Sir Grump Munch

September 22, 2004

New record for lag between updates?

Lots I've been meaning to post on here, many adventures and sets of photos have come and gone. Been busy settling into the new place and just relaxing somewhat after the uber-stressful spring/early summer I had with the Scooterworks catalog project.

Now things are settling down pretty nicely. We are a 3-scooter family (as of today), In addition to the Death Dealer Vespa and Ramblin' Man (Stella), Vanessa now has her own 2-wheel motorbike in the form of a cute and simple Honda Metropolitan 1. Didn't go the vintage Vespa route because she doesn't want to shift with her bad wrists and is too short for anything but a smallframe. This is a great starter bike and I will probably want to ride it as much as she does.

We've done a fair amount of traveling in the last month or so, a few trips to Michigan and one south in Illinois to Starved Rock State Park. I've been meaning to post photos of it all, but for starters here's 180 photos (with captions) of our August trip to MI, the highlights of which were a night at the Van Buren County Fair and sort of a Lake Michigan Circle Tour (literally drove all the way around, but not following the designated signs/route). Also had a great trip to Detroit for the opening of Vanessa's fashion show at the Primary Space gallery in Ham Tarmac. Saw Andy Maniotes and Vanessa's sister Emily that weekend too. Good times. May eventually post photos of that trip, and of our lengthy driving tour of Detroit in all its weirdness. Not a city I'd want to live in, for the record.

Trying my best to adapt to OSX, but I hate it. Piece of shit. Ugly. Just a fad.

A few of my favorite recent online discoveries:
The Degree Confluence Project. Totally amazing "random sampling of the earth." This site tracks (via GPS) and documents the environs of each intersecting degree of latitude and longitude. Some are fascinating, some are terribly boring, but all are worth a look. Travel to countries you've never imagined. I may try to contribute to this when I visit India. Blows me away.

The Ruthless Guide to 80s Action. A fairly comprehensive summary of a genre that I grew up with and hold dear. Several of these had me laughing out loud (LOL), which is no small feat. Commando, Invasion USA, Predator, Top Gun, and They Live are all excellent reviews, and you won't want to miss their obituary for Charles Bronson.

PETA redesigned their main page, and it's a nice improvement on the one that I worked on several years ago, which was showing its age. Bravo to their designers on a job well done!

Naz' Absenter got a handsome, color-coded facelift and a merger with his Boochakanan photolog project. Sweet.

And just for good measure, check out these outstanding celebrity portraits.

Maybe more photo gallery updates soon, but that shit eats up server space and I've only got 100 mb or so left before I have to pay more. Thanks for reading, sorry there's not been much to see lately.

Posted by pj at September 22, 2004 10:58 PM