Because a pal of mine cannot gather the steam to write about his dog, who recently passed away, I will do so.
Zipper was his name and I remember him fairly well from days during and after college. He died yesterday at home after living on this planet 18 years.
My friend writes,” He leaves behind … his adopted German Shepherd brother, Dennis, who is certainly still looking for him.
“He had a good run, but suffered from numerous ailments and declining health over the last year. The general expected run for terriers and Golden Retrievers averages 10 years. Certainly, Dennis’ presence extended his life some 6 years.”
Although I haven’t seen Zipper in many an era, I will always remember his frisky run around my legs, his high-pitched bark, and his near-smile.

In an article in today’s New York Times The Secret Behind a Burger Cult, In-N-Out, a newish fast-food restaurant much ballyhooed in Los Angeles, is made to look cool because of its “cult” following.
Since when was eating fast food “cultish”? More disturbing to me, however, is this:
‘Eric Schlosser, author of the muckraking book “Fast Food Nation,” is a fan.
‘”I think they’re great,” said Mr. Schlosser, whose less appetizing findings included that some ground beef destined for fast-food restaurants had been contaminated with bits of cattle spinal cord. “It isn’t health food, but it’s food with integrity. It’s the real deal,” he said.’
I think he sucks.
Schlosser’s book, subtitled “The Dark Side of the All-American Meal” is a must-read for those interested in the meat industry. But apparently, Schlosser himself has about as much “integrity” as In-N-Out’s food.

Increasingly, there are little nodes of space on the street where anyone with a laptop can get on the Internet. In order to find wireless networks (or WiFi), people are resorting to a highly collaborative street-focused signing to indicate where a little node might be. For instance, it could be near your favorite ice cream store. Or it could be under your nose.
Like Weblogs, Warchalking technology is starting small but I believe it will grow into a sizable movement — until it gets corporatized and metal street signs replace the chalk and paint used currently. Warchalking uses signs much like and based on hobo language to show where you can hook in. Equally important to the technology of WiFi is the signage — which I believe will get increasingly sophisiticated soon.
Warchalking.org is a Weblog that shows photos and appropriate links to this whole new visual language.

I just got back from Vancouver, where the following post was made. The air there surrounded you with a cool 65 degrees. Doors could be left open all night. There was no sense of death, despair, anger, fragility, or sadness there.
Why, then, do I come back to a city greeted with 95 degree heat? Because this is New York City.

I’m waking up to the mountains, the sky looks like frosted cake, and the stars have been washed away by sun.

Okay, I take it all back. I love the New Republic, with its witty reviews of unusual books and popular television shows and its sanguine attitude about the economy and the potential for Democrats to retake not only Congress but the nation. In the last issue (August 5 & 12, 2002 – cover = “The Emerging Democratic Majority”), Jeffrey Rosen writes a very cogent and convincing piece about the relationship between the failure of CBS’s “First Monday” and ABC’s “The Court” television shows and the collapse of our ability to understand the Supreme Court and American litigation and justice. Fascinating. But more interestingly for me was his comment about Aristotle’s enthymemes, which are kind of strange codes that live in our heads defining our daily moments.
Rosen explains that Richard Sherwin, the writer of When Law Goes Pop: The Vanishing Line Between Law and Popular Culture, defines enthymemes as “the common constructs we carry around in our heads … the recurrent scripts and simplified worlds, the familiar stories and scenarios, the popular character types and plot lines … that serve as the building blocks of reality making.” This could also explain a complex of cultural phenomena, including national mythologies, racial stereotypes, and the division of genders into two (un)equal parts. I believe that Aristotle was a slave-owner.

I understand that those Nalgene water flasks that you used to carry around as a Boy or Girl Scout are now cool with urban-wilderness folks. What does that mean? It means that this particular brand of ordinary but nicely designed water flask is impossible to find right now and the company, based in Rochester, has hired people to produce the little plastic flask 24 hours a day to meet supply. Is this a Tipping Point phenomenon? Why the demand, because the plastic used in this flask leaves no plastic taste to the water and can’t be eaten by bears. I think I should sell mine on eBay, where they seem to be selling like krazy. I found this story in today’s Globe and Mail, where you can find more.

The last time I post today, I promise. But this is a good one. A genealogical approach to Weblogs, making the human-focused activity and archiving of information via Weblogs that much more poetic, thoughtful, immersive, and just. This is a pretty incredible little venture with good programming, well-crafted logic, and a good deal of user-added spice to make the whole thing potentially fine. M. Nietzsche would be proud.
Take a look at my “parents” so far and the Weblog children that I hope to someday spawn: BlogTree.

I may very well have posted this link before, but I LOVE This is a Magazine.
From its simple Arial interface at the very start to its elegant page-like format in Flash, to its very talented featured artists, This is a Great Magazine.

We saw Road to Perdition last night, the first film we’ve seen in about 7 or 8 months.
It was a beautifully filmed Hollywood film, with every shot thought through and out. Tom Hanks, who I always liked for his Everyman quality, Jude Law, who I like because he’s funny-looking, and Paul Newman, who I like because of his salad dressings powerfully inhabited their characters. The music in the first part was particularly strong and I can’t say more than this as the whole thing is wrapped in a package that doesn’t allow more to be said, unless you’ve seen it.