Bookmarks: Some other stuff to read online

The Guardian celebrates thirty years of the Rough Trade shop by listing some of the best indie record shops. Probe isn't there; they were probably invited to take part but hung the phone up on the paper. And...

Culture Vulture invites ideas on who might have been missed off: Probe turns up, so does Jumbo.

Newsday meanwhile celebrates New York's Looney Tunes: "People should talk about the independent record stores that are thriving," Groeger said quietly, almost humbly. "There are some."

NPR hears about Tracey Ullman's new book on knitting. Yes, that Tracey Ullman: "It was the window of this yarn store," she says. "It was like, edible -- the colors and the textures of this wool -- and it was bamboo baskets and needles and it was so different from when I was a child -- all this awful acrylic post-war wool."

Guardian Money collects more tales of iPod woe: [S]ome retailers admit to a raw deal. One told the Guardian: "Apple will not consider giving refunds on faulty machines outside warranty. Other manufacturers take a different attitude and will reimburse the shop. "We only make 10% profit on an iPod. That means if one in 10 customers have a problem, we don't make money. That's probably why shops take a hard line with them."

The Wall Street Journal's Number Guy sorts out the randomness of iPods: "People tend to seek patterns and order where none exist -- perhaps even in a shuffled iPod playlist, where they might pay more attention when their favorite songs are playing, and thus assume that those songs are in heavier rotation."

Headphone Sex reviews Field Music and Fields - ignoring, incidently, the Field Trip: Although intrinsically linked to local peers Maximo Park & The Futureheads, Field Music are a little more reserved, a little more thoughtful, and a little more influenced by 60s psychedelic pop (and The Beach Boys in particular).

Chartreuse explains Paris Hilton as Madonna 2.0: Whenever she tries to promote herself, it falls flat. Books, records, movies, etc. don’t work for Paris. Because she’s actually a platform. Like Digg and YouTube. Paris Hilton has gotten so good at garnering attention for others people are now using the fact that she doesn’t visit as a marketing tool.

FourFour brings the much-needed Beyonce/Zombie crossover: A 1,500+ word essay on B'Day, however, would betray the album's brilliantly simplistic spirit. Instead, I'm offering a what-if scenario that combines a new favorite (that'd be Bey) with an old -- Lucio Fulci's opus of zombies and popped eyeballs, the 1981 trashterpiece, The Beyond.

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