I would find this headline from the Times funny if the news behind it weren’t so terrifying. As if any reassurances from Bush are worth a hill of beans. I think a Times copy editor was employing some dry gallows humor here. Continue reading It would be funny if it weren’t so true
Jake Dobkin asked on Twitter: Where were you? Because I wanted to elaborate on my 140-word answer, I’ll give a little more.
I was on the R train from Bay Ridge, heading in to work at Martha Stewart Living. I was already late—I realized last-minute that I had to iron my pants before leaving.
Everything seemed normal until we pulled into 36th Street, an express-train transfer point, and there was the most unbelieveable crush of people on the platform. I had never seen a platform that full and haven’t to this day.
As many people as could fit transferred into the R train. I normally would have switched to the D train, but figured it wiser to stay in my seat.
“What’s going on?” some people asked the newcomers.
“There’s a fire at the Trade Center. They’re diverting trains.”
This is the first of what I’m going to call “Ticket Stubs,” posts about a movie, concert, or what-not that I’ve recently attended. When I was on Vox, I used to call these “At the Movies,” but now that I’m out from behind the closed system of Vox, I think I can no longer infringe … Continue reading Ticket Stubs: ‘Man on Wire’
I started Twittering as username “Slice” back in early 2007. (I try to grab the username “Slice” on whatever new social-networking crap looks like it’s going to be popular.) I started Slice, the blog, in late 2003. It consumed a fair amount of my nonworking life (and, yes, some of my work life, too — … Continue reading New Twitter account
In a world where Don LaFontaine no longer lives, our moviegoing experience is a little poorer. The voiceover master died this morning due to complications from a collapsed lung. Says the Hollywood Reporter: Before his death, he had provided voiceovers for an estimated 5,000 movie trailers, including “Batman Returns,” “The Terminator,” “Cast Away,” “The Elephant … Continue reading Noooooo! Voiceover master Don LaFontaine dies
Ed calls it “Serious Eats World Headquarters,” but I just prefer “the office,” which I think gives the whole operation more legitimacy. Not that it’s not legit, just that people already think blogging is not real work. [Serious Eats World Headquarters, on Flickr] Continue reading Serious Eats ‘World Headquarters’
Spotted this during NBC’s Beijing Olympics coverage on Sunday night. The extra m is for Michael Phelps, I suppose. Continue reading NBC Beijing Olympics screen graphic typo
Looks like the dudes from Go Pictures have made a mashup using Britpop band Alphabeat’s “Fascination.” Clever. [YouTube] Here’s the unadulterated Alphabeat version: [YouTube] Continue reading Go Pictures’ Alphabeat–Randy Senna mashup
[Google Video] Ah ha! All Summer in a Day. The last time I saw this was in 1983 or ’84, when I was about 10. I remember watching it at the house of a friend who had cable, and I think it was on Nickelodeon, before that channel became all-cartoon. At various times since the … Continue reading ‘All Summer in a Day’
I usually don’t eat sweet stuff for breakfast. But whenever we go to Wildwood, New Jersey, we start the day at Britton’s Gourmet Bakery, where I get their “world famous apple fritter.” It’s world famous, I suppose, because Ronald Reagan ordered a batch of them on someone’s recommendation and then wrote a letter to Britton’s … Continue reading Apple fritters from Britton’s Gourmet Bakery
A clever tribute to a fading profession appears in the Washington Post. Snip: Copy editors were fine-tuners, fixing basic but important things that a first line of editing might’nt catch: Typos, errors in facts, spelling, syntax, punctuation, clarity, word usage, style, parallelism, and not letting sentences run on. They would also bear principle responsibility for … Continue reading Good riddance to copy editors
Seems like more and more people are calling blog posts “blogs.” That’s like a reporter filing a story and telling his editor he that his “newspaper” is ready for editing. Ariana Huffington is one example who comes to mind, but I’ve caught some fairly tech-savvy people making the mistake. The term for a single item … Continue reading An ‘article’ is not a ‘newspaper’ …
Nice summary of the blogging process by Jason Kottke here. Kottke cites an earlier post by Seth Godin about how ideas are transmitted and then elaborates about his own decision-making process on what he places on his site. Continue reading Kottke: ‘How I Blog’
I just heard the craziest New York story yet. So my girlfriend’s coworker’s brother’s girlfriend (bear with me) was dog-sitting an aging black lab in Brooklyn. The dog dies while the owners are away. The girl calls the owners, informs them. It’s OK, they say. It’s not unexpected. We’ve looked into what to do. There’s … Continue reading Dog days
I really should have taken this photo when it was really coming down, but the rain just went nuts here around 9:24 a.m. It was a gray-out. Visibility to the buildings across the street, much less the Hudson in the distance, was nil. I love the rain, but I was happy to watch it from … Continue reading I love the rain
After reading about it on Boing Boing a couple weeks ago, I started subscribing to the Escape Pod podcast. Short science-fiction stories from a variety of great SF authors. This podcast magazine is published by Stephen Eley, who’s doing a bang-up job of it. Nearly all the stories I’ve listened to so far have been … Continue reading ‘Escape Pod’