34

Well, it's something: my new 20" Intel iMac arrived last week, and it's hard to find time to blog with all these lusty thoughts in my head. Y'all should go out and buy one too.

Feeding right into my fascination with large quantities of meat, A Hamburger Today reports on extremely large In-n-Out orders . Good stuff.

Two things editors never get to do: Go on business trips and live the high life The past few days I have been in Chicago, a truly lovely city which I have not had the pleasure of visiting for eight years. Everything is a tad wider than it is in Manhattan, and a bit squatter. The city as a whole is cleaner. The river and lake are truly lovely. But the highlight of my trip was not absorbing the gorgeous architecture. It wasn’t even the hotel. But who knew, when they flew out our entire editorial team to celebrate the “kickoff” of the new year and a new joint venture with a Chicago branch, that we’d stay in the nicest hotel I have ever stepped foot inside? Huuuuuge bathtub, a bathroom MUCH bigger than my room here in Manhattan, big fluffy king-sized bed, water bottles and the Times delivered to my door, comfy robes and slippers, a ginormous Jacuzzi and spa upstairs… I felt like a queen! But no, it gets better. After a day of meetings and then team-building volunteer work (for a great orga...

Various tidbits having to do with location: Despite the fact that it absolutely fails to work in Safari (it loads fine in Firefox), Microsoft's new Live Local has some very impressive aerial photographs. For those who haven't yet had the pleasure of visiting Sea Gate: this is what it looks like if you're G-d or a helicopter or some weird Coptic- copter-deity. The cover of Paul Auster's new book, Brooklyn Follies , which I'll read eventually, focuses on a corner building past a Brooklyn intersection. I noticed a poster for the book (what kind of book is promoted with posters?) plastered up on the temporary fence of a worksite at the corner of Court and Livingston St. on my way to work today. That particular intersection and building under the scaffolding weren't depicted on the front cover, but the similarity was striking. Speaking of scaffolding: someone needs to do a Google Maps mashup to track all the buildings with scaffolding on them in New York City. I ...

Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant of The Office fame (and to some extent, Extras fame) have a Podcast thing going on along with Karl Pilkington . Gervais and Merchant started out in radio, so I guess that makes sense. Each Podcast consists of Pilkington saying ridiculous things and the other two making fun of him, which makes for surprisingly entertaining listening. I have been listening to them on my walk to and from work (I can get through one 30 minute Podcast a day), which is not entirely ideal; I often start smiling or outright laughing whilst walking down Court St., which attracts undesired attention from my fellow pedestrians. In other Office -y news, I have warmed up to the American version on NBC . The first season recycled the plot lines from the British episodes, and the British episodes are such classics that a reinterpretation of them is almost guaranteed to fail. The current season has branched out to mostly original ideas, and it's often quite funny. It's cert...

I have Time Warner digital cable in NYC, with all DVR and all the movie channels. There are several thousand movies shown each week that I could potentially record and watch later. The following is a list of all movies on the cable stations I subscribe to being shown this upcoming week; I'm going to use it to set my DVR to record what I want in advance. Maybe you'll find it useful too, if you've got a similar setup. If you see one of your favorites listed and want to make sure others watch it, post a comment. This list is automatically generated each week and is sorted by the rating the movie got from a website that will go nameless, and movies rated too low are left out; click on the movie name for showtime details. Gods and Monsters (1998) GoodFellas (1990) Million Dollar Baby (2004) The Great Escape (1963) Children of a Lesser God (1986) Diamonds Are Forever (1971) From Russia With Love (1963) Genevieve (1953) Goldfinger (1964) Harold and Maude (1971) Hearts and Minds (1...

Live action Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! ? Hell yes!

Unpaid researcher Ross McS. passes along this interesting bit of metasignage . (Metasignage is not a word.) Who knows what he'll come up with next?

34 is all about baking, following a successful joint-baking effort that produced delicious lemon bars yesterday. (Sheryl let me be sous-baker!) We baked the bars to bring to Rich and Adele's for dessert in honor of Adam's birthday , and they were enjoyed by all. Baking, I must say, is about a thousand times more involved than cooking, and I don't think I have the will or inclination to take on primary baking duties anytime soon.

Ryan Adams is a drunk, junkie, miscreant and misanthrope. He is belligerent. He has picked public fights with Jeff Tweedy and Jack White for no discernible reason. He has dated Winona Ryder and Parker Posey (for discernible reasons) amongst other starlets and society notables. He is not Bryan Adams, and will throw (substantial, heavy) things at audience members who request that he sing " Summer of '69 " at his concerts. He is probably best known for releasing a completely inadvertent music video tribute to New York featuring the Twin Towers filmed in early September, 2001. Apart from that, his cover of Oasis's Wonderwall made it on to the O.C. , which may or may not be something depending on the circles in which you hang. If you are a critic (which I am not) and write something about Ryan Adams that Ryan Adams does not like, there is a non-negligible chance that he will flip out and leave an obscenity-laden message on your answering machine. Ryan Adams is a rock...

I have Time Warner digital cable in NYC, with all DVR and all the movie channels. There are several thousand movies shown each week that I could potentially record and watch later. The following is a list of all movies on the cable stations I subscribe to being shown this upcoming week; I'm going to use it to set my DVR to record what I want in advance. Maybe you'll find it useful too, if you've got a similar setup. If you see one of your favorites listed and want to make sure others watch it, post a comment. This list is automatically generated each week and is sorted by the rating the movie got from a website that will go nameless, and movies rated too low are left out; click on the movie name for showtime details. Coming Home (1978) Dances With Wolves (1990) Interiors (1978) Jaws (1975) Raging Bull (1980) Titanic (1997) Apollo 13 (1995) Bound for Glory (1976) Field of Dreams (1989) Finding Neverland (2004) Go (1999) Hearts and Minds (1974) Heat (1995) Jerry Maguire (1996...