"We didn't get to sit in while U2 created their songs or when Picasso painted, but for the past 17 years, we've been able to watch Rivera step into crises over and over and over, throwing the same pitch over and over and over even when hitters knew which pitch was coming, and almost always Rivera has come out the other side shaking hands and high-fiving teammates."
"Remember when you were willing to wait a few seconds for a computer to respond to a click on a Web site or a tap on a keyboard? These days, even 400 milliseconds — literally the blink of an eye — is too long, as Google engineers have"
"High-end fashion brands have a problem. Let’s call it the 'Kreayshawn quandary,' after the young Bay Area rapper made famous by the Internet and her hit song 'Gucci, Gucci,' which has gotten over 16 million views on YouTube." —Oh God please can we not?
"I don’t want to trivialize the inhumane horrors that African slaves endured on slave ships (above) destined for the Americas. But after a recent airplane trip, sitting tightly next to my neighbor in steerage seats, I feel the discomfort and pain endemic to the current air experience has certain curious similarities."
"With his feeble flame of 'hope' thoroughly doused here in the United States by last week's elections, President Obama has set out around the globe in search of throngs still enthralled by his flowery rhetoric. He found them, of course, in Indonesia this week by telling them about how Americans must stop mistrusting Islam. So that is why your president is halfway around the world instead of being here in the United States to celebrate the sacrifices American soldiers, sailors and airmen have made around the world to keep the real, still-burning flame of freedom alive."
"I had to catch a train in Washington last week. The paved street in the traffic circle around Union Station was in such poor condition that I felt as though I was on a roller coaster. I traveled on the Amtrak Acela, our sorry excuse for a fast train, on which I had so many dropped calls on my cellphone that you’d have thought I was on a remote desert island, not traveling from Washington to New York City. When I got back to Union Station, the escalator in the parking garage was broken. Maybe you’ve gotten used to all this and have stopped noticing. I haven’t. Our country [...]
"WHEN a good friend insisted a few years back on dining by herself at the French Laundry, the renowned Napa Valley restaurant, I found it hard to comprehend. Wouldn’t she miss out on the communal relishing of shared flavors, delights and memories? Of course, she said. But more important to her was the opportunity to savor each nuance with unobstructed emotions, to laugh or to weep as the mood dictated, without the sort of inhibitions companions might pose."
"'I enjoy stealing,' explains singer Perry Farrell in 'Been Caught Stealing,' Jane’s Addiction’s 1990 ode to shoplifting. 'It’s just as simple as that.' But unfortunately for businesses and thieves, little about shoplifting is simple."
"First there was the 'staycation,' now it's the 'workation.'" —No.
"For the better part of 30 years, men’s shorts have been inching away from their own breviloquent description. My call for a return to a common-sense inseam has been met over time with complacency, staunch resistance and — on the occasions I’ve dared to lead by example — merciless ribbing. Just as I was beginning to lose heart, it was revealed that several designers are featuring shorter men’s shorts for spring. Revivified, I strode out into the Los Angeles sunshine to gauge whether the American public had regained its appetite for men’s bare thighs."
"I graduated from Barnard in 2005, steeped in the era of 'Sex and the City's'" do-me feminism."
Oh God, I had no idea this was a thing, but it has apparently already taken these shores by storm and is now the hot new slice on Knifecrime Island.
The dimples will also not look entirely natural, as they remain permanently rather than appearing only when you grin. The operation, dimpleplasty, involves making a tiny cut in the skin to create a small depression.
A stitch is then used to tack the underside of the skin down to a deeper layer and hold it in place. Once the suture dissolves, permanent scar tissue will remain to maintain the dimple.
Anyway, yes, that is where the "close tab" [...]
"Boys For Pele came out around the time I lost my virginity."
"Want to play it cool with someone? Seem busy and important? Then send a text—with a term of endearment—that appears to be written to someone else. Or ask 'who is this?' when you receive a text. Have a friend text you repeatedly when you're on a date. Claim not to have gotten a text you actually received. Let's call it bluffting: A text with a little bluffing."
"For the Washington punditocracy, to attain last-name status on Drudge marks an achievement of sorts: It’s recognition that political observers find your work so familiar that a first name is hardly needed. 'Having your last name touted on Drudge is sort of the Washington equivalent of first-name recognition in Hollywood, where Jen and Brad and Angelina need no further identification,' said The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz."
"Each day, out-of-work computer programmer Luke Allen self-medicates by watching animated ponies have magical adventures. The 32-year-old, who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, loves his daily fix of My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, and he’s not alone. He’s part of a growing group of 'bronies' ('bro ponies') — men who are fans of a TV show largely intended for a much younger audience. 'First we can’t believe this show is so good, then we can’t believe we’ve become fans for life, then we can’t believe we’re walking down the pink aisle at Toys R Us or asking for the girl’s toy in our Happy Meal,' Allen said in an [...]
“'If you can’t afford to hire a bartender,' he added, 'you shouldn’t be having a party.'"
Lest you think I was hasty on this one, I would like to point out that it took heroic efforts to persevere past, "this is my sh-bam, my moment." Or even "Williamsburg."
Photo by Sklathill, from Flickr.
"James Gilpin, who recently graduated from Design Interactions in London, suffers from type 1 diabetes. He has used his own experience of the condition to explore but also discuss the consequences of using science to alter our bodies' abilities.
The designer's project, Gilpin Family Whisky, is inspired by the fact that large amounts of sugar are excreted on a daily basis by diabetic patients-especially older people-who don't have adequate control of their sugar levels. Processing old people's urine to produce whisky of high economic value is not a scheme sponsored by the government to solve Britain's looming pension crisis, it is the starting point for a discussion with [...]
