the linen supply company is running the asylum

who forthwith pounced upon the luckless one

2008-05-01T01:46:00.003-04:00

nyt | Pittsburgh Brokers to Wear Their Straw Hats Until Oct 1:

``PITTSBURGH, Sept. 15. -- The customary hilarious destruction of straw hats on Sept. 15 on the floor of the Pittsburgh Stock Exchange was missing today. Tradition has set that as the date for men to bid farewell to the Summer hat and always a big percentage of the Stock Exchange members absentmindedly appeared on this day with their old straws. This was a signal for a chorus of wild whoops on the part of other brokers, who forthwith pounced upon the luckless one.

But the Floor Committee of the Exchange defied tradition today and ruled against observances of the "straw hat" day. The committee decided by a unanimous vote that "straw hats may be worn with all the propriety and dignity attached thereto until and including Oct. 1."''

all others are error

2007-10-08T22:24:00.000-04:00

"There are those who view the world in an easygoing manner, thinking that some people prefer their steak rare, and others well done, and that it's simply a matter of taste. But it is not a matter of taste. Harsh and fascistic as it may sound, there is in truth only one perfect degree of doneness. All others are error, at least in those who, like us, agree that steak should be tasty, tender, and juicy.

Consider the purplish crimson stripe in the very center. This part of the meat is raised to a temperature of only 90°F by the time it comes off the grill; it is in essence raw -- without much flavor and without any juice. Some diners may prefer their entire steak to taste and feel like beef sashimi, perhaps seared on the outside. Cooking does not really start until the meat is heated to beyond 100°F, before this point, meat will be gel-like and hard to chew. Little of the marbling fat will have melted, and the bland proteins will not have broken down into beefy-tasting free amino acids. This is called "bleu" by the French or very rare by us.

Starting at 100°F, the protein molecules start to uncoil and bond with one another, and the connective tissue shrinks. Now both the moisture trapped among the protein molecules in the muscle fibers and the liquefied fat begin to emerge. By about 120 degrees, the water and the fat are flowing freely as delicious juice. So the deepest interior of a thick, mouthwatering steak must be brought to 105 degrees on the grill; it will rise to a juicy 120 degrees after it has rested awhile, as the juices disperse more evenly and the temperatures even out a bit. This is perfection: the meat is no longer jellylike but has taken on only the first signs of grain and has been brought to that narrowest of ranges where the juices have started to flow, the marbling fat is melting, and the protein is breaking down into its incredibly flavorful constituent amino acids, but before the bundles of muscle fibers tighten.

Over 130°F, the proteins coagulate to the point of toughness, as the vertical grain of the meat becomes first distinct and then tight, and more of the moisture between protein molecules is squeezed out, either to evaporate from the surface of the steak or to drip into the fire. This is what is usually meant by medium-rare, and while the meat is still pretty good to eat, it has just passed perfection.

It follows that the outer stripes of light pink, gray-pink, gray-tab, and tan-brown have no gastronomic attraction compared with the deep red and lighter rose layers of meat, and many disadvantages -- until we get to the well-done outer crust, which is the most flavorful and deeply savory part of a steak, the lucky product of concentrated meat juices, decomposed fats, free amino acids, sugars, and the famous Maillard reactions, chemical processes that makes well-browned meats among the most indelible tastes in all of cooking. So an ideal grilled steak should consist mainly of two colors: the savory and mouthwatering, crisp, deeply reddish-brown surface, and the just opaque, juicy, red or rosy inner meat on which the heat of the grill has begun its transformation.

All other layers should be minimized.''

- Jeffrey Steingarten, It Must've Been Something I Ate

I gave up beef this year, so I guess I will avoid error and perfection in these matters.

optimism

2007-07-06T09:14:00.000-04:00

I'm pretty resigned to the suck of modernizations we're pressed to just accept in the world: paying for bad food on airplanes (and the portions are small!), commercial radio, video poker and video jukeboxes at bars, cappuccino machines (!?!), and people wearing crocs.

I know then that when I find a cost-cutting spreading contemporary trend that I kind of dig, I should quietly enjoy it while it lasts. I have to share it with you though.

I love bathroom soap coming out as foam.

my second best penguins cap

2007-02-28T18:20:00.000-05:00

I hate wearing my favorite Penguins hat to hockey games; it is an Old Varsity Gold (a yellow gold of character) fitted cap with the sleek Gary Adams logo from the 1990s; I know that logo isn't popular with the some die-hards but I dig it.

I can't wear my favorite cap because I have to anticipate the duty-bound prospect of tossing my cap for a hat trick; so I wear a cap with sentimental "old time" stitching (not unlike this hat) and the skating-penguin-logo in black and Las Vegas Gold, a gold of iniquity and dubious intent.

I always leave the arena a little disappointed if I manage to hold onto it.

best effort

2007-01-31T23:27:00.000-05:00

A great gift from the telecommunications & networking industry is in quality of service priority levels: "best effort" is now a euphemism for the worst possible class of service.

I'm sorry, sir, we can't do much more than our best effort; I wouldn't expect anything to really pan out.

the year in pictures

2006-12-31T23:41:00.000-05:00

january:

new year's day in nyc

steelers in the playoffs, civic pride, & the superbowl runup

february:

the steelers victory parade

march:

a quiet start to spring

april:

montreal for chi2006

art in transit opening at wood st galleries

coachella

may:

california beach time

trixie at tiffany ave

art in transit at art space 303

june:

texas roadhouse, killeen

july:

italia wins the world cup

30 fans from 30 teams at the all star game

dippy

august:

arsenal karaoke

summer winds down

september:

takin' the T

mets baseball

gnarls barkely at the virgin festival

dc metro

october:

some time at home

october baseball at shea

hampton, va

some relaxing

politicos in the home stretch

november:

walks around town

coffee

tartan football

handmade arcade portraits

autumn goodness (i)

autumn goodness (ii)

reflection in queens

december:

baking pizza

parties

freezing football

here's to a good 2007.
cheers!

the nose bleed vs. tivo

2006-12-09T16:04:00.000-05:00

Thoughts on watching sports from reading discussion around Mike's post on the Steelers-Browns game:

This last October I made it out to Shea for some concrete-and-steel-shaking soul-affirming post-season baseball. Despite upper deck seats, it rocked. Well, game 1 rocked anyway.

The crowd experience and its relation to the on-field game is the foundation of attending a sporting event. That connection with the players and the fans can and should trump almost any technical & perceptual limitation of being there.

I was lucky enough to go to the Steelers playoff win against the Browns in 2002 and it was awesome. What I lost in focused understanding about any particular play was made up for in spades by the screams & elation of 62,000+ when the Fu ran the ball in to take the lead late in the 4th quarter. Even without a real connection to the Habs, I was taken with playoff hockey in Montreal because of the sheer energy packed into whatever-it's-called-that-replaced-the-Forum.

Attending the live event with the right foundation will beat TV any day of the week and 13 times on Sunday. That foundation of the sporting experience lies in the details: is it your team? how crazy are the fans? how big is the rivalry? how good is the team? how meangingful is the game? what is at stake? Being there when the setting is right will transcend an uncomfortable seat, constrained sight lines, and even having to endure the god-forsaken wave.

Without that foundation, you can still enjoy the craft & particulars as a student of the game, but it's not even in the same ballpark (ahem). Yes, you can tally the different levels of technical appreciation available at a sports bar vs. at home with 1080i & tivo vs. front row seats vs. the nose bleed section. If you find yourself thinking too much, you've already given up on the way it ought to be.

If you are resigned to looking for a good technical experience, hockey is significantly better live than on TV. The speed & elegance of good skaters on top of continuous intricate play development (go post-strike rules!) is something to behold. Baseball does well because being outside staring at green grass with beer is an age old trigger for the slow release of serotonin. If you're looking for more, you either need to be a fairly studious fan or have seats that let you see the break of every pitch.

For football, there is a big tension between tree-view and forest-view. Getting close gives you a peak at the human scale drama: the raw physical execution of blocking, the body language of the QB, and the quick decision making amidst confusion. From up above you get an abstract view of play orchestration: how many stay in to block? do they play the run or the pass? Watching on TV conceivably gives you a good blend of the two but it also comes with shifty animated football robots pimping low carb beer and even more inane commentators.

Going to the game and spending some time at field level is great because it reminds you just how complex & hard basic execution is. The shoving, the pushing, the looking, the evading. You can't take it for granted at field level. There is a fog of war on every play. The two big problems are that it is pretty hard to get seats anywhere at field level let alone along the whole length of the field for good perspective on every scrimmage. The second is that the fog of war is contagious and it becomes pretty hard to follow any of the higher level strategy and narrative. You get to watch the outside blocking action in good detail but you need the humungotron to understand what happened. Getting a seat up top is generally good (despite losing the whites-of-their-eyes detail) because you can watch the play development, track the strategy, and watch the part of the game you want to (line play!). It can however get pretty cold.

on baseball after healing

2006-11-30T23:23:00.000-05:00

I've had a little over a month to get over game 7 and the baseball season in general. I wanted to share some thoughts while they're still on the brain.

I've hated baseball's wild card format (and its "rounds" of "playoffs") for a while as an assault on what makes baseball baseball: a long-fought pennant race. Instead of epic regional battles that reinforce storied rivalries ("the giants win the pennant!"), we get posturings on travel, ideal matchups, and momentum (e.g. "minnesota should lose the division to take the yankees on the road"). The wild card system prods good teams to phone in the end of the year while any remaining drama must trickle down to the mediocre and sputtering divisions. Although it opens up the post-season to smaller market teams, I still don't quite revere this flavor of accessibility. I'd rather they find competitive balance elsewhere (a minor league draft?). Bring back the pennant race.

Despite the pain of losing the NLCS, it was sweet to finally win the NL East after an 18 year drought.

Having grown up with Mets celebrations, I am sad to learn that our days of innocent & euphoric vandalism are over; we can't run on to the field and tear up Shea Stadium in blissful celebration any more.

Thanks alot, terrorists and shirtless white sox fans that stab people!

I've gotten pretty addicted to UniWatch, a sports uniform & aesthetics blog. I've been sold on the ditch the black campaign for Mets colors. While I still like the black-and-blue hat, the blue pinstripes in game 6 & 7 were really good stuff. Reading UniWatch has piqued my sensitivity to details like MLB pushing caps that promote the National League Division Series (a.k.a. "round 1 of the playoffs") above and beyond the Mets-as-NL-East-champions. I think the plumbers are running the asylum. On the bright side UniWatch has pointed me at Tsuyoshi Shinjo's farewell tour shoes. Nice.

Watching my team in October reminded me that enjoying baseball requires imagination. At its best it is not a graphic struggle of opponents unleashing raw force to shove past another and it isn't a back and forth sequence of speed and grace. It is a quiet rhythm of mostly routine gestures that gain significance from their context; significance that can rise up out of almost nothing into the highest drama. And while you don't have to study all the statistics and stories, the lore & the numbers speak to the comparisons, speculations, and wonderings that fuel the engaged fan.

I can't wait 'til spring.

goodbye, october

2006-10-31T23:52:00.000-05:00

(Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)

here's to a November of warm clothing, crisp air, and comfort food.

remember the taste in your mouth right now

2006-09-14T23:44:00.000-04:00

daily news|lupica:
If you want to know where this season started, go back to last season, when the Mets kept playing in September even after they had lost any chance at a wild card in that stretch when they had to play the Braves and Marlins and Cardinals.

"I remember being in a cab with David Wright in St. Louis," Willie Randolph said. "And I remember telling him, 'Remember the taste in your mouth right now. Remember what it's like to get knocked down like this, because it's not happening next year. Because next year is gonna be the year when we get over the hurdle.'"

don't want security to get suspicious

2006-09-12T23:53:00.000-04:00

Cover Flow + Mighty Mouse Scroll Ball = Insanely Greatlicious

the barrier

2006-07-30T23:56:00.000-04:00

SCENE: Somewhere in the 124 infield box at PNC Park; it is the 8th inning of the Giants vs. Pirates game shortly after a 2+ hour rain delay. As it is a day game immediately following an evening game the infamous & aging Barry Bonds takes the day off from the starting lineup. He cannot be seen on Giants's bench.

FEMALE BONDS FAN WITH LOW CARB BEER: is there any chance he will play? is he even dressed?

PROTAGONIST: I'm sure he's suited up and could pinch hit; he's probably just sitting in his fancy barcalounger back in the clubhouse.

NEARBY BONDS APOLOGIST GUY [noting derision]: It isn't just him anymore. Everyone has barcaloungers today. Every clubhouse has'em now.

PROTAGONIST: That's true; Barry really broke baseball's barcalounger barrier.

head to the rules and I hit the ground running

2006-07-19T23:23:00.000-04:00

30 from 30: portraits of 30 fans from all 30 teams at the 2006 Major League Baseball All Star Game, Pittsburgh

I never thought I'd be so happy to track down a Rockies fan.

substitute art for life

2006-06-25T22:49:00.000-04:00

The Death and Life of Great American Cities | Jane Jacobs:

"When we deal with cities we are dealing with life at its most complex and intense. Because this is so, there is a basic esthetic limitation on what can be done with cities: A city cannot be a work of art.

We need art, in the arrangements of cities as well as in the other realms of life, to help explain life to us, to show us meanings, to illuminate the relationship between the life that each of us embodies and the life outside us. We need art most, perhaps, to reassure us of our own humanity. However, although art and life are interwoven, they are not the same things. Confusion between them is, in part, why efforts at city design are so disappointing. It is important, in arriving at better design strategies and tactics, to clear up this confusion.

Art has its own peculiar forms of order, and they are rigorous. Artists, whatever their medium, make selections from the abounding materials of life, and organize these selections into works that are under the control of the artist. To be sure, the artist has a sense that the demands of the work (i.e., of the selections of material he has made) control him. The rather miraculous result of this process -- if the selectivity, the organization and the control are consistent within themselves -- can be art. But the essence of this process is disciplined, highly discriminatory selectivity from life. In relation to the inclusiveness and the literally endless intricacy of life, art is abritrary, symbolic and abstracted. That is its value and the source of its own kind of order and coherence.

To approach a city, or even a city neighborhood, as if it were a larger architectual problem, capable of being given order by converting it into a disciplined work of art, is to make the mistake of attempting to substitute art for life.

The results of such profound confusion between art and life are neither life nor art. They are taxidermy."

15 minutes & morphine

2006-05-17T23:55:00.000-04:00

It is perhaps fitting that my breakout success as an Artist comes hand in hand with my first experience with an opiate; I wonder if Basquiat ever took Robitussin w/Codeine.

From Thursday May 18th through Tuesday May 30th, some work of mine will be on display at art space 303 right on 8th ave in Homestead, PA. This show includes all 31 transit placards from the Art in Transit project as well as other work from the same artists; my placard and a couple of photography pieces should be on display.

There will be an opening reception on Saturday May 20th from 7pm to 10pm. I might not show up if I'm on one of my egotistical self-destructive cough medicine benders. If you can't make that, the placards should be on buses around Pittsburgh for another 5 months. Check for me passed out in the back of the bus.

spring colors

2006-05-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

get aht

2006-03-10T00:38:00.000-05:00

After finishing up a soul-nourishing broiled eel rice bowl at the local sushi place, I ran into the mayor walking around by himself in a tracksuit headed into a pizza joint.

arbitrary and intransigent

2006-02-27T22:55:00.001-05:00

Normally when a friend of mine begins on a grandiose rant about DRM and the deficiency of intellectual property laws, I tend to shy away and seek out other pockets of conversation (and maybe some small batch bourbon). When Mathilde does so for frog (via gizmodo), I sit down with that bourbon to read the article and all its comments.

black & gold XL menu

2006-02-05T16:50:00.000-05:00

chocolate chipotle veggie chili served over cornbread (homemade)
penn dark lager & celestial gold pilsner (penn brewery & church brew works)
chocolate half-dipped people cookies (enrico's biscotti)
chocolate & yellow mini-bundt cakes (the bagel factory)

mad love for the 412

2005-10-29T21:22:00.000-04:00

PPG | Pittsburghers can find a Bay Area haven in Giordano Brothers:

"San Francisco has everything you could ever want ... except Primanti's sandwiches!" Jordan proclaims. So he and his wife began making their version of the sandwich whenever they had parties. Their friends became hooked, and the idea of making a Primanti Brothers-style grill on the West Coast was born. They call their product the "All in One" sandwich. Their Primanti Bros. look-alike sandwiches seem to have filled a niche in the Bay area. Since their opening in July 2004, they have won awards for Best Sandwich, Best New Sandwich and Best Breakfast Sandwich in various Bay area publications.

The Jordans have modified the traditional sandwich to give it a bit more California cachet. The fries are hand-cut from fresh potatoes and fried in single batches when a sandwich is ordered. The slaw is also assembled individually when each sandwich is being made. Dressing for the slaw is made from extra virgin olive oil and vinegar in Giordano's kitchen. It should not be surprising that Giordano's has become the headquarters for West Coast Steelers fans. The burgundy colored walls are hung with framed color photos of important Steelers moments. There are four television screens that on game days bring lots of action to the local fans."

find some cover

2005-10-29T19:02:00.000-04:00

Every now & then our planet winds up tilting the wrong way and for many of us that means it gets cold.

Despite how consistently this tends to happen, it never really fails to catch folks off guard. We're a bit surprised when that chill shows up. This in turn triggers a mild mix of outrage & regret; where did that summer go?

This is all fine; it's a standard part of the fall transition that makes living in 4-season climates what it is.

However, if you decide to harp on this looking for sympathy or commiseration, you've got to pony up and demonstrate some commitment to dealing. You owe the rest of us a sign that your words are backed with an earnest desire to cope and aren't just the chatter of fickle & empty whining.

In short:
Don't bitch about the weather if you can't be bothered to wear a hat.

mirror world

2005-08-25T23:07:00.000-04:00

Short shameful confession: I've always been fascinated with historical re-enactors. I'm not really into that SCA stuff (which freaks me out for no fair reason). No, I was into the big time: Gettysburg, Mystic Seaport, Colonial Williamsburg. The Greatest American Heroes.

But these days who has the patience for a grueling roadtrip to a tourist town of long lines and countless distractions getting between you and the re-enaction?

Fast forward to the present: the game industry can put anything into a massively multiplayer 3d environment on a whim and our hivemind can't get enough of reality inspired military drama.

Bring Kuma\War on.

With a freakish sort of enthusiasm, the Kuma\Folks compulsively put out downloadable missions based on recent or recently relevant events:

Mission 1 - Uday and Qusay's Last Stand
Mission 24 - John Kerry's Silver Star
Mission 26 - Osama 1998
Mission 31 - Osama 2001
Mission 36 - Variations on Fallujah: Operation al-Fajr (Dawn)
Mission 58 - Assault on Iran
**Coming Soon: Mission 59 - The Crime of Dujail: Saddam's Revenge

"This is your opportunity, if only for a moment, to save the Middle East from the decades of sorrow that come to bear under the reign of Saddam Hussein."

wake up italy

2005-07-31T03:56:00.000-04:00

eu2005 | pictures from Venice, Paris, & Manchester: [slideshow]

when quiet favors go awry

2005-07-31T03:38:00.000-04:00

I hate hotels purporting to provide internet service that intercept outgoing e-mail requests and feed them to their own mail servers (redirecting tcp connections to port 25 on any IP address to their server). They do this out of some poorly considered concern for my experience and a narrow concern of keeping their support costs low.

If, like me, you have your mail client configured to use an outgoing e-mail server with authentication, because maybe you travel with your computer a lot and hate dealing with configuration changes, your message will fail to send. Why Apple, Microsoft, and the open source hippies can't be bothered to standardize dynamic e-mail configuration around DHCP/Bonjour/DNS/LDAP/whatever, I don't understand.

The hotel's arrangment of morally bankrupt routers and complicitly deceiving mail traffickers can't cope with my powerbook's standard variant of the e-mail protocol and fails to let me send mail. In keeping with their lies, they make it look like my server, an upstanding server of noble lineage and good repute, is befuddled and unable to acknowledge me.

After uncovering this deceipt and cursing all involved, I thought of more ideas for cutting costs and improving hotel guest experience:

Replace all internet traffic that may give the guest negative stay associations with positive information. Stocks always go up when you stay at The Red Roof Inn! Heck, replace that costly hotel DSL connection with an isolated webserver of good financial news, hotel press releases, and soft core pornography.

Why stop with stinky towels and unwashed sheets? Out of concern for the environment, they can stop providing waste removal or modern manufactured amenities! Please note: if you don't register by 3pm with the front desk, we will not process your compost heap until after your stay with us.

Why charge $3 for 16 oz of bottled water when you can charge the same for tap water? Empty plastic bottles are available at the front desk for a courtesy charge of $2.

don't think of it as the quantification of the human spirit...

2005-07-16T16:16:00.000-04:00

(Jim Munroe/No Media Kings)

No Media Kings | Time Management for Anarchists
(via Ratha)

This flash animation distills down some Getting Things Done wisdom; notably breaking down tasks and offloading brain overhead into a notebook. One can't help but welcome productivity tips that aren't targeted at the whitened-teeth MBA crowd. Smash the state!

dialing back

2005-06-27T09:48:00.000-04:00

For no initial fee, Mobal will send you a global SIM card for your GSM mobile phone with a UK number. It gets attached to the credit card that you provide and you're billed as you use the service. The rates are pretty high (GPRS rates), but it claims to work everywhere and it doesn't expire.

If you're willing to shell out $60 US in startup cost (resulting in $20 worth of service credit), you can get the freakishly branded Global Riiing SIM, which has better rates (free incoming in most of Europe). If you don't add some money to the account every 9 months, it does expire.

I hate making decisions based on the convenient reasoning of amortization so I opted for the Mobal's "the first one is free" SIM.

The Traveler Insider has a reasonably detailed 7 part series on international cellphone options and they finally settle on the Global Riiing SIM.

Other options & research:
Tavel Insider's DIY decision matrix
NYT | Using Your Cellphone Anywhere in the World
Hop Mobile: the rates aren't good, but you get a number in Monaco!
In Touch Smart Cards: several identical options with inscrutable benefit
Cellular Abroad

dialing italia

2005-06-23T18:44:00.000-04:00

Long distance telephone service, as many may know, is hell. International is worse.

If you have unmodified home or mobile phone service, you surely have some punitive rate designed to reap profits from occasional or unknowing consumers. You could upgrade to one of many value plans, each one forcing you into an uncomfortable characterization of use and intent.

If you lack the vigilance, foresight, or courage to switch to such a plan, you could use an equal-access dial-around casual-caller code. These are the 10-10-XXX numbers that I hold responsible for that particularly bad bout of television advertising in the mid-90s. While these seem to be low-commitment low-hassle low-cost (10-10PhoneRates.com: Italy), the net tells tales of baroque billing system complexities causing financial woe.

Oddly enough, the more reputable option might be to walk down to the corner malaysian-cellphone-cover-and-cigarette shop to pick up a prepaid calling card.

I wound up so frustrated with the sketchiness of these options, I broke down and gave my money to Skype. Paypal'ing 10€ and getting over the confusion of international dialing codes took a minute; soon enough I was conversing in broken italian with a hotel clerk.

At first I thought that this must be the consequence of cruel-yet-efficient markets; it finds ways to separate freeloaders from those with the will to bring downward price pressure to bear. But I don't know now. I'm sure if I devoted the time I could use some kind of libertarian mind-fu to spin this pricing insanity back into a morality play on government regulation.

Anyway, it is a testament to the convolution of this industry that consumersearch.com reviews sites that themselves review long distance plans.

brushes with greatness

2005-06-23T12:04:00.000-04:00

2005-06-22: Tony Kenning, drummer from Def Leppard at the Shadyside Apple Store

2005-05-24: Franco Harris, hall of fame running back at the Pittsburgh Airport

the wasted promise of youth

2005-05-22T18:58:00.000-04:00

Crying, while eating:
"Christy

What she's eating:
Sausage with mushrooms and cheese; a vanilla shake

What she's crying about:
Good at lots of things, but not great at anything"

sleazy jet

2005-04-27T00:25:00.000-04:00

whichbudget.com:
"Which budget airline flies to Nice? Which budget flight can I get from Manchester? There are numerous no-frills airlines offering cheap flights between the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Germany, Holland and other European destinations for either leisure or business travel. In order to help you make your choice, WhichBudget has brought together all the routes these airlines fly to and from on one site."

an intensity usually reserved for talmud scholars

2005-04-24T11:29:00.000-04:00

(New York Times)

nyt magazine | Watching TV Makes You Smarter:
"For decades, we've worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a path declining steadily toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the ''masses'' want dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies try to give the masses what they want. But as that ''24'' episode suggests, the exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more cognitively demanding, not less. To make sense of an episode of ''24,'' you have to integrate far more information than you would have a few decades ago watching a comparable show. Beneath the violence and the ethnic stereotypes, another trend appears: to keep up with entertainment like ''24,'' you have to pay attention, make inferences, track shifting social relationships. This is what I call the Sleeper Curve: the most debased forms of mass diversion -- video games and violent television dramas and juvenile sitcoms -- turn out to be nutritional after all."

rich provenance

2005-04-24T10:54:00.000-04:00

This week's NYT magazine feature weaves baseball scouting ideology, the temptation of steroids, and the minor league careers of two OBP guys into a nice narrative about balancing one's own inclinations with the experience, advice, and pressure of others.

nyt magazine | Absolutely, Power Corrupts:
"One sort of outlier encouraged by the Oakland experiment, at least at first, was the player, like Steve Stanley, who lacked power. There were two reasons the Oakland front office didn't worry too much about the ability of college players to hit home runs: the statistics suggested that a lot of good hitters acquired the ability to hit home runs in their early or even mid-20's; and if these players with their gift for getting on base continued to get on base, it didn't matter as much whether they hit home runs. A player like Stanley, if he just kept doing in pro ball what he had done in college ball, could become a valuable big leaguer. But what the Oakland front office did not anticipate was the pressure, even within its own farm system, on these oddly chosen players to conform to big-league norms. Their experiment had inadvertently dragged right into the center of the game a group of oddballs who had to decide what their response to the pressure would be. Stanley offered one kind of response -- a wildly improbable and charming faith that the Lord was going to turn him into a 25-homer-a-year slugger. But there were other responses."

important!

2005-04-19T23:47:00.000-04:00

eurail selectpass:
"Important! Norway and Finland are not bordering countries. They have a joint border, but to get by train from Norway to Finland clients have to travel through Sweden."

eggbaconchipsandbeans

2005-04-19T20:04:00.000-04:00

eggbaconchipsandbeans:
"Situated in Clifton about a mile out of Bristol City Centre, York Café is a friendly spot for some EBCB. It's close to Bristol University and seems to get a mix of students and locals. The booths seat 6 so unless you're a small battalion of eaters be prepared to snuggle up with people you may not know.

A generous portion of chips. Crisp and golden on the outside, fluffy on the inside. Nice. The highlight of the EBCB however was undoubtedly the egg.

Cooked to perfection, the yolk was plump and sweet. The bacon tasty, the beans good, but as you can see by the beans to juice ratio they weren't Heinz."

super elite for $129

2005-04-12T15:46:00.000-04:00

apple | tiger features:
"Remap modifiers such as control and caps lock to be super elite."

pittsburgh eats

2005-04-05T01:01:00.000-04:00

(Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette)

Pittsburgh's restaurant scene has picked up over the last year or two. It's a bit harder to complain about where to go and easier to blame a lack of time, money, and company.

Goodnesses:
Red Room: good food & wine, but spendy
Point Brugge: moules frittes & a leffe == goodness ten thousand
Abay
Rose Tea Cafe: intimidatingly authentic (& good) chinese

To look into:
Tasca Navarre: mixed reports. will probably suck.
Eleven: mixed reports, but damn it looks hot
True: "bartini" sounds grotesque but folks say it's good
Sonoma Grill & Bossa Nova: vaguely creepy downtown joints
the new Harris's grill: for one of those sunny days
Il Piccolo Forno: dahn where Regina Margherita used to be
bikki: now with a lounge?
Mantini's Woodfired
Pamplona: is this place ever open? is this location cursed?
Lidia's: eat with the PBS diva you have, not the PBS diva you wish to have

Favorites to get back to:
Cafe du Jour
Dish
La Cucina Flegrea
Tram's
Enrico's
Indica
Sharp Edge

Resources:
psu reviews
achd: new restaurants
no smoke: eastern allegheny co
cp reviews
pg reviews

smart icon

2005-03-29T23:37:00.000-05:00

smart in the city

2005-03-29T23:35:00.000-05:00

nyt | Little Cars in the Big Apple:
The interior of the Renault Zoé is decorated with a pattern that suggests this networking. L.E.D.'s on the ceiling and images on the carpet carry the same pattern - part silicon chip layout, part map. Renault describes it as "a printed circuit linking some of the world's great metropolises, the breeding ground of new trends."

"Zoé is charm personified," said Mr. Le Quément of Renault. Who can be against that?

hope eternal

2005-03-29T23:05:00.000-05:00

it's spring. time for new ideas, cleaning, baseball, travel, and salads.

for the discriminating giver

2005-02-20T17:44:00.000-05:00

Charity Navigator | 4 Star Charities:
Charity Navigator works to guide intelligent giving. We help charitable givers make intelligent giving decisions by providing information on over thirty-six hundred charities and by evaluating the financial health of each of these charities. We ensure our evaluations are widely used by making them easy to understand and freely available to the public. By guiding intelligent giving, we aim to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace, in which givers and the charities they support work in tandem to overcome our nation's most persistent challenges.

physical horror chamber

2005-02-14T23:57:00.000-05:00

pkd | A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR US TEMPUNAUTS:
In writing this story I felt a weary sadness of my own, and fell into the space (I should say time) that the characters are in, more so than usual. I felt a futility about futility -- there is nothing more defeating than a strong awareness of defeat, and as I wrote I realized that what for us remains merely a psychological problem -- over-awareness of the likelihood of failing and the lethal feedback from this -- would for a time traveler be instantly converted into an existential, physical horror chamber. We, when we're depressed, are fortunately imprisioned within our heads; once time travel becomes a reality, however, this self-defeating psychological attitude could spell doom on a scale beyond calculation.

the modern face of progress

2005-02-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

This is how azureus, a bittorrent client, shows progress in a chaotic
world of randomly accumulated parts.

half dozen of the other

2005-01-26T20:56:00.000-05:00

(Lake Fong / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

allow for personal preference

2005-01-26T20:51:00.000-05:00

How to measure your shirt size.
T.M. Lewin
Shirtmakers since 1893

reflection on a city's battered psyche in free verse

2005-01-24T18:41:00.000-05:00

craigslist | rants & raves in pittsburgh:

Does anybody have? (Pitt)

re: Get a life

Re: Steelers Fans (Steel town)

re: To the guy with two cars...

To the guy with two cars... (Manifest Density)

Internet thugs (Steel town)

Gay MArriage " Legal in Boston" (Pitz)

Re: Massachusetts

Be Proud Pitt (Boston)

Get a LIFE! (you fucking losers)

Desperate Housewives snub media

To my people in Pittsburgh. Nothing but love. (Boston)

stop hurting america

2005-01-06T16:44:00.000-05:00

Y! | CNN Lets 'Crossfire' Host Carlson Go:
"CNN said goodbye to pundit Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, and with him likely the 'Crossfire' program that has been the granddaddy of high-volume political debate shows on cable television.

[...]

The bow-tied wearing conservative pundit got into a public tussle last fall with comic Jon Stewart, who has been critical of cable political programs that devolve into shoutfests.

'I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp,' [John] Klein [who was appointed in late November as chief executive of CNN's U.S. network] told The Associated Press.

He said all of the cable networks, including CNN, have overdosed on programming devoted to arguing over issues. Klein said he wants more substantive programming that is still compelling.

'I doubt that when the president sits down with his advisers they scream at him to bring him up to date on all of the issues,' he said. 'I don't know why we don't treat the audience with the same respect.'"

technology for psycho-social nightmares

2004-12-15T10:27:00.000-05:00

the 10 weirdest Palm OS programs | bistromatic:
"In some places, people go Dutch on the restaurant bill, sharing the amount equally among all eaters. In other places, it’s the oldest one who pays. Or the one with the highest range, or even the one who wants to make a statement. However, in more civilised regions of the world, such as Germany or the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, each one pays just what he/she has eaten. This psycho-social nightmare can be eased with Bistromatic, a program that calculates easily who ate what and provides separate amounts for each person, including percentual tipping. The program costs four dollars, to be paid at once."

fourth branch futility

2004-12-07T21:45:00.000-05:00

If you're already bored of e-mailing your elected officials, find novelty in being ignored by your Washington Press Corps.

resist the demonization

2004-12-06T19:22:00.000-05:00

nyt | Like It or Not, the Postmodern Malt Shop:
"'Starbucks has become the corner bar of the 21st century,' said Bryant Simon, a history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, who has begun research for a book about the ubiquitous chain. 'It symbolizes the hunger for community in today's atomized world. Starbucks has tapped into people's desire to be with other people. It's become a new public space where people can go to be with other people. That's the genius of the place. That's why I resist the demonization of Starbucks. Who else is building these community spaces in America today?'"

[...]

"While its customers take comfort in the coffee and the ambiance, critics insist that Starbucks actually destroys community. Benjamin R. Barber, an author and professor of civil society at the University of Maryland, went so far as to say that the chain "exterminates the local distinctiveness of neighborhoods."

"Neighborhoods are defined by unique and distinct characteristics," Professor Barber said. "By creating a cookie-cutter coffee shop, even if the quality is good, in the long term you're destroying your neighborhood."

only your hatred can destroy me

2004-11-17T01:29:00.000-05:00

Washington National Cathedral:
"To Find Darth Vader you have to leave the building through the ramp entrance. This is located at the northwest corner of the nave, through the double wooden doors of Lincoln Bay. Go down the ramp, and step into the parking lot. Then, turn around and look back up at the tower closest to you. He is almost impossible to see without the assistance of binoculars.

Way way way up, almost at the top of the tower is a gablet, or small peaked roof, located between the two huge louvered arches. At the bottom of each slope of this gablet is a carved grotesque. Darth Vader is on the north, or right-hand, side. There is a carved skull situated on a gablet much closer to the ground which many people often mistake for Darth Vader. From this skull, Darth Vader is up and to the left."

what'd i do?

2004-11-16T22:10:00.000-05:00

csmonitor.com | The WJC Library:
featuring "an interactive policy alcove called 'Fight for Power'"

no fracas with weasels

2004-11-15T01:07:00.000-05:00

dubyamovie.com | Don Knotts as Dubya:
It's not the greatest election year flash or quicktime. It's probably not even in the top 10.

But hey, Don Knotts.

for those looking to run

2004-11-03T18:28:00.000-05:00

harpers | Electing to Leave:
"The most serious barrier to renouncing your citizenship is that the State Department, which oversees expatriation, is reluctant to allow citizens to go “stateless.” Before allowing expatriation, the department will want you to have obtained citizenship or legal asylum in another country—usually a complicated and expensive process, if it can be done at all. Would-be renunciants must also prove that they do not intend to live in the United States afterward. Furthermore, you cannot renounce inside U.S. borders; the declaration must be made at a consul’s office abroad."

god bless our inbred aristrocracy

2004-10-21T10:08:00.000-04:00

Those kooks at bushrelativesforkerry.com should reserve kerryrelativesforkerry.com! Don't they know that Bush & Kerry are ninth cousins twice removed?

nobody wears t-shirts that mean something

2004-10-18T09:48:00.000-04:00

RollingStone.com: Rolling Stone | Politics - Bush Like Me:
"If you've ever hung out with the Tricia Enrights and Joe Trippis of the world, you know that the operative vibe of the Democratic insider is wisecracking cool. It is not a reach to say that the ideological vision that mainstream Democratic politics has offered America since Clinton has been the supercool high school, the party of the popular kids. For all the talk about the Democrats being the party of inclusion, it really doesn't feel that way from the inside.

That's not true of all Democrats, of course. I thought it was very different, for instance, in the campaign of Dennis Kucinich. For the most part, these people were motivated by something other than ambition, and just being part of that campaign meant you were in a besieged minority, with the whole world out there laughing at you. Kucinich supporters stuck up for one another, because they had to.

You get that same besieged fraternal feeling in a Republican campaign office. There is no M*A*S*H ensemble-cast repartee. Nobody wears T-shirts that mean something, and nobody looks cool. As I would later find out, most Republicans hate 'cool' ('They all think they're so cool and artistic,' griped one woman as she watched Fox coverage of Democratic delegates arriving in Boston). Many of the parent volunteers I met were especially bitter because they think that cool is what liberals use to lure their children away. Which they might very well be right about, of course."

a gecko, teresa heinz-kerry, and the dali lama walk into a bar

2004-10-18T08:00:00.000-04:00

gecko-heinz, originally uploaded by linensupply.

raised by billionaire french homosexuals

2004-10-14T23:48:00.000-04:00

So, tonight's frontline was mostly a Kerry lovefest. Some of the early footage was interesting. The next episode on Rumsfeld's defense transformation efforts should be solid.

This entry was brought to you by ELITE DESIGNERS AGAINST IKEA.

2 weeks and change

2004-10-14T20:40:00.000-04:00

If you've turned into a news junkie (like I have) and are craving some election coverage of substance, I suggest watching tonight's episode of frontline: the choice 2004. I haven't seen the episode, read anything about it, or checked what are sure to be comprehensive online materials. I'm basing my endorsement on frontline's track record of kick-ass reporting that reminds you what critical journalism ought to be. If you have a TV that can get PBS when you jiggle the antenna just right, you can watch it.

If you don't have a TV or manage to miss it on your local PBS affiliate (tonight on WQED @ 9PM), it'll be available online as streaming video tomorrow.

small victories

2004-09-27T19:34:00.000-04:00

I successfully talked my mom through changing her SMTP server.

all the sports writing that's fit to print

2004-09-18T11:14:00.000-04:00

nyt | Hire the Guy With a Head for Baseball:
"For if Mr. Met could speak, he might release a bansheelike wail that lasts through the day and well into the night, long after the lights at Shea Stadium had stopped illuminating the latest crime committed in the name of baseball.

The sleepless children of Queens would ask: 'What's that sound, Daddy? It's making me sad.' Their fathers would answer: 'That's Mr. Met, my child, crying for us all.'"

investment banking

2004-09-16T15:42:00.000-04:00

yahoo | Fan Spends $25K Hoping for Bonds HR Ball:

"Mahan, 28, decided six months ago to purchase every seat in the Bonds-friendly section of Dodger Stadium for two of the last three games against the San Francisco Giants (news) in October. He was hoping that Bonds would join only Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron in the 700 home run club.

[...]

Mahan has been reselling most of the 6,458 tickets for as much as $15 each — much more than the $3.50 the Dodgers front office gave him as part of a standard group-discount rate.

[...]

He has required every ticket buyer to sign an eight-page contract compelling them to hand over to him any Bonds home run ball they might catch. He would then sell the ball and split the money evenly with the fan who caught it, according to the contract.

The only people in the right-field pavilion free of legal constraints at the two games will be Mahan's parents, two sisters and 8-year-old brother."

pittsburgh franchise report

2004-09-14T17:43:00.000-04:00

(unattributed artist)

~~dave and busters~~
~~hard rock cafe~~
~~qdoba~~
~~whole foods~~
~~apple store~~
~~cold stone creamery~~
~~cheesecake factorty~~
REI: 2005
urban outfitters: 2005
bill gates computer science building: some time after Longhorn ships

Collect degrees from all of these Gates buildings and you may be eligible for a free mouse pad:

Cambridge
U Washington
MIT
Stanford
Harvard

6 lessons from 9.11.2004

2004-09-11T22:31:00.000-04:00

(jock pottle)

Deborah Madison's most recent cookbook, Local Flavors, is gorgeous, her eggplant gratin recipe rocks, and she's a nice person too.

When you get parts (e.g. machine screws) out of open bins at home depot, measure or test them before you buy. Parts seem to prefer living away from their home bin.

Pennslyvania table wine is more than acceptable.

Daniel Libeskind, architect of the 1,776 ft World Trade Center memorial, went to my high school.

Sam Patti from La Prima Espresso thinks that the rising quality and lower cost of super-automatic machines will improve the availability of decent espresso drinks in the U.S.. When traveling, I have found that super-auto Starbucks are consistently decent whereas the La Marzocco shops are a gamble. Heck, Eat N'Park's Shaerer super-autos make consistently drinkable cappuccinos, which is more than I can say for most "premium" coffee shops.

Dick Cheney thought NORAD/NEADS fighters he authorized had shot down UA 93.

this morning's random playlist

2004-09-08T11:47:00.000-04:00

1
atomic
sleeper / debbie harrie
trainspotting soundtrack

2
famous blue raincoat
tori amos
live single

3
deadweight
beck
a life less ordinary soundtrack

4
groove is in the heart
dee-lite
world clique

5
jeru
miles davis
birth of cool

6
ready or not
fugees
the score

7
under the bridge
red hot chili peppers
what hits

8
little church [live]
miles davis
live evil

9
it's coming down
cake
fashion nugget

10
o death
ralph stanley
o brother, where art thou soundtrack

11
french fries with pepper
morphine
like swimming

12
directions
miles davis
live at filmore

13
isobel
björk
post

web tool of the day

2004-09-07T11:22:00.000-04:00

If you want to know what network IP address your connection to the internet is visible as, say, for troubleshooting some sort of backward security/firewall problem, you should go to whatismyip.com.

weighing grim scenarios and ominous intelligence

2004-09-01T14:01:00.000-04:00

(Martha Rial / Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

this week in globalization

2004-09-01T13:55:00.000-04:00

Yahoo | Trampling at Saudi IKEA opening :
JEDDAH (Reuters) - Three men were trampled to death in a rush to claim vouchers at the first IKEA furniture showroom in Saudi Arabia Wednesday, hospital officials said.

Sixteen shoppers were injured at the Sweden-based furniture store opening in Jeddah. Medics revived some 20 customers who had fainted in the crush. IKEA said two were killed.

The rush was triggered by an offer for the first 50 shoppers to receive $150 in vouchers. An IKEA statement said more than 20,000 people showed up.

Hospital officials said two of the dead were a Pakistani and a Saudi national.

The IKEA statement said the company had worked closely with Saudi security officials to plan the opening.

IKEA is known for simple, reasonably priced products.

the wrong mettle

2004-08-27T12:21:00.000-04:00

from xthlc
Larry Diamond (ex-CPA) on What Went Wrong:
"It now seems unlikely that the weak and besieged new Iraqi government will have the will or capacity to enforce the demobilization plan. In fact, the new Iraqi state is caught in a Catch-22: to be viable, it must build up its armed forces as rapidly as possible. But the readiest sources of soldiers and police are the most powerful militias, which will probably allow their fighters to join the new military only if their command structures remain intact. Thus, if the fledgling Iraqi state hopes to truly defeat the militias, it may have to go to war with itself. That seems hard to imagine. Yet if Iraq tries to hold elections while the militias remain intact (in one guise or another), the campaign is likely to become a very bloody and undemocratic affair. Candidates will face assassination, weaker political opponents will be run out of town, and the electoral machinery will be hijacked by those with the most guns."

Printable Paper Transformers

Pound a 'lunamin ahrn!: why would an aluminum bottle keep it cooler? AL is an ultra-conductive metal that should conduct heat much faster than glass. Is it stricly the reflectiveness vs. the dark color of glass? Is there some kind of insulating vacuum between two layers of aluminum?

Also, why does Pittsburgh get national press for bad beer in The Wrong Metal but not for involvement in these hot communist propaganda posters?

Griffin EarJams: could these freaky freaky appendages solve the unsolvable iPod earphone problem?

Illicit next generation Treo pictures: I will hold out until I can get this phone. I will hold out until I can get this phone...

the french paradox

2004-08-23T01:33:00.000-04:00

This weekend I visited a local winery and in a moment of weakness left with a case (12 bottles). I have been more of a beer afficionado recently and aside from the occaisional bistro or BYOW pizzeria experience, I haven't been that much of a wine drinker. Maybe 3 or 4 bottles a year.

I'm going to give wine drinking more of a try. They say it's good for you.

CP wine & booze archives

general tso's sauce for the soul

2004-08-22T23:42:00.000-04:00

Somtimes I crave general tso's chicken and no explanation of how unauthentic and historically preposterous it is will dissuade me.

Instead of greasy takeout, I tried making some tofu with this sauce:

General Tso's Chicken - chinese recipes:
2 1/2 tablespoons dark soy sauce or mushroom soy sauce
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 tablespoons hoisin sauce
3 teaspoons sugar
3 teaspoons Chinese white rice vinegar or distilled vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons Shao-Hsing wine or dry sherry [I used Marsala]

super stretch

2004-08-19T02:10:00.000-04:00

White House Interactive: "Q: Elizabeth from Boston Mass.:
I have a Question for whitehouse Press Secretary Scott McClellan? I was wondering when President speaks to the media he always calls on a person named Stretch. Who is that?

A: Scott McClellan, White House Press Secretary:
“Stretch” is the President's nickname for White House correspondent Dick Keil of Bloomberg News. Dick has covered the President since the 2000 campaign. Dick is an avid long distance runner who is somewhere around six feet five inches tall -- hence the nickname “Stretch.”. When the President calls on “Super Stretch,” he is referring to White House correspondent Bill Sammon of the Washigton Times, who towers over Dick by an inch or two."

no magic bullet

2004-08-18T22:57:00.000-04:00

So, tomorrow I'm talking a half day from work to go to Arlen Specter (R-PA)'s town hall meeting.

The Commonwealth's senior senator is most well known for his part in some of our nation's odd episodes: the single bullet theory, the clarence thomas hearings, and well more of that single bullet theory.

from assassinationscience.com:
and, (7) he asserts
that you can't prove a negative: but we have just done so six times: we have proven
that Arlen Specter has made no less than six false claims--seven, including this
one--during this brief interview. Evidence that substantiates the first six of
these refutations may be found in ASSASSINATION SCIENCE (1998) and in MURDER IN
DEALEY PLAZA (2000).

Sen. Specter is currently campaigning against Rep. Joe Hoeffel to hold onto his 24 year old senate seat. Hoeffel's not quite running away with it.

His voting record seems genuinely moderate or at least a bit incongruous with the party line; he may be a tool but it's not tatoo'd on his forehead like the junior senator from Mt Lebanon. In fact some conservative pundits were half hoping he'd loose the primary. Does he have the integrity to transcend party politics or is he a spinelessly opportunistic product of Pennsylvania's conflicting values? I don't know. I hope to get a read on him tomorrow.

Anyway, since I've learned to stop worrying and love pork, I should probably take solace that he's 2 heartbeats (or 1 magic bullet!) away from chairing the appropriations comittee. Daddy needs another pair of under-river light rail tunnels!

Chime in with questions or concerns for the honorable senator. Bonus points if your question begins with "Doesn't America deserve ... ?" and ends with "Please cite 3 specific examples."

construction at 1600

2004-08-01T23:31:00.000-04:00

four stringed paradise

2004-08-01T22:45:00.000-04:00

Ukulelia:
"'Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's medley of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World' has consistently been on iTunes' list of the top 100 songs sold since it debuted in the store in December. Recently, the song held spot No. 73, ahead of Jessica Simpson's 'Take My Breath Away' (81) and Beyoncé's 'Crazy in Love' (82). '"

on one christmas a lady caught on fire

2004-07-28T20:47:00.000-04:00

Ask the White House, Roland Mesnier, White House Pastry Chef:
"Anukul, from Pittsburgh, PA writes:
Could you share how being a pastry chef in the Whitehouse is different than being one anywhere else? Does the Secret Service prevent you from serving flaming desserts: crêpes suzette, bananas foster, etc.,? Also, what do you think is the greatest American dessert?

Roland Mesnier
First of all, to be the pastry chef at the White House you have to be totally dedicated to the profession, the job and the First Family.

You don't think about free time, spare time, etc. Because your time is at the White House. Any time you are needed you have to be there. It could be Christmas day, Easter, your birthday, your mother's birthday, your child's birthday -- you are going to be at the White House if you are needed.

The White House always comes first.

Everything you do has to be perfect. There is no guessing or any 'second times.' Whatever you send out has to be absolutely perfect. There is no 'oops.' Or maybe or 'I think.'

Perfection is no accident. It is just something that you need to apply at the White House.

The Secret Service, by the way, has not restricted flaming desserts. But I do restrict it, because on one Christmas a lady caught on fire. She was wearing a fox shawl around her neck, she leaned over on the dessert table and whoops she was on fire.

So no flambé at the White House. Thank you."

the healing power of a young siren with tangerine lipstick

2004-07-27T11:07:00.000-04:00

csmonitor.com | Reality TV hits home in Baghdad :
"'We have presents for you!' warbles Shaima Emad Zubair, a young siren with tangerine lipstick. Batting her blue-mascaraed eyes, she pokes her microphone his way. Behind her, several boys unload a washing machine, refrigerator, TV, sofa set, and more from the back of a truck as a camera crew films.

[...]

'Labor and Materials' is Iraq's answer to 'Extreme Home Makeover' and the country's first reality TV show. In 15-minute episodes, broken windows are made whole again. Blasted walls slowly rise again. Fancy furniture and luxurious carpets appear without warning in the living rooms of poor families. Over six weeks, houses blasted by US bombs regenerate in a home-improvement show for a war-torn country.

blue 285, red 242

2004-07-23T21:27:00.000-04:00

(Electoral Vote Predictor, July 23rd)

Electoral Vote Predictor 2004: plugging per-state polling data into an electoral map every day since May 24th.

another swing state

2004-07-22T23:57:00.000-04:00

csmonitor.com | Bush or Kerry? In Baghdad, political passions run high: "Bush has a fierce cadre of devoted followers, mainly among Shiites and Kurds who suffered under Saddam Hussein. They are the silent minority.

[...]

Every morning as he's leaving the house he pauses by the door. 'I put my faith in God,' he says, according to Muslim tradition. Then he takes a little picture of George W. Bush out of his wallet, and kisses it. [...] 'I made a vow: that whoever saved me from Saddam, I will kiss him every morning,' says Abbas, his craggy face cracking into a grin. 'So believe me, I kiss George Bush every morning.'"

we're fake

2004-07-22T17:54:00.000-04:00

(AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian)

The Seattle Times: TCA Awards: "Only television critics [...] would have conferred this year's prize for outstanding news and information programming to Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show' — vaulting it over rivals like PBS' 'Frontline' and ABC's 'Nightline.'"

gonna take a stand, gonna show no mercy

2004-07-20T15:42:00.000-04:00

Cheers: The Sam Malone Sound Archive featuring everyone's favorite groin injury.

screw the dew

2004-07-20T14:27:00.000-04:00

From Jer: Bottle Cap Tripod for Digital Camera from Japan

late postcard from waikiki

2004-07-18T15:16:00.000-04:00

in defense of pittsburgh transit

2004-07-18T14:14:00.000-04:00

It's quite easy to complain about PAT as if any strap-hanger can better run a transit system (in the face of an unstable and dwindling budget and a complex driver's union). Transit systems inevitably involve compromise. Everyone in top-tier transit cities complains about their transit system (SF, D.C., Boston, and even that holy grail NYC). If you've spent time in these cities and used their transit systems (let alone cities the size of Pittsburgh), you'd realize that PAT isn't half bad. 24 hr service? Most transit systems grind to a halt around midnight; yet with PAT you get reasonable service until 2am (and 3am on the UV loop on Friday/Saturday/Sunday). Yes, the system is focussed around downtown as a hub. Yes, there are many routes that run every 30 minutes (rather than 15 or 20). Yes, some people smell really really bad. But it works, and with a little bit of planning, it works well.

If you care about improving transit, write to your local State representatives (senate and house) for stable transit funding instead of needless highway projects. If you want more cross-town routes (a la 54c / 64a / UV Loop / etc.,) or to change the backward pay-when-you-get-off-during-rush-hour-thing, send PAT a courteous note.

I am not affiliated with PAT, but I do use it almost every day. I also help out a little with this alternative bus schedule site: bus.maya.com. And for your information the schedules are useful. In my experience (on the 61, 54c, 51, and 53), perhaps 2 or 3 times a year does a scheduled bus fail to show up. Yes, there is always a 10 minute fudge factor in the times, but I can almost always plan when I head out to the stop based on a schedule.

It's not that bad. Bring a book, get an iPod, look at a schedule, and relax.

[ originally posted on livejournal pittsburgh ]

10,000 hits

2004-07-17T10:53:00.000-04:00

TinyPic Image Hosting:
"TinyPic, a free image hosting site without the hassles.
You can easily host pictures for Ebay, message boards and live journals. Best of all, your picture links will always be tiny!"

"[...] each picture will be deleted from our servers after 10,000 hits or 30 days of inactivity (no hits), whichever comes first. You can always re-upload the picture if you'd like."

commemorative stamp or mad magazine fold-in?

2004-07-12T22:46:00.000-04:00

(U.S. Postal Service)

and yes it's true that i kick ass

2004-07-12T22:40:00.000-04:00

This Land by JibJab : flash political satire at its best.

independence day

2004-07-04T20:20:00.000-04:00

(AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)

NY Mets 10, NY Yankees 9

S. Spencer reached on fielder's choice, K. Matsui scored, C. Floyd to third, R. Hidalgo to second

plate tectonics worked for me!

2004-06-30T12:28:00.000-04:00

(Volcanos in the Sea, 1983, Abbot, Macdonald, & Peterson)

The Hawaiian archipelago hotspot:

"A hot spot is a small area of extremely hot rock which is embedded deep within earth's interior. As the hot spot remains stationary, the ocean floor slowly slides over it. reaching the ocean floor as it builds a volcano. This volcano extends above the waves until Magma erupts from the hot spot the ocean floor carries it past the hot spot. When the lava supply is exhausted, the old volcano ceases to exist, and a new volcano starts to build above the hot spot. This process produced the series of volcanoes which became the Hawaiian Islands."

the part of l. paul "jerry" bremer III will be played by pierce brosnan

2004-06-30T12:24:00.000-04:00

The New York Times > Opinion > Krugman: Who Lost Iraq?

(AFP)

xthlc on CPA: "The CPA is full of brain-damaged baby-boomer bureaucratic barnacles who were deemed too incapable for Washington and inbred WASP 2.5-ers from the Minor Ivy Leagues whose daddies are Bush Pioneers."

more xthlc followup.

like sands through the hourglass

2004-06-23T18:40:00.000-04:00

"Yes, Trey Wingo did reference both the soap opera character Marlena Evans (thought to be dead, but not) and the 1969 Mets (also jump-started by an 11-game winning streak) in reference to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on the Monday night edition of Baseball Tonight."

from 6/21/2004 BT Extra

inspector clouseau meets the book of revelations

2004-06-16T23:36:00.000-04:00

Bush: "[...] his presidency is little more than a series of slapstick fuck-ups with apocalyptic consequences. Inspector Clouseau meets the Book of Revelations."

"You get the sense that Kerry's greatest joy in life is sitting alone in his office at the end of a long day, thumbing through his fresh collection of business cards and coveting the connections that each one brings."

New York Press: The Spite Hypothesis

medeski, martin, & wood: son of a whore!

2004-06-13T14:23:00.000-04:00

Veggie Burritos FAQ: Son of a whore! These MMW guys are awesome!
BitTorrenting for the music trader/bootlegger
SHN List for Medeski, Martin & Wood

zed's dead, baby. zed's dead.

2004-06-12T01:00:00.000-04:00

Alternative weekly Pulp halts publishing

return of the king

2004-06-12T00:08:00.000-04:00

TRCK

2004-06-10T23:54:00.000-04:00

tracklistcentraal: building the largest living tracklist archive on the web

300 web graphics

2004-06-08T23:57:00.000-04:00

Stolen from Lars: 300 web graphics

flying chalupas

2004-06-08T23:48:00.000-04:00

" [...] as she turned away, a chalupa hit her in the face near her right eye."

USATODAY.com - Iowa man charged with Taco Bell chalupa assault

flagstaff & arsenal

2004-06-08T11:16:00.000-04:00

Pittsburgh Cinema in the Parks Schedule

compostition

2004-06-08T11:13:00.000-04:00

"And indeed, if we are in circumstances where we can control the light (rather than just wait for it), then we can even take something as ordinary as a toilet and make its appearance look more than just ordinary."

On Composition

dod 101

2004-06-08T11:08:00.000-04:00

Air War College's Homeland Security Portal where I found the link to DoD 101: An introductory overview of the Department of Defense.

For info on the structure of forces in Operation Iraqi Freedom, CJTF-7 is a good starting point.