apple juice

I have come into the possession of a human powered lawn mower. By that I mean, one of the lawn mowers where there is no engine, just you, pushing.

I have wanted one for a while, and serendipitously, Josh had one at his house.

I took it home and fired it right up, so to speak. Oh man, it was hard work. For example, you’re cruising along, and a stick flies up and gets stuck. Well, this thing just stops and punches you in the gut with the handle. Mmm, fun.

After sweating it out for an hour, and then using my electric weed-wacker, the lawn is looking a bit more manicured. The grass is completely dead, but at least it is short-dead now.

I guess this is a good sacrifice to make though, if I’m trying to save the environment. I’ve read that a gas mower puts out more pollution in an hour than your car does in a week, could that be true?

I love stories like this:

“You come here and it’s like, ‘Where do I park? Is it five blocks down a side street, or what?’ “

Yes, you’ll have to walk! It’s part of the plan. Once you find that really great parking spot for your car, for the love of pete, don’t move it. Ever been to Chicago? Exactly. I think I’m having deja vu or something, but the strib is running a story about all the parking problems and havoc that is the excelsior and grand project.

By the end of the article they seem to be praising it a bit more:

Industry observers say the clearest point of success has been the residential portion. Wilson and his colleagues at TOLD describe that side of the project as “stellar,” with no vacancies among 337 apartments and all but 12 of the 210 completed condos sold, with more being built.

Geri Schiavino moved into her new condo in May. “I totally don’t use the car half of what I used to,” she said. “I take the bus, and when friends come over, we walk to coffee shops or dinner. Everything’s right here.”

This is a really cool project on the whole, and I think it is great to see all these higher density residential areas sprouting up, but you need to have the mixed-use areas in there as well (grocery stores, coffee shops, etc), otherwise you’ll be exacerbating the traffic problems, and not alleviating them. When residents of these condos can walk to everything, they don’t need to drive their cars everywhere.

[tags]condos, urban, minneapolis[/tags]

I heard this segment called “This I Believe” on NPR during the drive home from Wisconsin. It is entitled “There Is No Such Thing As Too Much Barbecue“. I thought it was worthy of sharing.

I believe in barbecue. As soul food and comfort food and health food, as a cuisine of both solace and celebration. When I’m feeling good, I want barbecue. And when I’m feeling bad, I just want barbecue more.

Check it out. There is also a link for listening to the segment as it was aired.

This is not to brag or anything, but I just noticed that the amount of hard drive space, that I have currently have sitting on my desk, is absolutely staggering.

First, a little history:

• My family’s first computer, a 386sx/16, had a 40MB hard drive in it. This was about 1991.
• Then we got a Pentium-60 in 1995 and that had a 500MB hard drive.
• I switched over to the Mac when I went to college (1996), and the drive that came with that was 800MB, I think..
• Then I bought a Blue and White G3 Tower (99? I forget), with a 6GB hard drive.
• After the Blue and White came my current Powerbook (2003), 80 GB drive.

Now, with the new drive I just bought tonight, I have sitting on my desk, in various computers and iPods and external drives, 789GB of Hard drive space.

789GB! To put that into perspective a bit, in terms of my family’s original computer, I have about 20,000 times as much storage space now. The concept of lots and lots of hard drive space in and of itself is not foreign to me, I’m around this stuff all the time, but to think of how this has progressed in the past 10 years, is just crazy.

The most interesting thing about the Minnesota Wild game I attended tonight was the moment when two players started fighting.

The crowd immediately rose to its feet! Every blow was appreciated. Even the kids were in on the action, cheering, screaming, watching their parents cheer and scream.

I know all of this because as I sat, bewildered, watching the video screen above.

The same video screen that had just 3 minutes prior carried a public service message from the Minnesota Youth Hockey Association about, basically, keeping the game friendly for the kids. So more kids play.

Hmm.

Oh, and the Wild won, 6-1.

Many juvenile crimes ‚Äî such as the carjacking that is so central to “Grand Theft Auto” ‚Äî are conventionally described as “thrill-seeking” crimes. Isn’t it possible that kids no longer need real-world environments to get those thrills, now that the games simulate them so vividly? The national carjacking rate has dropped substantially since “Grand Theft Auto” came out. Isn’t it conceivable that the would-be carjackers are now getting their thrills on the screen instead of the street?

The author makes some pretty good points. I hate to see gov’t getting into regulating what goes into video games. I’m perfectly fine with ratings, and as far as I’m concerned, GTA should’ve been MA all along. We can’t have gov’t policing everything. Parents need to understand what’s going on in the games their kids are playing, the stores need to not sell explicit games to kids, and the kids need to be educated about what’s right, what’s wrong, and everything in between.

Anyways, good article, check it: Hillary vs. the Xbox

There aren’t many summer foods better than Bratwurst, in my opinion. Well, heck, there aren’t many foods better, all year round. Summertime is the season though. With that, I give you: Bratwurst, Wisconsin’s Soul Food

maybe you’re wondering about this seemingly random post? I was about to grill some brats and wanted to get them done up right! Thanks google!