The Bronze Medal

gregbrown: Chris Peterson’s photos from Glacier National Park -...

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:34:06 -0500

Chris Peterson’s photos from Glacier National Park - as featured on The Big Picture - are pretty stunning.

This photo gallery is stunning. Sometimes I get so caught up in my everyday life I forget that the whole world isn’t really just variations on suburban streets and shopping centers and that there’s incredible beauty like this out there.

Our office is getting its Christmas cheer going…

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:28:04 -0500

Our office is getting its Christmas cheer going…

Friendly Fires ~ Use Somebody (Kings of Leon cover) Seeing the...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:42:56 -0500

Friendly Fires ~ Use Somebody (Kings of Leon cover)

Seeing the Friendly Fires Saturday night. This cover just got me more excited about that.

Hey, leave the Arnold Palmer out of this. What did that tasty...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:32:19 -0500

Hey, leave the Arnold Palmer out of this. What did that tasty refreshing drink ever do to you?

via @lianamaeby

"If they REALLY love to read the joy of new books to read and add to their library will far outweigh..."

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:43:23 -0500

“If they REALLY love to read the joy of new books to read and add to their library will far outweigh the joy they’d have for a piece of plastic that pretends to be a book in sheep’s clothing.”

- Casey on why you should give the gift of books and not a Kindle™ or a Nook™ this holiday season.

Wow, nothing makes you feel like your voice has been heard like...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:16:06 -0500

Wow, nothing makes you feel like your voice has been heard like a [NYS Senator Autoreply]!!

Related.

Sent this morning to NY State Senator Kenneth LaValle, letting him know I am very very disappointed in him...

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:39:46 -0500

Kenneth P. LaValle

Dear Mr. LaValle, or whichever of your staffers is assigned today to read through emails from constituents. I hope this message finds you well.

I was heartbreakingly disappointed to learn that you had cast a “no” vote on the marriage equality bill before the New York State Senate on Wednesday, December 2nd 2009. I find such a vote to be at odds both with the views I and many other residents of your senate district hold, as well as with a basic understanding of human decency. You are, whether I like it or not, my proxy up there in the Albany wilderness, and as such I realize there will be times when your views differ with my mine on matters of policy, but I would hope that your votes would always keep in line with my fundamental ideals of love and compassion for others, and as such to make it a priority to protect and expand the rights of the New Yorkers you are charged with representing. I hope there was at least a slight hesitation somewhere inside you before you decided to voice that “no” which helped to snatch away a right so many of your constituents have been denied for far too long.

I would like you to remember that the motto of our state is Excelsior, meaning “ever upward”. New York is a progressive state, and as such is at its best when moving forward, when making every effort to open up new possibilities of happiness and creating the possibility of fuller and more rewarding lives for its many citizens, be they gay or straight. You and the other Senators who voted “no” on this bill made our fine state unworthy of that motto when you did so, as you held us back in the muck of historical ignorance and fear, and you prevented us from walking alongside our gay neighbors and relatives, friends and coworkers, towards the bright landscape of equality which stands open before us. And I assure you that one day, not far off from today, legal and accepted gay marriages will seem as everyday and normal and non-threatening as any other, and that future New Yorkers will look back at the actions and words of you and others and find them as strange and bizarre and incomprehensible as we today find those of the segregationist south. I hope that you will keep this in mind if you ever happen to once again be voting on legislation that could expand or contract the rights of many of your constituents.

Of course it goes without saying that you never had and never will have my vote. And in 2010 I will do my absolute best to persuade as many residents of our district as I can to pull the lever for your opponent.

Uncomprehendingly,
Ryan

Note: Senator LaValle’s contact information can be found here, in case you wanted to send him your thoughts on his shameful vote yesterday.

"69 million active users are using FarmVille alone, that’s more users than Twitter."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:15:40 -0500

“69 million active users are using FarmVille alone, that’s more users than Twitter.”

- Via TechRadar.

This is why we can’t have nice things America. And if you live in NY, stop harvesting your fake crops and email one of these democratic state senators who voted down equality this afternoon.

butnotmine: Jersey, pls show the Empire State up tomorrow.

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:29:19 -0500

butnotmine:

Jersey, pls show the Empire State up tomorrow.

OK, So I Can't Do Voices...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:59:33 -0500

Goldberg: All your voices sound the same. Your Bobcat Goldthwait sounds like your Barack Obama. It sounds like a whole bunch of voices driving together in the HOV lane towards Confusion Land.

The Lucksmiths, Up With The Sun

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:26:21 -0500

The Lucksmiths, Up With The Sun

slaughterhouse90210: “Above all, she is the girl who ‘feels’...

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:01:30 -0500

slaughterhouse90210:

“Above all, she is the girl who ‘feels’ things, who has hung on to the freshness and pain of adolescence, the girl ever wounded, ever young.”

— Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Possibly the best slaughterhouse90210 post EVER.

"Penelope has finished her web. She is cutting the threads, weaving in the loose ends. A shroud all..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:45:47 -0500

“Penelope has finished her web. She is cutting the threads, weaving in the loose ends. A shroud all along. She is one of those little old ladies dressed in black, in widow’s weeds, who elbow me out of the way in the checkout line at the supermarket. I must learn how better to take up space. Laertes is already planted in the ground. His heart lies there, full of seeds, ready to break open like a grenade, like a pomegranate. They break them here for luck and for new beginnings. Pomegranates, I mean, not hearts. Telemachus runs a moving company. His truck is labeled: Metaphors”

- A.E. Stallings, from Athens: Peripatetic Fragments

Just watched the premiere of Scrubs [Med School] and it was terrific. It really brightened up my...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 22:47:32 -0500

Just watched the premiere of Scrubs [Med School] and it was terrific. It really brightened up my night after a long day at work. I think the two fictional TV characters I’d most like to meet would definitely be Turk and J.D.

Best selling memoir template: [personal name]'s [noun]:A [adjective] family's journey from [place name] to [place name / abstract concept]

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:32:55 -0500

Photo

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:25:08 -0500

"I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of..."

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:59:56 -0500

“I have often noticed that after I had bestowed on the characters of my novels some treasured item of my past, it would pine away in the artificial world where I had so abruptly placed it.”

- Vladimir Nabokov - Speak, Memory

Ivy ~ Christmastime is Here If you think it’s too early...

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:34:58 -0500

Ivy ~ Christmastime is Here

If you think it’s too early for me to be posting Christmas music, you might want to think about unfollowing me now.

"With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the..."

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:17:41 -0500

“With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim”

- John Keats; Ode to a Nightingale (via heliooh-tropion)

Awesome bike decoration spotted on Spring Street.

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:02:00 -0500

Awesome bike decoration spotted on Spring Street.