2008
You are browsing the archive for 2008.
Possible New Way to Learn Things
Seen at car wash in Woodland Hills, CA. Subjects included American History, Biology, and Chemistry.
Going-Away Announcements
Retirement and going-away announcements are an underacknowledged folk-art form, characterized by incoherent design elements, maudlin sentiment, clip-art infestation, and nautical metaphors. For example, here is the flyer someone made for my friend Kristen’s imminent departure to Michigan (she is a reader and very occasional commenter on this blog). While a good example of the genre, […]
More New York Discoveries
My brother Paul has an unusual coffee mug in his house. He said our mother gave it to him, one of the many “drug company” gifts that have been bestowed upon us over the years. But this one was something I’ve never seen before: So we have here a three-handled coffee mug. Aranesp, by the […]
Exclusively for Baseball Fans of a Certain Age
Every day I ride the PATH train. Recently, we’ve been encouraged to begin using the new SmartLink card, which you simply tap at the turnstile to go through. Hey, I’m an early adopter, so I got the card. And now they’re encouraging us to register our cards online. This allows you to automatically refill your […]
Gender Thread
Bernie and I spent the past few months looking into schools for our daughter Isa. Most of these schools were for “highly gifted” students and any one of them would have been thrilled to have her. Because they are overrun with boys. Last time I checked, college students were something like fifty-seven percent female. Law […]
Traffic cone: important new findings
During Bernie and Isa’s visit this weekend, Bernie and I took a stroll through the neighborhood that took us past the now well-known traffic cone. Close inspection revealed that the cone was, at one time, the property of St. Peter’s Hospital, a half-mile to the east. While we now know that the cone was not […]
Albany Shadow Store
Today I was driving in Albany and I noticed a shadow store. Here he was, the same leaning cowboy I saw back in California. In fact, the whole yard display filled with the same shapes. My sister in law suggested that there are online templates one can buy. Sure enough, she was right.
Oh, Those Connor Girls!
I’ll admit it: For the past five years, I have been obsessed with social networking. First it was Friendster, and then MySpace, and now Facebook. And somewhere along the way, through overseas friends, I’ve signed up for hi5 and Bebo. Some of these sites have been infiltrated with fictional women, perhaps connected to porn websites […]
Jack Silbert, curator