architecture, bitch. believe that.

the 10 days of my birthday zooventure

oh haiye! it's me again. remember yesterday when i showed you the many talents of the red panda? i know.

today, we're going to talk about one of the best parts about the bronx zoo: low security. as you may or may not know, the bronx zoo has a little problem keeping their animals in the animal houses. without further ado, i present the zoo's most famous runaways...

please welcome....

a pEaHeN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! here she is, walking around on a car in one of the bronx's many thriving streetscapes.

and here she is, making a new friend. we do have a lot in common, i suppose.

in case you missed this story, catch up here. the best part is that she wasn't the first to escape her zoocage this year...

please welcome....

a KiNg cObRa!!!!!

a couple months before that stupid peahen got out, this thing escaped! as you can imagine, it was pretty scary for the entire city. we don't exactly have a lot of mongooses laying around. while he was out, he got his paws on an iphone and started a twitter, which he used to tell the world of his adventures, and which he apparently still maintains.

in the end, they found him sleeping at the zoo, just outside of his jail cell. idiot.

we are only 2 days away from the zooventure, and i just cannot WAIT!

something something facebook.

Apparently there is some loophole that revealed a bunch of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's fb photos. They are pretty boring with the exception of this one. Here he is with his lady at my favorite pizza place in the whole world.

It's called Pinocchio's and it's basically on Harvard campus and it is SO GOOD. Look at that whale eating pizza. You're a whale, dummy!

Two delicious slices for 3.95.

#yesplz

Lil P-Nut is a celebrity

he has a part in that new penguin movie, and his has this amazing single about having a crush on a 3 foot tall shorty. via.

uhhhh, what?

An American researcher at the Smithsonian Institution says he has found the world’s biggest bug on New Zealand’s Little Barrier Island. The insect, shown here eating a carrot, has a wing span of around 18 centimeters (7 inches) and weighs three times as much as a mouse. It was thought to be extinct after European settlers brought rats to New Zealand.
The giant weta bug was found by 53-year-old entomologist and photojournalist Mark Moffett, who has been called the Indiana Jones of Entomology by the National Geographic Society.

“Three of us walked the trails of this small island for two nights scanning the vegetation for a giant weta. We spent many hours with no luck finding any at all, before we saw her up in a tree,” he said.

However, Moffett did what a responsible explorer would do – he returned the bug right where he found it.

“She would have finished the carrot very quickly, but this is an extremely endangered species and we didn’t want to risk indigestion. After she had chewed a little I took this picture and we put her right back where we found her,” he said.

link!



Thanks Max and Brinley!

did you know...

...that newt gingrich has a gay half-sister?

"shrimp from hell"

It's called the Anomalocaris, which aptly translates from scientific lingo to the appropriate name: "strange shrimp." While scientists have previously found that this prehistoric shrimp's teeth-things may not have been that sharp, it does, apparently, have excellent vision. Specifically, it's "a gigantic primordial shrimp with pin-sharp vision," New Scientist informs, which complement its "formidable grasping claws, which allowed it to grab its prey and pull it into its mouth." Pretty scary indeed for, as one science press release writer wrote, a glorified "shrimp from hell." (via)

youtube classix

what is mr. polkabottomz doing?

this is my new friend that walks part of the way to work with me now. well, i've seen him twice this week, so i'm assuming it will become a regular thing. i named him mr. polkabottomz.

i also don't know for sure that he's a boy, and according to january jones, he's not. i'm not quite comfortable sexing him yet, but i'll let you know if/when i do.

i don't understand it...

...but i enjoyed looking at it.

A new app called Chromaroma has extended the logic of treating city life as a game to London's public transportation system. It allows users to track their journeys in technicolor visualizations, earning points for each trip throughout the transportation system. Every time Chromaroma players swipe their Oyster Card for access to the city's underground, the Tube, they earn points and update their location and movement on Chromaroma. Users can join a team to help "capture" a station, complete missions by checking in at places that represent strange moments in London's transit history—like the Tube station where talk-show host Jerry Springer was born (true story)—and maybe even connect with fellow passengers who are playing the game. At the very least, the app can spice up a drab commute and help people think about public transportation in new ways. Perhaps the coolest part is the way Chromaroma uses the data it collects to map a user's progress around the city. (via)

nashvillle = the tits.

here's a rolling stone feature about nashville being awesome.

thx patty!

WOAH!

take it easy, rick!

eating chipotle is ethical.

and also delicious.

Good food is a complicated topic. As is often the case, the best approach depends on your ethical priorities and personal constraints. Some animal-rights advocates emphasize the need to eat humanely raised meat; others hold out for vegetarianism or veganism. Environmentalists worry about pesticides, soil depletion, and the energy used in producing ingredients. Grad students get curious about plant-based proteins.

The interesting thing about Chipotle, the burrito and taco chain, is that it has tried to tackle all these goals and more. Its “Food with Integrity” philosophy calls for free-range meat, hormone-free dairy, and locally sourced produce when practical. For more than ten years, Chipotle has bought its pork through Niman Ranch, a sustainable farm based in California. As of last year, for example, all of the beef in its barbacoa is naturally raised, meaning that the cows are not treated with hormones or antibiotics, and they are fed an entirely vegetarian diet. (via)

well, all that did was make me hungry.

bon iver, workin' on his fitness.

The clip details the heartwarming story of Vernon's relationship with his personal trainer, Jeff Rogers ("I ran into Jeff [the trainer] at the Y... and he started showing me workouts we could do"). Vernon says he has a history of a back condition called sciatica (along with long-standing resentment towards the idea of working out), which Rogers has been helping him work through over the last two years. (via)