There were the awesome sculptures in the wetlands bordering Highway 80 from Berkeley to Emeryville. The nice folks at the Poop dug up photos. Very cool.
Mother Jones published a list of songs that have been used to torture/interrogate detainees.
I bet former Rage Against the Machine band members unleashed a stream of unprintables when they heard they were on the list. Also, yet another example of people ignoring the real meaning of "Born in the USA".
And BARNEY? Sick.
A certain poetry to it...
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1) My Macbook's hard drive has died for the second time in a year.
2) I was told nearly a week ago that the replacement drive would be in in a day or so.
3) I was told yesterday that the drive should arrive today.
4) I just got off the phone with them after being told it did NOT arrive today and may not even arrive tomorrow.
5) They can't even do anything about it until it's been a week since the part was ordered.
Combine this with the huge cluster-fuck that was the iPhone 2.0 launch this weekend, and I start wondering whether perhaps I should stop recommending Apple products so enthusiastically to my friends and relatives. After all, they obviously can't handle the popularity.
GAH!
As I was watering my front yard, a party of women who were, shall we say, old enough to know better and then some, approached and unlocked their car which was parked in front of our house. One of them stood in front of the tree smoking, then proceeded to carelessly dash out her cigarette without making sure all of the sparks were extinguished. I could see embers smoldering among the roots. I ran over to stomp them out.
So I curtly told them to be more careful. There was a lot of "Oh, that was my friend who did that." "What?" but not really an apology. As they drove away, one of them said, "Thank you for being ecologically conscious," and I replied, "Thank you for not burning down my home!"
Call me a curmudgeon, but a house caught on fire up the street from my childhood home when I was three or four and I've never forgotten it, not to mention all the warnings about fire danger at the moment. And it's bad enough making people smell your smoke when you're still enjoying your cigarette - the least you can do is make sure it's properly put out when you're done!
Did I really need to explain this to a woman old enough to be my mother?
A couple of years ago I mentioned the closing of Cody's Books on Telegraph Avenue. At the time, there was still the other location on Fourth Street in Berkeley. Not quite the same, but it was still a pleasant place to go buy books. It had parking nearby, and the Cody's aura still clung to it somehow.
Despite the parking, things did not go well for that store either. When I went shopping there over Christmas, I noticed that the selection somehow seemed diminished and spotty. So when the owners announced that they were shuttering this location and moving to a smaller space, I wasn't totally surprised.
But their choice of location — a storefront in downtown Berkeley with no dedicated parking, which had seen more of its fair share of failed businesses over the years, and which wasn't going to have a computer/technical books section, despite being near the U.C. Berkeley campus — seemed bizarre from the outset.
And sure enough, as of June 20, Cody's is no more.
Yesterday I drove to Border's Books in Emeryville to pick up a couple of design/computer books. There are basically no independent alternatives in the East Bay now for technical books. Stacey's Books is still in the city, but not convenient for me to get to most days. Border's is HUGE, but definitely lacks soul.
I don't think all independent bookstores are in danger, necessarily. There's a fabulous one, Spectator Books, just down the street from us. I do a lot of gift and impulse buying there. But the super-stores are now left to the chains, or online...
