Today I went to my company picnic. It was totally dope. It was tricked out with petting zoos, pony rides, manicure stations, massages, skee-ball, rock climbing walls, fishing, and awesome organic food–and loads of other cool stuff. It was best ever. I vote for company picnic ever week of the summer!

Above is a picture of the cutest, fluffiest bunny ever that was in the petting zoo. It looked totally fake.

In other awesome news, download all of the White Stripes performance at Glastonbury on this French WS site. Link from the Triple Tremelo. Rad!

Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 got engaged this past weekend. They’re going to make the most angst-filled, short, Canadian babies ever. Here’s to the happy couple.

Wow, I totally forgot that Annie was playing at Hiro last night…until now. My mind is on vacation. Shows how much I care.

UPDATE: Oops. It’s today. I thought today was Wednesday. Um, what’s everyone doing for 4th of July weekend?

Here’s the lineup for a free event going down this Wed (June 29) at Virgin Megastore in Union Square in support of the ONE campaign. My favorite part of the lineup is that Billy Corgan is listed as a “(tentative)” performer for this event. Seriously, is he waiting for a better gig fighting world poverty to come along?

1:30 – The Swedes
2pm – Trouble Dolls
2:30 – Gladshot
3pm – Outernational
3:30 – TBD
4pm – Heavenly States
4:30 – Announcements
5pm – Michelle Shocked
5:30 – Mark Knopfler (tentative)
6pm – Head Automatica
7pm – Billy Corgan (tentative)

Surefire plays Shout! on July 3.

Fader has rolled out some nice White Stripes wallpaper for your downloading pleasure. Check it out. Thanks to the reader who sent this tip in.

KCRW’s Nic Harcourt is this country’s John Peel, having “discovered” acts like Coldplay, Dido, David Gray, and Norah Jones. The NYT reveals what it’s like to be a purveyor of cool.

Rolling Stone reports that The Stooges will be re-releasing a deluxe double CD of 1969 and Fun House on August 16 on Rhino Records, with Jack White penning the liner notes for Fun House. Link from Michelle.

Like two weeks ago I was walking on E. Houston with my friend Matt, when I saw this dude walking down the street talking into a telephone receiver…an old school telephone receiver from a rotary telephone. I was like, “What the hell is that guy doing?” Then I looked again and I noticed he’d plugged the receiver into his cell phone as you would with one of those stupid head pieces. I ran up to him and said, “That’s awesome!,” but I do have to wonder, where the hell does he put that thing when he’s NOT using it? Go ahead, make your own.

Read the latest from your favorite flooded, cloudy festival over at the Guardian’s Glastoblog. Also, check out the full coverage.

New videos:

Kasabian, “L.S.F.”: 300RAM | 56RAM

Brendan Benson, “Cold Hands Warm Heart”: Low | Medium | High | Quicktime

Louis XIV, “God Killed the Queen” WARNING: Blurred out boobies. Possibly NSFW: WM Low | WM Medium | WM High | Quicktime

Tess was so kind to notify me that the Strokes site has been updated and newsletter #8 is apparently on its way.

If you can’t wait until it hits your mailbox, get your Strokes fix by reading the summaries of the new tracks off the album, courtesy of NME. (Link from Product Shop.) Yes…there’s a song called “Juice Box.” Er…

I was just surfing the Sanrio site to check out some new products when I found a cute feature on the origins of Hello Kitty. As I clicked through the bio, I noticed that all of Hello Kitty’s family members have the last name “White.” There’s her sister, Mimmy White, her mom, Mary White, and her dad, George White. Who knew Hello Kitty’s real name was actually “Hello Kitty White“?? Shocking! Which of course got me thinking…I wonder if Hello Kitty is in any way related to Jack and Meg White. They do all have pale white skin and love dressing in red. Hmm…

Woah! If you haven’t watched the video of Tom Cruise on the Today show from this morning, you have not lived! Please “do the research!” Seriously, what is he talking about? What is he saying? Why does Katie look like a mindless zombie? Poor Matt Lauer–you can really tell toward the end how terrified he is of Tom.

I seriously can’t watch War of the Worlds. I fear that my soul will be sucked out of my body if I look directly at Tom Cruise.