The wife and I are good American consumers supporting the economy in our purchases. This can be witnessed by our two new mobile phones purchased over the weekend. To my defense I have a small issue with self control when it comes to high-tech gadgets. The purchase of the new Motorola SLVR L7 was predicted upon one of our RAZRs demise when it met the concrete with irreversible trauma – a shattered screen. Now I will not tell you which one of us dropped the phone but it was not me. The plan was to purchase a new phone for the responsible individual (read the one that does not drop phones) and I would transfer my perfectly good RAZR. After 20 mins with the salesmen and working through some SIM card issues it was conceived that buying two SLVRs would cost us a mire 200; 99/each. This time a sticker will need not be applied to the case of our identical phones for I opted for the masculine black while the other phone screams femininity; pretty in pink.

We hit the town Saturday night with some old colleague’s. First stop of the night, dinner at The Blue Agave on N. State Street. While the main Tex-Mex entrées were nothing to write home about the Margaritas and guacamole were incredible. The loud bustling Latin affair was comfortable with the large bay doors open and breeze flowing through to carry the humid air away. Service was pleasant especially when she informed us that pitchers of Margaritas were no longer available due to drunken fiascoes that typically followed. Reminded me of El Vaqueros in Columbus, suspended ceiling clowns and all. When you have a hankering for tequila the selection will not disappoint at this restaurant.

A friend of a friend, who also happens to be my friend, is a skilled knitter. Through her blog it appears that her primary projects revolve around E. I wonder what I could do to persuade her to knit me a Nautie.

I had a tiger, or maybe it was a giraffe, as a child that was dear to me. I have no idea why, but I enjoyed watching the legs buckle as I depressed the spring loaded base. Availabot by Schulze & Webb brings all those memories back. The figure stands up when a designated contact signs in to your instant messaging service and falls down when they sign off.Rapid-prototyping rocks. [~engadget]

The CTA has a new-ish line servicing the loop and west that left some question its destination on the inaugural run Sunday. Dropping the doodoo Brown Line, which happens to be my favorite, Chicago’s elevated train now has every color of the Gay rainbow. The naming resolution is even more retarded:

The CTA let an essay competition among schoolchildren from kindergarten to 8th grade determine the name of the line, which will go east from 54th in Cicero along the same course as the Cermak Blue Line branch. However, where that line goes into the Loop at Polk, the new line will stay above ground and connect with the Green Line at Lake St.

The Pink Line is really rather embarrassing but not nearly as bad as the promotional rail cars bathed in Pepto-Bismol.

Tourb.us, a semi-social system for finding local area and national bands playing local venues just launched a few days ago. While this fresh site primarily pulls information from crawling the web to deliver dates of upcoming area shows users can also plug in data by way of an iTunes data file, direct connection to Last.fm or by rudimentary typing. As the database grows more populous obscure bands begin to appear. If that unheard of band is not found the band is added to your wishlist. As information becomes available you will receive notification as to the time and place of the next show. Furthermore, each of the bands and venues has a profile that is user editable via wiki structure. I can think of a number of Chicagoans that would find this service useful.

ESPN zoom Gallery of the French Open. Phenomenal photos presented in a fantastic slide show presentation.

What a tough day for Lefty, Phil Michelson. As not to be overlooked, Monty and Furyk also blew up on the last few holes but Phil’s demise is inexcusable. ESPN’s Gene Wo. really hit the nail on the head with his harsh commentary of the blowup on the final hole of Winged Foot. Phil’s lack of mental toughness is a lesson for all of us – never think it is over until it is over (where was the fat lady). This lack of concentration that Phil found is what separates Tiger Woods from Lefty.

I recently picked up the SanDisk 2GB Cruzer Micro USB Flash Drive since I missed placed my older 256mb drive approximately a month ago. I was quite distraught over the loss of my drive for it had a ton of information on it and in rare fashion I had not backed it up in a while. The new Sandisk , that I call Pedro, is incredibly small. So small I am debating whether I am going to fasten the neck leash so as to prevent another misplacement.

For those of you that utilize a mobile flash drive I suggest checking out this article on How to Protect Yourself from Big Brother. I have found PortableApps to be a good resource for flash drive applications. Currently I have the following install on my drive:

• TrueCrypt
• Firefox – Mobile Browser
• TorPark – Mobile Browser Privacy Ed
• FileZilla – Mobile FTP
• Thunderbird – Mobile Email Client
• Xampp – Full Webserver
• Wordpress

The only issue I have with the new hardware is a hint of latency when coping files. Could be my POS work laptop.

This peculiar website discovered the secret behind the 45 degree lean in Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal video and in the live performance. I always wondered how he pulled this off. The video clearly shows one of the dancers getting his heal caught when stepping out of the prop.

Here is a link to the full length performance in Mexico City. He obviously has one foot in the deep end just about ready to dive head first into the nut house with that outfit. Still those dance moves are just awesome.

Coming a little late to the game but I just watched Napoleon Dynamite for the first time on Friday. I am not sure why it took me so long to view this master piece but the flick amazed me in every way. Via IMDb:

I think where the film ultimately succeeds, aside from the casting of Heder, is that it doesn’t fall into the traps of predictability and stereotyping. Sure, it’s a high school movie, and there are snobby pretty girls and arrogant jocks, but not much time is devoted to them. Sure, there’s a big dance, but it doesn’t necessarily turn out the way you’d expect it to. What you’re left with, then, isn’t a typical coming-of-age story, but rather a unique take on a rather mundane - albeit life-altering - time in a boy’s life.

I could watch that dance scene many times over.

As it appears that I am a natural commentator; that is I review and/or rant about nearly everything I am going to implement a star or thumb rating system in my next version of this site. Kottke’s rating system is a level to aspire to but in no certain fashion will my ratings be as robust.

Update: DynamiteMap 

The wife and I saw Wicked last night. The Broadway series musical is touring in Chicago and has been for quite some time. Tickets are extremely difficult to obtain in a desirable section. If I am not mistaken the show is sold out every night it has been performed which played well for us as we get tickets through a connection that works at the theatre and hooked us up with phenomenal seats dead center, eight rows back. This was my first musical and I must admit it was not a terrible experience. (more…)

While out for a friend going away party I was criticized, openly, for my lack of updates on this here weblog. As life has taken a sustained accelerated pace I have had less time to allocate to my plethora of hobbies / projects. Highlighting one of these hobbies, this site design has been moving around with some improved bits here and there. I have now definitivly decided upon a final design and will work diligently to implement within the next week or so.

In other news, the wife and I have begun to wrangle with a crash diet and a healthier life-style there after. An outline of the workings of said plan and periodic progress reports are forth coming.

So sit tight sports fans as I ramp up the writing and design efforts.

Finally, back from Hilton Head South Carolina with a great tan. We had a fine time while visiting for my friends wedding. The travel experience was absolute horrific though. I was utterly disappointed by Southwest’s inability to adapt and rectify situations. We missed our flight down to Jacksonville Florida in the morning for reason to be discussed at another time. The desk clerk had a horrible time rerouting; the closest she could (more…)

Truly amazing photos of Russian architecture that never broke ground.

Although, ultimately, neither of these projects was realized, the plans submitted by the participants had a noticeable influence on the development of Moscow, and many of the entries have earned a place in this century’s repository of project planning.

There are some good neoclassical buildings in this mix.