Stray Hawkeye

My blog turns two today and I’ve upgraded a bit from last year’s birthday combo – this year, I sprung for birthday Swiss Cake Rolls- extra convenient as they come two to a package.  And just what we need, a two year old toddler of a blog all hyped up on sugar running around biting people.

I kind of feel like I’m supposed to say something sentimental here, but sentimental just isn’t something I do real well.  Mostly, I’ve enjoyed sharing stuff that I think is cool/interesting/novel/insightful/clever/etc, and it’s gratifying to know a bunch of strangers out there (and a few people I know, too) stop by now and then and take the time to read what I’ve put up.

So, in the interest of keeping things, well, interesting, it’s time for my annual appeal for you to chime in-  What do you like around here?  Which posts make you go “dear god not this again”?  Favorite topics?  Favorite formats (list of links, link and commentary, two random things that are related in my mind, pictures, stories, musings, etc, etc)?  Things you love seeing links to?  Things you love reading commentary about?  Things you hate reading commentary about and would just prefer the link and get out of my way thank you very much?  Preferences for videos, music, short articles, long articles, reference to whole other sites, etc?

It’s not that I’m going to completely re-formulate the site to be all lolcats all the time, or to be a series of in depth articles on the role of Constitutional law in modern political dialog (though don’t be surprised if either pops up from time to time).  But, at the moment I have so much stuff bookmarked and little notes scribbled down of things to write about that I’m pretty sure I could blog as a full time job for the foreseeable future (aside from that no money part, and who would buy my blog Swiss Cake Rolls then?) and not really run out of material I’d like to post.  So, I don’t have any problem with giving priority to any given realm, topic, format, etc when things are slow.  You’ll still be getting whatever I happen to find interesting that day, but it’s a chance to influence which one of the 10 interesting things that I come across that day I blog about, and which 9 I bookmark to blog about later.  If you’re new around here and you’d like to get a feel for the place, there’s a little over 450 posts in the archives now, and the tags are a fairly good way to get a flavor of what I tend to post a lot about.

Also, for some of the ones people have mentioned as liking in the past, I have a vague idea for the next post in the Dino Saga, but I need to come up with a bit more of a plot wrapper around it before I start really putting it together.  Also, Free Idea Friday will be making a come back at some point here, I just need to get around to writing up a couple of them in a form other than the jumbled notes I scribble when they occur to me.  I’ve also been waffling a bit on a few of them on whether to write them up, or actually just take some of the time I’d spend blogging about them and actually do a couple of the smaller ones.

Anyway, thoughts, suggestions?

For the last several months, one of my sisters has been on a serious fitness kick.  Not like a, “I’m going to run a 5K by the end of summer,” or, “I’m only going to eat fast food twice a week,” kind of fitness kick.  We’re talking regular sessions with a personal trainer, weight lifting, track the exact composition of everything you eat, bulk up, and maybe learn some martial arts style fitness kick.  Maybe “fitness kick” isn’t even really the right term for it.  “Get in awesome shape quest”?  “Fitness rampage”?  Something like that.

At any rate, along with all the weight lifting and muscle building, she’s gotten pretty big on protein shakes and whey powder and the like.  We went on a brief vacation, and one of the first things we did after getting there was stop by a vitamin store to get some whey powder.  This, of course, lead to me making fun of her for the rest of the trip (this is how my family shows affection, we mock each other pretty much all the time).  In particular, it made me think of the South Park episode where Cartman decides he’s going to get totally buff:

So he gets a bunch of “Weight Gain 4000″, and gets, well, he ends up like this (starts about 20 seconds in):

The full episode is here.

So, of course, every time my sister made a protein shake, or asked if it was time for dinner yet, I would reply, “Beefcake. BEEFCAKE!”.  This was also accompanied by the Tim Tebow drinking game – while watch college football at any point in the last season, drink any time the announcers mention Tim Tebow.  Two if he’s not on the field at the time.  Three if neither of the teams playing in the game you’re watching is Florida.  You get trashed, fast.

Anyway, after the trip, my sister’s job was getting her down, so I thought I’d send her a care package.  What did I think of?  Well, I thought I’d get a variety of protein bars so she could try out some different kinds, maybe a few she hadn’t had before:

And of course, we can’t show affection without some mocking thrown in, so, while I was at it, I cut a couple of sheets of paper in half and made a few custom labels:

After all, the labels make it easier to put stamps on them…

So I put her address on the back of the labels like the usual ingredients / nutritional facts label, and went to the post office to get the correct postage for each.  The post lady working weighed each one, and then put elaborate combinations of 5 or 6 stamps on each to get the correct amount, to the penny, for each of the four, including mixing up two the weights and going back and doing them over, until basically the entire back of each of them was covered in stamps.  The people behind me in line totally loved me by time I left.  I then mailed them off, one at a time, over the course of a little over a week.

Pretty sure I should turn this into a side business.

Beefcake.  BEEFCAKE!!!!

• Martha Steward with a 15 foot long hot dog.
• And, via Make, proof that Martha Steward eats babies.  I mean seriously, the one that’s a pie comes with a knife?!?!  The Caesar salad kid knows what’s up.
  

I came across this post on Swissmiss about a company called Nutcase Helmets (their website seems a little hit or miss for actually coming up) that makes really cool looking hard shell bike helmets.  And with a name like Nutcase, and making hard shelled bike helmets, an idea occurred to me for a bike helmet that I think would be really funny (your sense of humor may vary).

I’d like to see a bike helmet that looks like a giant walnut shell.  You could even make it the sporty kind with vents to have the bumpy texture of an actual walnut shell, and the rounded front and slightly tapered back would be the right shape too.  And then you could look like when a cartoon mouse is riding a motorcycle or a race car and they have buttons for wheels, and match sticks for handle bars, and a walnut shell for a helmet.  For that matter, you could make a whole custom bike to go with the helmet so it would look like the whole thing was made out of over-sized tiny things – button wheels, match stick handle bars, a walnut helmet, a pleasantly ironic hamster wheel for the gears, toothpick pipes, a thumb tack seat (pointy part down!!), clothespin brakes, the whole deal.  Insert your own gag about joining / leaving the rat race here.  In short:

This is a part of the dino saga, if it doesn’t make any sense, read these.

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After a good night’s sleep, we got up early to go tailgating.  Okay, not that early, it was an 8:00 PM game, but the point here is we went tailgating, and Parker got things started off right.

Does anyone else ever wonder if the beer (Land Shark) was named after this really old Saturday Night Live skit, and for that matter, if they had this particular clip in mind when they got naming right for the stadium where the Dolphins play?

No? Just me? Okay, moving on with tailgating then…

A few hours of tailgating later, night falls, and we learn that Parker can apparently hold his beer substantially better than Sinclair.

Yes, Parker was also standing on the car.  Life lesson?  Never buy a used car that was a rental.  Ever.

So, it was getting closer to game time, and we decided to head into Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin/Land Shark/Sun Life Stadium, up the giant spiraling corkscrew ramp, which gives a pretty good view of the tailgating festivities.

Now you may be saying, “Kearn, those last two pictures don’t have Parker in them at all, and tailgating seemed to go by rather quickly.”  Did I mention we were tailgating, and I was drinking?  Good, now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d like to point out that arepas may be the best drunk food ever.  It’s like you took cornbread, but made it into a sort of pancake form, and then once that was cooked, you heated it up on a grill with cheese (um, a kind that’s white, I have no idea which kind) between two of these cornbread pancake things until it was all gooey and warm.  Delicious.  They serve them at Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphin/Land Shark/Sun Life Stadium.  Anyway, after that delicious break, we made it into the stadium, and back to Parker.  Luckily we left ourselves plenty of time to get to our seats.

“To be in the Hawkeye section, yes.  And to be on about the 45 yard line on the Hawkeye side, absolutely.”

Now, you may notice that between those two pictures, Georgia Tech went about 40 yards on offense.  This was basically the only time this happened during the game.  This was also basically the only time Parker was watching.  Now, I tend to not be too superstitious, but this was enough to make me convince Parker to stay in my pocket for the rest of the game, thus the lack of more game pictures with him.  Once it was safe again, he came came out to watch some more.

This is a part of the larger dino saga, if it doesn’t make any sense, read these.

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After our time on the beach, Parker and I decided to explore the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall in South Beach.  We were a little slow getting there, as Parker decided to stop for a snack.

And of course the bushes are always greener on the other side of the pedestrian walk way, so, we had to try those too.

I let Parker take all the time he want eating those bushes.  “Aren’t plants delicious Parker?”

“Phew, good.”

“What’s that Kearn?”

“Oh, nothing.”

South Beach – where even the mannequins have implants.

Let it be noted that the store Parker is posing in front of in this picture was selling Hawkeye gear.  And only Hawkeye gear.  No general sports merchandise.  Just Iowa Hawkeye clothes and memorabilia, and nothing else.  In Miami.  There was absolutely no Georgia Tech (the other team in the Orange Bowl) stuff, or any other store like it selling Georgia Tech stuff.  And it wasn’t a sports store that just rotates through whatever team is visiting for whatever game – it was an empty store front on Saturday, it was a full fledged Hawkeye store on Monday.  Apparently word gets out about how well our fans travel.

We had walked a ways, so Parker grabbed another snack.

“And you’re sure you’re okay with just eating plants, right Parker?”

“Oh, good.  I mean, I think we can find you something to drink.  How about that fountain over there?”

So we kept walking down to the end of the block, until finally we found…

After Parker had his fill, we decided to head back to the hotel and relax for a while.  We wanted to be well rested for tailgating the next day, so we decided to turn in early.  I tucked Parker into his little dino bunk…

And we slept with dreams of Hawkeye bowl wins in our heads.

Not to be confused with previous Free Idea Friday Cold Beer, this would be a website that lists bars, and their beer prices, only.  No pictures, no reviews or editorials.  No descriptions of the crowd that gathers there and how cool/trendy/hipster/tattooed/townie/gay bar/dance club/meat market/dive/etc it is.  Just a list of what beers the bar serves.  It would also need to note which are on tap, in bottles, and in cans, and the price of each.  It should also list if the bar ever charges a cover charge.

I’m a little up in the air still on if specials should be noted, or if it should just be the maximum price you will ever pay for a given beer at a given bar.  I’m also a little up in the air on if it should include other types of drinks they have (cider, wine, cocktails, shots), and if so, do you limit it to what’s on the menu, or whatever they’ll make.  I would lean towards including all alcohol that’s listed on the menu (if there is one), and noting specials but not real prominently.

The website should also allow you to search by distance from a given location, by which bars have a particular beer (for instance, Guinness on tap, PBR in a 20 oz can, Fat Tire in a bottle, etc), price for a given beer, and any combination of the above (for instance, find a bar within a mile that has Guinness on tap for $5 or less, doesn’t serve 20oz’s of PBR, and has some kind of hard cider).

I think this would be interesting not only as a great way to find a cheap place to drink with your friends and a handy way to find place that serve any obscure beers you may like, but also for how much you could tell about a place by what beers they have there and the price of each.

Make a refrigerator that consists of several horizontal draws, kind of like a clothes dresser. This would keep the cold air in better when you open it because the cold air would attempt to go down, but is stuck in the drawer, so it can’t pour out the bottom like in a normal fridge. It would also only expose a small amount to the fridge to heat, so when you open it, at worst you’re only letting out about a fifth of the cold air. Air could circulate between drawers through the rear of each, allowing for one cooling unit, and each could be sealed off pretty simply when they open.

This design would also make it easier to clean (take out one drawer at a time without needing to let the whole thing warm up). It would also help eliminate the waste of having empty space at the back of shelves, and letting cold air out as you try to dig to the back of a shelf looking for something.

You could also then adapt the idea so that the fridge could be more horizontal that vertical (maybe 6 feet wide with 3 columns of drawers, and a couple of feet tall) so you wouldn’t need to bend down to get to the bottom, or stand on your tip toes to see the back of the top shelf.  This would take up some valuable counter level space in the kitchen (or could be just below counter level, as the food would be in drawers that you would still want to look down into), but the fridge is easily the most accessed part of any kitchen (except maybe the sink), so I think it justifies the space it would take.

It would also keep kids and pets from attempting to climb into the fridge every time you open it.

• The Bloomberg Way – A short quote, but I’m pretty sure it proves I will never write for, or most likely, enjoy reading anything from Bloomberg News, however, I admittedly don’t know all that much about them.
• I like Wendy’s logo / brand, in no small part because of their total lack of modern update.  And as ultra cheap fast food goes, it’s not bad.
• What do you call someone who compulsively stores jars full of baby poop in a freezer for over 30 years, adding to the collection on a regular basis?  Um, a scientist.  They apparently also go for fruit bat blow jobs.  And hell, while we’re at it, growing rabbit penises in a lab.  Because really, that’s what the world needs, more rabbit penises.
• Brawndo begins it’s assent to world power.  Here’s the commercial they reference in that article:
  
  And, of course, where to buy it.

Start a bar simply named “Cold Beer”.  Bonus points if it’s in Minnesota or an equally fridged state.

Yes, it’s the guy who does Mr Bean:

Make a show / podcast that features very, very basic, bare bones recipes. Things like how to make scrambles eggs in the microwave, or how to use a George Foreman grill to make a full meal. Also include some of the more creative / interesting, yet simple, recipes for single serving cooking. Think dorm room and bachelor cooking.  Call the show “Probably Edible”.

I know milk is more the standard, but have you ever tried dunking your Oreos in orange juice?  It’s pretty good.

• Cool cake 1 – This piano cake is clever and looks pretty easy to make. (Via Craftzine)
• Cool cake 2 – This Van Gogh cake is quite a bit more advanced, but really cool.  If you click through that one to the cake maker’s (megpi) Flickr portfolio, she has all sort of other cool ones too.  I especially like this peacock cake with accompanying cupcakes, and this UFO one- the cow detail is awesome.
• And, a cute, non-traditional penguin pumpkin for Halloween. (Via Craftzine)

So, I feel bad pointing out errors in web design publicly, because I completely realize how hard it is to get it right across all browsers, and operating systems, and all their different quirks.  This site admittedly has its bugs from time to time as I mess with it (just fixed one (I think) that’s been bugging me forever with IE where it says “to here” under the date on each post), and I’ve worked on plenty of sites at work that have had far larger issues.  However, for a really, really little spacing issue, that happens to line up just so, this one made me laugh, so I thought in good humor, I’d share it.

I was reading about the new Lyndale Tap House on Because Emily Says So, and it sounds absolutely delicious.  So, I clicked through to their website to see where exactly it is, so I can go some time.  And, on my particular computer, with my OS and web browser, and, in particular, whatever fonts I happen to have installed on my machine, the home page looks like this:

It looks fine in IE on Windows (the title is notably more narrow), in Firefox on Windows it’s wider but still okay, but in Firefox on Linux, well, I’m not sure that’s the image they’re going for, though sort of a nice overlay effect none the less.  And I really like the cow in the bottom corner.