27 August 2008

Logo




I'm not the first to find a similarity between these two logos. The first time I saw John McCain's logo on one of his ads, I immediately thought "mmm... french fries."

The typeface used in the John McCain logo is Optima, Straightforward, plain, and just about as ho-hum middle of the road as it comes as far as text goes.
Not so coincidentally, this is the same typeface used on Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial. More discussion here.
I think I'd be more persuaded if they had used that cool retro McCain Frozen Foods font. That funky star that dots the "i" is like a future that will never be. Let's hope the same will come to be said about that other McCain star...

20 August 2008

Surviving the New Depression

Watch them all. Found at Schadenfreude



Surviving the New Depression: Tip #12 from Steve Delahoyde on Vimeo.


Surviving the New Depression: Tip #16 from Steve Delahoyde on Vimeo.

Dislocation

Update - The video was promptly taken down from all the usual sources, but it is still available here.

Hungarian weightlifter Janos Baranyai dislocates his elbow.
Use care, the video is pretty nasty, but still not as bad as this still image of the infamous "blown 'O' ring." (Use even more care with that picture. Don't click that link in mixed company, unless you really want to bother someone for the rest of the day, or risk losing your job.)

I love the officially branded "Beijing 2008 Nothing to See Here" shields that come out about ten seconds after he falls down. If you can't see the writhing, everything is alright...

Borgnine

I believe this video shows the precise moment that a new euphemism for masturbation was born.
If only Borgnine wasn't such a funny word in the first place.



(Probably the only Fox News Video link you'll ever see here.)

19 August 2008

Guilty Pleasure

So it was Friday after work, 102 degrees, and I didn't want to cook. So I headed to Lloyd Center to wait out the heat of the day and get some mall food court dinner. Luckily the Lloyd Center has my second favorite fast food pleasure - Arbys.

And since it was payday, I sprung for the mozzarella stix as a special treat.


Lloyd Center is an especially awesome air conditioned oasis on a dreadfully hot day in a mostly un-conditioned city. You can catch a movie, browse Barnes & Noble, watch kids ice skate, slurp an Orange Julius, and just people-watch. Other than my regular Arby's cravings, hot ass summer days are about the only time I voluntarily head to the mall.

13 August 2008

Portland on a hazy day in 1960.

One of about a gazillion awesome photos in the Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection.
Search for your own city, and also search for New York. There's a whole lot of awesome color shots of the city from 1941. Like this one.



And this one of Indy, 1963.




06 August 2008

Low Brow Crock Pot Roast

Its hot. I'm struggling to keep the apartment under 80. It was supposed to be even warmer today but the predictions didn't pan out. I figured this was the perfect day to make a crock pot meal. It doesn't heat the house too much, and although a little heavier of a meal than I really needed to eat tonight, it was a success.
I almost lost my favorite crock pot roast recipe, it was written on a tiny piece of paper that was once tucked into a cookbook. It was no longer there.
I finally found it after taking all the cookbooks out of the cookbook cabinet, it was stuck to the back of the cupboard.
I decided to post the recipe here so I don't have to rely on my little piece of paper anymore.
Try it out sometime if you have a crock-pot. Perfect in the winter, tasty in the summer too.
I like it best with a big chunk of beef roast, but tonight I used pork shoulder because it was available on the cheap this week. The roast should be around 3-4 pounds, or pretty much fill the whole crock pot.
Mix all of the following together in the pot the night before and refrigerate it so all you have to do in the morning before you go to work is turn it on. The marinading isn't mandatory, its just convenient. You can throw it all together and start cooking straight away if you want and get the same results.

Here's the juice:
Mix up in the crock pot
1 Packet of brown gravy mix (Hain makes my favorite one) and
1/2 cup of water.
Stir it up with a whisk until all the powder dissolves.
Then add
1/4 cup of fine tomato ketchup
1/4 cup of "Three Buck Chuck" Shiraz (or your favorite inexpensive full-bodied red wine)
2 tbsp of dijon mustard
1 tbsp of Worcestershire Sauce
1/8 tsp of garlic powder (or a couple cloves of crushed garlic if you feel so inclined)
Some little carrots and potatoes if you want

Salt and pepper the meat to your liking, remembering that there's quite a bit of sodium in that juice you're getting ready to dunk the meat into for the next few hours, so go easy on the salt. Refrigerate overnight if that works out best for you.
Cook on Low for 7-9 hours, or until you stick a fork into the meat and it all falls apart.

Enjoy.

*Not my crock pot by the way, just a picture borrowed from abmatic's photostream. However Mom still uses her green one that looks just like that one.

Diversity in the workplace

If I were to write about my workplace, the subject line would have to be "The Indian, the Immigrant, the Queer, and the Old Dead-Head."

05 August 2008

Olympic Fever - 1972

I'm really grooving on these posters and other promotional material from the 1972 Munich Olympics, designed by Otl Aicher. Especially the mascot, Waldi the Dachshund.
Check out this gallery.





04 August 2008

Bike Rant

For those of ya'll outside of our weird little experiment that is Portland, it seems we're in the throes of a bicycle vs. auto battle, at least as far as the local media is concerned. (I'm looking at you Oregonian).
Lately the Portland fuzz have been on an education mission, stopping irresponsible bikers who blow through stop signs at problem intersections around the city, issuing written warnings, and a few tickets for "egregious behavior," also known as "being a dick to a cop who has your best interest in mind."
Wow, who would've thought I'd ever be on the same side as the pigs. Having grown up with a good ol' boy police force so corrupt that even my Mom warns me about them every time I'm visiting the ol' homestead. I grew up, much like most of inner-city America, (even though we lived 100 miles from the nearest urban area, and were white) believing that the cops hardly ever have your best interest in mind. Little things like tickets for a burned out tail-light, and random beatings along the side of the highway have made me fear the police, even though I'm an educated white male who statically should have nothing to fear.

I digress, I've been biking to work now everyday for two months, and will be riding to work almost everyday for the next two years as G needs the car to make the trip to his classes at Sylvania everyday. I was already a road nazi as a driver. I don't consider myself as being "anal" about too many things, I don't mind a messy house, I'm OK with my nasty desk at work, but when it comes to the rules of the road, I'm a tyrant. There's a reason we have these rules/laws. Even back in my stomping grounds of super laid back Bloomington, I was a very high stress driver, not hesitating to honk and yell at folks doing stupid shit that endangered the lives of myself and others.
I ride NE Tillamook St. every day, one of Portland's designated "bike boulevards," designed to be inconvenient for cars and easy on cyclists. Taking cars mostly out of the picture makes me realize that a disproportionately high number of us cyclists are assholes and dickheads, or both.
I rarely encounter an issue with motor vehicles since the few folks who live and drive around Tillamook Street know that they live on a bike street and are generally courteous and mindful of everyone.
That dude that blows the 4-way at 30th & Tillamook, nearly t-boning me after I stop and assume that you're going to stop as well, or that dude on a bike that tried to zoom past me on the right while I was patiently waiting for that red light at Williams & Russell, you go to hell and you die!
Even non-confrontational me is fed up enough to try to discipline my fellow cyclists, at least in my special passive aggressive style of a stern throat clearing and a dirty look. It seems there are quite a few of us bikers for whom that self-preservation instinct has somehow been disabled.
I'm talking about the smart folks who ride on the streets that aren't already jammed with cars, who aren't trying to make some sort of point by endangering their lives, and sometimes the lives of their children in that little cart behind them, cruising down Burnside in rush hour traffic. That's another post complelety.

I begrudgingly post a link to Bike Free Portland, who despite crossing into the accusatory and kinda crazy tone that keeps the "real" media from taking bloggers seriously, makes enough valid points to be worthy of a read.

Nine Lives

Seems Mortimer is getting a little attention in the cat blogging world...
Yep, there's other cat blogs. Who knew?

BBQ = Special Meat

So its a commercial for Alka-Seltzer, but its awesomeness trumps the fact that its an ad, so I'll post it. Mainly for the amusement of Lizbone, note that they don't even really mention western NC BBQ, Appalachian TN is as as close as it comes. These guys know what's up.

"And when my life is through, bury me in BBQ,
but make sure it's vinegar based,
cause you know that slows decay,
and it's the style from our home state, North Carolina!"



01 August 2008

Unfortunate Logos



Via I love Bacon, check out the first four pics in this gallery, and check out some more bacon if you dare...