Be Careful in Boston

So now I have good reason to tell people (*ahem* boyfriend) that they shouldn’t scare pigeons on the sidewalk. My past rationale has always been that it’s somewhat mean with no particular benefit. But the good reason is that it’s illegal to scare pigeons! In Massachusetts at least. Here’s the full statute. To be honest, I’m not really sure what “beds” means. I highly doubt the cops from Southie really care though. But consider yourself warned.

Also, a tramp may not be what you think it is in Mass. Guess I should stop throwing that term around with such abandon.

I came across these great pieces from a post in a law news/trivia/info blog that a friend of mine from high school just started. Check it out.

Gay Cinema Featured on Wikipedia

The boyfriend pointed me to something surprising this afternoon: today’s featured article on Wikipedia is Latter Days (full article). If you’re not familiar, it’s a gay drama that centers on a—surprise—closeted Mormon boy and a LA “party animal” who falls in love with him (and vice versa if I remember correctly). Worth renting if you’re interested in a gay heart-ache.

Thanks boyfriend!

So Much for Global Warming...

Two hundred million people walked into a freezer...no, not the beginning of a joke. Just the weather today. 30° in Arizona, -24° in Minnesota. That’s without wind-chills. And yet, it’s still a balmy 75° in Florida. Wishing I’d made it to Key West right now. Alas… Stay warm kids.

R2D2 Cookie Jar

I wish I’d picked this up for one of my nerdy friends as a Christmas gift, but I figure if I don’t want stuff I don’t need, I shouldn’t be handing it out either. Oh well. If you want it, let me know and I’ll see if it's still at the consignment store. I think it was $9.

Why Virgin Megastore is Failing

Aside from the obvious (music sales are moving digital, a la iTunes Music Store), they don’t have their shit together. I remember visiting the Times Square store back in high school and being impressed with the size, but I can’t say I've ever had a good customer experience there. Well, it looks like Virgin’s advertising department is about five years behind and hurting for budget. Take a look at the ‘Times Square’ subway lines listed.

Something look wrong? Yeah, that 9 at the end. The 9 hasn’t run since May 2005. And what happened to the Q, W, and L (for Union Sq.) trains? Does Virgin not want customers from those parts of Brooklyn and Queens? Clearly Virgin isn’t doing well, because it’s a shitty (single-panel) ad even ignoring the errors and omissions. Also love that they started the list with “N R A”. Why not alphabetical like, I don’t know, every time you see or hear the lines listed? So much stupidity in the (business) world. Sigh.

Best Roommate Offer on Craigslist

Wow. If only we had a bigger bed—I mean, extra room… I would totally introduce these two to NYC. Here's the full text of the post (I cut most of it and the craigslist junk from the image above):

Hi all-

My boyfriend and I (29 and 27 years old) have recently relocated from LA to NYC and are currently seeking a space to live in long enough for us to adjust ourselves to NYC. Could be a vacant apartment, a basement, a room, just about anything at all would be fine for us really. Financially, we're able to pay up to 600 per month which is why I am putting up this ad, hoping someone has a space that they might rent. As far as the length, it's flexible but we're thinking 2-4 months.

We're straight-acting, simple and laid back and are both college graduates. We pay our bills on time and are clean and responsible.

If you have some crown-moulding or re-finishing work that you need done, we have tools not too mention tons of experience with interior finishing and are more than happy to work a trade out. I've attached some recent pics of us so you have an idea of who we are.

Thanks much.

Do they really have to mention “tools” and “experience”? That’s just cruel. Oh, and “as far as the length…” Plus, they’re “flexible.” Sigh.

Sometimes Curbed has good stuff.

Jack Black as Jesus? And Gays? Blasphemy!

You *have* to watch this. It’s Prop 8: The Musical, it’s fabulous (used purposefully), and it has a truly awesome cast, including Jack Black, Margaret Cho, Andy Richter, Allison Janney (love her!) and Neil Patrick Harris. Favorite things (aside from everything): shrimp cocktail and the black woman/“Obama-nation”.

Some of the other characters you may be trying to place:

• The Preacher - Craig Robinson from The Office
• The Black Woman (“Obama-nation”) - Jenifer Lewis (no idea who she is but she reminds Mike & me of the chief from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego
• Guy in yellow t-shirt - J.B. Ghuman (I think) is just plain cute
• Girl in violet t-shirt - Maya Rudolph from SNL who has recently played Michelle Obama
• Girl in rainbow/peace/vote shirt - Nicole Parker from MadTV (which I thought had been canceled years ago) also in Disaster Movie, which I inexplicably want to see
• Prop 8 leader - John C. Reilly—you know who he is
• Spinster-looking woman with glasses - Kathy Najimy is Sister Mary Patrick from Sister Act and the fat witch in Hocus Pocus, two of my favorite childhood movies (can we say “gay?”); she’s also lost a lot of weight
• Girl with glasses, far left - Rashida Jones, also of The Office
• Blonde girl, far left - Sarah Chalke most notably from a show I don’t really care for: Scrubs

BTW, Matt & Terence—you two need to give me credit for that extensive research. I wouldn't have recognized half of the people I listed.

Zune Spoof: Possibly Better than Any Real Zune Ad

Firstly, I wouldn’t recommend watching this at work. Unless you or your employer don’t care. It’s not really that bad, but if people can see your screen, you may want to wait til later. Terence found this from somebody’s status message and I heard his reaction from the other room. Needless to say, I ran, started watching, and had the same reaction. I’m sure you will too. Enjoy.

I Want It!

I’ve come across a number of cool things over the past couple weeks. So I’ve decided to share. Most of these things appeal to my design eye/aesthetic/intrigue/geekery. Without further ado:

Show Me How

I came across this book on swissmiss and instantly knew I’d love it. It’s a fully-illustrated book that shows you how to do over 500 useful things. Tina at swissmiss describes the how-to’s as “fascinating and important and sometimes downright bizarre.” I can’t wait to get my hands on it. Anyone looking for a Christmas gift for moi? Look no further. It’s also surprisingly cheap on Amazon.

Magnetic Curtains

“WTF” you say? Yeah. Magnetic curtains. Absolutely brilliant. I generally dislike curtains because they're a pain to get in the “proper form” (regardless of type, e.g. straight-valence, balloon-valence, swags, and just plain old curtains) and even harder to keep looking nice. On top of that, they generally look too proper and stuffy. That’s why this brilliant design from Florian Kräutli makes me happy. In her words, it’s “a curtain which you can shape to any form. Through the incorporated structure and magnets, it stays in the shape you push and pull it to.” Possibly the easiest way to change a room with your mood. Where did I find this? Swissmiss, of course.

2009: Cats Let Nothing Darken Their Roar

Poetry of sorts. One short stanza for each month of 2009. I saw this calendar about this time last year for 2008. The text and colors are updated, but the design is almost entirely the same. I can’t say I loved it last year when I saw it for the first time, but I’ve come around. I appreciate it’s quirkiness and fun design. Not sure how I feel about having two weeks on each line in the actual calendar. But, then again, who’s looking at the calendar part?

Air Lines—Literally

Last, but certainly not least. This is one of my favorites. If we didn’t have far more prints and posters than we need, I would have bought this within minutes of seeing it. I still may, but I’ll have to come up with a good reason for it. If you haven’t already figured it out, it’s a map of the world made up of lines representing “every single scheduled flight on any given day.” I’ve seen some stuff like this before, but never anything so clean and crisp. I definitely prefer the ones without the land outlines. Tina prefers white; I love the black.

As an aside, you may have noticed that three of the above four items I found on swissmiss. Tina Roth Eisenberg is the curator of that blog and self-described as “a Swiss designer gone NYC.” She has some amazing finds and I’m never bored of her posts, even if they’re not for me. I highly encourage you to check swissmiss regularly or subscribe to her RSS feed. Oh, she was also in this week’s Time Out New York helping find cool things in Boerum Hill.

> Crazy Commercial, Matrix-style

This commercial totally reminds me of Honda’s “Cog” commercial from a few years ago. This time, it’s another Japanese company: Toshiba. The commercial is far more high-tech, but required just about as much diligence in engineering and setup. Give it a watch and continue reading below:

Aside from being really impressed, part of me writes this off as technology for technology’s sake. But then again, they are selling technology. And it’s just really cool. Here’s the making of:

From Gizmodo:

Toshiba's new “timesculpture” advert takes The Matrix’s Bullet Time film technique one bizarrely cool step forward by animating within the freeze-frame. It was filmed with 200 Gigashot camcorders arranged on a special rig, recording a mahoosive 20 terabytes of data from which the ad was composed…
The ad was created for Toshiba’s new low-definition to high-definition upscaling tech built into its LCD TVs, DVD machines and laptops. But it’s amazing all by itself: whereas the Wachowski-brothers’ technique used static images in Bullet-Time, this new style uses looped video clips, digitally compiled together for the final result. Apparently the 200-cam 14-meter diameter filming rig used “the highest number of moving image cameras ever used in a film sequence” and took three days to just focus up and align. All 200 cameras were triggered by a single remote, and it took four weeks to process the image data. Four weeks! The $4.7million ad’s showing in Europe currently.

Found on xPlane’s xBlog

Red State, Blue State, Two Weeks Late

OK kids. I’m a little behind on this whole blogging thing. It’s not that I don’t have anything to post and don’t care about you, I’ve just been too busy to put it up on this here Inter-web (not really, just lazy). You know, putting things in p-tags and a-tags (that’s text and links in HTML-speak for the lay-folk) is hard work. OK, so it’s not. But give me a break…

Anyhow, this is something I should have posted two weeks ago, but I actually only just received it yesterday. It’s one of those dreaded forward emails that my mom sends me far too many of (if you’re reading this, mom, take a hint). But it sums up my pre-election sentiments quite nicely. I’m sure some of you (*cough* Matt) will especially appreciate the closing argument.

Dear Red States:

If you manage to steal this election too we’ve decided we’re leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we’re taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren’t aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington,Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

To sum up briefly:

• You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
• We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Dollywood.
• We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
• We get Harvard. You get Ole’ Miss.
• We get 85% of America’s venture capital and entrepreneurs. You get Alabama.
• We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22% lower than the Christian Coalition’s, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and anti-war, and we’re going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they’re apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don’t care if you don’t show pictures of their children’s caskets coming home. We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we’re not willing to spend our resources in Bush’s Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80% of the country’s fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation’s fresh fruit, 95% of America’s quality wines, 90% of all cheese, 90% of the high tech industry, 95% of the corn and soybeans (thanks Iowa!), most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92% of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we’re discussing the war, the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.

Finally, we’re taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

Peace out,

--Blue States

Received from my sister-in-law by email. Original source unknown.

As Nerdy As It Gets

This guy solves a Rubik’s Cube while beatboxing. My friend C.J. would (probably will?) have a wet dream over this. Admittedly, he’s not that fast, but both take skill. I’m impressed he can beatbox for so long without a break.

Dumb B*tch from Alaska. Dumber than We Thought

I’d say this is unbelievable, but it isn’t. Among other things, Mrs. Palin apparently didn’t know the members of NAFTA and thought Africa was a country (yes, you read that right—a country). What I can’t believe is that more of this didn’t come out during the campaign. McCain’s staff was full of intelligent, honest people. This must have driven them batty.

I suppose this is what you get when you say “I want a candidate who’s like me; somebody I can relate to.” I imagine most of the people who voted for McCain/Palin because she was on the ticket also don’t know the countries of NAFTA, let alone what it is. (I’m giving people the benefit of the doubt regarding Africa.) Personally, I want the smartest person in the room who’s not an arrogant prick. But that’s just me.

via Joe. My. God.

No Sticker for You

Assuming you voted in New York, that is. Among others, m@ complained that he didn’t get a sticker. Well, as far as I know, New York has never done stickers. Gothamist looked into this and reported the same. I'm content just knowing I voted—as long as Starbucks still gives me my free coffee, of course (they did). For some reason, I make this strange connection between Election Day stickers and Ash Wednesday, which kind of turns me off to the whole idea of stickers. Plus, New York has to spend that money on WD-40 for the ancient fleet of lever machines.

Oh, and those people who had “I VOTED!” stickers on in NYC today? They’re bridge & tunnel folk. Keep your distance.

> ‘The West Wing’ Predicting the Election?

Terence pointed me to an interesting article in the NY Times comparing the fictional presidential campaigns of Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Arnie Vinick (Alan Alda) on The West Wing with those of Obama and McCain. Strangely, there are a lot of parallels between the current presidential campaign and this fictional one. I’d say the biggest difference is the current office-holder: on TV, we have a Democratic, much-liked president, while in reality, we have a Republican, whom a vast majority of America is displeased with (to say the least). The article is well worth reading.

In case you didn't know, I'm a huge fan of The West Wing. The writing is exceptional, the set is unbelievably real, and the casting is top-notch. I know I’d vote for Jed Bartlet any day.

Original NY Times article

> Breakfast for President

This makes my inner-fatty happy.

via bb-blog

Relive Your Childhood Through MTV Music

I imagine everyone has seen or heard of this by now, but MTV released a new site called MTV Music with a huge archive of music (and other) videos. A friend of mine actually works in the product group that developed this venture over at MTV. He had mentioned that MTV had been working to digitize their collection of videos for some time and now we have the result. I particularly love how clean and simple the site is. Makes it easy to find what you want and enjoy the videos.

Having grown up without cable and little pop culture to speak of, music videos are still pretty foreign to me. At least now I can brush up easily. Anyone care to educate me? Any must-see’s of years past?

Image respectfully borrowed (and linked) from MTV Music

> Bringing New Meaning to Subway Entertainment

There’s been a lot of racy subway talk on the local blogs lately, but this takes the cake. Click the headline to read an hysterical story about some chick watching full-on hardcore porn on her iPod. And the entire subway car got into it. It’s safe for work, unless you’re prone to peeing your pants laughing. Why can’t this shit happen on the over-crowded 4 trains I take?

via Curbed

> USB Port: Not What You Think

Clever. Though I’m not sure I want to try it. I like the graphic design a lot—especially the juxtaposition of the tree and USB logo.

via Wired’s Gadget Lab

Coming Soon: Field Trips to Gay Bars

Last night I was listening to a NPR podcast (Most Emailed Stories) and heard a hilarious satire of Califoria’s Prop 8, which I wrote about last week. Here are the audio links—it’s definitely worth a listen. (Apologies that that NPR doesn't yet have an embeddable player; I searched high and low.)

What 'No' On Gay Marriage Ban Means For Kids

October 29, 2008 | NPR

Real | Windows | MP3

iPhone Gets Some Podcast Love

So m@ tipped me off to an upcoming feature on the iPhone. According to MacRumors, you'll be able to download new podcasts over the ether (no more iTunes sync!). I just hope that Apple lets podcast syncing happen in the background. The less I have to think about syncing stuff before getting in the subway, the better. Anyone else share the podcast love?

Conflicted Pedestrian

Came across this pedestrian signal (left) as I was walking home this evening at 89th & 2nd Ave. Things like these always make me chuckle. What surprises me is how often I see signals like this. At right, you'll find another I caught last weekend down in the East Village.

This makes the engineer (read: nerd) in me wonder how this happens. I would fully understand seeing a signal with the hand or the man broken, resulting in a prolonged blank image, but both together? Logically, the man and the hand should be two binary states to a common switch--phrased in a more pedestrian manner (couldn't resist), two sides of a coin. This is where I turn to the Inter-web to satiate my curiosity.

15 minutes later
One of the rare times the Internet has failed me. Maybe I just lost interest too quickly. But hey, if I decide I really care enough to know, I can enroll in Berkley's Traffic Signal Engineering Academy. Or not.

Cheers to Apple & Google

No, not another new product or feature to drool over. Today, Apple released a brief statement in opposition to California’s Proposition 8.

Prop 8 is a ballot initiative to elimiate same sex couples’ right to marry in the state. The California Supreme Court struck down a prior statute that defined marriage in terms I'm frankly sick of hearing: “between one man and one woman,” and effectively granted everyone the right to marry whomever they choose.

Apple is taking an unusual stance for corporations—a type of corporate citizenship that is refreshing—and not only opposing Prop 8, but donating to the No on 8 campaign. Apple’s full text:

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights—including the right to marry—should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

Google also spoke out publicly against Prop 8 last month in a posting by co-founder Sergey Brin on Google’s official blog.  Good job guys. Americans appreciate your support. One more reason to buy a new MacBook…

via Daring Fireball