August 31, 2011

243: Vancouver in Low Res

My weekend, abbreviated:

En route

The view from Stanley Park

Fountain at Queen Elizabeth Park

Boozy Scrabble at Guilt & Company


August 30, 2011

242: Homecoming

via Tumblr
Home from Canadian adventures!  Back to regularly scheduled lazy blogging on the morrow.

August 29, 2011

August 28, 2011

240: Express

via Tumblr
Coolest Potter-themed poster ever.

August 27, 2011

239: Citrus

via Tumblr
That orange couch, I must have it.

August 26, 2011

238: By the seaside

via Tumblr
Perhaps by now I have seen the Pacific Ocean from the Canadian coast!

August 25, 2011

237: Incommunicado

I'm off to Vancouver today, so it's even lazier blogs than usual until I get back.

via Tumblr
 See ya, America.

(Hopefully Blogger's scheduled-post feature will work.)

August 24, 2011

236: Danger

2010.
Beware angry, jagged, and sentient clouds.
(Xcel Energy caution tape.)

August 23, 2011

235: I feel the earth move under my feet

The only sign of earthquake we had here in Minnesota was the hashtag explosion on Twitter, but I feel I should do my small part to help disseminate these photos of D.C. Earthquake Devastation:



That is all.

August 22, 2011

234: All about me

What I wore to Saturday's wedding, because it was a darn good outfit, if I do say so myself.  (Although that straw clutch was practically in pieces by the end of the night.)

August 21, 2011

233: Wedding bells

It only took seven and half months, but I finally missed a day of blogging.  Of course, it was because I was at my friend Alysha's wedding, so I'm not too bothered by it.  I've known Alysha since we were about four years old, so it's a little surreal to see her married now, but she and her new husband, Shawn, are very happy, and I'm happy for them, and happy to have been there to see them tie the knot.  Congrats!

via Tumblr

August 19, 2011

231: Friday


Knitting, blogging.  I bet your Friday night isn't half this exciting!  I also made dinner for my grandparents (bratwurst and, er, quiche...look, I'm not a good cook, okay?) and watched some preseason football.  So...TGIF.

August 18, 2011

230: True Blah

via True Blood GIFs
Okay.  I finally saw Sunday's True Blood yesterday and it's official: I've completely reversed my previous position on this fourth season.  Amnesia-Eric was fun for a while, but now he's just bland and lame.  The whole Sookie/Eric relationship has gone from bizarre and amusing to saccharine and nauseating.  I spent most of the last episode making the same face as Alcide in that animation up top.  Pam, normally one of my favorite characters, has become juvenile and unlikable; neither Tommy Mickens nor his storyline has any redeeming value.  I want to punch Tara Thornton in the face whenever she opens her mouth, and I don't really care about Arlene and Terry's creepy baby.  Andy Bellefleur could be cut out of the show completely and I wouldn't notice.

There are a few improvements this season -- Sookie seems to have grown a backbone, for one thing -- and the Hoyt-Jessica-Jason storyline has some potential.  Bill's new role as a vampire king suits him very well, and his improved relationship with Jessica is nice to see.  But all told, I'm not fond of the witch plotline (though Fiona Shaw is as fantastic as ever), and I would rather they had skipped straight to jealous-werewolf-Debbie and the inevitable intrigue with Sookie, Alcide, and the wolf pack.  I do like that Alan Ball & Co. make changes as they adapt the Charlaine Harris novels into twelve-episode seasons, but I think they might be trying to shoehorn too many TV-plots into the book-plot that fans are expecting.

This season so far?  C-level work.  Try harder, guys.

August 17, 2011

229: Flashback

I included one of the photos from this set in yesterday's blog for my grandmother's birthday, but these two offer an interesting look at Minneapolis streets in the 1940s:

Above is my great-uncle, the late Albert "Pat" Hum (who later in life, owned Hum's Liquor on Lyndale Ave.) probably standing on either 5th Street or 3rd Avenue.  The building behind him appears to be the Qwest building.  It's almost impossible to find a modern-day street view equivalent for this photo because so many newer buildings have gone up in the last sixty years that it's hard to tell from which direction this was shot.

This photo has been fairly perplexing for years.  It appears to be in Northeast Minneapolis (where the family's laundry business was located), but no one has been able to pinpoint exactly where, and none of the "historical building" plaques were of any help.  I think I've figured out that this picture of my great-uncles Andy and Abie Hum was taken near the East Hennepin-University Ave intersection.


View Larger Map


See the buildings at the far right in the photo and at center in the street view?  They look similar, don't they?  It looks like the Spielberg's Food Market (as printed on the awning) was in the vicinity of Surdyk's or Panera's present-day location.  In any case, the difference between East Hennepin in the 1940s and today is incredible -- it looks like the street isn't even paved in the 1940s photo.

(We've been going through a lot of old photos recently, so I get to do some History Detectives-type work and satisfy my secret desire to be a sleuth.)

August 16, 2011

228: Ninety

Today is my grandma's 90th birthday.  She was born August 16, 1921, right here in Minnesota, a first-generation American whose parents came from Canton, China.  She and most of her siblings would later return to China, where she went to school, before returning to Minnesota to settle permanently.  Most of them still live here.
Grandma and three of her brothers outside their father's laundry in 1940s Minneapolis

In recent years, she's developed dementia, and there's not much left of the Grandma I lived with for over twenty years.  She struggles with mobility and doesn't remember some members of the extended family, and anyone who's had to help care for a family member with Alzheimer's or dementia knows how difficult things are for my mother, the primary caretaker.  Nevertheless, after a hospital stay over Christmas a few years ago, we're fortunate just to have Grandma still with us, celebrating her 90th birthday with her surviving siblings, her children, grandchildren, and her great-granddaughter.
2008.
Happy 90th, Grandma!

August 15, 2011

227: Elementary

via We Heart It
When does Sherlock's second season start on PBS?  Is it before Downton Abbey starts in January?  Because I'm going to need one or the other once the rest of the Doctor Who season ends.

Oh, Britain; how I love your television shows.

August 14, 2011

226: Shutterbugs


My grandfather (far right) and his fellow MASH unit members capture the scene during the Korean War.

August 13, 2011

225: Sundown

Golden Valley, MN, 2011.
Grainy iPod photo of a very nice sunset.  Happy Saturday.

August 12, 2011

224: Clip of the week

It's Friday night, so let's watch a clip of James Franco talking about his sex tape, and then driving Conan to end it all.


I just want a GIF of Conan leaping over that back wall.  Looping forever.

ETA: Thanks, Conan GIFs.

August 11, 2011

223: New old stuff

More shameless self-promotion. I've updated my Etsy shop with some 1960s-1980s clothing. Take a look!

August 9, 2011

221: Road trip



photos via We Heart It
It's been years since I took a real road trip, and when I came across some photos of my mom with her packed-to-the-gills yellow Corolla getting ready to drive to L.A. about thirty years ago, I got a hankering for some long-distance driving.

August 8, 2011

220: Tick tock

Watching BBC coverage of the riots in the UK. Insane, and nonsensical -- burning stores with housing over them does nothing but hurt the small business owners and the people who rent the apartments.  Perplexing and very sad.

(Photo unrelated, but makes me marginally less dispirited.)

August 7, 2011

219: Reflecting

A lovely city
Downtown Minneapolis, 2006.
Minneapolis: even the skyscrapers are nice.

August 6, 2011

218: Out the door

(imagine this as a Liz-Lemon-style exclamation, i.e. "drat")
 Already running late.  Going to a bachelorette party tonight.  Hope I'm not supposed to bring a gift.

August 5, 2011

217: Toreador

Nîmes, France, 2007.
Outside the Roman arena in Nîmes, France.  Fun trivia from my high school French textbook: also from Nîmes is a fabric originally called serge de Nîmes, known today as denim.  Trufax!

August 4, 2011

216: Baguette

I know I feature French stuff on here frequently, but this is genuinely great: Le Late Late Show avec Craig Ferguson à Paris has been going on all this week.  Voici:


Full episodes are available on the CBS website(Or if you find their player as crappy as I do, on YouTube.)

August 3, 2011

215: On a stick

illustration by Brian Danaher
There's only 22 days until the Minnesota State Fair starts!  Unfortunately, I'm flying to Vancouver on opening day, so I'm going to miss it for the first time in about a decade.  Oh, well.  There's still Read & Ride day, when you can get discounted admission by presenting your library card.  Until I do make it through those storied gates into food-on-a-stick nirvana, I'll just enjoy this illustration of some of the traditional fair foods.

August 2, 2011

214: Flashback

Found these photos while going through old, old snapshots in preparation for my grandmother's 90th birthday party.  I'm not sure who was behind the camera (Grandma? Grandpa?), but it looks like the Minneapolis Aquatennial Grand Day parade from sometime in the 1940s or 1950s, and it's a fun look back at the history of the (now less than) 10 Best Days of Summer -- check out the dentists watching the parade from their second-floor office window in the fourth photo.  (click to view bigger)






August 1, 2011

213: Off the page

The ever sweet-talking Mr. Darcy
click for source.
This is a lovely concept: Darcy's letter coming out of the book.  Another Tumblr/Flickr discovery.