Another good song from Death Cab for Cutie’s latest album Narrow Stairs.
You look so defeated lying there in your new twin size bed
With a single pillow underneath your single head
I guess you decided that that old queen was more space than you would need
Now it’s in the alley behind your apartment with a sign that says it’s free
A stupendous interactive infographic in the New York Times titled Is It Better to Buy or Rent? allows you to twiddle the dials of interest rates, appreciation, rent increases, taxes, and etc. to see when it makes more economic sense to buy rather than rent.
James Duncan Davidson, the photographer, is also a good writer. His latest, Surprised about Oil Prices? Really?, has some good (scary, too) points:
$4/gallon gas is definitely here in a big way and that’s
going to have major impact on America’s
suburban lifestyle. And, as a kicker, the news
people are running around talking about experts
and ordinary citizens being surprised. Surprised?
How the hell can you be surprised about this? Really?
And more:
I find it galling in the extreme that the head of state
has to effectively go beg for more oil to run the
machine that we’ve built over the last century.
It’s appalling, in fact. And, almost every member of
the United States government shares responsibility
for the mess that we’re currently facing. It’s not just
the reaction of Bush II that is wrong—it’s the result
of 35 years of U.S. policy that is wrong.
In case you might be curious, tumbledry is going on the road for a while! I’m off to Amsterdam and Barcelona for a wonderful week with my family. It should be grand. I’m taking the camera with, so naturally I’m hoping for some fantastic shots. However, I will settle for mediocre shots that are foreign-looking.
Feel free to mill around in my absence — I’ll try to keep tabs on you guys and girls via internet kiosks.
The Wikipedia entry on Stanford’s tree mascot is an excellent piece of work. Some excerpts:
The Stanford Tree is the unofficial mascot of Stanford
University. Stanford’s team name is “The Cardinal,” referring
to the vivid red color (not the common song bird as at
several other schools), and the University has never been
able to come up with an official mascot which adequately
conveys the fierceness and sporting prowess it had hoped to
symbolize with that particular shade of sanguine. This fact
creates a void not typically found at schools with
less-abstract symbols for their sports teams, and into this
unfulfilled void the Stanford Band has insistently thrust what
is one of the United States’ most bizarre and controversial
college mascots.
And there’s more:
During the first decade of its existence, the role of the Tree
was generally performed by the Band managers’ girlfriends.
In the mid-1980s, however, the Band adopted a more formal
selection process for its Trees. Today’s Tree candidate must
go through “grueling and humiliating physical and mental
challenges” to show that he or she has sufficient chutzpah to
be the Tree. During “Tree Week,” candidates have been
known to perform outrageous, unwise, and often dangerous
stunts in order to impress the Tree selection committee; so
much so that the University has felt the need to prohibit
certain types of audition activities over the years, such as
those involving explosives, firearms, and, reputedly, haggis.
The entire thing reads like an article from The Onion. The picture of the “Stanford Tree entering Standford Stadium” stands out in my mind as one of the best pictures on Wikipedia.
I had a wonderful weekend with Mykala: we celebrated my birthday Friday night with a little dental school shirt shopping and Cheesecake Factory dinner. It’s almost warm enough to eat outside — summer is still struggling to get its act together. I pretended to be warm for the duration of our meal out on the restaurant’s patio… but I somehow don’t think I was fooling anyone. If Mykala asks though, I was perfectly toasty — I have to maintain some masculine bravado, even if it’s only in the realm of temperature tolerance.
In its opening weekend, the film grossed an estimated
$101 million in 4,260 theaters in the United States and
Canada, ranking #1 at the box office, and making it the
third biggest opening of all time. Within its first five days of
release, it grossed $311 million worldwide. The film’s total
$151 million gross in the United States ranked it as the
second biggest Memorial Day weekend release, behind
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
It was fun to watch the movie in a theater crowded with people — I really hope theaters stay around in the future for this social movie-going experience. There are some downsides to sharing the movie, though. For example, the young lady next to Mykala
reeked of ethanol and sounded like a pair of poorly maintained bellows. Ostensibly, Mykala was annoyed by the sound of her intoxicated neighbor, but I think deep down she was concerned about the person’s lack of physical fitness. Cardiovascular compassion!
Another quick note: good call, Nils — The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a tour de force in innovative, philosophical, artistic, gripping film-making. Very very good. Highly recommended. I cried, but not at the end, which I think is an indication that the movie told its story exactly how it should have been told.
Please take a look at the talents of Uganda’s original
skateboarders. The Uganda Skateboard Union has been
successfully operating in a suburb of Kampala for over a
year now. The organization is fighting idleness and
boredom by introducing skateboarding to disadvantaged
youth. The skate park shown in the video is the first and
only park in the country and it was built entirely by hand by
the youth of the community.
The thing that strikes me about these Ugandan skateboarders is not only their awesome sense of humor (see: man in cape and diving goggles) but their skill. The baseline skateboarding skill is pretty darn high — let’s hear it for natural athleticism! Also… you can visit ugandaskateboardunion.org to donate to building another skatepark. (via airbag)