Exchange while taking Rufus for a walk:
Man on street: That’s a great dog there, a boxer, right?
Me: Yep!
Man: Aw, good dogs aren’t they?
Me: Yeah, he’s pretty stupid but he does love life.
Man: Must be a Republican!
Zing!
The scene went down recently here in Pilsen.
Wear silly vests and hard hats, and film it all on fancy DSLRs.
Have one person do all the work, and everyone else mill about and record the momentous event. Not suspicious at all.
Oh, no! The fuzz! How did they find us?
Oh, man, our progressive culture jamming is SHUT DOWN by the police!
Be certain, however, to record the heartbreaking takedown of the sign from multiple angles. This will play great on YouTube later.
The sign that could have changed the world: "Danger: You are 0.5 miles from the Fisk coal fired power plant."
Despite looking really silly trying to hang a fake sign, these folks do have a good cause. The Fisk Generating Station is a coal-fired power plant on Cermak Road, here in Pilsen. It’s a relic of a bygone era of power generation, and is a public health nightmare. Community groups have been trying for the past decade to shut down Fisk, to almost no success. The 25th alderman, Danny Solis, doesn’t appear to be championing the cause, and is in the pocket of Midwest Generation, the owners of the station.
The Chicago Reader has a number of good articles on the subject, including recent efforts by the Chicago Clean Power Coalition to push ordinances through Chicago City Council to regulate and shut down the plants.
ChicagoBusiness.com reports that, as of April, there’s a new ordinance being pushed by a coalition of aldermen and civic organizations. Let’s hope that Chicago politics don’t get in the way of public health.
There was a day, once upon a time, when 4 megabytes or RAM was enough to get by, and 8 megabytes made Wolfenstein 3d just scream.
Now I max out 4 gigabytes and dream of 8. Same story, different order of magnitude.
He’s just too ridiculous at times.
Melissa this past week started an awesome blog and an Etsy shop. You should totally check them out, subscribe to her updates, buy nifty knit stuff, and generally support her quest to out-nerd me.
Every once in a while, despite your grime, your gang graffiti on every wall, your drunks pissing in alleys, and your abject antipathy to shoveling snow or even putting your trash in actual trash bins, you manage to be quite nice. Thanks for the sunset this evening.
I’m amazed at what people find in my work, and I don’t like to limit what you see with a title. For me titles are very difficult, and I don’t usually even think in terms of a theme when I’m creating a sculpture. Once it’s finished I’ll come up with a title, but one person might see flowers, another something from the sea or something from a dream. Bellagio was inspired by the hotel on Lake Como, and I wanted to use the lake in the title – it’s so romantic. I used the word fiori (flowers), but everybody sees something different.
This is Gordie, the Gansen family pet bird. He’s been around since 1997, making him 12 years old. Words cannot express how much I love this little guy.
He loves nothing more than to run around and chase pieces of paper. If you tap on the paper, the following will happen:
And sometimes he gets a bit overstimulated and decides to bite everyone, then it’s time to hang out in the cage:
Oh, Gordie. happy new year to you.
A list of names I have, at one point or another, used to refer to my girlfriend’s dog:
And for the record, his name is Rufus.
