I have to move to Japan

Seriously, everything they do is sleeker, sexier, and better than everything here. I'm pretty sure they have all the flying cars and robot butlers that people here dream about in their vision of the future. Check out their version of Flickr, Fotologue:


Too pretty!

The (second) best nerd blog

Clive Thompson has the coolest, nerdiest blog ever. His finds are a nice blend of the esoteric, the amusing, and the intriguing. Nerd Cadre salutes thee, sir Thompson! You shall be enshrined in our soon-to-be NC Hall of Fame.

psy-che-de-lic

A cool audio-visual , music-theoretical flash thingie.

The best show on TV

As recommended by McSweeney's:

The American version of The Office
This show really snuck up on us. At first, we were maybe a bit dismissive, suffering from the vertigo that comes from comparing it with the original, but the recently aired season finale demonstrated that this is not only the best comedy on television (RIP, Arrested Development) but one of the best dramas as well.

And..

Jenna Fischer's blog
She plays Pam on The Office and gives inside scoops and anecdotes about what is rapidly becoming our favorite show. Just as charming in print as you'd think she'd be, which is very charming.

(Since McSweeney is God, all of this is true)

Quick cuts

Meanwhile the albino monk, whose name is Silas and who may be the first character in the history of motion pictures to speak Latin into a cellphone, flagellates himself, smashes the floor of a church and kills a nun.

From A.O. Scott's review of The Da Vinci Code. He seemed to have a lot of fun writing it.

Here's a great interview with Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, Art School Confidential). They have close-up shots of him drawing! He seems as tortured and angst-filled as Chris Ware.


And, the cool artist of the day.

What could be more nerdy than a Rubik's Cube?

Just then, one of those guys who usually sell batteries or bootleg DVD's came walking through the car. Except this guy wasn't selling batteries or DVD's. He was selling Rubik's Cubes. I'm serious. This is true. And this other guy, sitting kitty-corner from the original cube guy, stopped the vendor and bought one. He unwrapped it and started messing around with his new Rubik's Cube. And then what ensued was this kind of Rubik's Cube-off on the subway.

A Rubik's Cube-off! (The ending's kinda disappointing but the story is still great)

And I just love when people attach "-off" to words in creative ways. Like in Rome section when someone described the Minerva vs. Ariadne spinning competition as a "weave-off". Too cute!

procrastimanation

Hm, so I was just gonna post about my horrid online gaming addiction but instead I'll turn this into a link-san (Yay Irena for the new concept!).

• So I spent the last two hours playing Wicked Junior, this rebus-puzzle game whose counterpart Wicked is a derivative of other stuff such as


• Dumb: the Game


• and the original masterpiece notpr0n, which occupied me for a good portion of last summer. I got stuck around level 50 and haven't returned to since. It's really well-crafted though, and pretty much each puzzle is different.

Now, I should return to those phase planes that need plotting...

A floury adventure

So we decided to have dinner at Flour tonight, a bakery/cafe in the South End, which was a neighborhood of broken walk signs and geographically misappropriated pizza places ("Chicago Pizza", "New York Pizza"). Overall the place exuded an aura of Brooklyn with a dash of ghetto.

First though, we stopped at a Japanese supermarket for Pocky and other snacks. There were some products of fame:


..and others that were just inexplicable:


We then got to Flour:


And had some sandwiches. Mine was a grilled chicken with avocado, Irena's a lamb with goat cheese.


Innards!

A Venn Diagram of our thoughts on our respective sandwiches (Irena is green, Kareno is red):


Dessert was pretty good. A chocolate chip cookie, tartlettes, an "Oreo", and a coconut macaroon:



On the way back, we stopped at a Sushi/Wine bar. The decor was walls of wine bottles with the pervading smell of sushi vinegar. Stranger still was the bathroom decor:


which they decided to leave unfinished:


And then, back home on the Orange line!

The daily browse

Oddica is a new t-shirt site, in the vein of Threadless but focusing more on "artists' rights" (which I take to mean, higher prices for the rest of us). A lotta YH people are contributors. There's nothing amazing for sale yet, but I'm looking forward to Audrey Kawasaki's designs (above).

And now, for some nerdy links! Yay! Our theme today will be Math Origami:

• Origami by David Huffman, the creator of Huffman codes! I wish there were more photos out there, his forms are really works of art.


• Robert Lang's gallery of animals and tetrahedra (via David Pogue)


• Folding theory from Erik Demaine of MIT

Coming up: our very first food outing post! With lots of photos! Get excited!

From the land of the stars, comes a message

epiphany - n. a sudden appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being.

Yesterday, at 8:48 AM Eastern Standard Time, a message came to me from across the ether. A message from a being so beautiful, who exudes the most brilliant radiance, that I hardly believed it to be intended for me. This man's – nay – this god's ravishing image is the altar upon which rests this humble blog. Amidst the millions of bytes of chatter, dreams, and prayer that flit across cyberspace, the words of this divinity came unto me, and even as I transcribe them my entire being shivers from his majestic grace:

Winthrop!
Good luck w/ the paper!

In other words, I got a little crazy last night, registered on Myspace, and PMed B. J. Novak. And his reply is now forever engraved into my soul.

Next week: Kareno confronts the heathen creatures of the kingdom of Partial Differentiation. Will the sacrifices to the Gorgeous Hot Men of the City of Angels be enough to grant her safe passage through these lands? Tune in to find out!

7-3 b*tches!!

Thank you Moose for making my day! You make me want to pay for MLB TV. ^.^

When nerds and designers collide..

The result is not pretty.

"Dr Spock's Baby Care is a best-selling owner's manual for the most complicated 'product' imaginable -- and it only has two levels of headings. You people have 8 levels of hierarchy and I haven't even stopped counting yet. No wonder you think it's complicated." - Edward Tufte on the Sun Answerbook.

My camera never lies anymore

The gorgeous photos of Mark Seliger in his brick walled studio.

Are Asians less happy?

A brief excerpt from the new book Stumbling on Happiness.

(I'd try to get the book and read more, but I have these awful psets to do. Natch.)

More discoveries (of a musical nature)

Asobi Seksu - "Thursday"

Beirut - "Postcards from Italy"

I also got Sunset Rubdown for Spencer Krug's beautiful tortured voice. You should too! ;)

The best discovery of the day

Was that this man:



..went to Harvard!!!!

*swoon*

He could be my temp any day of the week.