Hats

I helped move my grandmother into her new place and while unpacking I found a couple of hats. The first was a nice official cowboy hat. Here's the inside:

And a little cowboy pin on the outside:


I also found this cool German hat:

Xanadu

She nearly trips down the stairs. This one is pretty great too.

Turns out Xanadu is coming to Broadway.
Will you go with me?

What am I doing?

Went out for milkshakes with Kent and Fair White.



Went to a Costa Rican restaurant and had a casado.
Played some cornhole.


Chloe was in town. I had a wonderful time hanging out with the Frogman family.

Chicago: Then and Now

Summerdale Savings Bank. Top photo taken in 1916.

See more "Then and Now" shots.

Random Links

• No more limbo - Good. I'm unbaptized.
  

• Dripping with Wittgenstein - Last week's "This I Believe" was an interview with the founder of Craig's List.
  

• Cellphone tricks - If you hate wasting minutes...

Those are some nice moves.

[via Metafilter]

Happy Friday!

Oh and check-out: People In Newspaper Ads Who Look Like They're Farting

[via metafilter]

Random Links

• Air Sex - I still don't really get it (they say it's like the difference between guitar and air-guitar), but here's a video:
  

• Here are some interesting photos of various 60s-era Manhattan street scenes. [via metafilter]

• Gross.

• Predictions from 1900 - My favorite:
  

  Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. Russian will rank second.

What am I doing?

Had a great weekend.

• I had a strawberry milkshake on Friday.
  

• Karaoke on Saturday night with Fair White (she posted video evidence earlier). I sang a very convincing "Like a Virgin" and did quite well on the guitar-solo in "Cowgirl on the Sand".
  

• Went on another bizarre date.

• Watched Godard's Masculin-Femin. What a beautiful movie. I alternated smirks and grins throughout the entire film.
  

• Raised my LSAT practice score 10 percentiles in a week.
  

• Received 2 letters and wrote 1.
  

• I can't decide if this is awesome, terrible, or ridiculous:

  It is, observers of the trend say, a visceral backlash to life in a Paris Hilton world. It's a chance to impress a mate, or a potential date, by flexing a body part that has lost ground in recent years to biceps and pecs -- the brain.

David Lynch Commercials

WFMU has linked to a couple of David Lynch commercials. The 2nd one is an amazingly creepy PSA about littering.

I'll never litter again.

karaoke at the Cafe Bong

Kent and his brother are excellent singers.

What have you been doing lately?

Here are two signs I made recently at the ol' grocery store. I had to change both of them at one point or another during their short week-long lives. The Pinot Grigio sign was changed because it used to say, "pairs well with potato chips". I thought that was a suitable pairing for a four dollar bottle of wine, but my manager did not. The Honey Moon wine was not selling well, and they thought it was because the sign didn't have any verbage about the characteristics of the wine. "Peach, apricot, and honeysuckle aromas" as well as "luscious honey, mango, and nectar finish" was added later.

Add this to the list

This sounds like some sort of bizarre combination of Ohio and Las Vegas.

As China's modernization continues to pull hundreds of millions of people from farms to cities and suburbs, a construction boom has given rise to a vast landscape of foreign-looking settlements. These real-estate developments are the latest manifestation of the technique that has fueled China's economic boom: making copies.

In Nanjing, there are Balinese retreats and Italian villas. In the southeastern city of Hangzhou, there are Venice and Zurich. In downtown Beijing, everything is about Manhattan, with Soho, Central Park and Park Avenue.

"Many people in China today associate the exotic with wealth. They buy into these developments to differentiate themselves from ordinary people," said Tino Wan, a manager of ERA Real Estate in Shanghai.

Shanghai's plan is among the most ambitious, calling for a ring of satellite developments modeled after different parts of Europe, including German, Czech, Spanish and Scandinavian districts, in addition to the one that looks like London, known as Thames Town.

Read more here.
[via boingboing]

Chicago in 2016

Chicago was just awarded the US bid for the 2016 Olympics.

Will mid-30s Tyler care?!

Tonight I looked at a grape and thought, "Wow. Look at all that life. I can devour all that life."


----

I think people like to see correlation in Art. It plays off itself. "Art" about "other art" makes "other art" and "art" both look important merely because they call out each other's existence.

What existences do you recognize?

Cheney is a scary, scary, man.