Hurrah! Now I can enjoy my mom's honey, as well as her eggs.

More here. (By way of Dan Cohen's Digital Humanities Blog.)

In other news, I'm kind of tired of my own schtick. I'm not saying I'm giving up -- just that the "idea blog" seemed fun five years ago, and now I'm a little over myself. Maybe it has something to do with being depressed the last couple of years. Maybe I'm working too much. Or maybe it was the ideas that just got boring. ANYWAY -- if I don't do ideas, what DO I do? What do you do with the url, "Mary's Great Ideas" after the ideas are gone? No wonder I'm depressed! Maybe twitter will help.

GIRLS ROCK!" OPENS NATIONWIDE MARCH 7
NY, LA, San Francisco, Berkeley, Chicago, Portland and Seattle on
Opening Weekend.

THE MOVIE (rated PG)
At Rock 'n' Roll Camp, girls ranging in age from eight to 18 are
taught that it's OK to sweat like a pig, scream like a banshee,
wail on their instruments with complete and utter abandon, and
that "it is 100% okay to be exactly who you are." They are taught
by indie rock chicks such as Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney
various lessons of empowerment from self-defense to anger
management. At the end of just one week, all the bands perform
songs they've written with their new bandmates for over 700
people. "Girls Rock!" follows several campers: Laura, a Korean
adoptee obsessed by death metal; Misty, who is emerging from a
life of meth addiction and gang activity; Palace, whose heavy
metal sneer belies her seven years, and Amelia, an eight-year-old
who writes experimental rock songs about her dog Pipi. What
happens to the girls as they are given a temporary reprieve from
being sexualized, analyzed and pressured to conform is truly
revolutionary.

THE FILMMAKERS
"Girls Rock!" is truly a labor of love. During the three and a
half years of production Shane King [aka COUSIN SHANE] and Arne Johnson [aka the man who should have had my BABY!] have
mortgaged houses and cashed out retirements to finish their first
film, while hundreds of others have come out of the woodwork to
help make this film a reality."

Needless to say, I am extremely, very much excited for this event.

So, it's next Friday at Cinema 21 (where we all went to movies when we were kids!) and I'll want to go to the 7 PM showing -- if you want to go with me, let me know in the next couple of days and we can order tickets en masse here (or you can just get some for yourself).

My dissatisfaction with iTunes as a podcast manager makes me wonder how Panic's Audion would have handled them -- which I never used, but enjoyed reading about, and now wish I could use.

Since sleep is the new water, I better get busy! and have I mentioned to you that audio is the new video? (Also: wool is the new cotton - but that's another post).

Here are some things that look interesting -- although not necessarily sleep related (I say "look" instead of "sound" because I haven't actually listened to them yet).

(BTW, I'm getting more and more dissatisfied with how iTunes handles podcasts -- including, among other things, the fact that it's hard to link to them. I think they are due for an upgrade or some competition.)

The Smithsonian has several podcasts that look promising, especially the American Folkways collection podcast, co-produced with CKUA radio. Each episode is longish (an hour or so). Two bad it's only 24 episodes long!

You know, I like that old time stuff, so maybe I'll like the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour Podcast? eh ... after a 20 seconds listen, not so much. It's not old timey enough.

I'm not really what I consider a "Hawaii" person, but I still think I could get into this beachwalk podcast. And she agrees -- sleep is the new water (I also like the dog-action -- I could happily watch a video podcast of dog walks on the beach.)

I'm now getting tired, if not actually sleepy. I'm sad because all I've found are dopey new age relaxation music podcasts. I want more atmospheric stuff, not flutes. More field recordings like the framework field recording thing, but without any jarring metallic grinding sounds in the middle.

I'm going to give "Guided Relaxation (Garden)" a go of it -- I'm psyched about the "5 mins of cricket sounds at the end." Plus, it was "created as a New Year's gift during the oil crisis of 1973-4."

Good night!

I've been enjoying my subscription to Wholphin -- so much so that I started to get sad that I hadn't started it earlier. So I was happy to see a bunch of movies there on the site to view -- it's worth some clicking around.

Then I could recommend things like the maple-rosemary trout (it sounds gross but it was incredibly tasty) -- and while they're at it, they could make it so you could rate food and have a machine recommend foods for you. I think what's happening is, with all the choices in the world, we need technical help to develop and keep track of our own tastes. At least, I do. Too many choices means creating technologies to help us sort them all out.

This is one of many cases where I had an idea (last winter) failed to act on it (I was hoping to make one before I blogged) only to discover that the world has already acted by the time I got to blogging. So, hurrah! I don't have time to make them, anyway.

But you know, I'm not really that sporty. What I had in mind was a velcro-fastened wrap-around made out of colorful oilcloth. But after some clicking reading, what a sad thing it is to realize that oilcloth is no longer on the market and that what we now call oil cloth is PVC based. Ugh. No more cute tablecloths for me.

So now I want someone to manufacture real oil cloth, and then make rain skirts out of them.

In the meantime, when 2008 comes around, I'll order one of these rainskirts, assuming they come in sizes to fit the short and round.

I think someone should make modern (or even post-modern) cuckoo clocks with a lot of fancy animatronics. It looks easy, right?

It looks like you can get the internal parts on eBay. The first idea suggested the other day was to make one that looked like Nat coming out of a dark office with a glowing computer on the hour and saying, "get back to work!" not that he has a tendency to say things like that ... it's funny, but I can't really think of any Nat catch phrases. Maybe, "That's. Pretty. Awesome!" ? That would be encouraging -- to have someone say that to you every hour, right?

Maybe someone has made Personal Affirmations Cuckoo Clocks? They could say things like, "You're doing a great job!" or, "Keep up the good work!" or "You look fantastic!" or whatever every hour or even half hour, if you were especially insecure.

You can get some cuckoo clocks with other animals. Some modern-looking ones. But I'm not seeing cuckoo clocks with, like, a modern business man running for a bus or whatever cursing as he goes along.

But you know, right now, after all this clicking around, I don't want a postmodern cuckoo clock, I want a good old-fashioned one. Like a 22in Moving Wood Sawyers & Turning Waterwheel German Black Forest Cuckoo Clock 1 Day Musical -- doesn't somebody love me enough to get me a $700 cuckoo clock for Christmas? Or a 22in Moving Cute Girl & Deers, German Black Forest Cuckoo Clock 8 Day Musical Chalet (including hummel-esque figure). Or what about this one, the most beautiful cuckoo clock 2004?

Anyone? Anyone?

I wish I could go buy one in a shop.

Now that I think about it, what about a clock that looked like a slice of log? I'd like one of those, too.

I was thinking about animatronics because Chris Higgins made me watch this episode of the The Secret Life of Machines the other night, and I was intrigued by the discussion of irregular cogs (or whatever it was) used to make machine movements look more life-like. This guy Tim Hunkin seems to be some kind of genious.

People should put in slow flow drains as a water saving device. They would compliment low-flow faucets.

It really does cut down on water consumption when you are ankle deep in water or when you have to look at your toothpaste spit for a minute or two. And believe me, slow flow drains are incredibly easy to install.

Speaking of water saving devices! You know what my mom just put in? a Controllable Flush!!! I'm going to order two for myself and the upstairs unit. You know how much I love these things. I think this would make a terrific gift idea for anyone on your list who does not already have a schmancy toilet.

Oh and wait -- I should not forget to mention two flush also! But unlike Controllable Flush, they are not made in Oregon that I can tell.

I'm still not really sure what I think about sound sculpture, but I'm getting more interested. I recently followed a boingboing link to these ... uh, field recordings? or whatever they are. I've been noticing and wanting to record the sound at the Superfund site for a long time - the water, trains, birds, dogs, etc. -- so maybe I'll submit something.

Anyway, I remain convinced that if you're going to have noise-based art of some kind (that isn't music -- or even if it is, I guess), the bathroom is the best place to put it, and refining that idea, on a more practical level what I'd like is an appliance that is a built-in bathroom fan, light and radio. Maybe a heater, too. You know how hotels have the bathroom fan/heater/light combos? Sometimes they have a timer? It would be like that, only plus a radio. So that when you turn the light on, the radio comes on automatically. I'll bet someone is selling that, but I can't find it.

(BTW, one reason why I've been less inspired to blog lately is my scanner broke, so it's harder to create appropriate illustrations.)

T'chaka has made a film about both. Yeti in the City. Goodness gracious.

From his "About" (sort of buried in the "archive"):

My premise is that the web constitutes the largest, most easily-accessible archive that people have ever created, and also the most radically unfamiliar. Material is being added to the web at an exponential rate, but it is of low average quality; it usually has an uncertain provenance and uncertain lifespan. Much of it is created by machines and meant to be ‘understood’ by other machines.

Historians and other humanists and social scientists need a new set of computational tools for dealing with the web. About half of the posts in Digital History Hacks are devoted to making the argument for a new historical discipline that is analogous to bioinformatics, and draws on machine learning, computational linguistics, information retrieval and other fields. The rest of the posts are about hacks, short programs that demonstrate the potential of digital history, and are designed to be shared, extended or modified (i.e., hacked) by others.

He received something called a "Cliopatria" award, which I'd never heard of, so I checked it out. The past awardees include some interesting clicking.

I've been stewing about the need for more visiblity for awhile (2003 -- OMG!! have I mentioned that my 500th entry is coming up??) -- anyway, with the recent publicity around how the switch off of Daylight Savings Time to leads to more pedestian deaths, I've been thinking about it a lot again.

I personally take ridiculous -- that is, easily ridiculed -- lengths to ensure my visibility while walking (not that it works -- I was almost run over today by a driver making a left-hand turn across the pedestrian walk -- grrr). I have a rechargable flashlight, Pica has a reflective collar, and I'm wearing either a reflective vest or my most recent purchase, a reflective yellow rain slicker. And that's during the daylight hours!! LOL! I can't get enough reflective stuff!

But that's me. Not the guy on skate board wearing a black hoodie, black jeans, in the traffic lane on a rainy night. Who I saw. And didn't hit. Thank Goodness.

Someone commenting here says that "The UK tried year-round DST from 1968-1971; apparently accidental deaths dropped by 2,500 over two years." So that's an interesting thought. But in the meantime ...

I'm considering putting some orange safety vests in the can where I put my deposit bottles out because I really worry about the bottle collectors who cruise around on their invisible bikes. And maybe I'll get some for the car so I can pull over and hand them out after I've almost killed one.

But just because of my personal issues, I'm a lot more likely to be able to handle a conversation with a bottle collector, who can't afford a safety jacket or lights, than a hipster, who should be able to invest the $20 or so to live another day, but may not because they are limited by their fashion sensibilities. So, I'll stick to visibility for the homeless and gift my slogan to the world, because it's needed:

Visibility: It's the New Black!!

Also -- visibility products are a great gift idea! Like a fire extinguisher, it shows you care enough to give the gift of life!

Why settle for old-fashioned taxidermy?

You can get some good squirrel pieces. (Looking around this website was kind of giving me the creeps, but then I read her artists statement and realized she's just recycling dead animals, so I feel better.) Anyway, that's cool and all, but since cute is the new goth*, I think that googly eyes on taxidermy should be happening more. There are some interesting things going on in the world of taxidermy, but I don't much cute taxidermy. I sewed some eyes on this coyote pelt that Erin gave me -- her dad made it.

Also, given how babies respond ethically to toys with googly eyes, maybe we should be putting googly eyes on more things? Like, googly eyes on cars, for instance. I think that could better communicate "friendliness" than a tail on a car, and a nice, wide-eyed car would be so much better for world peace than a snarling grill. A Wall Street Journal article on, "Why Cars Got Angry" quotes designers: "I'm not saying we promote rudeness on the road," says Eric Stoddard, senior creative designer for Hyundai. But he adds that a mean-looking car may make drivers feel they can keep others at bay. "It projects a message that a driver may be too shy or afraid to express," he says. "An aggressively styled car says, 'Get out of my way.'" Yuck!

Anyway, more cute things, fewer angry creepy ones, please.

*("Cute is the New Black" was a slogan that I wanted to TM for Gadget Cozies, but someone had it for something else, and now it seems to have disseminated itself)

Kasper Hauser: Phone Call to the 14th Century

It occurred to me that you could use the same concept in a history classroom, and I hope one of my history-teaching friends will give it a try. Since most of you teach German history, you could do something like, "Phone Call to 1938 Germany." Play them the podcast, first, so they get the idea. I think it would be way better than "Historical Jepordy." Jordan S. -- try it with your high school students! Let me know how it goes!

Speaking of games, today I was thinking about the difference between people who play games for mastery (of rules, content, other players) versus those who play for engagement (with rules, content, other players) -- I know that's a little simplistic, and lots of people play for both, and there's probably other reasons to play, but anyway, that's just the kind of simplistic observation that strikes me on my dog walks. I should get Nat to recommend some books on game design theory.

Continuing on with conversational icebreakers, a question that seems particularly relevent here in this season of consumption is What would your last meal be?

I've asked this question a bunch of times with no real background on the issue. For instance, we have wondered, you have to eat what's in the prison cafeteria? According to Wikipedia, in Texas, you do. It looks like most places don't go to a whole huge amount of trouble on your behalf, according to this account of cooking last meals in prison.

There have been a couple of books on the subject, including, recently, My Last Supper: 50 Great Chefs and Their Final Meals / Portraits, Interviews, and Recipes, Last Suppers: If the World Ended Tomorrow, What Would Be Your Last Meal? and Last Suppers: Famous Final Meals from Death Row.

The first two books illustrate that this is a topic of conversation people really enjoy. It's a little more finite and less personal than, "what would you do if you learned you only had 24 hours to live?" but just as compelling.

(I have to say, even though I'm no Titanic buff, but Last Dinner On the Titanic Menus and Recipes From the Great Liner: Menus and Recipes from the Great Liner sounds like an interesting basis for a theme party.)

So far, the best answer was cousin Shane's scheme, which was to cook his last meal himself a la the last meal in The Omnivore's Dilemma - one in which he prepared everything himself by hand, growing the veggies, killing the pig, etc.

My answer? I'd basically eat everything on the last page of the menu at Holmans -- deep friend mac 'n' cheese, jalapeno poppers, chicken strips, tater tots. This meal is perfect because after eating it, I'd feel like dying. My other choise would be antipasti and bruschetta and lasagne at Fratelli, but that might give me too much reason to live.

p.s. get ready for lots of blogging because I discovered the "scheduled" posting function in Moveable Type!

This Halloween I had a pretty fabulous candy bowl. Among other things, I offered full-sized Milky Ways and cashews. I make the kids choose their own stuff out of the bowl and the amazing thing was, a lot of kids took the cashews. And it wasn't that they didn't notice the full-sized Milky Ways. One kid audibly vacillated between them: "Oh, man! full size Milky Ways! ... Cashews! Full size Milky Way? Cashews? Full size Milky Way? Cashews?" before he took the cashews!! Anyway, it's cool to know that kidz love nutz and next year I'll be sure to have plenty on hand.

I finally took Chris Higgins's advice and started regularly listening to the podcast of The Sound of Young America. (I feel compelled to point out that I think I sent Higgins in that direction by way of the Coyle and Sharpe podcast.) Anyway, I've been enjoying it a lot -- Jesse Thorn's interview with Ira Glass brought up an interesting and challenging question about the dangers of loving narrative too much. Ira Glass's response reminded me of when Jon Steward complains about people asking him why he doesn't do a better job of covering the news and he says, "because I'm a comedian!" And you get where he's coming from but it doesn't solves the problem of people getting all their news from him.

I've also been enjoying Jordon, Jesse, GO! a lot -- it's like hanging out with guy friends who are funnier than you and probably wouldn't let you get a word in edgewise, but you don't need to worry about feeling awkward and left out because it's a podcast and no one expects you to say anything.

btw, I'm aware that I'm weakening the franchise with meandering entries like this, but it's better than no entry at all, I'm guessing. I've been super busy.

I received my new (issue? episode? copy?) of Wholphin awhile ago, and I haven't watched most of it yet, if anyone wants to join me (Pete and Susan generously agreed to watch a couple movies with me, but there are still many left!).

One of my favorite clips from the last (issue? episode? copy?) was Ballistic Jaw Propulsion of Trap-Jaw Ants. Do I like experimental film? No! I just like ants.

Or so I thought, until I started clicking around Encyclopedia Pictura. I like a lot of their stuff.

One of the things I like is the sounds -- I guess it helps that they are doing a lot of music videos. I remember Jon Nichols telling me at some point that whenever I saw a really boring movie, a good trick is focus on the foley work to entertain yourself. And you know what? Sometimes it works. That and product placement -- that's kind of fun to watch for, too.

Anyway, here's my idea:

Kiddy Foley Kit

This wouldn't be some lame collection of sound effect CDs -- it would be a hands-on experience for children. There's a foley booth hands-on at the experience music project which was kind of entertaining, and this would be the home version. It would include:

• coconuts
• sandpaper
• squeaky hinges
• glass

P.S. Originally I was going to blog about the ferrofluid in this video but then I gave the material to Higgins.

"I imagine Wonkette only with all the pictures replaced by those from Cute Overload. How's that for a concept?"

That, my friend, is BRILLIANT. Can someone please make that happen with RSS feeds or something?

This reminds me of some of my mash up ideas, which I'll get back to later.

However, it's worth noting that Higgins has some very good -- even great -- content of his very own, so much so that Mental Floss has become one of the first three websites I look at every day. At first I thought the site was a little corny, but I have grown to like the low-snark, high-science ratio.

I've been thinking lately about snarky and sarcastic sites versus sweet and sincerely sites lately. Like, do you know of any sweet and sincere political blogs? Or any snarky and sarcastic craft blogs? I haven't read any, but maybe I need to get out more. I get really tired of snark sometimes.

Anyway, Higgins regularly links to his MentalFloss entries over at Chrishiggins.com (about every Sunday), but some of my personal recent favorites have been:

• My Credit Card Experiment
• Rephotography (I gave him The Third View project)
• iPhone Versus Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• 120 Minutes Archive

Please make a note of it!

Occupational 20 Questions

Even I'm strongly committed to finding alternatives to asking strangers what they do for a living, I've found occupational 20 questions is good and somehow less offensive way to kill time at parties. You can even get to know something about the person you're talking to without feeling all awkward, and it's a game that requires that you not know the person you're playing with. I've bragged more than once that the first time I played this game, I guessed "youth pastor" correctly after 17 questions! Sadly, ever since that early victory, I don't think I've guessed correctly once. I keep getting stumped by answers like, "legal copying manager"! But I'm a lot better at inventing games than playing them, so probably you'll do a lot better.

Here are some good questions to get the ball rolling:

• Are you a web developer?
• Do you spend most of your time indoors?
• Did you have to have special training to get your job?
• Do you work with children?

Note: it's not really "cool" to ask things like, "do you make more than $50k a year?"

What Are the First Three Websites You Look at Everyday?

This question is becoming less relevent as more people use RSS feeds, but even so, I still tend to favor clicking on my RSS links in a particular order. It's a question that only works for people who spend a lot of time clicking on things, obviously.

(I'm putting common answers below the fold so you can think about your answer without being influenced)

(p.s. photo is a farm display made up primarily of grains and legumes from the Wahkiakum County Fair, which was excellent.)

I've been doing some research on Native history in the Southwest and starting singing, "Ho-Ho-Hohokom" to this tune but then I realized probably no one else in the office grew up singing it. I googled it and sure enough, here's the video.

And here are the lyrics:

From Viet back to the Saigon Delta
From the mountains and plains below
Young and old workers, peasants and the toiling tenant farmers
Fight for freedom with Uncle Ho.
Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, etc.

Now Ho Chi Minh was a deep sea sailor
He served his time out on the seven seas
Work and hardship were part of his early education
Exploitation his ABC.

Now Ho Chi Minh came home from sailing
And he looked out on his native land
Saw the want and the hunger of the Indo-Chinese people
Foreign soldiers on every hand.

Now Ho Chi Minh went to the mountains
And he trained a determined band
Heroes all, sworn to liberate the Indo-Chinese people
Drive invaders from the land.

Fourteen men became a hundred
A hundred thousand and Ho Chi Minh
Forged and tempered the army of the Indo-Chinese people
Freedom's Army of Viet Minh.

Every soldier is a farmer
Comes the evening and he grabs his hoe
Comes the morning he swings his rifle on his shoulder
This the army of Uncle Ho.

From the mountains and the jungles
From the ricelands and the Plain of Reeds
March the men and the women of the Indo-Chinese Army
Planting freedom with vict'ry seeds.

From Viet back to the Saigon Delta
Marched the armies of Viet Minh
And the wind stirs the banners of the Indo-Chinese people
Peace and freedom and Ho Chi Mmli.

(Posted here)

P.S. I have to admit, I felt a little compelled to change the subject quickly so my mom wouldn't have to see a picture of me fellating who knows what on a green screen first thing.

Well, in spite of the fact that I wasn't invited by KATU (which I was told paid a contractor $10,000 to read OrBlogs and create an invitation list that somehow excluded me!!!) I WAS invited by Drew to attend the KATU blogger meet-up and I'm SO glad I went because I met and got to hang out with some really charming people. I'm going to express my gratitude by actually blogging about the event, because I assume that was the point ... (Wait, what WAS the point?)

The food was really weird. Like a lot of us, I find it annoying when people who say "random" instead of "weird" so I'm going to start saying, "weird" instead of "random." But in actuality, it was random: california rolls, tiny ruebens, a meat, cheese and olive plate, chocolate-covered strawberries, spring rolls, bread sticks, and a shrimp bowl. But plenty of everything, so I only experienced a tiny twinge of buffet anxiety. Plus, there was beer and wine. (Sadly, I was too much of an idiot to realize I had a clean bento box with me, where I could have stashed lots of "left overs." :( :( :( )

So what was the point? Kai from Portland Met Blogs told me that she was told it was an attempt to bridge the divide between mainstream media and ... whatever bloggers are. An ABC affiliate in Seattle held a similar identical event, which seems to have worked pretty well for them in terms of coverage. So maybe that's the point?? (thanks to Justin for finding the Seattle event). Khris Soden (who I was delighted to meet! I've admired his Portland history comics for ages!) had a theory, which is that this was a Vortex 1 for bloggers -- Vortex 1 being the rock festival held in 1970 to draw the radicals away from Portland so they wouldn't cause trouble during an American Legion convention. But what else was happening that night, other than a land-use meeting in Lake Oswego??

Who knows.

There was some very lightly branded schwag, which, interestingly, didn't include a url or anything (and the logo didn't seem to connect to anything at all) -- so, I guess there was no content at stake. There was a photo op -- with the promise that our group photo would be uploaded to flickr, and the encouragement to tag our own photos. Yay! Photos!

It was obviously some kind of branding event -- or at least, an event where someone convinced someone else that they should throw money around so they could get all up in the Web 2.0 or something.

I sometimes think that people are convinced that marketing is effective if it's confusing, and this kind of was confusing. So, by blogging about it, am I rewarding KATU for doing evil disguised as weird appetizers? That's a question for Thomas Frank. But yeah, probably. But not very much. (My readership is pretty low.)

But I met such nice, smart people, and I left semi-full and slightly drunk -- I really can't really let my righteous disgust about "post-modern" branding events for lazy, exploitative, and generally reactionary local news media trump my sincere gratitude.

As I mentioned, I was thrilled to meet the talented and charming Khris Soden, and other nice people I met included Dave and Thom from a beer blog!. I have to admit, at first I was kind of like, "meh, beer blog," but then I realized what humble rock stars these guys actually are! They are the BACON and LABYRINTH guys!! Anyway, they were super nice and funny and made me feel like less of an asshole at a social event, which is absolutely to their credit, not mine.

And Dave told me about Photosynth, which is really cool and I recommend checking it out.

And that's my report!

(p.s. I have recently learned good angles for people with double/no chins to pose for photos, and this, btw, is not one of them.)

It's come to my attention that I haven't updated my blog for awhile, so here's some proof that I am, in fact, still among the living -- albeit in Tucson.

I don't think of myself as a timid eater, but I just tried eating something relatively benign after considering it for at least ten years (ever since Super Burrito came to St. Johns), and that is the torta.

Somehow, a sandwich with beans on it just didn't appeal to me, but you'd think that in those ten years, I would have at least tried one. But somehow I didn't. Then in Tucson, I had a Mexican hotdog, which had beans AND bacon on it. And a couple weeks ago, I was very intrigued by Tony's torta order. This finally led me to try one myself today.

The totra in question was a cubana, which includes (but is not limited to):

• ham
• hotdogs
• chorizo
• avacado
• mayonaise
• onions
• tomato
• a couple whisps of lettuce

Holy cow. Now that's a sandwich. I think I've found my new favorite food to fill me with self-loathing for having eaten it.

I was reminded of the information Fred Allen gave me on why Multnomah County Vector Control doesn't deal with skunks (apparently, they aren't considered vectors, although in my mind, they are vectors of stink). And also his scheme to catch a skunk using many, many blankets.

Anyway, some quick googling brought me to these people. I love their website, especially the part on rats -- "Rat! OMG! I just saw a rat!" that just about sums it up, doesn't it?

What's really awesome, too, is they have more than
one website -- or, anyway, both websites have the same phone number. The first one is kind of cheeky and brief, the second has a lot more content.

Anyway, in case you missed my vector blogging, there is some reading for you.

Betsy and I came up with a new slogan for U-Haul the other day:

"Yeeeeew-Haaaaaaawwwwl!!!"

This would be hollered out of the window of a U-Haul truck by a cowboy in a hat while pulling past a group of horse-drawn wagons.

Or maybe the pioneers would yell at the cowboy as he passed, "hey pardner, where'd you get that fancy wagon?" and he'd hell back as he drove into the sunset: "Yeeeeeew-Haaaaaaaawl!!!"

Do those look like deli olives to you? Someone had left the container on a shelf in Safeway. I don't blame them.

I think it might have something to do with artichokes, but it looks like something from Eraserhead

Maybe I'll try to say something nice to someone today. No promises.

When you first meet someone and are making chit-chat (e.g., getting your hair cut, at a professional party, or a party where you don't know anyone, a bus stop, dog park, etc.), what would you rather be asked (and/or what do you ask)?

1) What do you do?

2) Where are you from?

3) Something else? (and if so ... what?)

I try not to ask "what do you do?" since I feel like it hones in on class issues immediately and is, for that reason, kind of rude. I figure if people love their jobs or identify with them strongly, they'll tell me about them eventually, and if not, why should I care? Probably they have something more interesting to talk about. I gather it's considered a rude question in some other countries, and it has inspired some to develop alternative answers, as well as some ranting.

This could lead to a kind of politeness stand off if I'm talking to someone who is really proud of what they do, or has a high-status position but they don't want to seem like self-promoting jerks, but there's room for finessing. I'll ask someone what they do for money eventually if I feel comfortable with them, and I just find I'm dying to know for some reason. Although I did ask someone the other night and immediately regretted it because the response was semi-self-deprecating comments along the lines of: "nothing ... live off my wife ..."

"Where are you from?" used to be my stand by replacement for "what do you do" when I lived in Ann Arbor. None of us were from there -- we were all there for the same reason, doing the same thing (and there, "what's your field?" or "where did you do undergrad?" were the equivalent of "what do you do?").

But now that I'm back in my home town, I find this question a little bit touchy, too. A lot of the people I meet aren't from here, originally, and this makes me feel both proud and a little bit lonely, and I have a lot of friends from California for whom the question seems like kind of a challenge to justify themselves. And then there's local politics regarding exactly where in Portland you live. Anyway, point is, being local makes the question a lot more complicated and I don't really ask that one anymore, either.

This leaves me stuck for an ice-breaker question and lately, my ice-breaker question has been the one I'm posing here in this post.

Responses so far have ranged from: "you think about this stuff too much" to, "I hate it when people ask me that, too!" but I haven't collected a ton of usable alternatives -- here are a couple, anyway, from the web and elsewhere. Suggestions appreciated!

• "What do you stand for?" -- could be sort of a challenge for a lot of people!
• "What are your weekend plans?" -- I kind of like this one, because you could plan for just about anything (trip to Paris, running a marathon, etc.), although it's sister-question, "what did you do this weekend?" can be kind of a downer to answer when all you did was pull weeds and watch TV.
• "Who did you come here with?" -- This one was offered by the woman doing my hair. She uses it at parties to figure out if someone is single. I guess it's fine -- a little social-networkee, for my tastes.
• Here's a collection of options offered by a professional, including "tell me about your kids" -- the problem is, I don't know if I'd actually want to hear any of the answers to these. Not that I don't like other people's kids -- I usually enjoy them -- but hearing parents talk about them? -- it's like dancing about architecture (I'm not really sure what I mean by that).
• "If you could be any animal, what would it be and why?" -- I like this one.
• You could use my Food quiz for the future.
• "If mankind goes extinct, which species do you think will rise up to replace us?" -- I love this one and I made it up. I haven't used it more than once, on an older guy I met in the airport who wouldn't shut up about how the idea that people cause global warming was a myth and we were kind of doomed. His theory: cockroaches. My theory? Ants.

Well, in any case, Happy 4th of July!

We went to go see Sicko this weekend.

Health care is one of those issues that everyone seems to care about, but nothing seems to get done. Sometimes I just can't believe we've let ourselves get as screwed as we are. Personally, I have a job that I have kept over the years in large part because it offers health insurance. It's part time but gives good benefits, although of course the part time status at a low pay rate has meant keeping at least one and sometimes two other jobs in addition to the first. I now have the potential for a new job at a higher rate of pay (with more fun, potential for growth, responsibility -- all those good things) and the best thing argument for my old job is the health insurance (the new one is at a small company that can't offer it). If it turns out I can't get insurance independently because I'm too fat or something, I'll have to make a pretty tough decision.

In another example, my friend Becky emailed me awhile ago from England asking about health insurance -- she was thinking about moving back to Portland after years living overseas, but she's scared of our health care system.

The point is not that I'm particularly screwed -- I'm pretty lucky, overall -- but that even the lucky among us are affected by this issue. In fact, one of the smart things Moore does is focus on people who have insurance, but are still screwed by the system. So why aren't we doing something about it?

It's interesting to me that the disability rights movement seems more effective and active to me than anything approximating a wellness movement. I think of the disability rights movement in part because of something I heard once which was, "we're all one accident away from being disabled"(or something along those lines). Health insurance seems like the same thing -- if we're not actively getting screwed by the system now, most of us are just one accident (or cancer cell, or germ) away from it.

Anyway, the movie was manipulative and pedantic, but is it really manipulative and pedantic if it's true? II laughed, I cried, I fantasized about moving to Canada. It was manipulative and pedantic in a good way. I had an interesting talk about it with a friend last night who says he's turned off by Moore's inflammatory rhetoric, which I understand, but, by the same token, I sort of appreciate getting emotionally riled about something that know is important.

I used to complain about the way Michael Moore sets up some of his targets to look like jerks, but the more he says and does, the more I respect him, and this one has the least to say about individual jerks and the most to say about historic, social forces. I felt like the victims are individualized while the forces that put us there are more-or-less historicized (although it's hard not to see Nixon or Bush being such craven idiots and not want to do some individuals held accountable). I think that's the right way to go about it.

Anyway, I recommend seeing the movie. I learned things, and I left feeling motivated, not depressed. Apparently there are lots of places to see it for free on the internet now. I kind of like voting with my pocket book when it comes to movies, but either way, I recommend it.

Do it.

Someone should run a blog that reviews all Trader Joe's foods. Very often I go there and think: "Maybe that coconut fried shrimp is delicious, but maybe not -- and I'm not taking a chance." Sometimes I do, I guess, and it pays off, like the time I got the chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels - those were pretty good -- but more often I think of Carrie's claim that all Trader Joe's prepared foods come from a big machine that stamps the same substance into different shapes and breads them, and I end up sticking to the basics.

My brief search for Trader Joe's Food Review blogs turned up a few blogs that specialize in candy or wine, and others that just happen to review a bunch of Trader Joe's foods. And here's a Trader Joe's blog that looks retired.

But nothing that's just purely Trader Joe's.

If I were Trader Joe's, I'd start one as a kind of astroturf ad campaign. I'd offer to do it for them, but I don't think I can eat that much Trader Joe's food.

*Update*: A quick commenter sent in this link:

Trader Joe's Fan

I'm going to look around and see if I can find anything that gets fewer than 3 stars.

p.s. The picture doesn't have anything to do with a Trader Joe's Food Review Blog, as such -- it's just an Out of Order Donkey I saw in Tucson and I don't know when else I'm going to use this picture. Nat speculated that it was actually there to block the bathroom door it was in front of, but I noted that its tail was broken, too.

(By way of CuteOverload)

Are the Canadians particularly known for their museums or their internets or something?

I also followed Eduweb to Pestworld for Kids which is almost as scary as it sounds.

Anyway, in spite of all the talk about "Web 2.0" which I find kind of silly and so, well, late 2006 or something, I did see and hear about some interesting projects, and I definitely learned a lot. It's funny because at the time, I wasn't all that impressed -- I think this is partly a hangover from being in graduate school where, despite myself, I was more impressed by things that were hard to understand initially than things that were immediately transparent. Whereas in this case, I wasn't all that impressed initially but then the more I think about things, the more interesting I find them.

Anyhoo --

For the parents looking for something with more educational content than Star Wars Legos, it might be worth noting that museums are eager to get your online business for their own nefarious educational purposes. Also, I'd love to know what kids find interesting. Katy made a good point that we should set up a focus group of kids for any games and stuff we develop.

Learning at Whitney has a dealio where kids can go and "curate" their own online exhibits, and it's interesting looking at what other groups have put together. I'm not sure how inspired I'd be to do it if I was just a kid on my own, but for a classroom project, it has some potential, especially if you're actually going to visit the Whitney.

The Living Museum (part of the Museum of Jewish Heritage) makes it more Web 2.0-esque by allowing kids to create their own online exhibits using material culture from their own lives. I thought this was neat and was extra happy to see that one of the three exhibits was from a Portland classroom! Note that I don't think the interface is the greatest -- it's kind of unintuitive to me that you click around the bottom of the page to view the gallery. Like a lot of sites, users are missing from the equation.

Someone from the Getty talked about Whyville, and in particular how some museums have partnered with Whyville to create a museum neighborhood in Whyville, which is apparently a very popular site with the kids. So the Getty has a lounge in Whyville where you can go and play Art Set -- which is actually a pretty great idea, I think, for a game. (Set, if you don't know, is a game with a very simple premise but can be challenging and is, I think, fun.) Anyway, you have to register to use Whyville, but it seems like it might be worth it for some kids. I thought the Set game was a lot more interesting than the games they have on their regular education website, but some younger kids might like those games, too, and at least they'd be looking at art.

The guy from Eduweb gave two presentations. He was interesting and made some points that some people may find really obvious, but were new to me about games in which the mode of play itself helps model the learning and games that don't -- hangman is in the latter category, and I guess role-playing games are in the former. I'm not explaining very well. Hopefully you already knew this point so my explaining coherently isn't important.

Kids might want to check out Eduweb's games and adventures. If you do, and you enjoy any of them in particular, let me know!

By far the best project he spoke about was on Wolfquest -- I can't wait to play!! (and be sure to check out the awesome and hilarious preview. (I smell elk!!!) And the developor's blog is interesting, too (and very popular) -- great if you want to read about why, "As exciting as a wolf MMO might be, that’s just not what we’re up to with this game."

Romans in Sussex was described by one presenter as a "great website" and maybe it is, but it seems awfully Web 1.0.

Some of these award-winning games might be interesting to some kids. The mapping game looks cool, and I met the folks from Bean Creative (briefly, over drinks and dessert next to a ginormous submarine) and they seemed like nice people.

OK -- here's some stuff not for the kids, but I found it interesting.

Steve Museum is the art museum social tagging project, intended to reduce the gap between curator language and regular old human language. Initially I thought this wouldn't have much application for history projects, because historical records are less subjective (if you tag something as "Oregon" when in fact it's based in Maine, you're not really helping anyone). But the more I think of it, the more I think it might make sense in some settings.

Collection X is a Canadian project that, like the Living Museum project for kids, allows people to upload their own content and stuff. Pretty cool, I guess, although I'm not completely sure what makes it different from something like flickr.

The Center for Open and Sustainable Learning has some tools that are, quite frankly, beyond me. Maybe they are cool? I don't know.

I do think the Open Courseware Finder seems like a good idea. You know, that reminds me: the very first webpage I ever made was to post my preliminary exam reading list -- I was so damn proud of that thing. I wonder if they have an "open prelims list" finder? Well, if not, they should!

The Eduweb guy talked about using a program called Unity 3-D to develop games -- and I think I mis-quoted the price of the software to someone earlier -- it turns out it was $10,000 to create a simple game total, but only $1,500 for the software itself. I really think it would be awesome to be able to design 3-D games at the drop of a hat!

My colleagues may want to check out Musematic blog of the Museum Computer Network and AAM's Media & Technology Committee.

And I think I'll be clicking around on the MUSE award winning websites.

Or maybe you'd like to listen to some museum podcasts?

OK -- I'm tired, and this is getting to be less of a blog entry and more of a run-on note type up, which is okay, I suppose, but not very readable, is it?

I'll post more if I find more in my notes.

Someone should offer an exercise class that would involve projecting old exercise videos like Richard Simmons, Mr. T and Jane Fonda on a big wall and leading a class in front of it. You'd rotate your videos, to keep things interesting, and could constantly update your stash with trips to the Goodwill.

The appeal of it would be that exercise is kind of hard for some of us to approach as a serious endeavor: it's too humiliating. Exercising to outdated instructional videos would allow us to put up an ironic front while still getting some actual exercise.

When I brought up the idea the other night, someone mentioned Punk Rock Aerobics as a possible model, which is a great idea in itself, but a little too sincere for me.

As a historian, I'd like to see how far back we could go. When did instructional exercise media get invented, I wonder? Did they have exercise radio shows back in the 1920s? I'll be Heide would know, thinking back to that project she was doing on Lisa Lyon.

Maybe in some cases we'd listen to records instead of watching videos. And we'd have to keep our minds open for a variety of exercise forms.

(Along those lines, I note that Pole Dancing is trying for a degree of respectability in spite of its history.)

I'm so convinced this is a good idea, I'm betting someone has already done it. If not, maybe I can start leading lunch time sessions at my new office.

(Warning: the bunny experiences some duress.)

Dave/id L. passed this along as a follow up to a conversation that I either don't remember, or wasn't a part of. I wish I has been, or could.

More movies and arty stuff here.

Here's a rabbit movie of another sort:

And yet more bunnies here.

I've recently switched to "Mail" from Entourage, and this has meant the resufacing of some very very old emails indeed when I use the search function.

One just popped up from my "actively dating" days (I'm not really sure what I mean by that, except that I was doing a lot of dating back then) where I expounded on my theory about how when two performative people go on a date they should be able to hire a third person who would act like a talk show host and mediator, gently interceding: "Mary, if I can interrupt -- that's a really interesting point you just made, I wonder if Mr. Jones here has any thoughts on this?" etc. Sort of like a verbal chaperone.

Then I thought you should also be able to hire a modest audience to follow you around -- like those bands in Mexico restaurants that serenade you at your table, only the opposite, so instead of performing for you (which, frankly, makes me uncomfortable), they would laugh and clap when you said something so that you, as a performative person, would feel good about yourself. Maybe that would make me uncomfortable, too, but I'm not sure. I think I might like it.

'Cause I really hate it when I can't get a word in edgewise and no one listens to me. Maybe this is why I'm so interested in projects that invert the relationship between performer and audience. I'm just not a very good audience member by nature.

p.s. You may wonder what this Dog LOL has to do with anything, and the truth is, not much -- well, nothing. I guess you could argue that dog looks kind of like a dog you might meet in Mexico. Nat made this LOL and it was just in time to throw up with this, which would otherwise not have an illustration. Maybe I'll include an image macro with all my entries from now on.

Nat has bridged the gap between Historical Image Macro and Political Image Macro -- just in time for the 2008 elections! ... I think 40 point bold Impact font messages superimposed on pictures is JUST the level of discourse we need to move this country forward in the 2008 elections.

Not to mention keeping the ape hands off of us.

Nat has risen to a challenge set forth by Greg, who pointed out that Dr. John McGloghlin, the "Father of Oregon," is simply cruisin' for a LOLin'. (Good Lord, Nat -- you don't think McGloghlin was creepy enough already??)

I extended the challenge to include all the Governor's of Oregon because, after all, there are many to choose from.

I also shared some instructions on kitteh as a second language that might be helpful.

Some may point out that Oregon Governors are not as cute as cats or walruses, but they are not without their own, particular charms. Look at George Woods and his crazy beard, for instance. What do you think is living in there??

And something tells me there might be a cheez burger in John Davis's future ...

This recent entry inspired my response to Nat's (even scarier than usual) vision of McGloughlin:

Another stroke of brilliance from Nat -- Would we have more buckets if we had a sales tax?

Here's one from Pete, and he would totally know what those robotz are up to.

Greg rises to his own challenge.

These courtesy of Greg S., an actual practicing public historian.

I was looking for this image for my Superfund talk and couldn't find it for some reason.

By the way, if you like image macros, you might be interested in Chris Higgins's blogging on the topic over at Mental Floss.

So, the more I think of it, why not try to convey the sweep, drama and complexity of history by way of image macro? Museums and other history educators are always trying to find ways to communicate to the young. I think I'm actually going to a museum conference in May. I wish I'd thought of this in time to put together a panel!

More to come as I think of them! (I need to figure out how to get the outlining going on my fonts --brushing? is that what it is? that's how bad I am at PowerPoint and how much I have to learn from the thousands and thousands of industrious youth making image macros. Sigh.)

(I am reminded in this project of the people who have converted the great speeches to Powerpoint.)

Like a lot of people over the age of 30, I first became aware of image macros with the briefly-ubiquitous Nancy Pelosi impeachment visual. Once I noticed them, it became quickly apparent that there was a huge world of image macros out there.

I became particularly intrigued by the sub-set of image macros known as "LOL Cats." (Chris pointed out that this would be a great name for a band.) I discovered them first by clicking on someone's signature line in a Woot forum, which begs the question of how incredibly bored must I have been to have been doing that and the answer is, pretty bored, but not as bored as you might think.

Anyway, here see my first venture into the art of LOL cats -- not a cat, not even a live animal but, to me, very, very gratifying. It was a hand-made e-card to a friend who had sent me possibly my favorite email of the year, which read simply: "THERES A SQUIRREL IN MY HEATER!!!!!" (subject line: "SQUIRREL"). Followed sometime after by the message, "THERE"S A SQUIRREL IN MY FIRE PLACE!!!!!!" (subject line: "squirrel"). I suggested he spend some quality time at squirrels.org and listen to the "This American LIfe" story about the flaming squirrel before trying to smoke his visitor out. This exchanged ended with one of weirdest emails I've ever received, which simply repeated the phrase, "The squirrel is gone!!!" for 498 pages and made my email crash.

Anyway, back to the image macros.

Shortly after I first noticed LOL cats, boingboing blogged them, which made me feel like I truly had my finger on the pulse of the internets, albeit in a 30-something way.

And after making my LOL squirrel, I was hooked!

Then I started thinking: why should l33t speak slogans in big ugly fonts be limited to defacing images of cute animals? I've been going to a lot of artsy things lately: why not fine arts image macros? The image macro form itself is reminscent of Barbara Kruger.

So, here are my examples of Fine Art Image Macros. If I were an art history teacher, I'd have my students do this as an assignment -- my students would probably do a better job. If I had them. You could probably do a better job -- and if you do, let me know! Some of my friends already have, as evidenced below.

Here are some directions (just replace the word "cats" with "fine art.") And here's one of many l33t generators.

Note: I'm also sure something like this has been done before, but I haven't found it yet with my brief search for "fine art image macros." I found the concept mentioned here -- I was thinking of doing Dante's Inferno as image macros, too!) Livejournal is a HOTBED of image macros, btw, if you didn't already know. I'll bet there are many more examples of fine art image macros in there. It also seems like something something awful would have done. Be that as it may! Here the ones I made in a hurry.

(after the O RLY Owl).

A FAIM by Nat, inspired by this of course.

Another one with the same inspiration.

(A FAIM by Nat inspired by the "invisible__________" line of thinking.)

(A minimalist version of the same thing, also by Nat.)

Nice one from Chris -- Pwned -- I'll say!

Here's Pete's Contribution:

Higgins's contribution to the Fine Art (of) Image Macros. I h8z it when th@ happens!!! (loosing ones contact lens in a wheat field).

Another one from Chris -- awesome, but is it ART?

Some might say that blurry pictures of my fingernails defeats the whole purpose of this project, but I say it makes it "art." And more flattering -- like boudoir finger photography.

Notice that my fingers are shinier, too. That's from the buffing.

Look what exciting content I have for you now! I may end up moving this to its own domain, watchmyfingernailsgrow.com (available as I type! usually I buy domains before I blog them, but my readership is down so I think I'm safe).

Here are the fingernails on my right hand as they look on Sunday. They have been recently chewed. I bought a new nail file and will attempt to stop chewing them and take pictures on a regular basis.

I should make this a pay-per-view feature.

After Dore, Virgil reproves Dante's Curiosity.

After Dore The Thieves tortured by Serpents.

I loved Dante's Inferno when I was a kid. Who didn't, right?!

At my request, Terry sent me these pictures of this Ukrainian Easter egg I made based on the Dore's illustrations of the Inferno when I was 11 or 12. I love the way Terry's pictures make my egg look like a Grecian urn. Not to toot my own egg-making horn too much, but I was also very proud of a leviathan egg I made a couple of years ago at Amy's house. She kept the egg, though, and I don't have a picture.

Anyway, given my interest in the Inferno, I was particularly interested to read about Sandow Birk's film interpretation of the Dante's Inferno. I was following a BoingBoing link about Birk's fantasy paintings of the Iraq War. I was also intrigued by the beautiful paintings of prisons -- maybe he'll do Superfunds next? And Susan S. may appreciate (as do I) his interpretation of the raft of the Medusa. (Incidentally, I think that painting is the only one I really remember seeing while visiting the Louvre. I'd never seen it before, and very rarely remember what I see at Great Museums, but this one, I remember. It's BIG!)

Disaster art is pretty interesting, I have to admit, but is not to be confused with Art Disasters. And actually, I can't think of other works of art commemorating disasters, but I know there must be a million of them -- including lots of shipwrecks. Maybe my readers can think of some.

I started wondering about the presence of the Divine Comedy on the internet, and found this site from U. Texas, which has some nice features, including audio.

(I note that U. Texas is also known as the site for the other Mary Wheeler whom I recently have topped in google rankings to become the number one Mary Wheeler! Take that, Mary Fannett. Given that her website was last updated in August of 1999, the accomplishment may not seem that impressive, but given that she seems to have actually done something with her life, maybe it is. *Update*: She's now back to #1. I'm thinking maybe it's because I linked to her, so I removed my link.)

I'm not sure who ever really reads the rest of the Divine Comedy (Paradiso? snore! And double snore for Purgatory) but it's available -- be sure to check out the Finnish version!

I like this Gilligan theory of the Seven Deadly Sins which concludes: "Gilligan is SATAN."

I think I'd probably enjoy playing the Dante's Inferno Game, although it does look fairly complicated.

Here are the results of my Dante's Inferno Test (I'm not sure how I got such a high score for "violent" but otherwise the results seem spot on):

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Sixth Level of Hell - The City of Dis!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test.

They are having auditions in San Francisco this weekend. I'm kind of sad that I won't be going, especially now that I've heard that George Foreman is going to be one of the judges. I think I could get some mileage with him with the Wondue Crock.

Anyway, good luck to everyone going! You might find this account of my American inventor audition helpful -- and here are some other accounts, and here's pretty much everything I've had to say on the topic (including pictures of my "appearance" on the show!).

At the very least, be prepared to wait a long time, bring some snacks, and try to cry if they ask you what your invention means to you!

I was driving home from The Dalles last night and as I got about a mile away from home, that old factoid about most accidents happening a mile away from home occurred to me. My first thought was that I should drive more carefully.

My second thought was: automakers should use GPS technology to instill an alarm in your car that would go off as soon as you were within a mile from home.

Since some accident statistics break things down with statements like, "Another third of car accidents take place within five miles of the home, and an incredible eighty percent of auto accidents take place within 20 minutes drive of the home base," there would be various levels of alarm.

When you were 20 minutes away, it would say: "Proceed with caution. You are 20 minutes from home."

When you were 1 mile away, it would say: "DANGER!!! DANGER!!! ENTERING CRITICAL ZONE!!!" or something.

I generally think engineers are missing some great opportunities for more interesting automobile applications.

Still in the car, I also started thinking about how the bathroom was supposed to be the most dangerous room in the house. (As it turns out, I'm wrong about that -- it seems that it's considered the second most dangerous, after the kitchen, but in any case ...). So this made me think that maybe there should be a motion-sensor alarm in the bathroom that would warn you: "BE CAREFUL!! YOU ARE ENTERING THE [SECOND] MOST DANGEROUS ROOM IN THE HOUSE!!! DON'T SLIP!! DON'T FALL!! WATCH OUT FOR HARD SURFACES AND WATER!!!" etc.

I was so delighted with my ideas that I reached into my bag and got a pen so I could write them on my handster while driving 50 miles an hour down Portland Road.

Don't we all have a great idea for a food to sell from a cart?

Mine is bacon. You can take a strip of crisp bacon and wrap the end in a little bit of foil or napkin and you don't even need a stick. It's the perfect "to go" food in these carb-phobic times. Plus, it's delicious. My bacon booth would have all kinds of bacon. Since August, I've been the lucky recipient of a Bacon of the Month club subscription, thanks to Dave, Melissa and Amy, so I have some sense of the range of bacon flavors out there. And I'd have some dipping sauces, too: maple syrup, ranch, ketchup. Tell me you're not drooling just thinking about it.

Justin and Erin and friends had the idea for an okonomiyaki or Japanese pancake cart. I think that would be delicious. Okonomiyaki combines some of my favorite foods like shrimp, bacon, mayonnaise, mustard, cabbage, and fry. I would drive halfway across town for that, even if I had to eat it in a Walgreen's parking lot.

In the past I've thought of: savory ice cream carts, dumpling carts (all kinds of dumplings, from pot stickers to apple), potato carts (just boiled potatoes -- but cheap!), and a raw-food cart that served cut up vegetables which would double as a produce cart. All of them, I'm convinced, could be money makers.

But that's what everyone who's ever conceived of a food cart thinks.

So, here is where the real money comes in: renting a food cart on a short-term basis for large sums to people who have a delusions about the amount of money they'd make with their own food cart.

You'd want to have a good, busy corner or maybe at the Saturday Market. And then for a day at a time, you'd rent it out for maybe $300 a day or something to poor suckers who thought they really had something. And, honestly, $300 isn't that much to spend to have a dream crushed. Indeed, it's a bargain! That way, they could get it out of their system without having to make a huge investment.

And every once in awhile you'd have a success -- like savory waffles -- that would demonstrate that the whole thing was worth while. It would kind of be like a reality show, only much, much slower.

And for the customers, it would be great -- you'd never know what you'd get. Some days it would be terrible, some days awesome, but it would always be different.

There are some health code issues to be resolved, but those are technical details.

When I can't find time to blog about anything else, I can always blog the Superfund Site!

Last weekend I was charmed to see this purple balloon sitting among the blackberry brambles. Up on the bluff, there were a lot of people making noise, so I assume there was some kind of festivity going on at UP which resulted in purple balloons being sent willy-nilly across the landscape.

It seemed not only nicely incongruous (as so many things do at the Superfund Site), but nicely symbolic of the University of Portland's planned purchase of the property.

As a neighbor, I truly hope it happens. I can think of no better steward of the place, given their proximity, and especially after hearing their interest in the property couched in terms of the Pastoral Letter. There are plenty of reasons to be cynical about universities as property owners. And I've never noticed UP as a particularly community-oriented institution. Indeed, in the 20 some years that I've lived in North Portland, I've barely noticed them, beyond the marvelous dog walk opportunities on campus among the students, and a one-time visit to my neighborhood association by one of their community outreach staff (they may well have visited more often -- I don't go that often myself -- but it felt like a new thing when I did see them).

However, I have to believe that their commitment to the values set out in the Pastoral Letter are sincere, and I think this is the best opportunity for us as neighbors to have access to the property, as well as an opportunity for UP to engage its neighborhood.

I'm totally confused by the state of affairs recently -- Zeidell wants to maintain moorage as part of the land deal, and UP is suing him over it because I think he added the moorage at the 11th hour? And I haven't seen much about it in the news lately, but I may have missed something (and goodness knows that OregonLive isn't going to help me search).

In any case, I really hope it works out. Even if it meant fewer off leash walks for me and Pica, I think it could be a nice contribution to the neighborhood, especially the North Portland Greenway.

Wind Up Birds are playing this Saturday at Kelly's Olympian at 9 PM or so. The Hot Toddies open, and they sound adorable.

Anyway, it should be fun, and hopefully I'll see you there!

There are products for single people afraid of slip and fall accidents, intruders and the like, but you can choke to death in a matter of seconds -- far too fast for anyone to come and save you. So the solution needs to be preventative.

I think some manufacturer should therefore market a line of soups addressing this concern. I don't think most men really like soup all that much, so we should focus on selling soup to women. (Maybe you could have He-Man Hashes, where all the food was chopped up really small?)

"Spinster Safety Soups" would feature soups with only really really small chunks (if any), so that nothing could get caught in your throat. You'd find some quack doctor to testify that the chunks were scientifically designed to be safe.

The ads would have to be really scary -- e.g.,

Shot of woman choking at her dinner table ... grasping for the phone ... slowly falling out of frame ...

Voice: "DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!!! ... Play it safe ... with Spinster Soups."

Maybe the serving suggestion would be a really shallow bowl so that you didn't accidentally pass out and drown in it like in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

Many have anticipated this lawsuit, but it hadn't occurred to me (probably because I'm ignorant) that a civil lawsuit could go so far beyond punitive fi