We Are In Agreement

Gentrification advances

During a summer afternoon in 2002(ish) I was in a bar in Tribeca called Tribeca Tavern. I was one of 3 people there, one other patron and the bartender.

Our drunken, meandering conversation hit the usual notes: music, girls, and movies. For reasons that escape me, Eric Roberts came up.

I said something dismissive, not knowing that the other patron was (apparently) Eric Roberts superfan #1. He quickly defended Roberts's career saying "he hasn't had the mainstream success of his sister, but Star 80 was great as was [several other Eric Roberts movies that I don't recall]."

This guy was really, really into Eric Roberts.

I apologized, which he accepted; several minutes pass, the conversation moves elsewhere.

And then, I shit you not, Eric fucking Roberts walks in, buys a pack of cigarettes, and leaves.

In stunned silence we sat.

I say all this because I discovered today that Tribeca Tavern has been replaced with a J. Crew [link].

Buy your cigarettes elsewhere, Mr. Roberts.

The iconic knife-wielding Jewish chef (?) with breasts...

The just don't make propaganda like they used to.

 

Dolchstosslegende Wikipedia

And it has porn

Droid phone + Legos solves Rubik's cube

RIP Jimmy Dean

His dying wish was that he be ground up, encased in submucosa, and served with poached eggs.

Bad good news

US geologists discover vast deposits of cobalt, lithium and other mineral booty in Afghanistan

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe. (NYT)

The Afghan government, with its hitherto unimpeachable record on corruption and egalitarianism, is sure to use this discovery for the betterment of its impoverished citizenry.

This would be like a family of meth cookers discovering a cache of China white, passports, unmarked currency, Hessians, and AK-47s under the hot-water heater.

Uterus lotto winners come up big in Texas

A legislative lapse allows a deceased billionaire to pass his estate tax-free along to his heirs [NYT]

Tea parties will surely call the aneurysm that felled him the most patriotic cerebral attack since Booth's bullet.

BiPaularity

I think there's a 7% chance that a Rand and Ron Paul ticket will seek the presidency in 2012.

The Road to Confusion

So apparently Glenn Beck is pitching The Road to Serfdom.

I think watching a cross-section of Glenn Beck viewers hammer out their thoughts on this book would make for pretty entertaining television.

The new iPhone has a video phone

I wonder if it comes with an app that persuades me that a video phone is something I want.

Every great advance in communication has shared one thing - you can speak to the other party while simultaneously miming/gesturing/saying-under-your-breath "this stupid motherfucker HAS NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT S/HE'S TALKING ABOUT" 

Letters, Morse code, telephones, semaphore (I admit a slight limitation there) all shared this one commonality.

And the iPhone kills it.

Most emailed

I usually read all my Internets via Google Reader, but when I do go to actual websites (usually Slate, The Onion, or The New York Times) I always peruse the "most emailed" section first.

It's a handy feature to find the most buzzed-about stories.

But I wonder, who emails stories through whatever website their visiting? It's a multi-step process, different for each site, and one that involves either manually typing-in (or pasting) your email (and your recipients') with the unpleasant side-effect of turning over your email (and your recipients') to a potential spammer.

I always copy the link of interest into an email and send it that way.

My method (and one that I assume is more common) is easier and adds that personal touch of which I'm so fond.

These question keep me up at work.

That said, I encourage everyone else to keep emailing through the Byzantine process unique to each website, because I love the most-emailed list.