Introducing the Q Drum - a New Way to Transport Water

Behold, the Q Drum. This is a wonderful new innovation that is starting to be used in Third World nations to alleviate injuries of water-carrying women in those areas. See below for a short film that describes the invention in more detail. Bonus feature: music composed by Dave "Duke Mushroom" Schommer of Yoga Organix, friend of Flappy Days.

Happy Birthday to Us

A year ago today, a blog was born (that would be us). It's been an interesting first year, marked by a variety of highlights, both on and off-blog. For example, I got married (off blog, thankfully). Also, Brosephus was so distraught about the closing of Jermaine Dupree's waffle house that he's been in hiding since August. (Actually, he's been hard at work on his other blog, an Atlanta-centric offering that we will not link to in an effort to maintain our flimsy anonymity).

I've read that the first sign of a blog's demise is navel-gazing and self-deprecation with regard to a lack of posting. So I'll only mention in passing that while we started strong, we've sort of fallen off the cliff with regard to regularity (64% of all of our posts were created in our first 2 months of existence). But it ain't about quantity, it's quality - right, People? We're the ones who brought you all sorts of Really Cool Things, wrote a few Movie Reviews, gave props to some "celebrities" who died, and reported on Facial Hair, among many other exciting topics. And don't forget our first scoop!

So, here's to us. May we live long and prosper. Happy birthday.

Mapping the Time it Takes to Get from Here to There (NYC Edition)

Introducing TripTropNYC, a handy website that let's you plug in an address anywhere in the five boroughs of New York City and determine how long it will take for you to get anywhere else in the city. Pretty nifty. Between this, the MTA Trip Planner and Google Maps, I will never be late (or early) again.

News of the Bizarre: Fir Tree Grows in Man's Lung

No, I did not find this in the Weekly World News, although there is a fascinating cover story there this week about a octopus-shaped UFO flying over Rio de Janeiro. No, this is a true story about a Russian botanist complaining of chest pains. Doctors thought he had cancer, but instead found a 5 cm FIR TREE GROWING IN HIS LUNG!! Daaaaayum, that's gotta hurt. The doctors theorize that since Artyom Sidorkin studied plants for a living, he probably inhaled (snorted? come clean Artyom, fir seeds are the hot new craze sweeping the central Russian steppe) a seed which took root in his lung. Since fir seeds need little light and only a moist environment to grow, PRESTO - chia lung! This next photo is not for the faint of heart.


Also, look at us go - three posts in one day. That's like the entire output of January. Whoohoo.

UFC 97: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Spoiler Alert - here be spoilers]

I was really excited for UFC 97 this weekend - the main card (and undercard) were chock full 'o fights I was amped to see - Liddell/Rua, Silva/Leites, Quarry/Macdonald, Wiman/Stout, and especially the prodigal return of David "the Crow" Loiseau to lock horns with Ed "Short Fuse" Herman. Unfortunately, the event was a huge sad trombone for me. First, I purchased the PPV and had my DVR all set up (I miss TiVo.) Last night some friends came over to watch the event with the Wifey and I, and when we queued up the taped event, all we got was 15 hours of UFC promo material. After a frustrated call to DirecTV, I learned that UFC is no longer allowing PPV purchasers the ability to record their purchases. Bullocks! So, rather than let the night go to waste, I asked them to credit my account and purchase the event for that evening, which they did, except instead of HD they fed me SD. Ok, not that huge of a deal, but still annoying. Even more annoying is that we came into the event 1.5 hours in. This would have bugged me more, but the Wifey and I caught the first 3 fights at a bar the night before and they were all BORE-fests (including the Cheick Kongo fight. Snooze.)

We tuned in literally at the moment Shogun Rua put the lights out on Chuck Liddell's illustrious career, which would have been a little more exciting if we had at least seen the first 4 minutes of the fight. The rest of the evening wasn't much better. Not only did they not air the Quarry or Loiseau fights (boo), but the Silva main event was the most painfully boring 15 minutes I've spent in a long time. Leites was mercilessly outmatched, and spent most of the fight lying on his back like a gimp turtle, waiting for Silva to fall into his warm embrace. The one saving grace of the evening was the Wiman/Stout fight - both Stout and Wiman (who is really fighting the pretty, just accept your Abercrombie good looks, Matty!) put it all on the line and gave a really good show.

Eh, I guess there's always next time.

[Click to Enlarge]

I keed! I keed! Chuck Liddell is a great champion and deserves a lot of respect and admiration - happy retirement, Chuck!

Really Cool Things: Danny MacAskill, Bicyclist Extraordinaire

The human ability to invent new things and to push the boundaries of excellence in those endeavors is a beautiful thing to behold. Exhibit A - Danny MacAskill, a rider with the Inspired Bicycles team of Edinburgh, Scotland. The video below really gets going around 0:45 and then proceeds for another 5 minutes of jaw-dropping awesomeness.

New York Past and Present

Back in 2004, photographer Douglas Levere set out to find the New York City depicted in Bernice Abbot's Changing New York and highlight just how much had actually changed since the 1930s. I've posted below a sampling of what he found. If you like what you see, Levere's book (New York Changing: Revisiting Bernice Abbot's New York) is available on Amazon. You can also see more photos from the book at The Morning News.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Considering all the debate and discussion lately about taxes, spending, deficits, revenues, etc. etc., I thought it was mighty helpful of the good people over at Wall Stats to produce this visual breakdown of how much money the federal government brings in (revenues) and how much it doles out (spending), to whom and in what amounts. If you can't see the detail here, go over to the large size image on the Wall Stats site, it's pretty fascinating. Now that I see it broken down into such detail, the next question become pretty obvious - where would start cutting? Comments welcome.

Cool Advertising - "Checkmate"

Generally, I'm not that interested in advertising. Most of the time, my internal filter completely blocks it out (when my TiVo isn't doing it for me). But sometimes, a great ad is worth noting. To wit:
















[Hat tip: TheDanzaTap]

When Joaquin met Billy

Via our friend Dan at MotionPhi, here is the long-lost interview between Billy Bob Thornton and Joaquin Phoenix you haven't seen yet:

Really Cool Things: World Builder

First of all, if you're a new reader who found us because of the Busy Chef/Checker's linkage, welcome. We're not the most attentive bloggers around, so if you want updates, best to add us to an RSS feed rather than visit daily in the vain hopes that we've updated the blog. Chances are, we haven't (as you can see by the frequency of our postings).

The video below is called "World Builder". The description from Vimeo:

"A strange man builds a world using holographic tools for the woman he loves."




This award winning short was created by filmmaker Bruce Branit, widely known as the co-creator of '405'. World Builder was shot in a single day followed by about 2 years of post production. Branit is the owner of Branit VFX based in Kansas City.

It's short, it's sweet and it's damn cool. Enjoy.

Via Andrew Sullivan (like many of the cool things I come by in an average week).

Our First Scoop!! Checker's Restaurant Coming to Court Street

For years after I moved to Downtown Brooklyn, the storefront at 111 Court Street was a boarded up former bar/nightclub. So, you can imagine my excitement when they started building out what would become Busy Chef (and also Blue Pig Ice Cream). Excitement quickly turned to disappointment when a) the food sucked and b) it turned out the owner was running an identity theft scam on his customers. Not cool, dude. That was last July, and the joint has been shuttered up ever since. Until now. A few weeks ago, it appeared that construction had begun for a new tenant. As I was walking to work this morning, the door was open and two men were looking over plans, so I asked them what was coming in. Ladies and gentlemen, your new neighbor is:

Checker's Restaurant

They also mentioned they'd be serving vegan burgers, although I don't see those listed on the corporate site.

So... Excited? Disappointed? Indifferent? Let us know. And remember, you heard it here first.