Texture Tuesday (Yeller. Orinch.)

Your freindly local... um, say what?

"Hey, honey? You free? I was wondering if you could pop on over to SCSHHSYYXYZRGS for a sec and pick up a few things..."

"Go where?"

"SCSHHSYYXYZRGS."

"Where?"

"SCSHHSYYXYZRGS!!! You know, the place with the ... stuff. Rhymes with DJVKHSYYXYRGS!"

"Oh yeah, yeah, SCSHHSYYXYZRGS! Sorry, for a second, I thought you said LVMCHSYYXWDFS, and they're closed Mondays."

"No, LVMCHSYYXWDFS went out of business last month."

"LVMCHSYYXWDFS went out of business? You've gotta be kidding me..."

It's a documentary! It's all really happening!

Helping us get the week off to an appropriately surreal start is this post from If we don't, remember me, a blog that features oddly subtle animations from all kinds of movies. Strangely addictive, and poetic to boot.

The Dinosaurs Among Us

It started out innocently enough - waiting around at the entrance to the dinosaur museum in Zigong until everyone arrived. And what better way to kill time than to ask everyone to act like a dinosaur for a picture or two? Ah, how little prepared was I for the terror that reigned thereafter...







I'm hesitant to post these pictures because, you know, what is the correct protocol when you now know that some of your friends and colleagues are, in reality, extinct bloodthirsty carnivorous beasts?

However, the impulse to not out everyone I know as secret dinosaurs on the internet on one hand is balanced out by the need for journalistic integrity on the other. The world needs to be warned! Plus, I think the photos are just gosh-darned funny...

(Oh, and ps, if you are one of dinosaurs in this post and you would like to keep your little "secret" private for the time being, let me know and I'll delete your picture from the post. Though you might also want to do something about the large chunks of brontosaurus meat you've got stashed in your closet...)

Theft has its advantages...

Yeah, it's been going around the web a lot, but still worth posting (if only as a reminder to myself every now and then).

How to Steal Like An Artist, by Austin Kleon

Ordinary Stuff - Newsstand

Just a regular newsstand (news stand?) on the street in Chengdu, but like how the photo turned out. Something about how the stand frames the people around it, perhaps? Maybe something about how much of private life is carried on in public? (Or maybe I'm a sucker for shiny red-orange thingies...)

A room with a view

Another thing that I've seen for the first time in China, again from our trip to Zigong: A hotel bathroom with a glass wall facing the room. You can (and we did) lower the blind for privacy, but its translucence meant that it made leaving the bathroom light on for the kids problematic. As the old saying goes, "People who live in glass houses should dress in the basement."