Crazed Teacups

The G.O. Team

I just saw this great take on the Shepard Fairey 'Obey' graphic while walking home the other day.

Did It Have a Foundation?

I've never seen anything like this.  An entire 13-story building in Shanghai that was under construction just... toppled over.  And no one seems to know why.  Sadly, there was one fatality, but it's amazing there weren't more.

More photos here.  (Thanks, once again, to David for the link.)

Haul of Fame

This is pure genius: the Johnson County Library in Overland Park, Kansas, has tricked out their trucks to "remind us of the iconic nature" of some of these great books. Read more about their efforts here.  (Thanks to David for the link.)

Update on Wimbledon Chauvinism

Yesterday, I posted an egregious quote from a Wimbledon spokesman, stating that how a woman looked helped define whether or not she was scheduled to play on Centre Court.  It's nice to see some backlash from this, as compiled by Sports Business Daily:

"That is an extraordinary thing to do. ... It is absolutely and totally inappropriate. We are talking about Wimbledon, the holiest place there is in tennis. It is absolutely absurd and I cannot believe it is the case.  I can absolutely swear that at the Australian Open, it has only ever been done on the quality of the tennis."

- John Alexander, former Australian Federation Cup captain

"Are the 'Page Three' editors now making the decisions for the Wimbledon play committee?"

- ESPN's Michael Wilbon

And I admit I loved this one, too:

"This is outrageous. Since when is Serena not hot?"

- Bob Ryan, Boston Globe columnist

Twitter in 1935

In 1935, London installed 'notificators', which were like a vending machine... but for personal messages.  A person wrote a small message on a continuous strip of paper, inserts some coins, and the message rolls up behind a glass panel, where it will stay on view for two hours. 

(Thanks to LDN's twitter feed, who linked to boingboing for this story.)

Quote of the Day

In moderation, all pleasures are by nature good for one’s well-being. That being said, I have a huge weakness for fried dough in large quantities—beignets, Chinese cruellers, sopapillas—if it’s fried and contains flour, I’m there.

- Chichi Wang, food blogger and new intern at Serious Eats

Banksy Paintballed

A couple of Banksy's graffiti works around his hometown of Bristol got paintballed last week.  I read through the whole BBC article and was about to click off when I thought, wait a minute.... And I went back and reread this:

Businessman Albert Murphy, Conservative councillor for Avonmouth, said he was using his own cherry picker to clean the Park Street work.

"The council won't do it because they haven't got the facilities to do it and we have.

"We're going to remove the biodegradable paint first and then it can be cleaned off with soapy water and then we'll start on the picture.

"I'll do it myself, there's no cost to the council whatsoever."

Businessman Albert Murphy, offering to clean up a graffiti artist's mural?  A Conservative councillor, agreeing to pay for the clean-up out of his own pocket?  I knew that the people (and the council) of Bristol had embraced his work, but that's really something.

A 13yo Tries Out a Walkman

BBC magazine asked a 13-year-old to try out a Sony Walkman and compare it to an iPod.  "It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape," he wrote.  There was also this:

...The need for changing tapes is bothersome in itself. The tapes which I had could only hold around 12 tracks each, a fraction of the capacity of the smallest iPod.

Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?

This article is hilarious.

Quote of the Day

We gathered near my truck, 40 seniors, my English students, on the last Monday of their high school careers. The First Annual Newport High School Senior Walk was about to begin. We would take to the holy sand and freely recreate on what former Oregon Governor Oswald West called "our great birthright" — Oregon's publicly owned beaches. These students might have paid $3.50 for latte on their way here but they didn't have to pay a cent to walk on an ocean beach.

They knew the story. They knew how decades ago West and other politicians steered Oregon on a different course, a better course, to protect beaches from privatization. And here these Oregonians were, most of them half asleep, primed to exercise their great birthright.

- Matt Love, Newport High School English teacher, in a lovely Powell's Blog entry about gathering his seniors together at 5:30 in the morning to celebrate their impending graduation (and, of course, Oregon beaches)

Margravial Opera House

Stephen Fry has been tweeting on his trip to Germany, which he has embarked upon for a BBC documentary on Wagner.  This morning, he sent out a photo of the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth that was so extraordinary I had to do a bit of research.  It opened in 1748 - 28 years before we were officially a country, and over 40 years before the French Revolution. This site says it is the only opera house preserved in its original condition north of the Alps.  Quite something.