Pistols In The Morning

Schools on both sides of the street. "Passenger! Get out on the driver's side!" The passenger was a woman talking on a cell phone. Six guns drawn. North Hollywood.

Los Angeles

L.A. is the apocalypse: it's you and a bunch of parking lots. No one's going to save you; no one's looking out for you. It's the only city I know where that's the explicit premise of living there – that's the deal you make when you move to L.A.
--Geoff Manaugh

Bagoomp

I found this picture on the intertubes. I would like to have a drink and hang out with these gals. I don't mean to brag, but I can make a face or two that can scare children, but not like that. Brilliant.

Signs

Signs are all around us. Most are clear, however, some require some interpretation. What does it mean when your morning walk starts with a safe on the lawn?

Beware the Actorians

They blend in with local Angelenos so you never know when you're dealing with one.

Héliographie

Joseph Nicephore Niepce

The world's first permanent camera image shows the view from Niepce's second floor window in 1826. It is a bitumen image on pewter, showing only masses of light and dark tones. The exposure supposedly took about eight hours.

Pale Blue Dot

The photo above was taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 as it sailed away from Earth, more than 4 billion miles in the distance.

Von Hogflume

A neighbor of the Von Rieslings in Staffordshire in 1728...or so I thought.

Uncle Six Eyes

Artist Travis Louie has the thaumaturgic touch.

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Travis Louie's Blog

Traveling Museum Boxes by Ron Pippin

Mr. Pippin has created some remarkable traveling boxes similar to the thaumaturgic cartographers efforts. Most probably a kindred spirit. His work overall is captivating.

Pippin's Box Page

Mystery Skeleton On Ice

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Marine scientists in Canada and abroad are puzzled by bizarre photographs that appear to show the skeleton of a large mammal jutting out of an iceberg that recently drifted past Newfoundland's east coast.

That's as definitive as federal Fisheries and Oceans research scientist Gary Stenson can be about the photos. He has no DNA sample.

"It looks like a mammal," he said.

If it was prehistoric creature, Stenson says it may have fallen into a crevasse and froze.

Yummy Hair

This sums up the valley of San Fernando. Corner of Valley and Magnolia.

Vial of Vile

Field agents have reported terrifying proof of Von Karajon's genetic experimentations. I am currently in negotiations to bring this specimen to the US for verification. Stay tuned.

Ghost Ship Surfaces in SF

Last week the citizens of Gotham were disturbed to see a ship "sinking" in the waters around New York. This week in San Francisco, residents were shocked to see a long-lost shipwreck re-emerge from its watery tomb.

During a low tide on Monday, the wooden skeleton of the sunken ship mysteriously appeared above the waterline on San Francisco's Ocean Beach, not far from the city's zoo.

SF Chronicle Story

Greenwich Emotion Map

The Greenwich Emotion Map was created by people walking around the community wearing devices that measured galvanic skin response; the compiled results suggest a collective emotional response to each location.


Link

B1 Lancer In Flight

Google Maps caught this B1 Lancer cruising over South Dakota.

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Privacy

Ms. Kalin-Casey is upset that the new Google view shows her cat in the window. The follow-up news story has her picture, a clearer picture of her cat, her husband's name and occupation.

He gets upset if you call him a monkey

The Mach 5 will be placed on a crane and most effects will be computer-generated.

One real effect, though: Chim Chim.

"They're using a real monkey," Hirsch says. "Just don't call him that. He's a chimpanzee. He gets upset if you call him a monkey."
Posted


USA Today Interview

Heaven Knows, Apparently

But needs bumper stickers to remind people. Heaven must be smart enough to know people forget things. Heaven must have the interweb.

If your organs go to heaven then tattoos must go as well. What if you had hip replacement surgery, will the stainless steel bits make the jump? If you can take stainless steel why not take the gun they couldn't pry from your cold, dead fingers?

Studio City 7:30 am, May 31, 2007

There is someone sleeping in this VW Bug. I've seen the car in front of the park for a few days now. The park has four to six homeless people living there at any one time. I wonder if this person is one step away.

Parkinson's

It was found that people with Parkinson's disease were more likely to have used pesticides regularly during their lives.

People classed as "low level" users, such as amateur gardeners, were 9% more likely than non-users to develop the disease.
High level users, such as farmers, were 43% more likely to do so.

BBC News Story

Yard Sale

No doubt in the near future $68 for a pair of polyester shorts will seem cheap, but not now. At what point will Yard Sale mean Premium?

Crash!

Woman gets out of her car in the right lane on busy street leaving passengers and says,"You have to get her out of the car, it's leaking fluid!" Radiator fluid. Unfortunately she made the poor woman get out of the car and hobble slowly toward the curb while traffic whizzed by.

Post Post It

I made a map on a yellow Post It pad yesterday. It was based on Zillow.com and Google maps. The distillation of yards of information to inches is what Cartographers can do to make relevant data clear. This means I must wade through a swamp of thaumaturgic material to get a small glass of pure magic.

BBC Story

'Altruistic' brain region found

The brain area was more active among the altruistic group

Scientists say they have found the part of the brain that predicts whether a person will be selfish or an altruist.

Altruism - the tendency to help others without obvious benefit to oneself - appears to be linked to an area called the posterior superior temporal sulcus.

Using brain scans, the US investigators found this region related to a person's real-life unselfish behaviour.

The Duke University Medical Center study on 45 volunteers is published in Nature Neuroscience.

The Real Secret of Happiness

It isn't finding treasure, it's giving it.

Too short. I know, however I can't think of a longer way to say it.