets and receiving stolen property are both illegal under California law #

Augmented reality iPhone app finds the closest NYC subways — from the creators of Nearest Tube #

Star Wars Uncut — 473 fans remaking Star Wars in 15-second chunks (via) #

Matt Haughey on Metafilter's 10th Anniversary — happy birthday, blue; see you on Saturday! #

Kickstarter's $60,000 day — and the site's still invite-only for project creators; related: the five best updates so far #

System and method for creating exalted video games and virtual realities — insane patent application from Internet crackpot/Pepperdine professor Dr. Elliot McGucken #

Christopher Baker's Murmur Study — a live, physical visualization of Twitter on ticker-tape #

Dave Chappelle performs unannounced midnight Portland show to thousands — he was expecting 200 people for the rumored appearance, which spread quickly through Twitter #

Hid.im, convert torrents into PNG images — turn any photo sharing site into a torrent hub (via) #

Leonard Richardson's Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs — he posted a deleted scene and other notes on his weblog (via) #

YouTube phasing out support for IE6 — unfortunately, most IE6 users simply can't upgrade #

Yahoo Query Language lets you INSERT INTO the Internet — insert into {table} (status, username, password) values ("new tweet from YQL", "twitterusername", "twitterpassword") (via) #

Loyola professor griefs City of Heroes players, then surprised they hate him — on his blog, he seems impossibly tone-deaf to community norms #

Weird Al's "Skipper Dan" — familiar tale of lost dreams in Adventureland, animated by Divya Srinivasan #