And it’s a happy birthday to my dad, who is (in case you were wondering) recovering quite nicely from his surgery last month. He’s already ditched the walker and he’s even started driving again.
I hope I’m that resilient when I’m his age. Come to think of it, I wish I were even that resilient at my age.
In case you care, you can read an interview with me on Yahoo! Picks Profiles today. It’s a followup to when this site was a Pick of the Week back in 2001.
Thirty years ago today, a tacky, bloated drug addict of questionable talent died, and for the life of me, I’ve never quite understood why so many people care.
If I were the state of South Carolina, and I couldn’t come up with a less stupid, cheesy, and spam-like domain name than “travel2sc.com”, I think I’d skip putting it on my license plates. But, as many have noted, South Carolina seems to exist primarily to give North Carolina someplace we can feel superior to.
This book (thanks Jamie) is so amazingly cool, both as art and as architectural history. It’s primarily composed of catalogue pages from glass companies promoting ultramodern “visible storefronts” in the modernist tradition, including sketches, floor plans, and construction materials. It’s incredibly beautiful.
Ever have one of those nights where you just crumple yourself into a little ball and keep asking yourself over and over again why you continue watching local TV news? Of course, I do it because of Lanie, but sometimes, like after a 90 minute newscast that covers exactly one story, I wonder if even she makes it worthwhile anymore.
Speaking of TV, I’ve decided after four episodes that I actually do like AMC’s Mad Men. I already liked it in theory, but I hadn’t decided for sure if I liked it in practice. I still don’t think it’s great art or anything, but it amuses me. It also occasionally makes me want a martini, which is not something I’ve ever particualrly wanted before (and is something I’ll probably skip).
Am I supposed to be surprised and impressed that the proceeds from a package of cheese will go to dairy farmers? Maybe I’m hopelessly naive, but where the hell else should I expect them to go? It’s not like dairy farmers are some impoverished charitable organiztion holding a benefit concert; they’re businesspeople who produce and sell dairy products for profit. Which, contrary to popular belief, is not inherently evil.
The idea that every single commercial transaction must include some random bit of philanthropy (on both sides) is wearing a bit thin, especially now that it’s such a cliché that it’s now being used to the advantage of the very “evil” corporations it’s presumably designed to be a reaction against.
My 76-year-old mother has recently discovered ABBA, nearly thirty years after most of the world did, and she’s become a little obsessed with them. I find this absolutely adorable, and I apologize if that sounds condescending. It’s not meant that way.
It’s a testament to the power of iTunes, I guess. I put one or two ABBA songs on her new Mac Mini several months ago. I have my suspicions that she initially latched onto the Swedish superstars because she didn’t know how to sort any way other than alphabetically (the default), nor had she quite clued into the whole “party shuffle” thing. Thus, they’ve always been at the top of the page whenever she opened the program, sort of like AAAAA-1 Plumbing in the Yellow Pages.
My mom actually bought ABBA – Gold. At full price.
Today at lunch, a Blondie song came on. She asked if it was ABBA. I told her it wasn’t, and then wondered for a moment how a Blondie compilation might change her life. Blondie starts with a “b”, so it would be pretty easy for her to find in iTunes, right?
Either way, I think it’s just about time for her to see The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Or maybe just Mamma Mia.
It’s 11:00 at night, and it’s still 90° outside.
Notice how their layout doesn’t even allow for the possibility of three-digit temperatures? That’s because weather this hot is just wrong.
Endangered Durham is the kind of website I live for: the author is trying to document pretty much every piece of property in downtown Durham, over time and with vintage and current photos. This is the sort of obsessive mission the web is supposed to be all about, dang it.