Day and Night

by | Feb 19, 2008 | photo

I wonder if cameraphones are the new polaroids. The pictures they make are quick, easy, sharable, used to document events or evidence, engagingly low-quality but sometimes oddly beautiful, and often a form of social lubrication. Sure, most of this goes for any digital...

No parrots were harmed in the making of this post

by | Feb 18, 2008 | culture, working

I used to work with a guy who was an excellent public speaker, as sales guys often are. Although I cannot remember any part of any presentation he ever gave, I remember very the time when he started off a talk with a joke that began, “A brunette, a redhead and a...

Spambot Poetry

by | Feb 17, 2008 | reading & writing, technology

Usually, I flush the spam out of the comment moderation queue without much thought, but this bit caught my eye. Your compositions should be exorbitantly practical exclusively to villagers in Leary. It’s like a cross between a fortune cookie and a badly...

Put the lime in the cucumber and muddle

by | Feb 16, 2008 | eating, travel

Poolside in Miami, hanging out with friends, it seemed totally natural to have a cocktail at 11:30am while discussing what a non-alcoholic mojito should be called.  Nojito?  Mojino?  Fauxjito? None of that for me.  Perhaps distantly inspired by the people who brought...

Night and Day

by | Feb 15, 2008 | photo, travel

Fluffy clouds and waxing gibbous moon over Miami. Things really are different in the tropics.

Risking Shrinkage for a Good Cause

by | Feb 13, 2008 | culture, technology

I’m off to Miami this weekend to attend a wedding and maybe sneak in some additional cultural or culinary fun. While I’m in the sunshine state sipping mojitos poolside, some people here in Massachusetts (and elsewhere) will be immersing themselves in the...

Hooray, it's Pancake Day

by | Feb 12, 2008 | eating

As soon as I got the text message from C,  “Tuesday is national pancake day”  I knew where I would be tonight.  The fact that the International House of Pancakes was celebrating mere National Pancake Day was not about to rain on my buttermilk parade. And...

The Types that Bind

by | Feb 11, 2008 | media

I was sitting in class, having completed an exercise a little early, and this doodle appeared, more or less unbidden, under my mouse. Cold and hungry, I guess. Notice what’s happening with the “ffl” in “waffles” That’s a typographic...

Wood is the new White

by | Feb 10, 2008 | technology

In computers and related devices, for a long time, things were pretty much grey, black and silver in some kind of rotation until the ipod and imac made white the new black. Periodically, a hot cell phone or other device makes a signature color briefly hip.  Then Apple...

Kiss My Nozzle

by | Feb 9, 2008 | economics, technology

Last week, I whinged about Whole Foods’ bag policy, and now I’m going to pick on a product I buy there. Sorry for the sour streak, but if you’re in New England and looking out the window right now, you’re probably grumpy, too. On the other...

Friday gripe: what's so special about cigarette butts?

by | Feb 8, 2008 | culture

I had a busy day today with several urban destinations, so I shouldn’t be at all surprised that I was nearly hit by flying cigarette butts twice, one coming from a moving car, the other from a more or less stationary person. Both times, I was seized by the same...

Year of the Rat

by | Feb 7, 2008 | culture

I had grand plans to redo the site for the day as lemonrat.com. Perhaps fortunately for all concerned, I just didn’t have time. The Year of the Rat is the beginning of the 12-year/12-animal cycle of the Chinese zodiac, and I’m feeling more on the verge of...