Cake or Death?

Crumbler: What's on your workout playlist?

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:00:51 +0800

Crumbler: What's on your workout playlist?:

Like many people who know better I sat myself down on New Year’s Day, gave myself a stern talking-to, and outlined why my thirty-second year would be the one in which I finally got serious about fitness. Whether this comes true is anyone’s guess — for a few years now I have been a truly committed…

The three that are always on my workout playlist

“If I Ever Feel Better,” Phoenix. This is great at the very beginning of a run, somewhat perky but not too fast or too loud.
“Me and Mia,” Ted Leo + Pharmacists. I save this for the end, when I’m ready to quit. Turns out I can always go another 3:31. I usually air-drum, too. (Sorry, other exercisers.)
“The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” the Decemberists. OK, this is a little weird, but I find it’s a great last-mile song, where you wind up building to a spring as the song picks up steam. The story is also plenty distracting — distracting enough to make you stop thinking about how much running can suck, and start thinking about whales and prostitutes.

Other perennial favorites:

“Music Is the Victim,” Scissor Sisters
“Stronger,” Kanye West
“Bulletproof,” La Roux
“The Seed (2.0),” the Roots
“Letter from an Occupant,” the New Pornographers
Anything by Robyn. Really, anything.

Yo, Crumbler, will you post your latest list? I could use a refresh, too.

It's Not OK To Be Shitty: Guy Fieri, BuzzFeed, And The Tyranny Of Stupid Popular Things

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 03:38:27 +0800

It's Not OK To Be Shitty: Guy Fieri, BuzzFeed, And The Tyranny Of Stupid Popular Things:

The more we define “success” as that which appeals to as many people as possible, the more we forgive dumb things because they went “viral,” the more we monetize stupid bullshit because we’re at a brief, fleeting moment in our culture where we’ve convinced ourselves that’s what matters … the more we forget what was initially so fun about the Internet in the first place. The beauty of the Web is that it belongs to you, and me, and to each of us, individually. What are other people doing on the Internet? Who the hell cares? I’ll just find people who like doing what I’m doing and talk to them. Is that the best way to make money on the Web? Probably not. But that’s their problem: Not ours.

I highlighted nearly every single line in this as I read it, in order to share it. Which perhaps exemplifies the problem in general and is so ultimately ironic that we should all just read it, then retreat to our corners of the Internet.

From Vietnam, two years ago

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 16:00:17 +0800

I just stepped out of a cab after dinner, and a woman in a pointed straw hat carrying a couple of baskets spotted me.

“Hello!” she shouted, and stepped up to the open door.

I ignored her and walked toward my hotel. She tried again.

“Bananas?” she whispered quietly, changing the ploy altogether.

An incomplete life list

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 08:00:13 +0800

This is an unfinished life list that I’ve had sitting in drafts for … at least two years, because some of these are completed now. So here’s my now-updated, unfinished (both in items to be included, as well as completion of items) life list, just as a checkpoint now.

Run a marathon
Hike the Himalayas (amemded to: see the Himalayas)
Visit Rome, the Vatican, see the Sistene Chapel and Pieta (DONE!)
Learn to play chess
Drive a Zamboni
Do an Ironman
Write a book
Read “Les Miserables” (considering removing)
Sell a photo (DONE!)

I plan to think on this some more and really update it soon.

Classes taught at Retro Fitness

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 21:10:55 +0800

Hay Baling (Daylight Savings Time Only)
Group 2-Mile Hike Into Town to Buy Salt Pork and Calico, Sponsored by Ed’s General Store
Calisthenics (Knee Socks and High-Top Converse Required)
Just Jacks (TM), a Special Holiday Two-Hour Jumping Jacks Workout
Jazzercize (Every Hour on the Hour)

Replace electrolytes after your workout with flat Coke and sugar cubes!

(One per member. For extra sugar, see Ed.)

A restaurant for the ages

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 23:25:59 +0800

This is a LiveJournal (aww, LJ) from back in the day that my friend Lizzie and I collaborated on (I’m maliavale), and she emailed it to me this week after a spambot found it and left her a lovely and relevant message. Behold:

in our downtime, the lovely maliavale and I have decided to open a
restaurant. the name is still up in the air, but we have decided on
many menu items, with a few assists from nabbalicious, and the theme
is very clear. see if you can figure it out!

requests are welcome. soon we will have little suggestion cards with
small pencils and checkboxes.

Fleetwood Mac & Cheese
Paul Westerburger on a Morrisseed bun with Aimee Mannonaise
Split P. Diddy Soup
Culture Club Sandwich
Grilled Cheese Incident
Beach Po’Boys
Gwen Stew-fani
Paul McCartney & Buffalo Wings

Sides will include:
Nat King Coleslaw
Bread Zeppelin
Al Green Salad

Your dessert options are currently limited to Cream Puff Daddy, Red
Velvet Elvis Cake, and - for some reason, Maliavale insists on this -
Bowl of Eminems.

and of course for beverages, or Refreshments, if you will, which we will:
Wilco-ca-Cola
Neutral Milkshake Hotel

Youngsters may order from the Destiny’s Child’s Menu. And if you come
Tuesday evening, check out the special: Three Chili Dog Night!

"For anyone who takes art, or even their time, seriously, the flash-forwards, oft played to ominous..."

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 23:52:06 +0800

“For anyone who takes art, or even their time, seriously, the flash-forwards, oft played to ominous music, come to feel like an unfulfilled promise, a betrayal.”

- From “Breaking Bad Is Broken”

"I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud."

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 22:13:48 +0800

“I shall not commit the fashionable stupidity of regarding everything I cannot explain as a fraud.”

- Carl Jung (via sunmonkey)

"For most of us in the industrialized world, the microbial cleansing continues throughout life...."

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 22:10:46 +0800

“For most of us in the industrialized world, the microbial cleansing continues throughout life. Nature’s dirt floor has been replaced by tile; our once soiled and sooted bodies and clothes are cleaned almost daily; our muddy water is filtered and treated; our rotting and fermenting food has been chilled; and the cowshed has been neatly tucked out of sight. While these improvements in hygiene and sanitation deserve applause, they have inadvertently given rise to a set of truly human-made diseases. While comforting to the germ-phobic public, the too-shiny produce and triple-washed and bagged leafy greens in our local grocery aisle are hardly recognized by our immune system as food.”

- Let’s Add a Little Dirt to Our Diet - NYTimes.com

"Every really good creative person…whom I have ever known has always had two noticeable..."

Sun, 06 May 2012 21:45:26 +0800

“Every really good creative person…whom I have ever known has always had two noticeable characteristics. First, there was no subject under the sun in which he could not easily get interested-from, say, Egyptian burial customs to modern art. Every facet of life had fascination for him. Second, he was an extensive browser in all sorts of fields of information. For it is with the [creative] man as with the cow: no browsing, no milk.”

- James Webb Young, writing in his 1939 guide to producing ideas, articulates a timeless truth about the relationship between curiosity and creativity. (via explore-blog)

I opened the dishwasher mid-cycle and was blasted with steam and dripping water. I felt embarrassed,...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:43:39 +0800

I opened the dishwasher mid-cycle and was blasted with steam and dripping water. I felt embarrassed, like I’d pushed open an occupied bathroom stall, and I slammed it shut and hurriedly pushed start again and found myself apologizing out loud.

A selection of subject lines from the neighborhood listserv

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:22:20 +0800

Offered without comment:

Re: Compilation of Dog Trainers Who Make House Calls

FS: Preggle (preggers pillow) $15/obo

ferrett cage best offer

Earth Day Kids Poetry! (fwd)

Best video game ever made?

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 07:41:37 +0800

Best video game ever made?:

karmcity:

The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph. The feat requires 8 hours of continuous play to complete, since the game cannot be paused.

The bus contains no passengers, contains little scenery (an occasional rock or…

Things the New York Times Has Recently Described as an Adventure

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 07:41:00 +0800

airhen:

Having gout

Parenting

Eating (in the Blogroll)

Social media

Speaking several languages

Polling in primaries and caucuses

Blast from the past: the cheat sheet I wrote on the late-night...

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:31:18 +0800

Blast from the past: the cheat sheet I wrote on the late-night shift at the Richmond T-D. (Taken with instagram)

"RSS “is like a magic spell that calls together knowledge from the winds of the Internet into a..."

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 02:24:31 +0800

“RSS “is like a magic spell that calls together knowledge from the winds of the Internet into a swirling, dancing chimera that sits in your hand and shares with you the whispers of more people than you’ll ever meet in your life - on demand at any time. RSS readers are instruments of magic. When you use them you become a magician. May they proliferate across the land.””

- Very unhappy about the Google Reader/Plus changes coming.

World’s Youngest Leading Social Network Eats World’s Last Major RSS Reader: Google Reader Gets Plussed

Myke said the other day that my dad as a CEO reminds him of Steve Jobs, particularly in...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 04:07:00 +0800

Myke said the other day that my dad as a CEO reminds him of Steve Jobs, particularly in conversations and interviews he has watched of Steve.

I text my dad this and add, “High praise!”

24 hours later, my dad writes back: “Who’s Steve Jobs?”

…

My question: Who lives in a bubble, us or him?

"We ought to be able to construct a narrative of our lives that transcends the trail of data exhaust..."

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 05:25:59 +0800

“We ought to be able to construct a narrative of our lives that transcends the trail of data exhaust we leave behind us on our trips down the information superhighway.”

- Daily Dot: The Storify of our lives, and why we’re more than a Facebook Timeline

brokenformat: Your new obsession: Doodle or Die. My...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:49:50 +0800

brokenformat:

Your new obsession: Doodle or Die. My illustration of “please goldfish with donut” above.

My doodle chain began with “devil in a windfork.”

Save a pretzel for the gas jets, and try my Kwanzaa...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 05:38:35 +0800

Save a pretzel for the gas jets, and try my Kwanzaa CDs.

“Rick Perry” — A BLR Soundbite (by BadLipReading)