subway sound system (8/5/10)

Q-train at rush hour:  (rush hour interlude)

[happy robot:] Stand clear of the closing doors. (ding-dong)

[conductor:] LET GO THE DOORS! YOU'RE HOLDING UP THE TRAIN!

[stern robot:] Ladies-and-gentlemen, do NOT hold the doors when leaving the train...

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N-train in the 60th St. tube: The Deep Tunnel Sermon is a long string of boilerplate psa's used to entertain passengers during noisy high speed under-river crossings, etc.



[official robot:] Ladies-and-gentlemen, an important" rumble rumble "from the New York City" rumble rumble "Department. Keep your" rumble rumble "within sight at all times. Be alert, and...

[conductor:] NEXT STOP QUEENSBORO PLAZA. TRANSFER TO THE SEVEN.

...and thank you for riding M-T-A!

---

information: (satirized, yet close in format to the many non-informative prerecorded advisories that the conductor may select from)

[advisory robot] Ladies-and-gentlemen, we are being delayed because a stegosaur is jammed in the tunnel. Please be patient while it is removed.

anti-terror can works both ways (7/29/10)

July 29, 2010 at 2:32am

In Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, NY, people hold a rally against a mosque proposed to be built in their neighborhood. Ugly attitudes are exposed. One guy at the microphone makes threats.

Then, late one night, three detectives show up in the neighborhood, and go door-to-door asking questions. They are not from the local precinct.

Soon thereafter, the guy who made the threats calls up a local newspaper and says he wasn't serious - says he made the threats because of "personal problems".

http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/33/28/bn_tt_mosquebomber_2010_07_09_bk.html

roller coaster on meth (7/18/10)

Aargh!! 

What's bigger than a cockroach, has a lot more legs, and runs around the floor like a roller coaster on meth? 

And why am I standing on this chair while I type?

---

•  The delicate legs enable it to reach surprising speeds of up to 0.4 meters per second (1.3 ft/s)
•  "It may often be seen darting across floors with very great speed, occasionally stopping suddenly and remaining absolutely motionless, presently to resume its rapid movements." (1902, C. L. Marlatt, an entomologist)
• When the centipede is at rest, it is not easy to tell its front from its back.

(Wikipedia)

misspelled church sign (7/15/10)

ONLY GOO CAN KEEP A FAMILY TOGETHER reports Katherine Goldsby. 

Will the church notice the problem before she comes by with a camera on Monday?
 
Comments after her post:

- "I've always believed in goo."
- "I agree! Juci sticky loving goo keeps families together, despite all odds!"
- "In GOO we trust! Enjoy your summer day my sticky friends.
- "i love it... goo is always good... just like uck tape!

ethics vs. sociopathy (7/8/10)

One person's situational ethics is another person's sociopathy. 

Myself, I try to ask, "What would Cthulhu want me to do?"

darbuka woodpecker (7/3/10)

...last person out of Mendo: 

I thought I heard a darbuka - but it was a woodpecker.

beautiful toes (6/13/10)

yes i want beautiful toes - please send a six month supply

commandos down a rope (5/31/10)

I don't know about you, but to me it seems GOOFY for lightly armed Israeli commandos to be sent down from a helicopter, one at a time, into a crowd of angry Turks on a big Turkish vessel in international waters. 

The video looks even more bizarre than the concept.

chocolate gulf zappa (5/26/10)

"Gonna smother that Gulf in chocolate syrup, and boogie 'til the cows come home." (apologies to Frank Zappa)

wildflowers and herdeljezi (4/29/10)

7 a.m. drive to Manila Community Center to coordinate the specimen arrival and i.d. team at the Wildflower Show. 

1 p.m. drive to Sebastopol for the annual Herdeljezi (Roma (Gypsy)) Festival.

slow quick gak (4/24/10)

...briefly considered the implications of "123 1212 123 1212" vs. "slow-quick-quick slow-quick-quick" - and then moved on to washing the dishes.

Дрян blooms in B'klyn (3/31/10)

Дрян blooms in B'klyn... sneak 'n snip

evolution is not a belief (2/9/10)

It's an awesome theory that helps explain SO many things, but Evolution is not something to "believe in". If it were, then the Creationists could demand equal rights.

cheaper produce in NYC (1/24/10)

...is in NYC: California red peppers 99¢ lb., California broccoli 99¢ bunch 

---

Photos are two years later... "Food paradox at Gourmet Boutique: "buying local" and "carbon footprint" had nothing to do with why these ripe cherries were selling for $1.59 lb. midwinter on Feb. 1 in Brooklyn. 

"Garlic 69¢ each" was a sock of five heads of garlic.

Winter prices at 'Gourmet Boutique'. 
Produce can be much cheaper in Brooklyn than in California, even in winter. But most Californians assume the opposite. 

California freezin' (12/9/09)

Another sub-freezing night in Arcata, CA. Few restaurants have a vestibule, many never bother with heating. I'm sitting in a chilly Mosgo's Coffee House watching customers enter and exit - and nearly all swing the door wide as they enter and leave.

LL: ...a couple just left, opening BOTH doors at the same time.

LL: Is there ANY coffee house in Arcata or Eureka that is toasty-warm and that serves HOT coffee?

QNC hack (1/20/10)

No WiFi at this location in B'klyn.  Laptop connected to the Internet via Bluetooth, which is connected to my phone, which has dialed a number in McKinleyville, CA. Data speed is only 11 kbs, but there is no airtime, data charge, or plan. 

Whether this stunt is considered high-tech or ice-age depends on your birth date and/or income.

Confessions of a Facebook addict:  To function at this miserable speed, I am using the Opera Mini java phone browser, and posting to the Facebook Mobile website. But instead of running Opera on the phone, I'm running it full-screen on the laptop (via an emulator).  Same bandwidth.  Sick, huh? 

blockbuster movie (1/10/10)

Avatar-3D ends, the credits roll up the screen, building shakes, theater goes dark, and we slowly work our way outside... "Awesome movie! Was it a six or a seven?"

Movie multiplex building held up fine.  But two blocks away, things were a mess.

 

pot vs. booze vs.coffee (12/23/09)

Hip Arcata has been making the national news as a hotbed of indoor marijuana growing. But traditional boozing has survived here, too - and by the looks of it, is still more popular than weed. Comparing numbers of bars and coffee houses, it's probably also more popular than coffee.

PM: I'd like to personally give thanks to your horticulturally minded neighbors.

LL: The urban agros you have in mind have a rep for being lousy next door neighbors. I live west of town, and MY neighbors have dairy in their veins. Sounds like our famed microbooze rarely makes it down your way.

vacuuming the mosquitoes (9/08/09)

...is vacuuming the mosquitoes (forgot to close window last night)

curves and straightaways (9/3/09)

The way I drive is quite simple: I slow down on blind curves, and speed up on the straightaways. So why does this confuse other drivers?

good moron joke (8/30/09)

Remember "moron" jokes?  A new one:

Q. Why did the moron start spooning ground coffee into his coffee grinder? 

A. Because he hadn't woken up yet. (sigh)

SR: Actually, Larry, "good morning" in Swedish is pronounced pretty much like "good moron"

LL: (we are witnessing the birth of the "good moron" genre of joke)  How do you spell that in Swedish?

SR: "God morgon". Go figure..don't ask me what they did with the G.

LL: (sigh - no future for "God morgon" jokes)  Well, then, how do you say "moron" in Swedish?

SR:  You wouldn't want me to call you that.

LL: Well then, you can call me "God morgon" anytime.

dental hygeine mouse (7/14/09)

Friday, August 14, 2009 at 2:18pm ...is wondering how the dental floss got inside his optical mouse

feta in a suitcase (7/19/09)

Sunday, July 19, 2009 at 3:41pm

1/2 more days in Brooklyn. Food here is much cheaper than Arcata. I could buy a second-hand suitcase, fill it with 40 pounds of sheep feta - and the savings would pay my airfare home.  

Was true in back in 2009, but airfares have since gone way up.