New Varietal

20070802-A
Originally uploaded by Heinrock

"Chabornet:" results when a four year-old assumes the wine ordering duties.

Sinergy

DSC01782
Originally uploaded by violet.blue

For 10+ years I've been driving by a spot in Costa Mesa where a sex shop (Condom Revolution) is right next door to a baby/kids' consignment store (Newport Kids). I'm a little embarrassed it took this long for the full force of the landlord's brilliance to occur to me.

Baby clothes
Originally uploaded by fui

A Modest Proposal For Immodest Amounts Of Mail

No Junk mail
Originally uploaded by catspyjamasnz

I've been on a campaign this year to wipe out our junk mail. I've opted out at the DMA. I've opted out of prescreened offers of credit and insurance. I've done Catalog Choice.org. Since all this seemed to have little effect, I've now set aside 15 minutes a day to call each and every outfit sending us junk mail and insist that they stop; if they're going to waste my time and fill up my garbage can (and our landfills), I'm going to tie up their service reps on matters having nothing to do with sales.

It occurs to me that if everyone did this, it might have a real impact. So the next time you're going to throw out your junk mail, ask yourself if you have a few minutes to call whoever sent it and tell them to stop. If enough people start visiting their phones before their garbage cans, it's the senders, for a change, who will find themselves knee deep in something they didn't ask for.

Handy Bits Of Nothing

A Posed Thought
Originally uploaded by jgmphotography

Things you might need to know:

• Tae Kwon Do uniform patches go on just as well with Krazy Glue as with thread (and seem to even endure the washing machine)
• Don't believe what this tells you; you can't take even one of them; trust me
• As a society, we are obsessed, to a level I had not realized was possible, with what our kids will do during the summer
• ABC News now routinely briefs bloggers via email about stories that are soon to air on the network
• 40 is the new Zero in Inbox Zero
• Aquarium biofilters that you're never supposed to replace can indeed get infected with nastiness and kill your fish
• Telling a child to stop something is the surest way to ensure he'll do it again (this knowledge can be used both defensively and offensively)
• What handy bits of nothing have you learned recently?

And something that's certainly not nothing: Doc is in the hospital and I join so many others in wishing him a speedy and full recovery.

Recountable

Mike Arrington Bobble Head
Originally uploaded by Somewhat Frank

I haven't yet figured out why, but for some reason watching HBO's Recount made me dream last night that I was working for Mike Arrington: doing legal research and building race cars. Really.

Watching Barack's speech. This guy's sooooo good.