45 Homemade Foods You Can Make Yourself (But Never Thought You Could)

Which candidate will pledge to be the Gardening President? Who will be the one to take the lead in teaching food self-sufficiency and good nutrition to the American public? What a fine example it would set if the food miles traveled by presidential produce added up to zero. Roots Politics: Planting a Seed - washingtonpost.com

We broke the world. Now what?

It’s obvious we are not going to finish with pain in this lifetime. The Buddha said, “Everything dear to us causes pain.”…Those of us who have chosen relational life have made the choice that the pain is worth it. The Daily Dharma, tricycle: Pain is inevitable

You want. You want. You want cookie. You say, ‘Cookie, now. Cookie now.’ Just in time for the baby boom, there’s a new Dr. Spock in town who will have parents 2.0 everywhere speaking Bamm-Bamm to their babies.

BLDGBLOG: Greater Los Angeles

No matter what you do in L.A., your behavior is appropriate for the city. Los Angeles has no assumed correct mode of use. You can have fake breasts and drive a Ford Mustang – or you can grow a beard, weigh 300 pounds, and read Christian science fiction novels. Either way, you’re fine: that’s just how it works. You can watch Cops all day or you can be a porn star or you can be a Caltech physicist. You can listen to Carcass – or you can listen to Pat Robertson. Or both.

That’s how we dooz it.

As I get older, there are fewer and fewer situations where I need to suck it up to do anything or accomplish anything. I’ve sort of created my life this way and overall I’m pleased with that. jessamyn.com: Vermont’s oldest lifeguard

Instructions for Disassembly

These tips for keeping distracting people out of your office appeal to the productive misanthrope in me.

A lot of people who are down on the river a lot, they know who I am. They’re like, “Hey that’s the trash man.” And people come up to you, and they are like: “That’s so great that you’re picking up trash. How can I get involved?” And I’m like, “You see some trash, pick it up.” First Person Singular: Ezra Duong-Van, Volunteer with Potomac Riverkeeper - washingtonpost.com

Van Halen on Everest – If I had been there, your iPod would not have worked because I would have ripped it off your skull and thrown it over the north face and said Wake up! You are alive! My favorite comment in response to an absurd essay in the Washington Post panning the iPod for failing under extremes of temperature and altitude. Presumably published in service of the chocolate-and-vanilla-swirl school of “objectivity” so popular among poor journalists today.

YouTube - Mr Rogers plays video games

When you’re making a garden you’re making art. Art is about one’s own experience, and the one experience that is universal is change, so when I choose a plant for the garden, it has to change. Paul Babikow’s is never the same garden twice.

I answered the phone the other day – and I really was ecstatic about this – I answered the phone and I couldn’t think of what my name was. If I could have totally forgotten about it for a longer than I did, I would have said I’d have made it. I was that close. But it came to me. Larry Gallagher profiles Griz, proprietor of San Francisco Brewcraft, where you “[can’t] get out the door without having a significant human interaction.”

Kevin Kelly – Street Use

This site features the ways in which people modify and re-create technology. Herein a collection of personal modifications, folk innovations, street customization, ad hoc alterations, wear-patterns, home-made versions and indigenous ingenuity. In short – stuff as it is actually used, and not how its creators planned on it being used. As William Gibson said, “The street finds its own uses for things.”

I welcome suggestions of links, and contributions from others to include in this compendium.

– KK Thanks to Rebecca’s Pocket for leading me to Kevin Kelley’s latest project.

Mutual Improvement promises to be “even more ambitious and wild” than its previous incarnation, Radical Mutual-Improvement.

Matt’s Idea Blog: How to read a lot of books in a short time

The most useful technique comes from Jason Womack, and synthesizes nicely the most common ideas. In a nutshell, he says he reads the book four times.

1. Table of contents, glossary, index.
2. Anything in bold, titles, and subtitles.
3. First line of every paragraph.
4. Entire book

Here’s the twist: Steps 1-3 should only take about 10 minutes.

I am such a dumb modern American, living in my suburb, driving my car to work and back, in a constructed environment that exists mainly to serve the exigencies of human lives as they have manifested in just the past 50 years or so. Much of it is shit. No, shit is too good a word for it. At least shit is real, stinky and animal. These buildings that lack character, these ugly roads, this language debased into commerce, I don't know what to call it that can communicate my distaste for it.

gargoyle drumming: On Kenneth Koch and our world.

How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around your own apartment? It's just like retaking a movie shot until you get it right. And you will begin to feel yourself in a film moving with ease and speed. But don't try for speed at first. Try for relaxed smoothness taking as much time as you need to perform an action. If you drop an object, break and object, spill anything, knock painfully against anything, galvanically clutch an object, pay particular attention to the retake. You may find out why and forestall a repeat performance.

Doing Easy by WIlliam S. Burroughs - Wikilicious.org.

Radical Mutual-Improvement: Exercises for Lost Souls

I shuffle aimlessly about my living room (a central location for the missions I am called upon to perform), always within earshot of my family, at the ready to handle any crisis, like Superman hovering over Metropolis waiting for a cry of help.

Washington Post: This Dad Is Rerunning in Circles

I think the DIY phenomenon is simply one of the most important things happening in the world right now, in every field. Design is just one of them. It's affecting how people invest in the stock market, how they get their medical information, how they do just about anything.

Washington Post: Making It on Your Own

It was obvious to me that all of the separateness I ordinarily perceived was, in fact, an artifact of cultural conditioning, and was indeed less "real" than what I was supposedly hallucinating. At that moment, I knew that I was, for the first time, experiencing things as they are, utterly continuous. There is no discontinuity. There is not one thing and another thing. It is all the same thing, The Holy Thing.

John Perry Barlow's narrative in Tripping: An Anthology of True-Life Psychedelic Adventures by Charles Hayes

In my writing I got so interested in fakes that I finally came up with the concept of fake fakes. For example, in Disneyland there are fake birds worked by electric motors which emit caws and shrieks as you pass by them. Suppose some night all of us sneaked into the park with real birds and substituted them for the artificial ones. Imagine the horror the Disneyland officials would feel when they discovered the cruel hoax. Real birds! And perhaps someday even real hippos and lions. Consternation. The park being cunningly transmuted from the unreal to the real, by sinister forces. For instance, suppose the Matterhorn turned into a genuine snow-covered mountain? What if the entire place, by a miracle of God's power and wisdom, was changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, into something incorruptible? They would have to close down.

How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later by Philip K. Dick.

flickr ad on Rocketboom today (17 November)

Most vegetarians prefer not to have their food or utensils touching meat or other animal-derived foods. This preference is similar in concept to keeping kosher. In practical terms, some individuals who have "kept vegetarian" for years may endure significant intestinal distress if they ingest meat or grease. When you're cooking for your vegetarian guest, please keep utensils separate (for instance, do not use the same spoon for deglazing the roasting pan and then serving plain steamed vegetables) and do not label a food "vegetarian" if it includes chicken, beef, or veal broth.

This article about hosting a vegetarian guest for Thanksgiving includes recipes and delves into some etiquette and lifestyle concerns that I've not seen discussed before.

George Hotelling nails exactly what's so great about NPR's most interesting podcast.

That black vein in shrimp is poo!

beXnlog

I really would like to stop working forever--never work again, never do anything like the kind of work I'm doing now--and do nothing but write poetry and have leisure to spend the day outdoors and go to museums and see friends. And I'd like to keep living with someone -- maybe even a man -- and explore relationships that way. And cultivate my perceptions, cultivate the visionary thing in me. Just a literary and quiet city-hermit existence.

Ginsberg in the 50s (a brief excerpt from David Burner's Making Peace with the Sixties).

The Duchess of Northumberland’s controversial poison garden has been officially opened.

Sloane Crosley has written an essay for the Village Voice: “With bad manners just a ‘send’ button away, we need some rules. Call it technetiquette.” I’ll leave the odd coinage of technetiquette aside. (Google actually shows a Michael Finley using the term in 1997.) Instead, I’m happy to focus on her number one complaint: Evite.

Ah, the Starbucks of the Internet. The illusion of choice, made to order. Since I've never known anyone who has wholesomely selected a "Girl's Night In" or "Super Bowl" template (perhaps I simply need new friends), Evite as I know it has always been a bit of a nuisance. The following guidelines might get me dropped from the guest lists of future soirees, but if it means no more clip-art martini glasses, I'll take the risk. ... Because Evite is a public forum in a private space, I am still working on reminding myself I don't actually have to read the responses. There's nothing more irritating than a private joke played out among a small segment of the invitees. Tina: "I'll be there . . . as long as I can touch Bob's pineapple." Jeff: "Happy birthday man, even though we all know your pineapple has been canned since Atlantic City."

Reviewer: Stewart Brand
Subject: Better than Whole Earth Catalog...
...because 1) it's current, 2) it focuses on real tools rather than books, 3) it's completely Web-active.

Compulsive reading, eager shopping for real value, better living as a result.

Archive.org: Cool Tools 2003

Watch Your Garden Grow - Beans

Fresh pole beans and bush beans can be stored, unwashed in plastic bags in the vegetable crisper of the refrigerator for up to 3 days. Do not wash them before storing. Wet beans will develop black spots and decay quickly. Wash beans just before preparation.

Green beans can be frozen, dried or canned. Immature beans retain more color and undergo less texture and flavor loss during freezing. All vegetables must be blanched before freezing. Unblanched vegetables quickly become tough and suffer huge nutrient and color loss. Vegetables naturally contain an active enzyme that causes deterioration of plant cells, even during freezing. Blanching before freezing retards the enzyme activity.

Freezing does not improve the quality of any vegetable. Freezing actually can magnify undesirable characteristics. For instance, woodiness in stalks become more noticeable upon thawing. Select vegetables grown under favorable conditions and prepare for freezing as soon after picking as possible. Vegetables at peak quality for eating will produce best results in the freezer.

The main thing I realised was the unbearable lightness of addiction. The ball and chain had floated off, light as a feather. It was as simple as the flick of a switch. You just put 'No' where 'Yes' used to be.

The Observer | Magazine | Trip of a lifetime — an account of an addict's ibogaine experience. That's about what quitting smoking was like for me.

If Life Hands You Lemons, Make Compost (washingtonpost.com)

He declares himself still a hippie, but then modifies the description to a "guerrilla capitalist." Like the compost itself, he has mellowed with time. He has, after all, come a long way from difficult beginnings. He dropped out of high school, worked as a racetrack blacksmith and descended into drugs and alcohol. When he picked himself up, sober, he bought a chain saw at a yard sale and went door to door looking for tree work. This later blossomed into a bona fide tree company that continues today, along with the nursery in Olney. He operates under a number of enterprises, including Pogo Organic Tree Products (www.pogoscompost.com).

We recommend that humans, especially pregnant women and young children, limit the amount of cicadas they eat as a result of these preliminary findings. We do not believe that eating a small number of these insects will result in irreparable harm, but mercury exposure may harm an unborn baby or young child's developing nervous system.

UC Engineering Researchers Find Mercury In Cicadas

Flowers That Plant Themselves

Many annuals and perennials drop their seeds after they bloom, then those seeds grow and flower the following season, creating unexpected, intriguing new partnerships with other plants in the garden. These self-seeding flowers are also useful because they sprout up and fill open areas of the landscape that would otherwise be prone to colonization by weeds. And, because self-seeders emerge where conditions suit them best, they perform as well, or better, than painstakingly nurtured plants.

I'm thinking about gardening as a radical political act.

When the whole head has matured, all the florets close up again within the green sheathing bracts that lie beneath, and the bloom returns very much to the appearance it had in the bud. Its shape being then somewhat reminiscent of the snout of a pig, it is termed in some districts 'Swine's Snout.'

The withered, yellow petals are, however soon pushed off in a bunch, as the seeds, crowned with their tufts of hair, mature, and one day, under the influence of sun and wind the 'Swine's Snout' becomes a large gossamer ball, from its silky whiteness a very noticeable feature. It is made up of myriads of plumed seeds or pappus, ready to be blown off when quite ripe by the slightest breeze, and forms the 'clock' of the children, who by blowing at it till all the seeds are released, love to tell themselves the time of day by the number of puffs necessary to disperse every seed.

When all the seeds have flown, the receptacle or disc on which they were placed remains bare, white, speckled and surrounded by merely the drooping remnants of the sheathing bracts, and we can see why the plant received another of its popular names, 'Priest's Crown,' common in the Middle Ages, when a priest's shorn head was a familiar object.

botanical.com: Dandelion - Herb Profile and Information

The role that mighty taproot plays is to bring up minerals and other nutrients from various soil layers, making them available first to the dandelion itself, and then to whatever fortunate creature eats it. That's why the Chinese call it the "earth nail."

It supplies hefty amounts of beta-carotene, potassium, sodium, phosphorous and iron and also contains, zinc, magnesium, Vitamin C, Vitamin D and B vitamins.

Dandelions, in Such Good Taste (washingtonpost.com)

Luckily there are people in Durango who celebrate these misunderstood weeds. The Dand-elion Duet, consisting of Katrina Blair and Brian Carter, led a dandelion flute-playing workshop this weekend. Carter showed the crowd of 20 how to find the stoutest stems possible and, with the small scissors on a Swiss army knife, cut little diamond shaped holes along the stem, after cutting off the flower head.

"If it’s flimsy you can only get a couple of holes; if it’s real strong you can get a whole octave."

The Durango Telegraph: Digging dandelions

"The story in this country is that wealth concentrates," he says. "That's unstable. We need smaller operations, local processors, more evenly spread out capitalism."

Alternet: The Not-So-Sweet Success of Organic Farming.

I had never experienced such a thing. I thought I was living out a scene from The Birds or something. I got that clear plastic umbrella and carried it with me day and night. People laughed at me, but then they'd say, 'That's a really good idea.'

Cincinnati Enquirer: Umbrellas can help in battle of bugs.

"The Atari Paddle TV Games controller looks, feels, and plays just like the original Atari paddle. Games featured in the device include: Breakout, Canyon Bomber, Casino, Circus Atari,Demons to Diamonds, Night Driver, Steeplechase, Street Racer, Super Breakout, Warlords, Warlords Arcade, Video Olympics, Arcade Pong and Pong. There will be two types of Atari Paddle TV Games units released this summer: single player and two player. The Atari Paddle TV Games will ship for approximately $20 this summer."

Too bad there's not a four player version. Four player Warlords was the most fun four kids hopped up on pizza and coca-cola taking a break from Dungeons & Dragons should know how to have.

Bringing Earth Day Home (washingtonpost.com): "Although it is unlikely many of us will spend the day saving a rain forest or preventing the drift of coal-fired power plant emissions, we can make a positive contribution closer to home." The Washington Post offers 10 "simple" actions to reduce your home's environmental impact. More info is available from the EPA. (It's a great concept, but I'm not sure that number 2, "Eliminate lead-based paint," qualifies as simple.)

FT Reviews: Animals & Psychedelics

If even an ant can tell the difference between being straight and high, in this instance by sucking secretions from the abdomen of a lomechusa beetle, what does this tell us about the consciousness of something like a mandrill, which munches the intensely potent iboga root, then waits up to two hours for the effects to kick in before engaging in territorial battle with another mandrill? Equally fascinating is the fact that many animals appear to use psychedelics recreationally — and that not all individuals of a particular species will indulge, just as some humans are more partial to tripping out than others. One in the eye for the stark behaviourists, it would seem.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange April/May 2004: April is so exciting in the garden.

Rocks Can Help Create a Natural, Low-Maintenance Garden (washingtonpost.com)

This is the perfect time to design and place landscape stones. Plants are just breaking out of dormancy, so you can see the bones of the landscape. Early bulbs are just appearing, so you can arrange rocks around them.

Looking for the roots of bluegrass? Think Floyd, says The Washington Post.

Fragments From Floyd.

Ms. Farley, now 79, is a proponent of natural childbirth and chairwoman of the board of the Maternity Center Association in Manhattan. Being around hospitals a lot, she was disturbed to see how many people died alone, with no one to nurture them through their final days. In 1998, while at a conference dealing with end-of-life issues, Ms. Farley listened to a talk by Dr. Sherwin Nuland, a professor of surgery and an author. He stressed how important it was for sick people to have companionship to help them accept death, and he used the Yiddish word for funeral, "levaya," which means "to accompany."

The New York Times: Final Days: In Death Watch for Stranger, Becoming a Friend to the End.

In some parts of the world it is considered dangerous to awaken someone quickly as they may not be able to return to their body safely.

Thanks, but would you try telling that to my three-year-old?

• Barbelith: Magick: Shamanism in a nutshell (1)
• Barbelith: Magick: Shamanism in a nutshell (2)

Two things I learned from this article: Nancy's Yogurt is run by Ken Kesey's brother and sister-in-law, and Stonyfield Farm is 40% owned by Dannon Yogurt's parent company.

The Seattle Times: Business & Technology: Nancy's Yogurt, organic Oregon dairy hits it big.

MP3 recordings of Daniel Pinchbeck at Palenque Norte 2003, a Burning Man theme camp. Author of Breaking Open the Head: a psychedelic journey into the heart of contemporary shamanism, Pinchbeck said of this talk, “I was very proud of this event … in a quite intense headspace at the time… think I put a lot of information together, and presented the core of what I am hoping to do in the next book.”

By the second bottle of wine, Kesey said, "America is hard on writers. I call it the Hemingway complex. Who I am, my persona, stands behind my characters. It's as though I'm holding a mask out in front of me and writing through the mask. Who you get is me behind the mask. You don't get that from Shakespeare, or Mark Twain. I have no idea who Melville was, but Ahab will stalk around in my attic for the rest of my life, and that's how it ought to be." Kesey the messenger had become the message. When Hemingway the hunter became Hemingway the hunted, he slipped a shotgun into his mouth and tripped the trigger with his toe. Kerouac's "Road" ended in his mother's Florida ranch house, Kerouac's magnificent youth bloated, unshaven, angry and sodden.

Sparks fly upwards: Remembering Ken Kesey

They had four different varieties. I asked them what the mildest one was and they recommended the Mexicans. Within 15 minutes I started to get this warm, tingly feeling. Within half an hour the market had become this vibrant and colourful place.

The Guardian: High times in magic mushroom business - and it's perfectly legal. Mycology in the U.K.

What’s up with Trader Joe’s selling (what appears beyond doubt to be) re-branded Amy’s frozen pizzas? And then marking the box “sold and distributed exclusively by…”? I’ve been telling anyone who will listen that I suspect TJ’s just rebrands generic packaged foods. I’m sure it’s tasty and I’m glad it’s cheap – I just wonder why people who turn their noses up at Sun Glory brand canned corn are thrilled to give Trader Joe’s the same .59 for the same can.

Once slaughtered, the turkeys have to suffer one more indignity before arriving in your grocer's meat case. Because of their monotonous diet, their flesh is so bland that processors inject them with saline solution and vegetable oils, improving "mouthfeel" while at the same time increasing shelf life and adding weight.

The New York Times Op-Ed: About a Turkey. The author wants to persuade you to seek out a turkey which didn't suffer the indignities of a factory farm for your Thanksgiving meal, if only because it may actually taste like turkey. Regardless of your intent, the accompanying graphic alone is worth your click.

Recently in The New York Times

• Nature: A Classic Tale of Girl Meets Squash
• Going With the Flow, Tech Nouveau Arrives
• In Japan, Rethinking the Shoe Box

hello, typepad: Shouldn’t Mo Vaughn have been on that last train?

Stride and Seek: Four walks in Washington.

Do you think they clean those Slurpee machines?

Garlic, the Brightest Bulb (washingtonpost.com)

Why not just break apart a head from the supermarket and plant it? Unless it is organic, it may have been treated with a growth retardant to prevent sprouting, and it may not be the best variety for your particular soil or climate. Garlic is now entering a long-overdue era of gourmet discovery, so that there are many different ones to try.

The Conshohockon store is only the second IKEA unit to organize merchandise departmental grids. First-time customers will be directed onto the familiar IKEA trail, a traffic pattern designed to lead them through the entire store. But, with just a little familiarity, Cashman said, shoppers will be able to easily reach individual departments such as kitchen or lighting. So the new store becomes easier to navigate for the shopper who is accessorizing a room rather than organizing one from the ground up. To make things even easier, IKEA has repositioned the cafe at its new Philly metro location. With a central position that looks out across the store, it is an ideal point from which to plan a shopping excursion.

The Daily Gullet: Going Wild in Urban America

In addition to figs, I also ate apples, passion fruit, guavas, citrus fruits, fish, seaweed, arugula, and forty or so other wild foods that I gathered and hunted in and around the town of Isla Vista, California, during my last quarter at U.C. Santa Barbara. I was living off the land in an urban setting, and "My Project," as I called it, was my preoccupation for 10 long weeks.

The Journal News, serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York: Inside IKEA

Although IKEA is associated with a streamlined modern style emphasizing bright colors, bold patterns and wood a shade paler than blond, the company actually has four distinct style groups:

• Scandinavian is reminiscent of that look made popular during the 1950s, wood stained to mimic teak and the use of minimum color.
• Young Swede is geared toward a more youthful customer, either single or with a young family, with unfinished woods customers can personalize, pale wood, strong color and more daring designs.
• Contemporary reflects current trends, which now include such '70s hallmarks as minimalism, bold colors and graphics.
• Country features more traditional wood furniture, sometimes painted white, floral fabrics, and, recently, more Swedish folkloric patterns on rugs and embroidered pillows.

Mercury News: Down-to-earth designs

After testing more traditional designs, flowery fabrics and cushions, the company returned to its core product line. ``We started to dilute our identity. I would prefer that we contribute with something else,'' Simonsson-Berge said.

But Ikea did have to make some adjustments for its U.S. audience. Beds here are larger and mattresses softer. Glasses had to be bigger, too, because we like ice in our drinks. Platters and plates were enlarged to hold Thanksgiving turkey.

Ikea replaces on average 20 percent of its product line every year, said Simonsson-Berge, and the hot category right now is ``the green room.'' That's indoor-outdoor furniture. ``Whether you have a garden or not, the outdoor atmosphere is good for your well-being,'' she said. ``People want more natural living.''

Rattan and wicker have turned out to be the raw material chameleons, she said, working well with either traditional or modern decors.

The company has faced a number of scathing criticisms, including an environmental crisis in the late 80s which led to a 'green' revolution within the company, which now prides itself on innovative manufacturing processes which minimize the environmental impact the blue-and-yellow giant has. Equally concerning was the founder's connection to Per Engdahl, the notorious Nazi sympathizer. I suppose those blonde-haired-blue-eyed Aryan types all band together, but I was still shocked at the torrid underbelly of the friendly furniture chain. However, I can much more easily stomach the management of the modern IKEA chain, which is owned by the charitable, Netherland-based Stichting Ingka Foundation. What a convenient excuse for unfettered consumerism -- it's all for charity!

Epinions.com review of IKEA: Welcome to Teutonic Design Supremacy World.

Chile, Carmenere do well together.

N.Va.’s Land Of Plenty Learns To Do Without (washingtonpost.com)

"It amounts to a petri dish that is incubated at an ideal temperature," said James Warfield, the Water Authority's executive officer. "We create an environment that bacteria like. If it's there, we want to know about it."

‘Homeless Hacker’ speaks out by Declan McCullagh.

dwell forums: unusual flooring materials

Transblawg: Where IKEA gets the names

Rebecca has a roundup of red wine recommendations. A bit late, I’d like to share a wine column in today’s Washington Post, “Where Are the New Everyday Reds?” Also of interest may be this list of wine weblogs Dr. Bacchus has collected. My mainstay is the (cheap!) Concha y Toro “Frontera” Cabernet Sauvignon, and I’ve recently been pleased by Bogle’s “Old Vine” Zinfandel as well as Lindemans Bin 45 Cabernet.

Virginia Cooperative Extension Monthly Gardening Tips: August.

The Work of Charles and Ray Eames (Library of Congress Exhibition), via Coudal’s MoOM.

Before the work ethic was hijacked by the overwork ethic, there was a consensus in this country that work was a means, not an end, to more important goals. In 1910, President William Howard Taft proposed a two- to three-month vacation for American workers. In 1932, both the Democratic and Republican platforms called for shorter working hours, which averaged 49 a week in the 1920s. The Department of Labor issued a report in 1936 that found the lack of a national law on vacations shameful when 30 other nations had one, and recommended legislation. But it never happened. This was the fork in the road where the United States and Europe, which then had a similar amount of vacation time, parted ways.

Europe chose the route of legal, protected vacations, while we went the other -- no statutory protection and voluntary paid leave. Now we are the only industrialized nation with no minimum paid-leave law.

We started making a list of all we had to do to extricate ourselves: Sell our house. Sell our car. Find homes for Sarina's pet bird, rabbit and frogs. Pack up all of our furnishings and store them in a warehouse. Buy airline tickets. Cancel our Internet service, cell phone, DWP, gas, telephone, security, newspaper and other services. Find out about schools and pediatric medical care on Rarotonga.

The tree grows in rich, moist, well-drained soil. The tough, fibrous inner bark has been used by Native American Indians and settlers in making rope, mats, and thongs. The wood is light and soft, and is well suited for working. Although rather weak, it has been used for cheap furniture, containers, beekeeping supplies, and various woodenware. Honeybees feed on the flowers, producing what is reputed to be a choice grade of honey. Birds eat the buds, small mammals eat the fruit, and several species feed on the bark and sprouts.

Our first computer was the Apple ][+ which my dad bought in large part because the guy who started the company attended his zendo. Particular pleasures included: Beagle Bros software, Ultima ][, text adventures, Brickout, 20 GOTO 10, PR # 6, Aztec, Wizardry, Wilderness Adventure, Ctrl-G, Castle Wolfenstein. There were many more, some of which I’ve relived lately with emulation software. Our next computer was the Mac, which was upgraded to a Mac 512k and then a Mac Plus. That thing, in its travel case, survived a fire which destroyed our Volkswagen van on the shoulder of the New Jersey Turnpike – just south of exit 8A if memory serves. I don’t think anything else was salvageable. I was… 11? – my most affecting loss was the Gordon Korman and Douglas Adams books. My bookbag full of schoolwork was also lost, but I don’t remember having any trouble in school about it. I wonder why. Then we got a Mac SE/30. Somewhere in there I got a TI99/4A to mess around with. Finally I got my own first computer, a Mac IIsi. My high school had an internet connection so I guess I’ve been online since 1992. The big “wow” came for me when I discovered the song lyrics FTP server. I knew in that moment that this thing was big. All I’ve got going on now is this silly weblog, but back in the day I was serving up an online version of Kyosaku from my IIsi in my dorm room. I didn’t have a domain name or a static IP but I was listed in Yahoo nonetheless, so whenever my server crashed I’d have to stay up until 2-3am watching the network to grab the dynamic IP I needed.

I think it was then that I realized that it wasn't Mount Rushmore or any other big tourist attraction that was going to turn me on. What was going to fascinate me were purple flowers on the side of the road in Wisconsin that screamed out, "There are colors that you thought were only made up by painters."

I hear the word cheap a lot; I've heard cheesy. A lot of people are fussing about paint jobs that are not finished and about inferior carpentry.

On a totally trivial subject in which I’m extremely interested: “I had a dream of setting up a little projector to display the visuals on a wall or ceiling whenever iTunes was playing." Beyond that, I hope to rent a projector to screen movies at the mad backyard parties I hope to throw once we move into an actual house with an actual yard this summer. (Print out this post for discounted admission! ;)

Fabulous l.a. travel pullout, Judith Lewis, ed.

originally posted by xowie

Virginia’s state soil is Pamunkey.

It might be hard to believe, but at the turn of the last century, a simple kitchen cabinet featured more convenience than virtually anything offered today. A cook could stand at a pull-out worktop and have everything handy to sift, stir and knead a loaf of bread, and not take a step until she put it in the oven. In the same spot, she could store that good bread in a mouse-proof drawer, slice and chop the dinner vegetables, be confident that ants would stay out of the sugar and that dust would not get into the pots and pans.

Any MRE that has a pack of Skittles or M&Ms is considered a good one, he said. Field studies have shown that young soldiers take comfort in name brands and commercial packaging, so some MREs feature morale-boosting snacks like M&Ms, Lorna Doone cookies, Skittles and Jolly Ranchers, which have become popular currency in poker games.

originally posted by xowie

I’ve got an old pair of red/blue 3D glasses near my desk, “just in case” – Boy Scouts motto, you know, ‘be prepared’ – so I was searching images.google for some 3D pictures. There doesn’t seem to be any way to view the results as a slideshow, which seems not only fairly obvious but probably trivial with the Google API. In fact, the halfbakery has already considered the idea but I’m not sure the lazyweb has. What do you think?

• 3D Tintin
• 3D fractals OS X screensaver
• 3D camel movie
• 3D nighttime parking lot
• 3D Grateful Dead shots
• 3D high speed shots

The Pitch (Kansas City), May 23, 2002: Guards tell Krishna devotees to keep off the Plaza’s private parts.

They must have said go to jail a hundred times. They said we couldn’t be on their private property. They told us that all the fountains, all the benches, all the courtyards and all the trash cans belong to Highwoods.

I said, Well, everything does belong to God, Swami continues. Then a female officer told me, Not here. Here, Highwoods is God.

Despite the threat of jail time, the Hare Krishnas have no plans to stop their twice-weekly chants on the Plaza. Swami still holds out some hope that the security officer who declared that “Highwoods is God” will one day be less caught up in the temporary identity of being a security guard.

Rolling Stone: Phish Resurface

We had these jam sessions, Anastasio says one night after practice, where we drank hot chocolate with mushrooms and just played, trying to get in tune with each other, for eight hours. One of those jams, he points out, is on a record: “Union Federal,” a bonus track on the CD reissue of Phish’s 1989 independent cassette release, Junta. We used to rehearse like demons, Anastasio, 38, says excitedly, a big smile busting through his ginger forest of beard. A lot of it was mind games, challenging each other. We’d change roles: I’m always the natural leader. Page, you be that person now. We’d make Fish set up his drums left-handed instead of right: Use your mind to play, not your hands. Or we’d just play one note for an hour – weird stuff.
The weirdness bloomed in concert: in clubs such as Nectar’s on Main Street in Burlington, where Phish first played in December 1984 and honed their writing and jamming chops through 1989; then in theaters and, finally, arenas. Fishman, who turns thirty-eight on February 19th, played most gigs during Phish’s first two years flying on LSD. I still play with the feeling I got from those experiences, trying to generate wind and water, he claims quite earnestly.

Kimya Dawson rocked the 930 Club last night. Don’t miss her MP3s – “this one is about Pee Wee Herman and Michael Jackson.”

For several months he staked out the Gladstone Hotel on East 52nd Street, where she was recovering from her divorce from Joe DiMaggio and her summary dismissal from her contract at 20th Century Fox. On one of those truant mornings, Mr. Mangone took an eight-millimeter Kodak camera from his brother, headed downtown and met Monroe just as she was leaving the hotel for a therapeutic shopping spree. Then, just as in the movies, she waved, winked and asked him to come along.

originally posted by xowie

After the shock of losing wears off and an unmitigated free-for-all ensues, the Triads go back to talking their usual shit. There's an explosion and a Triad shouts, "Suck it!" Another player laments his own death: "Damn, dude! Fuck, I had, like, no life left! How'd you not die?" His opponent curses back. "Fuck you! Owned!"

originally posted by daiichi

Jean Shepherd on mp3; also Greenwich Village, Jean Shepherd & the Web Today by Lorraine McConaghy.

originally posted by daiichi

We should all take a nice long look at the Big Game on Sunday in San Diego -- because it may be the last one we'll see for a while, at least until the War ends ... Ho ho. That is a nasty thought, as thoughts go, but it is the melancholy truth. Certainly it will be the last peacetime Super Bowl for another five years, maybe more ... But by then we will all be wearing uniforms, of one kind or another, and only the "Trusted Travelers" among us will be allowed to come and go as we please -- within reasonable military limits, of course, as long as we don't make waves and never gather in groups of more than three, and don't spit.

originally posted by daiichi

Bulletin boards are choked with offers to watch your house, your pet, your kids, your shrubs. People are willing to cook your meals, haul off your junk, clean your eaves, repair anything you need, wire your computer. Some hold fine-print résumés, bold-faced headlines and clever hooks. But I was drawn to Alan's simple, straightforward offer to live in my house.

originally posted by daiichi

Dude, where’s my California?

originally posted by daiichi

The most striking part of the structure is a tilted wall of windows -- to be installed later this month -- measuring roughly four metres by 10 and facing south. Below the windows will be a wide planter that serves as an indoor garden. It will be irrigated from water from the laundry room. The kitchen and living area, in particular, will be like a liveable greenhouse. "It's supposed to be like a ship, designed to supply your every need, including food," said Lefebvre.

originally posted by xowie

It’s really hard to pick a cell phone and a service, as I don’t have to tell you. All I have to offer on the topic are these couple of sites, the most helpful that I’ve found: the WirelessAdvisor.com forums and CNET’s Editors' Wireless Top 5s. I hear Verizon is the only provider who has service on the DC Metro – that’s as good a reason as any, I think.

A Lost Eloquence

When I ask students early in the semester if they know a poem by heart, I usually hear the names Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss and occasionally Robert Frost. They often say that they can't memorize long poems, but then I ask them if they know the lyrics of "Gilligan's Island" or "The Brady Bunch," and my point is made.

McDonald's Tarnished Arches

Fast-food joints are losing market share to a growing niche of more expensive, and possibly healthier, "fast casual" eateries, like Panera Bread and Cosí, that offer more customized selections. McDonald's itself is expanding its successful Chipotle chain of Mexican-themed restaurants.

Spiritual Connection on the Internet

"Is it much different than kneeling next to your bed at night? The idea is to connect with God anywhere. In the moment you are typing, it's another form of devotion"

Who Owns the Internet? You and i Do

Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, studies how people use online technology and how that affects their lives. He has begun a small crusade to de-capitalize Internet — and, by extension, to acknowledge a deep shift in the way that we think about the online world.

After a year of trepidation, unease, and malaise both at home and abroad, the media types who three years ago wouldn’t shut up about what to name our nascent decade now have an answer: the Uh-oh’s. It’s certainly more fitting than the Naughties, the Zeros, the Aughts, or the M&M’s; at least "uh-oh" communicates the sense of threat Americans have endured since 9/11. Uh-oh describes the moment after something precious has dropped, right before the damage has been checked. A person who’s previously been robbed might utter uh-oh after awakening to a thump in the night. Uh-oh often precedes a scream or a sigh. Uh-oh sounds a lot like now.

originally posted by xowie

What’s wrong with Ronald McDonald? Ronald lies to children. (I hit the Jackpot.)

Thriftdeluxe is another crafty DIY site, this one based in London. For the record, a few other good craft sites I’ve found are: digs, get crafty, not martha, rebecca’s domestic, and unique projects. (Now to click and see who’s still active.) Full disclosure: I’m not at all crafty and haven’t tried any of these projects. I do generally try to keep a dying plant nearby to remind me what color my thumb is not.

Syracuse New Times: The Plunder Down Under.

Tall and narrow, usually built for one and typically made of wood, most had flat roofs. Some had angled roofs and classy models had gables. A half-moon was traditionally cut into the door so no one mistook it for the wood shed, chicken coop or pigsty. Odiferous, dark and drafty, outhouses didn’t make good reading rooms, especially in winter.

Unlike current toilets, yesterday’s commodes weren’t simply the final resting place of their owner’s intestinal products. They made convenient dumping grounds for small imperishables that couldn’t be burned; and even served as vaults for storing small valuables like cash and unmentionables: grandma’s whiskey, dad’s porno, the kid’s tobacco. Since it was considered unwise and in bad taste to discuss “potty deposits,” the owner was usually the only one who knew about the stuff and it was sometimes left in the hole when illness or senility claimed him, or if he had to get out of town in a hurry. Today, these spoils are like juicy wild fruit, available to everyone, just for the picking.

Standing alone against the elements isn’t easy and an abandoned thunder house – not exactly a farmer’s pride and joy – didn’t last long. In fact, about all that remains of the majority of these uniquely American temples to the human appetite is the wood cut to create the holes in the benches. Allowed to fall to the bottom of the pit, the “holes” were quickly buried, especially if the family was big. Some of the slabs have survived and when unearthed, are rare, prized trophies by diggers who varnish them, attach plaques bearing the date and time of the find, and hang them on their living-room walls.

Most students entering college this fall were born in 1984. The Beloit College “Mindset List” has fast become a benchmark forwarded by scattershot email from those for whom feeling old still has some novelty. It’s refreshing to see that I (b. 1975) have got something in common with these kids, though: (18.) They have no recollection of Connie Chung or Geraldo Rivera as serious journalists.

Sweet potatoes aren't really yams; yams, which belong to the genus Dioscorea, are grown widely in Africa, where they originated, and elsewhere in the tropics but scarcely at all in the United States. What we are dealing with here is Ipomoea batatas, which is not only not a yam but not a true potato. Believed to be a native of Central America, it is closely related to the morning glory, with the same purplish, heart-shaped leaves. Sweet potatoes, which are less dense and starchy than yams, are rich in healthful beta carotene, an important source of vitamin A.

"New Years Eve, nine years ago," recounts Moss. "We had a bunch of this Jager knockoff crap called Beck Torova that nobody would buy or drink for free, not even the bums. Well, one of the bums said 'I'm not drinking that ass juice' and that's how it started."

originally posted by xowie

Ode to ramen.

originally posted by daiichi

"I would say tiki, and people would say, `What's that?" said Mr. Fisherman, scratching his goatee, his eyes wide behind rectangular glasses. "Nobody had ever heard of it. I was sad."

originally posted by daiichi

The song, says Lewis, is about those periods of being in a "love drought where you feel incapable of love and you can’t get yourself to snap out of your own self-centered world."

"It’s just another hopeful song," she says, "Because, God, it feels good when your heart is no longer slumbering, and it wakes up, and there’s a person or song or friend that snaps you out of your own craziness."

originally posted by daiichi

Would you even read a review of Guinness without your own preconceptions? When you clicked on the link to read this article, you didn't really click it to find out our opinion of Guinness- you already know that we like it and drink it and that you like it and drink it. Something else brought you here. Perhaps it was interest in the widget... perhaps it was interest in the new draught bottle. Perhaps you were wondering if the correct spelling is draft or draught. Well, let me try to satisfy your interests.

As controversial as the show sounds, Darnell noted that 60% of all marriages worldwide are still arranged, although not in most Western countries.

originally posted by xowie

It’s official: the station wagon is back!

Kosher pizzerias have cropped up in the Midwood section of Brooklyn and on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Greeks have opened pizzerias in all five boroughs, making a Greek-style pizza with a highly seasoned sauce that finds echoes in the cornmeal-crusted pizzas served at the Two Boots minichain. Italians now share the Arthur Avenue neighborhood in the Bronx with Albanians, and while Tony & Tina's, a pizzeria there, serves decent if not great pizza, it has fabulous bureks — multilayer savory pies made with spinach, cheese and ground beef. And for the increasingly South Asian population in Jackson Heights, Queens, two Famous Pizza shops offer pizza with curry powder and jalapeño toppings. By the slice.

Things it hurts to learn: (1) The late Dr. Smith was from the Bronx, not the UK. (2) Flea from RHCP is the voice of Donny.

originally posted by daiichi

How can hundreds or even thousands be transported without exposing health care workers to contagious or otherwise harmful agents? Perhaps with an inexpensive, disposable plastic pod that seals off the human body much like a giant Ziploc sandwich bag, although one outfitted with a battery powered blower that brings in fresh air and an exhaust fan that filters biochemical particles.

Syracuse New Times: Dirty Thoughts: A germ-laden childhood might be a good thing for a person’s immune system.

The United States, like most other industrialized nations, has seen a rise in allergic reactions such as asthma, hay fever and eczema. Two British scientists believe this rise in allergic disorders may be the result of obsessive cleanliness, as well as the uses of antibiotics and vaccinations. They maintain that all of these elements deprive the immune system from learning to distinguish between harmful and non-harmful agents.

Among their findings are the discoveries that you are less likely to be allergic if you were not given antibiotics as a child; had older siblings, especially brothers; rarely washed your hands or face as a child; lived in a home with bacteria-laden dust; were brought up on a farm with animals; had a dog; had a childhood infection that was transmitted by fecal-to-oral contamination; and grew up in Communist, rather than Western, Europe.

Early this morning, as the restaurants and clubs were shutting down in the Adams Morgan neighborhood here, a young waiter named Rick Roman joined a crowd gawking at the new attraction on the sidewalk: an 18-foot-wide vending machine.

Mr. Roman looked through the glass at the dozens of products - bottles of olive oil and milk, cartons of eggs, chicken sandwiches, paper towels, detergent, diapers, pantyhose, toothpaste, condoms, DVD's - and realized what he absolutely had to take home at 12:15 a.m. After he inserted a $10 bill and punched numbers on a screen, the crowd watched a metal bin rise to collect a package of razor blades from one shelf and a can of shaving cream from another.

It's a masterpiece of convenience in the drive-through age. Perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise, then, to learn that the Tik Tok Easy Shop is actually a division of the people who spawned fast food and helped put a happy face on the exporting of American culture: McDonald's.

I can’t remember the last time it really rained. Our farmer says:

We did get a small fraction of an inch of rain this week, but it was hardly enough to even wet the dust. We are now going on over 2 months without more than a sprinkle. 4 months of really very little rain. The ground, out here, is cracking. Deep cracks several inches wide. I can’t plow without first watering the ground, the plow just bounces on top of the concrete like soil. This last week a number of trees started dying. We are sure fortunate to have a good water source for our vegetables. Our spring, as of now, shows no signs of slowing. There are other springs around here, springs that didn’t even dry up in the 30’s that are now completely dry. There are people around here who are having to sell their cattle because they don’t have enough water for their animals.

I understand over 50% of the rest of the country is also in a major drought. That is almost to the level of the 1934 dustbowl days.

I wonder, if we weren’t such a large and powerful country, how long it would take before droughts like this started causing food shortages.

I think maybe if we can't grow (or pay to have grown) our own food nearby, maybe we shouldn't be living here. What do you think? I mean, if we can't directly experience the impact we have on the world, how can we possibly judge whether what we're doing is something we ought to be doing?

We went to the pond today, and I wouldn't have been able to take this picture (from May). I can't remember the last time it really rained.

Cooking with monkey! Oh, my.

"It's the search for peak experience, something that's really going to be special," says Adam Eidinger, a District political organizer. "It happened to me just last week. There was a concert at Fort Reno -- Fugazi." His cell rang. "There's this guy, Bernardo, who's one of the biggest swarmer cell-phone people I know." Came the restless call: " 'Where are you? There are all these people here!' And he wasn't just calling us. He called 25 people. Pretty soon everybody he knew was sitting on the grass, and none of them knew they were going to be there that morning."

The New York Times' wine tasters hold forth on Wheat Beer, the Antidote to Summer Heat. (Don’t miss the tasting report.)

I’m not ashamed to say I’m a fan of John Ritter’s work. I am a little ashamed to tell you that John Ritter is co-starring with Katey Sagal in a sitcom for ABC this fall, “Some Show Whose Title Is Eight Words Long” or something. If that’s not enough, both ABC and WB have developed shows in which the main character is a thirtysomething man time-travelling back to high school in the 1980s. I’m not making this up!

Dear Arjuna,

    How was the They Might Be Giants concert? I would have loved to go, but poker was great so I'm not upset about missing it.

    When you and your iBook move to L.A. this fall, be sure to keep an eye out for these warchalking symbols which indicate WiFi Internet access points. L.A. isn't quite as saturated as, say, San Francisco (scroll down), but it couldn't hurt to bring along your iBook and a copy of MacStumbler when you go apartment hunting, could it?

    Can you make it to dinner on Sunday?

          Love,

          Adam

Washington Metropolitan Area Air Quality Forecast

New York Times: Shameless Secrets of the Chefs

Yes, culinary snobs of the world: Coca-Cola has nuance. And, if you are to believe some of the country's top chefs and take a peek into their pantries, so do Heinz ketchup, Werther's caramels, Hellmann's mayonnaise, Hungry Jack potato flakes and other pedestrian ingredients. You may have even had them in a $30 entree without knowing it.

This page on melting metals in a domestic microwave describes a technique by which one could for example cast silver jewelery at home.

Dear Dude,

    I like my job. How is the move going? I know you can email from work, a word or two. I hope the weekend isn’t too stressful. Call us if you need to talk!
    We’re excited about the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The Silk Road, it will be great. Look at the Food section from this week: The Flavor Of the Silk Road. Just like we always talk about!
    Listen, this question might change your life: have you heard Aim’s Hinterland? Hello to E.

            Yours,

            Adam

The Washington Post on community gardens.

sfbg.com on John Sayles' Sunshine State.

You don't know anything except what's there for you to see. An act. Lies. Device. Not the pure heart, the pumping black heart.

When I wrote that play Dutchman, I didn't know what I had written. I stayed up all night and wrote it, went to sleep at the desk and then woke up, and looked at it and said "what the [f---] is this?" And then put it down and went to bed.

Hear that blue jay? Totally wrong.

Two from the Washington Post: Bourbon, Straight and The Search for the Perfect Hash Browns.

My perspective isn't particularly that of a New Yorker (though that's where I moved from, so that's where my habits were most recently molded). I've lived for extended periods of time in (alphabetical order) Amsterdam, Ann Arbor, Athens, London, New Haven, New York, Riyadh, San Francisco, Sydney, and now, Washington.

Each of these cities has something to offer. Each has aspects that make them less desirable. Each reaches balance somewhere. New Haven's certainly the worst of the bunch. Ahead of that, Washington and Riyadh are pretty much tied. Riyadh is more affordable and has more interesting neighborhoods; Washington has public transportation and we're allowed to wear shorts.

Have you ever had blueberry wine?

It got on our menu kind of as a joke. When we were about to open last year, we were all stressed out, and they asked me, 'What do you really feel like eating?' and I said, 'Macaroni and cheese.'

Wonder Twin powers, activate!

Two in the Times: a South African wine called Goats do Roam and the growing presence of women among sushi chefs.

Why the Elvises, why the Spocks, why the guys who paint their bellies at football games? Why the Harleys buzzing toward Sturgis, why the Civil War reenactors?

In the case of "Star Wars," the why starts when you're about 8 years old, and you are sitting in one of those long-ago demolished twin cinemas that used to be in old shopping malls, and it is 1977, and your head has just been blown off. (...)

In one darkened convention room, a endless video loop shows old Kenner "Star Wars" toy commercials, which seem grainy and ancient -- little boys with John Denver haircuts, wearing turtlenecks and corduroys, dash across the back yards of some other era and play joyously with action figures and spaceships. There is something wistful in it, watching these commercials with a roomful of men who were those boys, and realizing that "Star Wars," like any drug, eventually leaves you bottomed out.

The farmer's abiding friend for thousands of years, the honeybee in America stands on the edge of the abyss. In recent years, two tiny spider-like parasites have been weakening and killing bee populations across the United States. While the mass media have played up the threat of Africanized "killer" bees in the Southwest, the rest of the country has been losing 80 percent or more of its wild honeybee populations.

Man, I love me some canned fruit. I usually rock the fruit cocktail in its many varieties and syrup densities. Like the Del Monte "Fruit Naturals Chunky Mixed Fruits in Fruit Juices," for example. That's some good fruit.

Best of the [Happy|Pioneer] Valley, 2002

They live a Spartan existence. Sometimes they spend eight to nine hours a day cooking for the masses. These devotees did not spend hour after hour doing this so the landlord could rent their space to a chic restaurant for five times what they were paying.

Woodmore is a racially mixed subdivision, with African American professionals making up more than half the population. And it's by far the classiest address in Prince George's County. But the county, The most affluent majority-African American county in the nation, has not seen the price appreciations of other markets in the Washington area. It's also not suffering from the same desperate lack of houses that parts of Northern Virginia, Montgomery County and the District are facing, shortages that fuel prices in those areas. In other words, right now it's the best buy in terms of value for money in the Washington area.

I am insane now. I have become the honking, and the honking has become me. I cannot throw eggs. It is bad and wrong. But I can't just do nothing, either.

The temptation to be unproductive is so great. We're sucked into the fact that we now have this home entertainment system on our desks.

"It will perfume a whole room," Ms. Goldman said. "And it's incredibly beautiful. It tastes horrible, but that doesn't matter."

Heirloom Gardening

Heirloom seeds pre-date hybridization (which does not breed true), disease and insect resistance straining, and genetic engineering. Heirloom seeds have been handed down from one generation to the next, preserving the diversity and the beauty of our gardens, the taste of our food, our ability to adapt to changing environments, and now to preserve plant reproduction itself.

Utne Reader presents America’s 60 Best Public Places

An eclectic assortment of favorite hangouts from Key West to Seattle. In drafting the list, we drew upon the work of the Project for Public Spaces, a national advocacy group, and Gianni Longo’s book A Guide to Great American Public Places, as well as suggestions from friends around the country and happy memories of our own travels. We define the idea of public place broadly here, ranging from rib joints to the Grand Canyon, art museums to Coney Island. Our only firm criterion was that these places must be open to everyone at no more than a modest cost.

As we grow to human maturity and care for the lives of others, we become creatively and beautifully silent. We evoke words from the other and generate life by our listening... The silent person is not the one who never speaks but the one who knows how to listen well.

From the 11217 I transmit
My area is thick my vision focused
My jitterbugs limp n' learn as I squirm
But I'm a team player so I waits my turn
And when I get the rock I'm going straight to the hole
My average per game is pure black soul
In the 13-X styles the ignorance
Got the clearance to speak intelligence on the block

Digable Planets - For Corners lyrics

Ever since Martha Stewart wrapped our planet (and others as far as I know) in her chilly perfection many people have become so uncertain of their decor that they simply quit having people over. They sit at night, alone, fumbling paint chips like rosary beads while pining for the perfect valance for the "keeping room". This sort of miasma drives us to abandon all sense of personal style and as an extension, our very personalities. Unable to trust ourselves at flea markets or antique shops, we flock to Pottery Barn to buy artificial flea market finds.

Most people pull off the interstate and expect to find a bumpkin town, not a good piece of chocolate, a good cup of espresso, a good theater and streets lined with art galleries and interesting shops.

Romanticizing the De-Evolution of the State (The Thresher)

Non-hierarchical networked societies are a grand ideal. I’m no fan of nosey and anal governments poking their fingers into every act, regulating away all vitality. But a total de-evolution of the state at this time would be M.A.D. Over-optimistic fantasies aside, the techno-libertarian reality is a grim Social Darwinist one. We’ve already seen how this oligarchy functions, with its networked corporate drone-hives, their virtual trillions circulating the globe out of the grasp of the Job-like-masses, who’ve been permanently downsized and temped (pimped) out, suffering for their faith in the market. And far-left/anarchist fantasies about the potential perfection of wo-man (alleged to have lived in harmonious hunter-gatherer, agrarian or even Neolithic golden ages), after the corrupting state is removed, demonstrate an even more unsophisticated form of wishful thinking. Anarchist devolutionists don’t only ignore most of the historical and evolutionary evidence, they fail to explain how we could get there from this far away, without killing off the several hundred million people who really want to go shopping at the mall.

Dining Out With Babes – babies, that is – in and around DC.

Fuck Corporate Groceries: “so i decided to spend the next [while] not shopping at corporate grocery stores, living instead on food purchased at neighborhood places. i figure this way i’ll save money, explore chicago’s independent food sellers, eat better(?) or at least, more interesting food, and i won’t be supporting the man.”

Five Things We Will Do in 2002 (washingtonpost.com): “In the spirit of renewal, Home section staffers share our personal struggles against clutter and disorder, and our resolve to gain the upper hand against overcrowded closets, teetering stacks of books, messy nests of paperwork, photographs and batter-spattered recipes.”

Seed.

Father’s day surprise for stupid rich people. Keep your shoes on around the Komodo!

originally posted by xowie

That these apple trees won't be cut down to make way for streets with ''apple'' or ''orchard'' in their names is what counts to many Leominster residents.

I’m looking forward to riding some of the great Rails-to-Trails bike trails (abandoned railroad lines converted into long, narrow parks) in the greater DC area this summer. One of the best known is the Washington & Old Dominion trail, which connects Shirlington and Purcellville, Va. across 45 miles. If you ride it, be sure to visit some of the African-American historical sites along the route. I was reminded of the rails-to-trails system (which I’d first heard about in an old Banana Republic catalog, believe it or not) by this Washington Post article about an overnight trip on the Northern Central Railroad Trail, which runs from Baltimore to York Pa. Apparently, recent improvements have made the Mount Vernon trail (which was never a railroad) even more enjoyable than when I used to ride it.