7.28.09

• Layout tweaks. Cleaner, I think. Embracing the creative white space.
• Scientists have found a way to intravenously use the dye in M&Ms and Gatorade to help reduce spinal injury. The only side effect is that lab rats turned blue (above). No joke.

7.27.09

• Isn't it strange how you get irritated with a bad parking job even when a lot is basically empty and you know that no one will have to park next to the jerk taking up two spots?

• I heard Cubs starting pitcher Ryan Dempster say today that he tries to learn something new on the field every day (Hmm! Guess I'm not the only one.) ... right before he said the team had to "play aggressive." Oh, bother.

• I'm going to try and trim my own bangs. More on that to come.

• Life is too short not to be blissfully in love with whatever or whomever you care about.

• Progressive cooking is terribly interesting. There are eyedroppers and bubbles and all kinds of taste- and scent-creating processes involved.

• One of the better interview questions I've heard asked to a chef is what tastes or smells from childhood inspired him. The concept of someone being so driven by a pleasant memory from their childhood is something beautiful.

• I don't understand why one person has to have the same program on multiple TVs at different angles. As far as I'm aware, there's no visual equivalent to surround sound that you can capture that way.

• I always feel kind of sad for people in obituaries who never had children ... then I remember that I don't want children. I hope whatever appears in my obit is exciting enough to make up for it.

• A humorous exchange after having a refrigerator unplugged to "thaw" for a few days:
Boy: So I plugged your fridge in like 2hrs ago, and it still hasn't gotten any colder. Do I have to turn anything on?
Girl: the breaker
Who says women aren't handy?

• The most expensive stock sells for more than $90,000 a share on the floor of the NYSE (where, incidentally, it no longer looks the way it does in the movies).

7.26.09

• Happy birthday, Mom!

7.25.09

• Being considerate means, among other things, being aware of how your actions affect other people.

• No matter who you are, everyone has a "glory days" story or two.

• Even police are careful about what they say over the scanner.

• Doughnut. D-O-U-G-H-N-U-T. Doughnut.

• People gather information about others even when they aren't around. Don't act surprised. You do it, too. The places you frequent ooze information about you when you're away. If walls could talk? Try your desk, your trash, your doormats, your floormats, your fridge, your ...

• Police dogs are trained to ignore distractions, including people – the ones who aren't targets, anyway.

• Maraschino cherries don't come off the tree that way. They're preserved in a brine solution (water saturated with salt) before having sugar, color and flavoring added. Red Maraschino cherries are usually almond-flavored. Green ones sometimes are peppermint. Who knew?

7.24.09

• Bourbon is the national native spirit.

• After the oak barrels used to store bourbon are retired, they're sold to the scotch industry and used for storage again.

• Midnight is part of the day ending, not the one beginning.

• Tanning beds date to at least 1945.

• Frost-free freezers are prone to frozen lines and have to be thawed (read: take everything out and unplug it).

• The federal minimum wage increases to $7.25 today. When I got my first job, it was $5.15.

7.22.09

• I'm sort of intrigued (in a train-wreck kind of way) by the idea that people get more self-conscious as they get older. The more you know, the more you've experienced, the more comfortable and confident you should be in dealing with what have come to be pretty normal situations. Maybe some people take a little longer to catch on ...

• I'm no expert, but Wayne Coyne is the most approachable front man I've seen to date. (ABOVE: The Flaming Lips, July 17, 2009, Pitchfork Music Festival, Union Park, Chicago.)

• There always will be someone you deem better – smarter, taller, more attractive, better spoken, better at Scrabble, you name it. But you don't always have to be or have the best to be happy. (Do you ever feel like you should have learned things long before now?)

• Putting in the effort to ride a bike is much more appealing in the summer. (Do you ever feel like you should have learned things long before now?)

• Sometimes what someone wants isn't what you'd assume they want. Watch the speech from "Chasing Amy." It might make more sense 12 years later.

• WD-40 was created in 1953 to keep rust off rockets. It stands for "Water Displacement, 40th formula."

• Bad things often happen for no good reason. When they do, you have to accept that your story – the movie of your life that runs through your head – now includes that bad thing and the repercussions of it. It might not have been your preference to assume responsibility for that kind of baggage, but you can't undo it. And often without finding a satisfactory explanation for it, you have to work the story around that bad thing.

12/3/08

• Here's something new and fun to check out. Austin, Texas-based Soundcheck Magazine has launched its 20th issue in a digital, interactive format. It's not your average online music mag, and this issue is chock-full of good features. Have a read, and let me know what you think. Feedback is much appreciated. Enjoy!

Look Inside >>  Winter 2008

8/20/08

* Art Linkletter introduced the original Mouseketeers when Disneyland in California opened in 1955.
* There is a basketball court in the top third of the Matterhorn at Disneyland.
* The tunnels under Disney World in Florida allow actors to come up in the appropriate themed areas of the park, but they aren't really underground. The utility corridors ("utilidors") were built on ground level, and the park was built on top of them.
* Walt Disney kept an apartment above the fire station on Main Street USA in Disneyland. His favorite snack was grilled cheese.

8/01/08

* Concrete to build Hoover Dam was laid in 6-inch sheets. There's enough of it to build a highway from New York City to San Francisco.
* The Statue of Liberty is in New Jersey waters, but an agreement in 1834 made anything below the water property of New Jersey and anything above the water property of New York. So it's technically still on New York City soil. Her mailing address is New Jersey, but taxes on anything bought in the gift shop are paid to New York. The island is patrolled by the federal government.

Travel Channel. Can't ... stop ... watching ...

4/17/08

Still chuggin' along. Here we go ...
* Blueberries were originally grown in America, artichoke is part of the thistle family, and garlic is a vegetable. (It's hard not to develop a thing for Alton Brown and "Good Eats" on the Food Network.)
* The Beatles are pretty cool. And not in that generic, everyone-loves-The-Beatles sort of way. I'm 6/8 (that's 3/4 if you're a math whiz) into The Beatles Anthology, and I'm surprised at how many "firsts" they can claim and how much influence I never knew they had. So if you have eight hours to kill some weekend, I'd recommend checking it out at least once. If you can find a music geek to give you live commentary, that makes it even better ... even though I still think John and George were sort of lame.
* It's nice to recognize a sense of humor where you didn't expect it. It helps remind you not to take things too seriously.
* There are 28 bones in the human foot.
* I think it's easier to be happy with things when you can show them off -- that's not to say brag about them. But I've noticed this more and more lately ... like today at the vet when I started to think maybe I liked my cat a little more when the receptionist was fawning all over him. When you can talk about things and share things you're proud of with people, it makes it that much more enjoyable. Likewise, when you feel stifled by circumstance and like you're hiding part of your life that makes you happy, it's harder to believe that you're really happy. You start questioning things because we're taught from a young age that only bad things are hidden. So if it has to be hidden, it has to be bad, right? So the point is that I love my cat more when other people can see him, right? Of course not; it's just that sometimes it's nice to be able to take in other people's perceptions and be publicly happy about something. (I'll give you a minute to get that mess of dripping analogy off your shirt.)
* Sometimes the 14-hour drive is worth the six-hour dinner.
* Having the windows open makes me feel more productive.
* Hanging out with new people makes me feel more productive.
* Really, anything but being stuck in a rut and/or having to curl up in a ball to avoid freezing makes me feel more productive.

3/13/08

* People will inevitably "support" you right up to the point that you decide to do something they don't agree with. It's infuriating, and I don't think that's support at all.
* I've yet to find anything good about self-deprecation. It comes across as fishing. It makes people feel awkward. And it's just annoying. So knock it off.
* Sometimes thinking about the future is a waste of time.
* I've never wanted a vacation so badly in my life.