Sunday Funnies

I NEED some Spring

Well, it's officially Spring and here in Chicago, we're having snow.





Hurry up April!!

Saturday's Animal Shots

Seeing the world

Notice anything unusual about these travel photos? Take another look, I’ll wait.

In case you missed it, each of these photos has a person lying face down in it. On purpose.

From Facedowns, a photo blog by Lynn and Michael Chealander and Amy Mihyang:

Facedowns are from over 2 dozen countries and at least 10 American states…and counting, of course. They do not highlight a community of anonymous submissions. Instead there is a focus on the locations and the relationship we all have with the quintessential ‘tourist photo.’ Don’t think about it too much though. We’ll be delighted if you’re simply amused.
~Facedowns

And lest you think that capturing these moments is an easy or even a sanitary effort, check out the photos from the South Korean DMZ, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Garden Apartments in Ithaca NY.

I’m not sure where they live when they’re not traveling, but they sure have (not) seen a lot of the world in the last 4 years.

Chicago's French Market - meh

Remember how excited I was for the opening of the French Market at the Ogilvy / Northwestern train station last year?

Well, it really hurts me to say this because I really wanted to be a big supporter, but I've been there 3 times now and I have to say that I am very disappointed.

Not in the selection of vendors - they have a wonderful variety of high quality purveyors of produce, flowers, pastries, cheese, deli and prepared foods. What they don't have is an environment that makes anyone but the harried commuter with no other option want to shop there.As you can see from these photos, although clean and well lit, the space is cold and sterile. I understand the difficulty of making a warehouse space feel intimate, but maybe the use of overhead florescent lighting that you find in hospital corridors wasn't the best idea.
Even the eating area looks and feels like a bus station.

Compare our market to the one in New York at Grand Central Terminal - the lighting makes a huge difference.

And a little bit of wood goes a long way - note how the wooden shelving at the back of most vendor booths offsets the cold box feel of the standard display cases?

Or take LA's Grand Central Market - yes, part of the ceiling is skylight but it's also a huge warehouse space that they have somehow managed to make inviting.This market has been here since 1917, yet still meets all modern food handling and storage code requirements without turning into a sterile environment.

This is the only vendor space in the entire Chicago market that doesn't make me feel like I'm in a meat locker.Although I'm sure that this is an upgrade implemented by Pastoral, it's a shame that the developers couldn't figure out how to provide more than bare bones space throughout the market.

I truly wish the French Market well and hope that the captive commuter crowd is enough to keep it going. I'll even continue to walk through and pick up the occasional needed item when I'm in the area. But I probably won't be making any special trips.
Si triste.

Worth a second look

When the Good Old Days Were Not So Good (cont.)

Green Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Not Sure What This Tells You....

TW:...but it must tell something...

Art or Science?

From The Daily Dish - A Catalog of 365 Petri Dishes Painted by Klari Reis

Brilliantly colored life forms dance across the wall in these detail images of an installation project composed of a series of hand painted plexiglass petri dishes. Artist Klari Reis uses reflective epoxy polymer to depict microscopic
images…Supported by steel rods, the paintings sit at varying degrees of distance from the wall, evoking depth and motion.
~ The Daily Dish

See the project installation here

Something To Ponder

TW: A piece from Business Week which frames some of the moral and financial dilemmas posed by illness without veering too far into the political weeds which dominate any further rational debate these days.

How much care is too much? If it is not too much care for one, what about for others? Who pays? If not you, should the well be endless, if so does it ever stop?

And then there are the providers with all of their convoluted motivations...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_11/b4170032321836.htm

Did He Even Draw a Foul?

via Neatorama

Unbelievable!

I don't have much to say about this other than - Unbelievable!
Be sure to click on the image to enlarge


Did you see all 4 climbers?

They Pay More Tax Because They Have Most Of the Money

TW: Conservatives like to point to the above chart as evidence that the wealthy pay too much tax. I point to the chart below to remind folks that one of the reasons the wealthy pay so much tax is that they are accumulating increasing shares of the wealth (partly because their tax rates have fallen hugely over the past 30 years at least at the federal level).

TW: This is from Neatorama via http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/. As noted at Neato the thing that stands out is the free for all on Market Street which for those of you have been there know is a main drag in San Francisco. Apparently things like lanes and stoplights etc. did not come along for several more years. Pedestrian casualties were very high even if cars did not zoom quite as fast back then. Just another reminder that the good old days were not so good.

Sunday Funnies

Young Me, Now Me

A creative contest from ZEFRANK with easy rules -

1. Find a photo from when you were young
2. Try and recreate that photo as you are now
3. Send both images to ze@zefrank.com

The most important thing to capture is the expression on your face and the position of your body!

Some of my favorite entries (click to enlarge):






See more here