While leaving the apartment this morning, I noticed something strange: All the grass which had (presumably) grown from seed had dew on it. All the grass which had been installed as sod earlier this year did not. There were big squares and long rectangles of bright green mixed in with the shining greenish-white lawn.
(Sorry, no photos. Maybe if the same thing happens tomorrow.)
And via Begging to Differ, there’s the story of the beer-guzzling bear.
Yes, it seems that last week a black bear broke into a cooler at a Washington campground, drank 36 cans of beer, and passed out.
The funniest part: the bear went for the microbrew. It apparenty tried a Busch beer (I don’t think they market that brand here, do they?), then switched to local Ranier Beer.
This is the kind of stuff you just can’t make up. Or rather, if you did, no one would believe it.
There’s at least one company based in Greece that distributes authentic Greek yogurt in the U.S. The stuff can be tricky to find, but incredibly worth it. It’s very thick and creamy and doesn’t contain any gelatin or preservatives. The fat-free version could probably help a lot of people lose weight, as it tastes like sour cream and tzatziki made with it is addictive. Trader Joe’s has been carrying it pretty reliably, but as Whole Foods is closer, we don’t get to TJ’s on a regular basis. However, on our last trip to Whole Foods, they had it, right there in with the rest of the yogurt. And the peasants rejoiced.
Tonight, I went looking for it and instead found a sign: “Whole Foods Market has temporarily decided not to carry Fage Greek Yogurt. Please look for this product again in the future.” So let me get this straight: you just recently decided to carry it and now you’re putting it on hiatus for some unknown reason. What the hell? Or do I want to know what the reason is?
Neil Gaiman writes about the re-release of The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish:
There were copies of the new edition of THE DAY I SWAPPED MY DAD FOR TWO GOLDFISH, with the Enhanced CD in it. It’s bigger than the original edition, has a new Dave McKean cover (mostly because people seemed convinced that the old cover had something to do with Counting Crows, and because the cover didn’t really reflect the art style inside) and I wrote a new afterword for it.
I mentioned this to Katie (a Counting Crows fan), and of course we both wondered about the comment. So I tracked down a copy of the original book cover:
One look at this, and Katie said, “That is the album cover!” She immediately ran into the next room to pull out This Desert Life:
Sure enough, a quick look through the liner notes yielded, “Illustrations by Dave McKean. Cover illustration adapted from the book, ‘The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish,’ by…”
For those who are interested, here’s the new edition of the book:
Well, I’ve finished The Illuminatus! Trilogy (the novel, at least — I’m still working on the appendices), and in honor of that dubious accomplishment, I present this photograph of the Chet Holifield Federal Building in Laguna Niguel:
Snapped last week while trying to locate the movie theater showing Donnie Darko, just down the road from Pepsi and Wolverine.
It really makes me wish we’d had the better camera with us, though. We got a cheap one we could leave it in the car and have it for unexpected finds like this, but the image quality really is pathetic.
In the immortal words of the Internet: WTF?!?
Candy meets toilet humor: Continue reading
One interesting thing about Southern California is that there’s far less difference among the seasons than there is in other areas. Sure, temperature may range from 40° F to 100° F, but it’s not enough for some imported trees. And so trees that, in their native habitat, will shed their leaves in the fall, may stay green halfway through winter.
Last Friday on my way to lunch, I spotted a number of trees like this one, that seemed to have given up figuring out when fall was, and decided, “Heck with it, I’m ditching these leaves now!”
