I have two videos for you to watch. This first one is about a NatGeo photographer who was shooting a hooge leopard seal that decided to first offer him penguins and then teach him how to eat them. Pretty awesome.
Next is a funny video from Andrew. Watch as Japanese people pretend to get shot by a pretend gun. Good times.
A NINETEEN pound baby was born in Indonesia recently. Look at that guy. He could probably kick my ass. [via David]
A home was built out of 3.3 million Legos, but no one wanted to buy it, including Legoland. Thank God, because now they get to destroy it.
To be honest, I didn't really want to see 2012, but this remix of the trailer may have changed my mind. While it's far from official, if more directors were so transparent about their films I think people would be less critical. Put your ego aside and admit this is a movie about blowing shit up. Crank: High Voltage did just that and it was fucking awesome.
JUMBO JET SURFING?
Seriously, this nearly made me jack and liz at the same time (see the full episode for definitions).
As I enjoyed my days off around New Year's, I wondered why the first of January started the year. It turned out this happened to be the day two Roman counsels were appointed and it stuck. I didn't realize this wasn't fully adopted until the 18th Century.
It shouldn't be surprising that the date went back and forth in the Western world as a result of religion. The Wikipedia entry for New Year's Day explains England's new year's history, which puts a different spin on why January 1st is the first day of the year:
Most countries in Western Europe officially adopted January 1 as New Year's Day somewhat before they adopted the Gregorian calendar. The Feast of the Annunciation, March 25 (9 months before December 25), was the first day of the new year in England until the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar in 1752. The March 25th date was called Annunciation Style; the January 1 date was called Circumcision Style, because this was the date of the Feast of the Circumcision, being the eighth day counting from December 25.
The British Frozen Food Federation built ice walls embedded with food in London's South Bank. The rest of the photos are equally arresting. This comes via Eat Me Daily, one of my favorite new food blogs. It takes a different, more cultural approach.
Man, I love this meme. Buzzfeed has some links but the evolution one on America Blog is possibly the best.
Thanks to Mike for the idea.
Man, this is the best Metropolitan Diary story in a while.
Dear Diary:
After picking up my wife's dry cleaning, I boarded a crowded but not crammed N train at 57th Street to join the evening rush hour. To keep my wife's sweaters above the fray, I held them aloft in the same hand I used to grip the train's center pole.
We left the station and the car was quiet until a large, dreadlocked man in the seat nearest to me said to his similarly styled friend in a lilting Jamaican accent, "You, my friend, are soft and cuddly as a kitten."
To which the man replied, "No, it is you who are soft and cuddly as a kitten."
This being New York, no one stared or turned their heads even as this repartee repeated itself. Back and forth they went, each kindly demurring to the other. "No, no, you are the softest and cuddliest kitten I know."
Looking for a place to train my eye, I stared at the dry cleaning I was holding aloft, and saw that the plastic bag covering my wife's sweaters bore a picture of a small cat playing with a ball of yarn, beneath which read the words, "Prepared just for you, soft and cuddly as a kitten."
I turned to the two men, who were smiling back at me.
"Ha, ha, we got you, man!" They clapped their hands and then, along with most of the folks in our car, burst into laughter.
Ben posted a LOL New Yorker comic and I put a link to one in the comments. That wasn't enough though. Happy weekend.
If I had only come across one of these, I probably wouldn't have even bothered to post them in the sidebar, but seeing them together somehow changes that.
Johan Lorbeer is a German street performer. He became famous in the past few years because of his "Still-Life" Performances, which took place in the public area. His installations includes "Proletarian Mural" and "Tarzan", which are famous in Germany. Several of these performances feature Lorbeer in an apparently impossible position.
Johan Lorbeer's Still Life Performance and its Secret via monoscope
Chinese artist Li Wei from Beijing started off his performance series 'Mirroring' and later on took off attention with his 'Falls' series which shows the artist with his head and chest embedded into the ground. His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics.
Yesterday Gothamist linked to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens page as their Amorphophallus titanum flower is starting to bloom. They have a webcam refreshing every 30 seconds showing the flower and it's blooming right now! This flower is referred to as the "corpse flower" because it is so stinky when it blooms. Too bad the webcam doesn't have smell-o-vision.
Update (6pm): The NY Times just put up an article about the flower. The last time the species bloomed in NYC is in 1939 in the Bronx.
"People will say, 'Do you have a dead animal in here?' " said Patrick J. Cullina, vice president of horticulture and facilities at the botanic garden, who has worked with similar plants of different species. The literature posted beside the harmless-looking plant describes what to expect, the "revolting smell of putrefying meat."
Well, I've been tapped on the shoulder by Khoi and now I am obligated by internet law to complete the following meme. It shall be the first I've done in at least a year. Thankfully, it should be pretty painless. Here goes.
Four Jobs I’ve Had
1. Linen delivery for BBJ
2. Service Department Gopher at Jacobs Twin
3. Concert Booking Director at WUD
4. Web Intern at Spin
Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over
1. Delicatessen by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
2. Rushmore by Wes Anderson
3. Waiting for Guffman by Christopher Guest
4. Spaceballs by Mel Brooks
Four Places I’ve Lived
1. Riverwoods, IL
2. Madison, WI
3. London, England
4. Brooklyn, NY
Four TV Shows I Love
1. Ed
2. Home Movies
3. 24
4. Lost
Four Places I’ve Vacationed
1. Maui, Hawaii
2. Rainy Lake in Int'l Falls, MN
3. Cinque Terre, Italy
4. Hong Kong
Four of My Favorite Dishes
1. Mom's Chicken Parmesan
2. Bacon Muenster Burger at Soup Burg
3. Albuquerque Turkey at Monty's Blue Plate Diner
4. Pierogis and cheese blintzes at Veselka
Four(-ish) Sites I Visit Daily
1. Kottke.org
2. JNF.org
3. NYTimes.com
4. Cub Reporter / Windy City Gridiron
Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now
1. Somewhere with a mountain, snow and a pair of skis
2. Somewhere with a beach, sun and a strawberry/banana smoothie
3. Somewhere with a grassy patch, a frisbee and my friends
4. Anywhere with my family
Four Bloggers I’m Tagging
1. Nedward
2. Keith
3. Karen
4. Gothamist's entire staff (you can choose to do it separately or as a group)
Hi, I'm back. D.C. was great and I took a bunch of photos. Now, here's what I'm thinking about.
The Rules
1. leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. i will respond; i'll ask you five questions.
3. you'll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. you'll include this explanation.
5. you'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
I have granted an interview with Heather. These are her five questions and my five responses:
1. Where would your rather be, right now?
Right now, I would rather be in Colorado, skiing. Unfortunately this is an impossibily due to a lack of snow. Thankfully this is an interview and I am allowed to live in a world that ignores reality. Next Question.
2. Coffee or tea?
It is a well-publicized fact that caffeine has no effect on me whatsoever. This means I have no obligation to coffee, the more highly caffeinated beverage. That being said, I'm going to go with hot tea and cold coffee. There is nothing like a good hot tea on a cold day to warm you up. Likewise, there is nothing like a Frappuccino on a hot day to cool you down. Both are tasty and practical.
3. If you could change your name, would you? If so, what would you change it to?
No, I wouldn't. I like my name. I would consider changing it when I get married though. Something I find interesting is that if a man and a woman get married then the woman is able to change her name for free. If the man wants to hyphenate his last name or take on his wife-to-be's then he must pay to make that change. It is a minor grievance but indicative of the old world thinking in regards to marriage.
4. What is your favourite movie?
Ooh. There is a "u" in favourite. Does that mean it should be Canadian or British? If that is the case, then I would choose Ginger Snaps, a Canadian horror film that seems to have gotten mediocre reviews from my friends. For me there is a magic surrounding the film as I saw it on the last night of a two month stay in London, by myself. It was a wonderful movie-going experience and helped bring this movie up in my list, but it was wonderful without this. I enjoyed how the characters are outside of the norm for modern horror films. Aside from being female, they deal with issues that seem completely obvious but at the same time incredibly interesting, given their context. So, that is my "favourite" film. My "favorite" film is Rushmore.
5. If you would right one wrong, what would it be?
I think I would have everyone be a little more optomistic and a little more jovial. I don't expect, or want, constant optimism but I think that a little more from everyone would go a long way. People often say that your life is defined by your outlook and I think that is completely accurate. If you are determined to have a good day, worry less and enjoy yourself then you will be a much happier person. That is guaranteed.
Questions for Joseph J Finn:
1. If you were running for governor of California, what would your platform be?
2. While eating Lucky Charms, do you save the marshmallows for the end or try and keep an even ratio of marshmallows and oat shapes in each bite?
3. What are some of your favorite magazines? What draws you to them?
4. When you walk up stairs do you take one or two steps at a time? Is this somehow a metaphor for the way you live?
5. Tell me about your relationship with Chicago. Is it love/hate? love/love? hate/hate?
Questions for Jeremy Brown [Answers]
1. What makes a good vacation? The actual location is irrelevant, I just want to know what you look for in an amazing trip.
2. What household duties do you enjoy?
3. Do you have any hobbies or collections that either your friends don't about or is particularly unusual?
4. If I were to give you $1500, what would you spend it on?
5. During high school, were you easily classifiable (jock, bookworm, outcast, etc.)? Do you think you were mislabeled? If so, how would you have labeled yourself?
Questions for DJ SUbg [Answers]
1. Tell me about a recent aberration in your morning routine. This includes the time from when you first open your eyes to when you begin work.
2. When it comes to bagels, do you prefer the Jew kind (doughy center, crispy outside, traditional flavors, i.e. sesame seed bagel from H&H) or the non-Jew kind (roll-like, crrrrazy flavors, very puffy, i.e cinamon raisin swirl from Einstein's Bros.)?
3. Is there any law you'd like to see eradicated? What about it is egregious?
4. Do you have any albums that you only play at certain times of the day? Week? Month? Holiday?
5. Do you prefer to use cash or plastic?
Questions for Alex [Answers]
1. What makes you tick? I mean, what makes you get up in the morning?
2. In a perfect job interview, what kind of questions would the potential employer ask? Give specific examples or a general attitude of the meeting.
3. When you go shopping, do you mull over your decisions or buy first and think later?
4. What was the first concert you ever attended? What was it an earth-shattering experience?
5. Rate these in order of priority in your daily routine and explain why: sleep, work, friends, eating.
Questions for Lizzie
1. I am going to give you enough money to start your own business (I am fabulously rich, money is no object). The only catch is that it must somehow better society. What would you do?
2. Tell me a book you think everyone should read, a movie that no one should see, and a song that has made you cry.
3. Do you still keep in touch with any of your high school teachers? If so, would you say you're friends? If not, does this upset you?
4. (This is soooo a job interview question, but...) Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Or, if you hate those questions, how far in advance do you usually plan your life? Or both.
5. What goes best with peanut butter? Please, explain why.
While IMing with a friend I began to wonder the birth of our modern definition of cool. Then, I stumbled upon this explanation at dictionary.com.
The usage of cool as a general positive epithet or interjection has been part and parcel of English slang since World War II, and has even been borrowed into other languages, such as French and German. Originally this sense is a development from a Black English usage meaning “excellent, superlative,” first recorded in written English in the early 1930s. Jazz musicians who used the term are responsible for its popularization during the 1940s. As a slang word expressing generally positive sentiment, it has stayed current (and cool) far longer than most such words. One of the main characteristics of slang is the continual renewal of its vocabulary and storehouse of expressions: in order for slang to stay slangy, it has to have a feeling of novelty. Slang expressions meaning the same thing as cool, like bully, capital, hot, groovy, hep, crazy, nervous, far-out, rad, and tubular have for the most part not had the staying power or continued universal appeal of cool. In general there is no intrinsic reason why one word stays alive and others get consigned to the scrapheap of linguistic history; slang terms are like fashion designs, constantly changing and never “in” for long. The jury is still out on how long newer expressions of approval such as def and phat will survive.
I love language.
Today I had a 69 with someone. Oh, whoops. I meant to say that it was sixty-nine degrees today. Man, I love it when seasons change.
Everytime I do an Irish accent, it ends up becoming a pirate. "Arr matey, let's go throw some clovers on the blarney stone. Shiver me timbers!"
Yes, I am crazy.
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