From the monthly archives:

June 2007

Scenes From a Vacation: Brownie Thing!

by Joey deVilla on June 30, 2007

On our first day of vacation, the Ginger Ninja and I enjoyed a simple but tasty dessert that her mom makes: Brownie Thing, which is simply ice cream between two sheets of homemade brownies. It’s 81 square inches of dessert heaven:

Brownie Thing

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It was good to see Berkman Center fellow and Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman at the Berkman Center luncheon. I brought presents for him and his wife Rachel (she, along with AKMA, officiated at the Ginger Ninja’s and my wedding) — Tucows squishy cows. He wasted no time in turning them into fashion accessories:

Ethan Zuckerman with Tucows squishy cows on his shoulders.

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After catching danah boyd’s “My Friends, MySpace” presentation at the Berkman Center at Harvard, the Ginger Ninja and I made our way to an old hangout during her days there: Grendel’s Den, a nice little pub in Harvard Square.

Joey deVilla and accordion at Grendel’s Den, Harvard Square

We took a corner table and caught up with all sorts of friends — from Wendy’s high school days, her days at a dot-com and from the Berkman Center. A friend of mine dropped by too — Mike Zole, creator of one of my favourite webcomics, the now-defunct Death to the Extremist.

Among other things, Mike’s a musician, and he brought his accordion with him, which meant only one thing: Jam session!

Joey deVilla and Mike Zole playing accordions at Grendel’s Den, Harvard Square.

Joey deVilla playing accordion at Grendel’s Den, Harvard Square.

Mike Zole playing accordion at Grendel’s Den, Harvard Square.

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Scenes From a Vacation: Rein’s Deli

by Joey deVilla on June 30, 2007

On the way from Boston to Hartford, the Ginger Ninja and I stopped for lunch in Vernon to enjoy the food of her people at Rein’s Deli

Rein’s Deli exterior

As with the Clam Box, this is much better road food than your typical fast food place will serve you. I opted for a tongue-and-swiss sandwich on rye with seeds, and shared some potato pancakes, baked beans and a lot of homemade pickles (which they serve free of charge).

Rein’s Deli exterior

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Scenes From a Vacation: The Clam Box

by Joey deVilla on June 30, 2007

While hanging out in the Boston area last week, the Ginger Ninja’s mom took us to The Clam Box in Ipswitch. The building was built to look just like a clam box, so I couldn’t resist taking photos…

Exterior of the “Clam Box” restaurant, Ipswitch, Massachusetts.

Exterior of the “Clam Box” restaurant, Ipswitch, Massachusetts.

Exterior of the “Clam Box” restaurant, Ipswitch, Massachusetts.

The food at the Clam Box is classic New England fried seafood: shrimp, scallops, fish and of course, clams. You can eat in their dining room or on the picnic tables outside. You probably shouldn’t eat this stuff — it’s all deep fried — every day, but as a special treat, it’s far better road food than your typical fast food joint.

Here’s what I had for dinner: the whole fried clams platter, with a clam cake on the side…

My fried clam dinner with fries, cole slaw and clam cake.

If you ever pass through Ipswich, make sure you pass by the Clam Box.

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The “South Park” Characters, Reinterpreted

June 30, 2007

[via Reddit] I rather like these interpretations of the characters from South Park…
Click the picture to see it at full size.

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America: Still Number One

June 29, 2007

I’ve been a fan of The Economist since my last year of high school (a while back; it’s the year Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was released); it would be the magazine I’d point to if asked which publication was best aligned with my socio-politico-complexo-migraino worldview.
The cover editorial from the current issue, [...]

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Water Tricycle

June 29, 2007

I love this photo, and would love to have a water tricycle:
Click the photo to see it at full size.Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

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The Missing Piece

June 28, 2007

Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

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The Economist’s Cocaine Index

June 28, 2007

Here’s a chart from The Economist comparing per-gram cocaine prices around the world:
Click the graph to see the Economist article.
It would seem that it’s not just prescription drugs that are cheaper in Canada than in the U.S..
For an economic index that’s a little less illicit, check out the Economist’s [...]

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Kitty Fly-By

June 28, 2007

If you’ve got an idea for a caption for the photo below, please leave a comment!
Click the picture to see it at full size.Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

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The Post-Wedding Jam Session

June 28, 2007

The Party After the Party
I’ve got to tip my hat to my brother-in-law Andy and new sister-in-law Sue. Most newlyweds are happy to vanish into their room after the reception; they decided to throw an after-party. I like a good post-party party as much as the next free-wheeling accordion-playing bacchanalian bon vivant, but [...]

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And Finally, the News…

June 27, 2007

It may not be the Howard Beale “Mad as Hell” meltdown scene from the movie Network, but I’ll take it for now: here’s MSNBC anchor Mika Brzezinski refusing to cover the Paris Hilton non-story despite the prodding of her co-anchors and producer. Really, people, of all the things with which we should concern ourselves, that [...]

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The Nirvana “Nevermind” Baby is 15?!

June 26, 2007

The year was 1991, and as a DJ at Crazy Go Nuts University, I was getting a lot of mileage out of this album:

Guess what: Spencer Elden, the baby on the album cover, is now 15 years old.

[via Reddit and The Striker Diary]

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“Oh Beautiful, for Retail Space, for Shopping Elbow Room…”

June 26, 2007

Here’s a graph from a blog posting by Jim “Long Emergency” Kunstler titled Peak Suburbia comparing the retail space per person in the U.S., Sweden, the U.K., France and Italy. If the data on which this graph is based is correct, Americans have 6 times more retail space than the Swedes, 8 times that of [...]

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Simplified Interstate System Map

June 26, 2007

For those of you who do a lot of road-tripping in the U.S., here’s something that you might find interesting — a map of the U.S. Interstate highway system, simplified in a fashion similar to many subway maps:
Click the map to see it at full size.Map courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
This map is [...]

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