Collisions with Reality

Another long week, another list of fun things I’ve seen this week!

• There is actually a new library opening in Oakland this weekend. And not just any new library in any part of Oakland — a large, beautiful space in one of the rougher parts of Oakland. It’s so great to see this much enthusiasm and excitement over a library. (Although, while the library is on the site of a school, the article notes, “School Superintendent Troy Flint said that not every school in the district has its own library, though all have access to online resources.”)
• I’ve never played much with Flickr Toys, but after seeing someone’s mosaic of orange photographs, I really want to. Unfortunately, the Flickr Toys do not actually analyze the photos for color — the photos are all selected based on their tags. Many of my photographs are tagged with their predominant color, but I’d still have to go back and manually tag many of my pictures.
• Last night’s 30 Rock had my husband and me in search of an old Saturday Night Live sketch where an anchor is prerecording the news, so that he could go on vacation for the winter. I thought it was a recent sketch, maybe even in an episode hosted by Brian Williams. He thought it was a classic one from the 70′s. Turns out we were both wrong — it was from the 90′s, and it wasn’t even on SNL, but The Dana Carvey Show. It’s still pretty funny (even if I can’t embed it, dang it!). And if you hang on until the closing credits, there is a funny and surprising little bonus for you.

Have a great weekend!

Believe it or not, this week I actually read things that weren’t about the Michigan coaching search!

• This article about the dearth of taxis at 4 p.m. in New York is fascinating. It’s not easy to balance 12-hour shifts, equity of rush hours for the drivers, and skyrocketing rents for the cab companies.
• If you’re feeling a bit bummed about the past decade, Charlie Stross has a post on how the world has gotten better. Lots of medical advances!
• I was poking around the Onion AV Club site, and found their television reviews. And in their classics section, they’re reviewing episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. I absolutely adore that incarnation of Batman, and am so excited to see a serious analysis of it. (I’m not sure it shows up anywhere in syndication nowadays, but the series is available on DVD.)

Three-day-weekend! Yay!