so freaking good

Before tip-off on Sunday of all of the Christmas games, the NBA dropped a gem of a commercial on the world. Thanks, NBA.

nErD aLeRt!

The park here, called Madrid Río, has largely been finished. More than six miles long, it transforms a formerly neglected area in the middle of Spain’s capital. Its creation, in four years, atop a complex network of tunnels dug to bury an intrusive highway, also rejuvenates a long-lost stretch of the Manzanares River, and in so doing knits together neighborhoods that the highway had cut off from the city center.

All around the world, highways are being torn down and waterfronts reclaimed; decades of thinking about cars and cities reversed; new public spaces created.

Most famously, in beauty-mad San Francisco, the 1989 earthquake overcame years of entrenched thinking: the Embarcadero Freeway was taken down, which reconnected the city with its now glorious waterfront. In Seoul, the removal of a stretch of highway along the now-revived Gaecheon stream has made room for a five-mile-long recreation area called Cheonggyecheon. In Milwaukee, the destruction of the Park East freeway spur has liberated acres of downtown for parks and neighborhood development. Even the nearly-30-year, bank-busting Big Dig fiasco made Boston a better place by tunneling a downtown highway, though it was obviously nobody’s idea of a stellar urban redevelopment project.

In New York, city and state officials are inching closer to tearing down the Sheridan Expressway, a mile-and-a-quarter-long gash in the South Bronx connecting the Bruckner and Cross Bronx Expressways, perhaps to replace it with homes, commercial spaces, playgrounds, swimming pools and soccer fields arrayed along the Bronx River.

But Madrid Río is a project whose audacity and scale, following the urban renewal successes of Barcelona, Spain’s civic trendsetter, can bring to a New Yorker’s mind the legacy of the street-grid plan, which this year celebrates its 200th anniversary. That’s because the park belongs to a larger transformation that includes the construction of dozens of new metro and light-rail stations that link far-flung, disconnected and often poor districts on Madrid’s outskirts to downtown. (via)

gabe?

post-christmas music news round-up

i came back to the internet this morning to find a bunch of exciting things. let's get started.

you can stream or download the weeknd's third mixtape, echoes of silence. i downloaded this on my dad's computer to listen to while wrapping presents. i hope he enjoys it!


i can not understand how "we bought a zoo" can possibly ever be worth watching, but matt damon and kate winslet both are in it (a bear, too), and jonsi wrote a song for the soundtrack, accompanied by this cute video, so maybe i should give it a chance? idts.


drizzy and weezy made this video for us. do you have a car? then you should have batting glurves. y.o.l.o., ya know?


would you like to hear a new nicki minaj track called "stupid hoe"? i don't really care for it.


i found this song on jenny cook's fb, and it is suuuuper good. it is like some peter gabriel shit. i lurve it. also, watch this kimbra video. i think oh land just beat her to the punch.

and we're done.

your annual pop-music mash-up

25 songs of 2011.

welcome back from christmas.

hope you had a great one! mine was like this.

that's me in the red coat, and the kitty is jazzy and the pony is stanley. and sammi sweetheart is outside with muddy pawz.

keeks and i can't wait to see this movie

jk, i don't want to see it.

beary christmas y'all!

nerd alert: woooaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

Google has a voice recognition search option and it's really good.

it's the little microphone!

 you click it and say what you want and it works!

 that ish bray!

HAPPY BEARTHDIE KEEEEKERS!!!!

HAVE SOME QUESO DIP FOR ME!!!11!1

gulpdate

That yale coach that I wrote about fired himself yesterday because he lied about everything.

i have absolutely been on the train with this guy before.

he would not shut up.

in related news:

somehow we missed this.

and also this:

plantation house | slave market

the new york times' DISUNION blog brings us a tour of the abandoned civil war-era architecture across the south:

Perhaps the most famous house of 1861 was, by July of that year, no longer standing. The home, called Spring Hill, belonged to Judith Henry, an invalid widow, and stood on a hill overlooking Bull Run. In the battle that engulfed the fields around Spring Hill on July 21, Henry was killed and her home destroyed, save for a few remnant beams and a section of chimney.

Over the next four years of war, countless thousands of homes, from grand mansions to decrepit shacks, would be damaged or destroyed. Many others were simply abandoned by fleeing families, never to be reclaimed. What was left behind was a landscape of human ruin, some of it still standing today, 150 years later. (via)

the mister erin diaries

you might remember that GPP acquired a new pet over the weekend. a betta fish was entered into the filthy eskimo steal at our christmas brunch, and DJV negotiated a deal with his owner to let him stay with us. last night, i realized that mister erin was a little sluggish, and his bowl-water was a little dirty, so i switched his water out. while doing so, i found the tiniest little diary hidden under some rocks. i just have to share it with you....

december 18, 2011

hi diary, 

sorry it's been so long since i last wrote. it's been a hectic couple of days! after being taken from the prison i was born into and carried around in the dark for what seemed like an eternity, i've landed in a place that seems pretty nice. it's called GPP, and it's where my new daddy lives. his name's DJV, and i love him so much. there were a lot of people around when my hood was removed, but i know i belong to him because i overheard him begging someone if he could keep me. i have excellent hearing. a lot of people don't know that about siamese fighting fish. anyway, i feel really lucky to have finally found my forever home. also, i'm pretty sure i imprinted on him, because he's all i care about anymore. i can't wait to see what the future with my new dad brings!

optimistically yours,
mister erin

............................................................

december 19, 2011

oh gosh diary,

something's wrong. i haven't seen my daddy in a day or two, which, coincidentally, is how long it's been since i've eaten anything. my tummy really hurts and i'm starting to get really worried. where is he?! 

scared2death,
mister erin

..........................................................

december 20, 2011

dear diary,

well, good news and bad news. i'll start with the good, as that part's pretty short. last night, a nice lady came home and checked on me. she dropped some food in my bowl, and i had my first meal in two days. it was so delicious! the bad news is that i still haven't seen dad. it's all i can do to keep my heart from breaking with each passing minute. i mean, he could've at least said goodbye. so far, i've found enough strength to resist my urges to find a sharp piece of gravel. we both know i can't start cutting again. more bad news: my water's getting pretty murky. and i'm starting to feel a little sick. i'm sure it's nothing too serious. i'm hungry, too. but there's no food. maybe i'll just take a little nap. 

so sleepy,
mister erin

...........................................................

december 21, 2011

good morning diary,

just wanted to update you, in case you were worrying. last night, things got pretty bad. i don't remember much except that just as i was relaxing into my pink tree branches, slipping off into what was sure to be the sweet sleep of death, that nice lady showed up again. she seemed a little drunk, but she managed to pop some more food into my bowl. i tried my best to eat it. i really want to make her proud of me, but i just couldn't shake the feeling of complete and utter despair and worthlessness left by my absent father. she must've noticed that things weren't going well for me, because she changed my dirty water out for some fresh clean water. it's nice to be cared for again, but i really just miss my dad so much.

depressed,
mister erin

ps - i started listening to rap music today.

just keep swimming, mister erin!

QTs