Cwabs!

thingsmagazine: On the set of The Life Aquatic

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:42:10 -0600

thingsmagazine:

On the set of The Life Aquatic

A FREE WATER if you purchase some yogurt? Why, this $25 coupon...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:00:54 -0600

A FREE WATER if you purchase some yogurt? Why, this $25 coupon book practically pays for itself!

One of these days technology will come up with a way to be...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:44:22 -0600

One of these days technology will come up with a way to be healthy without crazy gym fun times. I guess I shouldn’t complain—I know far too many people who can’t.

"Our intention is to follow these directions as closely as possible, but we would also be remiss if..."

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:23:08 -0600

“Our intention is to follow these directions as closely as possible, but we would also be remiss if we didn’t sample a piece of the material unadulterated. Because who wouldn’t want to know what it’s like to just pick up a jellyfish and start gnawing on its head?”

- #13: Jellyfish Head, Porridge in a Can, and more | Oh Dear God Why

Look, Dave is eating these things so that you don’t have to. You OWE it to him to at least read what he has to say about the experience.

GOOD LORD NO!

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:08:56 -0600

The proper way to make tea:

Place a bunch of tea bags in 2 quarts of water which has been brought to a boil and removed from the heat. Allow to steep for five minutes. Pour into a pitcher containing 1 cup of sugar.

Serve over ice, with either ribs or fried chicken, potato salad, cole slaw, and watermelon. Under an oak tree, in August. On a 6’ long folding table.

Add milk at your peril.

I just hope he doesn't burn the place for the insurance money.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:57:24 -0600

When I moved to Nashville in the aftermath of the 2010 flood, apartments were hard to come by. I happened to find an (kinda crappy) apartment in a really fantastic neighborhood at a spectacular price, and have been using it as my base of operations ever since.

The middle of last year, I started getting junk mail addressed to my landlord, indicating that maybe he was in some sort of financial straits. Refinance companies, lawyers, banks—all offering services to somebody behind on their mortgage. Then in early January I had a note on the door from the landlord, ASSURING ME that everything was under control and we were to send in the rent as normal. And in the mailbox a letter from the bank, saying that we were to send the money to them directly. Two weeks ago, a letter from the bank’s lawyer, saying I should send the rent to him at the peril of being evicted.

I tried calling the landlord (who rarely answers his phone if he knows who’s calling on account of we only want something fixed), and was informed that his voice mailbox was full. So I sent a text message asking where to send the rent, and yesterday he finally responded indicating it should go to him.

As he’s the only person with whom I have a signed lease agreement, the check’s on its way to him, but it’s a little disconcerting to thing there’s really only a one-in-three chance of putting the check into the non-eviction hole.

On the other hand, I can afford a nicer apartment these days. It would just be nice to have another year or so of really low rents and convenient ice cream and coffee shops.

Murphy’s tuckered out from all the super bowl excitement.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:13:52 -0600

Murphy’s tuckered out from all the super bowl excitement.

Dear Clint Eastwood,

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:37:17 -0600

Shilling for cars that are mostly made in Mexico and pretending it’s a great American success story isn’t cool. I’m sorry your last few films apparently flopped, though.

Picked up some Nutella custard pie for the Super Bowl Big Game...

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:41:56 -0600

Picked up some Nutella custard pie for the ~~Super Bowl Big Game~~ Super Bowl gathering, and they smuggled in some pie pops in the box.

Trying something.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 13:29:16 -0600

An unpopular opinion.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:02:37 -0600

Minute for minute, John Oliver might be the greatest standup act I’ve seen. I haven’t seen a ton of standup, of course, but I have seen George Carlin.

It was during his “List of Synonyms” phase of the late ’80s early ’90s, but still.

Waiting to see John Oliver.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:50:13 -0600

Waiting to see John Oliver.

Things you can no longer buy from a food truck in Nashville,...

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:10:32 -0600

Expresso-Walnut Tart

Lemon-Almond Tart

Things you can no longer buy from a food truck in Nashville, because the truck owner set up a brick and mortar store within walking distance of my apartment. I am in so much trouble.

Next door neighbor cat came over for skritches.

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:08:00 -0600

Next door neighbor cat came over for skritches.

I may have embarrassed myself over the spaghetti carbonara.

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:58:24 -0600

I may have embarrassed myself over the spaghetti carbonara.

luckyshirt: beeborg: cmasonwells: Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:14:21 -0600

luckyshirt:

beeborg:

cmasonwells:

Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writing, via The Trad

I like these rules. I hate detailed descriptions of places and things!!!

Seconded.

Please stop describing the characters’ nose hairs, authors. Because I’m going to ignore all of that detail and come to my own conclusions about what things look like, anyway.

I love you.

“Daisy’s nose hairs were like wire grill brushes, arcing gracefully out of each nostril until forcibly terminated by her beaveresque incisors. Gatsby couldn’t stop staring at them, even though everyone at the party thought it was rude of him.”

太平洋序曲 (I hope Google Translate got that right)

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:32:08 -0600

Last night I caught opening night of a rare staging of Sondheim’s Pacific Overtures, the musical hipsters love because you’ve probably never heard of it.

Any maybe rightly so. The story of the introduction of Western culture to Japan (written in 1976) was originally staged as Kabuki theatre with an all Japanese-American (and all-male) cast, a demographic that that many communities in the US are incapable of producing, so the group putting it on discarded the ethnicity requirements (and made the cast co-ed), and restaged the show without as many Kabuki elements, simultaneously making the show much more accessible and bringing it perilously close to being (unintentionally, I’m certain) offensive—the Japanese version of minstrelsy.

I’ve read at least one gushing semi-review, and the critics I was sitting near all seemed very congratulatory, but it left me appreciative, but largely unmoved, in spite of some really great individual moments.

Still, there are precious few opportunities to see the musical staged, especially here in the hinterlands, so the handful of Nashville theatre-types who read this should definitely check it out.

Robot school: Day 4

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:09:24 -0600

My company is hiring several hundred new workers, and today they came in for a pre-employment basic skills class, designed to show them what a day of putting screws in metal is like. It helps them see if they really want to work for us, and if they’re the sort of person who says “Fuck this, I’m outta here” after a couple of hours of manual labor.

They’re set up RIGHT ACROSS THE SHOP from where we’re teaching the robot to do robot tricks, and you KNOW some of them are all “I bet TOMORROW we get to play with the ROBOTS!”

And I’m smiling at their inevitable disappointment, because I’m a terrible person.

Fla. man adopts his 42-year-old girlfriend - CBS News

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:04:34 -0600

Fla. man adopts his 42-year-old girlfriend - CBS News:

John Goodman is apparently adopting his girlfriend in order to protect his fortune from a wrongful-death drunk driving case.

The obvious solution would be to prosecute him for incest, but this is Florida.

This seems like a nice enough place to have lunch. (taken with...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:58:58 -0600

This seems like a nice enough place to have lunch. (taken with Photosynth)