First Rain of the year.

And I was standing outside enjoying it as best I could.

Can't figure why so many of my neighbors were running around trying to avoid it.

Screw it, I'm going to go stand outside for a little while longer.

Helter Stupid

Oh, now I get it...

So every couple years, the apartment next to me gets rented out to Israeli students and/or tourists. I'm not the most culturally literate, but I'm just smart enough to pick out certain phonetics when they're jabbering on their cell phones. That back of the throat thing. Maybe I'm fooling myself.

Anyhow, tonight I thought this year's batch was going wacky when they picked up a bunch of votive candles in bulk and had all their lights out. Someone made a joke about whether they'd started chanting yet....

Well, it's several hours later, and I think I picked out the root cause. I don't know the circumstances, but they seem to have no electricity. My guess is someone didn't pay the tab.

Maybe XKCD amuses me more than it should....

See here for the original.

I should post something...

But my mucus-addled brain is a little slow.

So go read this instead.

How can you not appreciate people that are working on distilling flavor out of any possible food into a stock or consomme?

Seriously. Waffle stock. These people must be genius.

Oh, and hey...

The next time you find yourself thinking about what movie to watch, might I recommend The Iron Giant

Should be easy enough to find, and if you're alright with it being animated, you might be surprised at what they made.

Maybe you should read this.

Maybe you should read this. Or then again, don't.

but is it art?

Ok, so on my first reading of this article, I thought "Yeah. Pet food. Whatever.

At second glance I think it might have some insight regarding what industrialized food has become, target audience agnostic.

DC: post-mortem

Ok, so I just spent a week in Washington, DC. Here's the highlights:

-Not as hot and humid as I expected, but still darn uncomfortable.
-For my first time staying at a hotel that charges over $500/night, there sure weren't much in the way of amenities.
-Don't try to get food in certain parts of town after midnight. You're just setting yourself up for failure.
-The area roadways are basically designed to keep anyone from ever figuring out where they need to go.
-Constant stories in the local newspaper aside, the subway was far easier to get my head wrapped around, even with all the closures I kept hearing about. And I'd never ridden a subway before.
-The local television news is more than happy to worry about some football player's news conference than say, the US. Attorney General resigning.
-Same goes for the press secretary resigning.
-While passing by a Caribou Coffee that was closed before 8pm: "See? This is why Starbucks keeps winning, the bastards."
-There ain't no such thing as a free drink. You'll pay for it sooner or later.
-No matter how cynical or jaded you're feeling, seeing a good friend can still make everything awesome.