Walk Score: Plug in your address and find out how "walkable" your neighborhood is. Mine (Greenwich Village) is unsurprisingly a 98 out of 100.

Comments Off on Walk Score | google, lifehacks, maps, mashup, tools, urban |

So I’ve been ignoring my blog, bigtime. Is this anyway to treat an almost-eight year old?

I figure if I create a graph of my posting frequency, maybe it will motivate me to post more often:

Yep, it’s sure trailing off at the end there.

What have I been up to lately? Jeff and I went to London, saw a legend on stage, and got flagged down by Cash Cab.

I’ve also been consumed with running CastAlbums.org, which I launched with Mike in February (after working on it in secret for a year).

So will I get my ass in gear again with the blog? Who knows. I’m getting tired of my students trying to school me on what a blog is when they mention the word. If they only knew…

7 comments |

What the World Eats | TIME Magazine: What’s on family dinner tables in fifteen different homes around the globe?

1 comment | culture, food, health, photos, society |

Reminder to self: never take SuperShuttle again.

We got picked up first, drove around picking other people for over an hour, and then wound up 2 blocks from our apartment. The driver drove more aggressively than any cabbie I’ve ever seen.

But we made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Now we get to spend the next 15 hours in transit (Priceline is sending us through Charlotte with a 3 hour layover).

1 comment |

Ack! Jeff and I leave for London tomorrow and I’m still packing (and trying to load a London Underground map onto my Palm). And I think Jeff gave me the cold he’s just getting over. We borrowed his brother’s camera, so we’ll actually have photos when we get back.

While I’m away, comments will be turned off on the blog, because I’ve been getting slammed by spam.

4 comments |

An Egghead for the Oval Office (Eugene Robinson: washingtonpost.com): Why we need a smart president (or as I like to think of it, after a fat pope you need a thin pope). I’d love to see Gore in the White House, but the guy I’d really like see clean up our domestic messes is NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

1 comment | election, politics |

I was walking home from KMart down 8th Street and had just crossed University Place when I saw a white van barreling down the street, tires squealing. In the time it took me to turn my head and follow its path, I heard a loud crash at the intersection. I ran back and saw that the van had hit several cars. A bicyclist was face down on the street, next to her crumpled bike. A totaled car had been pushed into the crosswalk I had just crossed.

My first instinct was to check on the cyclist, but she was already surrounded by people attending to her. I would have called 911, but I had left my phone at home. My next impulse was to snap some photos for Gothamist Contribute, but again I didn’t have my phone.

Then it sunk in that I could have easily been hit by one of the cars if I had crossed the street a minute or two later. That sent me right home in a daze.

Jeff got home a few minutes later after his haircut at Astor Place, detailing all the police and ambulances he had seen at the intersection. He said a mom with her kids had come out of a store and realized their parked car had been plowed into. Jeff didn’t seem too concerned that about my own brush with death.

Update: Jeff said there was an undercover police car that looked like a taxi on the scene. I remember seeing a taxi right after the van with flashing white lights. Do taxis have a special light system to help crowd control in emergency situations they come across? Or was it an undercover police car in a high speed chase? I did see a cop on the scene almost immediately afterwards.

3 comments |

Jeff and I had very different upbringings. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s because of regional or class differences.

Tonight we saw a commercial for KMart tonight that referenced the “blue light special.” I asked Jeff if he remembered as a child hearing the KMart manager get on the loudspeaker to announce a Blue Light Special for the next 10 minutes. You’d search the store for the little cart with the flashing blue light on a pole. I’m pretty sure I remember the store manager being there and handing out lollipops to kids who found the blue light. Jeff said he never shopped at KMart growing up (but didn’t think there were any around him).

Anyway, we saw that commercial during the new National Bingo Night game show, which I made Jeff watch/play with me (I printed out a bunch of cards online). My mom used to be a huge bingo fanatic, and I went a couple of times with her after I turned 18 (the legal age for bingo players in Alabama). Jeff laughed at me as I folded the printouts over to consolidate my row of cards, Crayola marker at the ready as a makeshift dauber. The only thing I was missing was a line of troll dolls for good luck. I came pretty close, but “No Bingo!”

I love Jeff’s mom, but I know she’s never seen the inside of a Bingo hall…

9 comments |

Jeff and I just booked a trip to London (July June 10-17). It’ll be my first time flying overseas (and only 2nd time out of the country after going to Montreal twice).

While I’ve been a low-grade Anglophile my whole life, I don’t really know that much about London. I figure Jeff and I will bum around without too much of an agenda (though I think Jeff wants to head out one day to Stonehenge). We’ll probably hit London’s equivalent of the TKTS booth, because we’d like to see some theatre but don’t have our hearts set on any specific shows (EQUUS is transferring to Broadway).

8 comments |

11 Great Color Legends

Comments Off on 11 Great Color Legends | color, Design, history, society |