In Some Sense

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I think many people feel this way about their own cities, but after living in Los Angeles for a year, I feel more truth to Updike’s quote.
My wife and I have had a great year living in LA, but it is a seriously flawed city, but one with great potential. If you happen to live in a part of LA that doesn’t require extensive use of your car or commuting, you’ve got a great deal. Don’t let it go.
There’s tons of great neighborhoods and culture and food and music here. And the weather. Jesus.
If they could drop in a transit system, this place would be more golden than the sun that shines down every single day.
I lived in NYC for 12 years. I’m a walkabout type of guy. I expect to be able to get around town by foot and subway/bus. Maybe these are unreasonable expectations for Los Angeles. Doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
This is all moot anyway as my wife and I are moving to San Francisco in 2 days.
San Francisco isn’t New York, but I know it well. It is a great city.

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Travel

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I Have $240 To Prove It

At io9, Robert T. Gonzalez tells us why wine tasting is bullshit (via John Gruber):

There are no two ways about it: the bullshit is strong with wine. Wine tasting. Wine rating. Wine reviews. Wine descriptions. They’re all related. And they’re all egregious offenders, from a bullshit standpoint.
I know wine tasting is bullshit because I have $240 to prove it.
A few years ago my friend had a wine tasting party at his upper east side apartment in Manhattan. Every person/couple was instructed to bring $20 and a bottle of red wine. When we arrived at his place, he took our coats, our $20 and our bottle of wine. He then wrapped our wine bottles in silver wrapping paper and set it on the table with all the other wine bottles.
Wait, let’s rewind a bit.
On our way to the party my wife and I stopped at a wine shop in our upper east side neighborhood (owned by our next-door neighbor in our apartment complex) Vinyl Wine. It’s still on Lexington Ave.
When I walked into the shop, I told the girl working where I was going and what I needed. I told her what I was looking for wasn’t the best wine in their shop, but the one that everyone would like.
She pointed me to two different bottles she said were very popular. Since I’m a graphic designer, I made the executive decision to pick the one with the best looking label design.
The bottle I chose was $13.
I paid and my wife and I jumped into a cab an cut through Central Park to my friend’s apartment.
Now let’s fast forward a bit.
So my friend made the wine tasting special. He had first prize (the pot of money), second & third places even got some gift certificates and bottle openers. He gave out score sheets to rate each bottle on, based on the Robert Parker rating system. He had a spittoon. The whole thing was awesome.
My wife and all my friends and I took the wine tasting as seriously as you can take a wine tasting. Under everyday circumstances I can’t tell a Cab from a Pinot Noir, but during a wine tasting, it was easier for me to detect the nuances between different wines.
My friend, the host, donned in his apron, collected our score papers and went through every bottle’s score. There were 12 bottles and my wife and I kept expecting our shitty $13 bottle to be named. Bottle after bottle going down, but not ours. How is this possible?!
Finally our bottle was named. The last one.
We had taken the Pepsi challenge against 11 other bottles,ranging from $15 to $45 bottles. Ours won, the cheapest bottle.
So yeah, wine tasting is bullshit.
The taste of the wine you’re drinking should be what matters to you. Or the artwork on the label. Or the story behind the winery and how they came into being. Just don’t let anyone tell you the wine you like isn’t a good wine.
If you like it, then it’s a good wine.

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Pyschology

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Gumball

The Verge says the real-life Batmobile Tumbler is racing in Gumball rally next week.
Uh, AWESOME?
Not to be confused with the American Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash.
And it reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of writing from Wired, The Pedal-to-the-Metal, Totally Illegal, Cross-Country Sprint for Glory:

“Ultimately, this drive is a math calculation,” Roy says. Maher looks blank. Roy points to a series of cells in the spreadsheet. Maher scans it, then turns the page, searching. “See,” Roy says, “that’s the average we’re looking to hit: 90.”
“I know this average,” Maher says quietly. He flips through more pages. “I’m looking for the extended stretches of big speed, the long stretches where we can really hit it and make time.”

Roy straightens. “Well, those don’t really exist,” he says. “You’ll see. It’s very rare to run over 100 for even a minute or two… “

“Oh yeah?” Maher says smiling. “Well, I’m about to change that.”

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Vehicle

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Daily Habits

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Taken from Instantaneous Personal Magnetism, Edmund Shaftesbury, 1928

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Words

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Meaningless

Tom Hawking at Flavorwire on the lastest in a series of NYTimes hipsters pieces:

The ongoing New York Times obsession with “hipsters” continued this week with yet another lifestyle article about Williamsburg, a place that the NYT apparently thinks is still home to the Brooklyn cool set. The piece served as more confirmation that the Times is officially the only publication that still thinks the word “hipster” actually means something and/or is a cultural phenomenon worth analyzing in 2013.
He’s absolutely right and something I’ve felt ever since I started hearing the word ‘hipster’ used in New York and San Francisco. It’s such a blanket word it means nothing anymore.
Hawking points to a great list of hipster attributes Matthew J.X. Malady compiled over at The Awl.
We’re at the point where if you see a group of 22- to 42-year olds standing on a corner waiting to be seated at a cafe, and they aren’t wearing the latest from J.Crew or The Gap, then they’re all hipsters. “Those people look slightly different and one of em is wearing dark-rimmed glasses. Hipsters!”
It’s a meaningless term.

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Community

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