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I made it over to Prospect Park on my Tuesday lunch hour for this Painted Bunting, which is getting more media coverage than other, rarer, birds ever do, basically because it is undeniably the most gaudily colored songbird in North America. Not mentioned is the fact that there is some doubt as to its origin. It’s been seen associating with a group of European Goldfinches, which are presumably escaped cage birds, and while it’s illegal to have native migratory birds as pets, there is a black market and adult male Painted Bunting would be highly desirable; vagrants are typically first year birds with a drab, all green plumage. Still, it is not banded, and doesn’t show obvious signs of cage-wear on feathers or feet, so folks are leaning towards calling it legitimate.    


- alex 12-03-2015 7:34 am [link] [2 comments]

save st marks books / give books for christmas from SMB!


- bill 12-02-2015 11:08 am [link] [add a comment]

my powercord died today and i havent replaced it yet. runnin on fumes til tomorrow or who knows when.


- dave 11-28-2015 12:27 am [link] [4 comments]


oscar meyer weiner mobile


- steve 11-22-2015 4:20 am [link] [6 comments]

transparent aluminum


- steve 11-10-2015 6:29 am [link] [3 comments]


- dave 11-02-2015 11:34 pm [link] [1 ref] [1 comment]

 

As the sun set on Wednesday, July 13, 1977, a series of lightning strikes on power lines and infrastructure led to a cascade of shutdowns, overloads and failures. An hour after the first strike, the entire Con Edison system powering New York City shut down completely.


- dave 11-02-2015 10:48 pm [link] [add a comment]

if your pumpkin doesnt look like this, you hate your children.


- dave 10-31-2015 7:23 pm [link] [1 comment]

a history of Tompkins Square Park.

I remember the bandshell. 1st location for Wigstock, etc.


- bill 10-29-2015 7:02 am [link] [1 ref] [add a comment]

better than chocolate?


- steve 10-18-2015 3:30 am [link] [add a comment]

mall ninja of bleecker st


- steve 10-17-2015 1:44 pm [link] [add a comment]

the plumbing clusterfuck continues. i cant go into it too much without raising my blood pressure to alarming heights, but on the upside i did manage to ruin the day of my upstairs neighbors even more than mine, and, of course, misery loves company. all the plumber (thats probably to generous a title) managed to do to them was promise to come around one and not show up til six, then buy the wrong sized toilet, get into a fight about carving out room in the back wall in an attempt to squeeze it in, and then once he put there original one back, set off some serious waterworks in my apartment when they tested it out. meaning he literally made whatever was wrong much much worse.

so just when he thought he was done for the night around 10 he had to come down to my place and he maybe identified the source of the leak in a corroded pipe which he then somehow temporarily patched. that was another four hours which included cleaning and carting away two large bags of rubble necessary to remove from the ceiling to reach the pipe.

and where do we stand? well, my neighbor was fed up and somewhat drunkenly berated him. i wasnt exactly going to tell him to calm down but i dont know how helpful it was. but unlike me he is ready to put his money where his mouth is. he doesnt want the plumber to come back to his apt so hes ready to pay for a plumber. and i believe him but that doesnt solve the hole in my ceiling o nce they are through.

so, stay tuned.


- dave 10-17-2015 4:00 am [link] [9 comments]

Roughly 100,825,272,791 people have ever died.


- dave 10-15-2015 9:41 pm [link] [1 comment]


- dave 10-15-2015 10:29 am [link] [add a comment]

mid-century la


- dave 10-14-2015 1:51 am [link] [add a comment]

im a head scarf and raccoon shy of devolving into grey gardens around here. and truth be told, a head scarf would be an improvement.


- dave 10-13-2015 11:14 am [link] [4 comments]

For L.M.
http://i.imgur.com/rSvdS0c.gifv

In case you don't follow US politics, that's Jeb Bush, the "smart one".


- mark 10-09-2015 3:49 am [link] [add a comment]

watching E.O.Wilson - Of Ants and Men 

 


- bill 10-03-2015 8:43 pm [link] [1 ref] [add a comment]

I found a workaround to the spell check issue with the fancy, new text entry boxes. (Chrome and Firefox won't spell check the text.) If I click on "source", the browsers suddenly remember how to do the squiggly red underline thing.


- mark 10-01-2015 2:43 am [link] [add a comment]


- dave 9-30-2015 11:41 pm [link] [3 comments]

Harry Smith's paper airplane collection


- steve 9-30-2015 3:55 am [link] [3 comments]


- mark 9-24-2015 2:59 pm [link] [1 ref] [1 comment]

For MB:

(And yes, the bottom image is spatially distorted.)


- mark 9-21-2015 7:15 pm [link] [add a comment]

After years of sitting vacant, the iconic TWA terminal at JFK Airport will become a hotel.


- dave 9-19-2015 4:16 pm [link] [1 ref] [1 comment]

A Word A Day -- esprit d'escalier


- dave 9-18-2015 2:32 pm [link] [add a comment]