I regularly go to three of these: White Rock, Pearl Cup, and Espumoso… and have eaten at Oddfellows (didn’t have the coffee). As far as coffee goes, I don’t drink espresso much anymore – I prefer French Press.
Have to try out some all of the others. Any advice… or anyone wants to meet at one, get with me.
As far as a place not on the list… let’s see… if they are going to put a “more resturant than coffee spot” place like Oddfellows on there, how can they leave off Cafe Brazil?
Yesterday “Skyfall,” Adele’s theme song to the upcoming James Bond film of the same name, was officially released, and it’s a doozy. The song is the latest in a long line of fantastic tracks from the series; Bond music is just as iconic and essential to the series as 007’s sharp suits and cool cars are. Here are the 10 best James Bond themes—so good, they’ll leave you shaken AND stirred.
Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell tells the New York Times what it was like seeing his novel come to life: “Wherever the ‘Cloud Atlas’ screenplay differed from ‘Cloud Atlas’ the novel, it did so for sound reasons that left me more impressed than piqued.”
It was a quarter-century ago today that the world was introduced to Inigo Montoya, Fezzik, Miracle Max, the albino dungeon keeper with a frog in his throat and an impressive clergyman with a speech impediment. To celebrate we bring you 25 Great Quotes from ‘The Princess Bride.’
Partly because of jerks like me. But it’s mostly your own illogical mind.
Walter Russell Mead is one of my favorite political writers. He is very wise and his columns are well written and thought out. He has a point of view, but is not overly dogmatic about it. For example – this column on student college loans is burdened with a very provocative title, but has a lot of truth within:
The student loan program is a shining example of the blue social model in the midst of decay. It’s a program that used to work pretty well, but over time has morphed into a nightmare. Conceived at a time when college costs were low, a relatively limited number of mostly pretty qualified young people went to college and full employment made the transition from college to the workforce a straightforward process, the student loan program helped a generation of young people to a good start in life.
….
A sensible and helpful initiative gradually turned into a devouring beast. ….. They borrow more money than they can repay, or their school experience goes bad and the credential doesn’t work or they fail to earn it and President Obama’s hired debt collectors are turned loose on them to hound them into the grave.
Those who get in trouble, by the way, are disproportionately from poor and minority families, are immigrants, and are the first in their families to attempt higher ed. The young people that President Obama’s debt collectors are hounding most relentlessly are exactly the kind of people he hoped most to help.
I was talking the other day about slide rules – I was a freshman in college when the switch from slide rules to calculators occurred. For my first… say, three semesters I always carried a slide rule to exams in case my calculator failed. A lot of strong, pleasant memories of my youth are associated with slide rules. I must not have gone out much.
Bond fans are different. They (we) make an effort. When I was younger, I found that watching the Bond films and reading the books made me a more active and motivated person. I began to take an interest not just in playing video games but in learning new things. Online Bond forums are, by and large, not a bunch of nerds arguing over fantasy scenarios but guys talking about actual skills: effective martial arts to learn for self-defense, good clothing decisions, how to fix cars, elegant alcoholic drinks, card-playing tips, travel locations, etc. These are real skills that you can go out and learn and use. You can’t learn how to fly an X-wing, do flips with a lightsaber, or use the Vulcan neck thing to take out a mutant invader.
There has been a lot of talk about Lincoln’s voice in the new Speilberg film – how Daniel Day Lewis interpreted him as having a higher voice than the usual booming baritone. This seems to be historically accurate.
It didn’t seem to be such a big deal, until I listened to this trailer:
Photographer and videographer Peter Sutherland followed six cyclists from different disciplines of cycling and personal backgrounds to produce short but moving documentaries on each one.
“When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on …our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make. Perfect and bulletproof are seductive, but they don’t exist in the human experience.”
I love the systematic method used in this article. He has Motley Crue barely beating out Creed as the worst ever. But he has one line about Creed that is money: “Rock and roll is supposed to be fun, not like passing an impacted stool, and then telling all your friends about it.” I wish I had written that.
Too bad they also send some of the worst messages to women in the history of mankind. Horrible stereotypes, insulting characters, idiotic relationship advice… it’s all there. Some chick flicks are better at hiding it than others, but generally, you can count on the same thing each time. The worst part is, women are actually starting to believe the lunacy they see in these movies!
I know I keep posting stuff about Cloud Atlas – but I’m really excited about the film (even though I know it might not be that good – the possibly of glorious failure is strong) – Plus… more importantly, I want to give everyone every opportunity to read the book first. It’s an amazing read, in many ways… in every way.
Plus, how can you miss Hugo Weaving playing Nurse Ratchet.
A woman, Annie Clark, that went to a local High School, has hit the big time as St. Vincent. She has released an album in partnership with David Byrne – Love This Giant. This is truly the best of all possible worlds.
I remember Heathkits from my youth. Back then, electronics were not disposable items and you could build your own appliance or gadget after countless hours of painstaking work for only about twice what a new one would cost. They were very high quality, though, in a day when quality still existed and mattered.
The detailed instructions, the carefully labeled parts (especially the myriad resistors) and, especially, the smell of rosin-core solder heated and the sight of the wisp of burnt flux smoke rising from the pool of liquid lead.
A friend of mine across the street even made an entire color television. It burnt out one day while we were watching football (there was always the danger you would make a mistake – I view that as a feature, not a bug).
I still use a Heathkit audio amp I built in 1982. It sounds better than anything made today.
This Texas city is leaving its big brother Dallas in the dust when it comes to bike-friendliness. Just this week, the feds awarded Fort Worth with $1 million for a 30-station bike-share system, which is slated to be up and running next April.
And just yesterday, Fort Worth installed the Dallas region’s first green bike lane
The most amazing quotes and graphics. I would buy all of these if I had the cash – they are so… perfect.
Then there was silence, the air like ice. Brittle-looking birch trees with black marks on their white bark, and some small, untidy evergreens, rolled up like sleepy bears. The frozen lake not level but mounded along the shore, as if the waves had turned to ice in the act of falling. And the building, with its deliberate rows of windows and its glassed-in porches at either end. Everything austere and northerly, black-and-white under the high dome of clouds. So still, so immense an enchantment.
This behavior by high-ranking public servants should be considered scandalous. People in Washington consider it business as usual, and don’t even raise an eyebrow.
Right and wrong no longer matter in this deviant subculture. Sealed off from personal responsibility by accumulated bureaucracy and thick walls of special interest money, our government is covered by a putrid mold of cynical gamesmanship and everyday hypocrisy. People scurry around its baseboards seeking short-term advantage, but big change is so inconceivable as to be laughable.
Even reformers have given up. What is politically feasible, they ask? The answer is clear: nothing.
Change will nonetheless happen, political scientists tell us. How? Through a crisis….The main challenge then will be not merely to reform Medicare and other unsustainable programs. The challenge will be to change the culture of government.
I’m sort of suprised Dexter (or Voldemort) isn’t on here – but I’m not sure that a popular series is considered “Literature.” I dunno, it’s not Crime and Punishment (or Macbeth, or even Lolita), but that still feels a little snobbish to me.
I have been looking for this for a long time… and now, here it is, on Youtube. Alfred Hitchcock’s version of the Roald Dahl short story Man From the South with Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre.
It’s almost a half-hour long… but find a time when you can sit down and watch the thing.
I think this story is the best example of how to manipulate tension, excitement, and dread in a tight little story I have ever seen. This version is a bit droll for my taste – the original text is more horrific. It’s been done and riffed on many times (check out Quentin Tarantino’s version as the fourth and last story in the otherwise-horrible film, Four Rooms).
I try and study it.
This is what I want to write.
“The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.”
“A dry martini,” he said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.”
“Oui, monsieur.”
“Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”
I’m sorry, but this is about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. As a child, I lived in a few locations that had… well, let’s say they had a lot of flies – a lot. Swatting flies became a cheap amusement for when there was precious else to do. I would have given anything for this thing.
I remember – 1979 or so, I was right out of school, living in Kansas, when I heard Sultans of Swing on the radio. It was a revelation. Years later, I think that Making Movies is one of the greatest albums of all time… a little disappointed with a lot of Dire Straights and Mark Knopfler’s later career… but still, Sultans brings it all back.
This video is all amazingness – time goes by… everything changes and nothing changes.
Cities should be dynamic places. The corner of Commerce and St. Paul streets, where the building that once housed the hotel still stands, is a great place to see how this works over time. When it opened in 1956, the Statler Hilton was a marvel to behold. It was home to the largest convention facility in the South. Some of the hotel’s amenities — music in elevators, a rooftop pool and televisions in every room — were trendsetting and the height of luxury.
It was also the first glass-and-metal hotel in the nation. As such, it was a precursor to the Modern movement that defines the Dallas skyline. The buildings that now seem so familiar to all of us rose from the remnants of the old downtown. When you see footage of Dallas a half-century ago, what strikes the eye is how little of it seems to be left.
Shane Pennington, the artist that did the ice sculptures down in the Dallas Arts District that impressed me so much that I visited them day after day, as they melted:
A while back I wrote about a Foodtruckapooza event at the remains of the old Valley View Mall. It was such a success the mall owners are trying to bring in a little business by making it a regular thing.
It’s a fascinating story of urban devlopment, timing, and the death of a mall.
A few weeks back, the Becks rolled in more than two dozen food trucks for a fest that filled the parking lot — first time that’s happened at Valley View in a long time. Said Scott last night, the traffic jam brought in ’round 12,000, which is why the Midtown Food Truck Fest becomes a regular event beginning July 20 and scheduled for the third weekend of every month, with an indoor component that will include a beer garden.
Concurrently, they’re partnering with Jack FM to create food truck “test kitchens” in the seven empty food-court slots once populated by the likes of Sbarro, Chick-fil-A, Sonic and McDonald’s.
In two months’ time, the Becks hope to fill empty food-court spaces with food truck test kitchens.
“You will have your favorite food trucks in one location,” says Scott Beck, who notes that’s about two months off. “We won’t make those spot into national or regional vendors. We’ll have food trucks who want test kitchens for a month. They will rotate in and out — and be right there in the food court. Every food truck wants to be part of that. They think it’s interesting to do a test kitchen, because there are only so many things you can make in a food truck. This gives them the chance to do more items in an area that’s promoted.”
While the chattering classes yammered on about American decline and peak oil, a quite different future is taking shape. A world energy revolution is underway and it will be shaping the realities of the 21st century when the Crash of 2008 and the Great Stagnation that followed only interest historians. A new age of abundance for fossil fuels is upon us. And the center of gravity of the global energy picture is shifting from the Middle East to… North America.
Bill Chance 