Closing a bunch of tabs. This was a particularly good couple of days for cool things to link to.
Jacket Copy: “Balloon boy story is right out of Edgar Allan Poe”
The Balloon Boy story may have been a hoax, but it if was, the Heene family is in good company. No less than Edgar Allan Poe had an entirely fictional account of a balloon voyage published in 1844 in the Sun newspaper.
A.V. Club Interview: “Alton Brown”
There have been [topics they wanted to do a show on but couldn’t] and there are, and most of those have to do with boundaries set by what Food Network wants to show and doesn’t want to show. You know, they’re not gonna let me do a show about rabbit, because they don’t want to think about killing the little bunnies. There probably won’t be a Good Eats episode on, you know, anything glandular.
LA Galaxy Blog: “Landon Donovan Named Honda Player of the Year and Player of the Decade”
In addition to being named the Player of the Year, Donovan was also named the Honda Player of the Decade. This honor comes as little surprise as he had won the Player of the Year award in six (2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009) of the last 10 years.
BBC Sport: “Republic face France in play-offs”
The Republic of Ireland will have to beat former World Cup winners France over two legs if they are to make it to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
Giovanni Trapattoni’s side drew the 1998 champions for the play-offs to be played on 14 and 18 November and will play at home first.
Cyclelicious: “Bikes On Board: Stuttgart cog railroad”
German commuter trains have rush hour restrictions for bikes on board that many Americans who travel by train and bike are familiar with. “Die Zacke” cog railroad between Marienplatz in South Stuttgart to Degerloch, however, features this fantastic platform just for bikes.
BBC News: “At the centre of time”
Without it international travel would be in turmoil and calling friends in faraway places at the right time impossible. Exactly 125 years after the Greenwich Meridian line was drawn, how and why did Britain become the centre of time?
San Bernardino Sun: “Mayor unveils two-story globe design for SBIA”
A spiffy two-story world globe was unveiled Monday at San Bernardino International Airport as a symbol of world travel and sophistication in the city’s plans.
The 19-foot objet d’art sits inside a 30-foot-wide fountain in front of the soon-to-be-completed passenger terminal on Leland Norton Way, said Steve Silver of TranSystems, who designed and engineered the globe.
NY Times: “One Reporter’s Lonely Beat, Witnessing Executions “
Of all the consequences of shrinking newsrooms, one of the oddest is this: Fewer journalists are available to watch people die. But Michael Graczyk has witnessed more than 300 deaths, and many of those were people he had come to know.
Jacket Copy: “Happy birthday, Ursula K. Leguin”
Today is Ursula K. Le Guin’s 80th birthday. The multiple-award-winning writer is best known for “The Wizard of Earthsea” and is thought of for her science fiction, although she has crossed many boundaries.
[…] “I’m following Tolkien’s prescription for fantasy creation. You are making a world out of words, and the only thing that’s going to hold it together is its inner consistency.
“Writing science fiction and fantasy allow you to back off a little bit, to try to find the problems that always come back, that we never solve. Like gender relations, war — once there’s more than 50 of us living in one place we seem to have war.
If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats: “Heroes of American Literature #17”
John Steinbeck smoking and reading.
Phew! That’s it. And Firefox should be feeling leaner as well. :)
