Standing Dude

I caught a proud baby standing up all by himself (in his crib) the other morning.  He was very proud of himself.

While this photo may make it look like we keep Miles in a nursery with all the trappings of a 1930's Lithuanian orphanage, he actually has a hip and stylish room.

Five Sports That Should Be Represented By Those Adhesive "Ball Smashed Through My Windshield" Things*

 - dressage
 - curling
 - Nascar
 - caber tossing
 - arm wrestling

(* you know those things...the new "support our overseas magnetic ribbon manufacturers" magnetic ribbons)

Rod Beck, RIP.

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The Encyclopedia Of Life

The Encyclopedia of Life is one of the more beautiful things (in message as well as design) I have seen in quite some time.

Conceived, in part, by biologist E. O. Wilson (as his TED Prize wish...watch the video and impassioned talk):

"...he makes a plea on behalf of his constituents, the insects and small creatures, to learn more about our biosphere. We know so little about nature, he says, that we're still discovering tiny organisms indispensable to life; yet we're still steadily destroying nature."

Happy Fathers Day to me!

Yay for Miles!

Five Questions Raised At Lunch

1.  If he had the cash, could a baby purchase a car?  Or at least test drive one?

2.  We are walking so far to this restaurant, why stop now?  Can we walk to Charlestown?

3.  Massachusetts is an OK state to live in terms of divorce settlements, but can we move to Croatia?

4.  Where is the blue cheese, and, for that matter, where is the ketchup?

5.  Are pants the cause of global warming?

Burial - Ghost Hardware

Jesus...new release from Burial on Hyperdub..."Ghost Hardware" - from Boomkat:

"'Ghost Hardware' provides another blurry peek into the mind of a musician who is seemingly unable to write anything other than astonishing music, producing outside the box, beyond expectations, without recourse to generic templates. The squashed punch of the rhythm here is accentuated by layers of grinding bass and aquatic percussion, midnight rave styles in a 2-step signature with a mournful undertone that's almost at odds with the propulsive trajectory it holds onto throughout. Simply amazing music - honed for the darkest of dancefloors, neon-lit bedsits and the wide-angled vistas of continental festival stages at one and the same time - quite some achievement."

With samples (which give me goosebumps)...

Tall baby

Miles had his 9-month check-up this morning:

"Holy s***, he's tall."

Apparently, he's in the 99th percentile for height, but (now that he's crawling and "leaning up") only 80-something-th percentile for weight.

The curse of the father.

Miles' New Favorite Game...

...tug-of-war!

Things That Probably Went Through Our Cat's Head As He Flipped Over His Entire Litterbox*

"I hate all that is in this world."

"Elbow?  Pancake twelve swimming.  Ha ha.  Forest.  Tuba hat green!"

"I can has a cheezburger."

"I am King Laserbutt, smiting my invisible enemies as they approach mine parapets of poo!"

"Well, that takes care of that"

(* this actually happened over a week ago, but, you know...all the news that is fit to print and all that.)

Wish you were here

"Onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the HiRISE camera offers unprecedented image quality, giving us a view of the Red Planet in a way never before seen. It's the most powerful camera ever to leave Earth's orbit."

An amazing site, with (massive) amazing images.  The detail and crispness of the images is absolutely staggering. (Via...)

IM IN UR CLAMPANTS

LOLCLAMPANTS

The Right Pedal's Concours d'Elegance

My friend David has an immense photoset from his recent trip to the Greenwich (CT) Concours d'Elegance...some highlights:

• A Facel Vega in, perhaps, the most amazing color on a car ever
• Gullwing Benzezeseses
• A Veyron
• A Lamborghini Jalpa (with matching picnic set)
• A beautiful BMW 508

Of course, the convergence of ludicrous automobilia in Greenwich, CT, isn't really a surprise:

"If the hedge-fund boom has a capital, it is Greenwich, a ritzy suburb of mansions and gated estates about 30 miles from Manhattan. More than 100 hedge funds -- private investment pools that cater to wealthy investors and institutions -- have set up shop here in the past few years, a sign of the industry's explosive growth. Greenwich-based hedge funds collectively manage more than $100 billion, about a tenth of the total invested in hedge funds world-wide."