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Lance Armstrong

4 time winner Robert K Cheruiyot on Heartbreak Hill

Winner Dire Tune duels Alevtina-Biktimirova on Heartbreak Hill

Khalid El Boumlili

Fun times.

The David Ortiz jersey buried in the new Yankee Stadium is up for auction on eBay. There are 198 bids and the price is at more than $69,000 (as of this writing), with the proceeds going to The Jimmy Fund. I’ll be interested to see where it ends up. It’s a fantastic story and this is a great piece of oddball memorabilia related to one of the great rivalries in sports.

Ortiz “Yankees Curse” Jersey to benefit the Jimmy Fund

Zak Smith, artist behind Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow, send out a message today that he’s got a new site up and running. Zak is an incredible artist. His drawings are full of energy but balanced with incredible draftsmanship. My kind of stuff. Check it.

Hello everybody! Greetings from sunny Los Angeles. This is a mass
e-mail letting you all know i have a new site with new work posted
EVERY SINGLE DAY. It includes the porn drawings and anything else new
i feel like showing people that is good. The site is;
http://www.zaxart.com/sketchbook/

-zak

Here’s a small sample from the Gravity’s Rainbow book:

In the next ten or so days we have:

• The Boston Marathon One of the world’s great sporting events takes place in my back yard I love the Marathon and this year my girlfriend and I are going to watch it from the course together, which is a first. We’re heading to Heartbreak Hill to watch the elites and hopefully catch sight of Lance Armstrong before heading home for a little relaxation. Should be an awesome day.
• The Red Sox playthe Texas Rangers on the very same day. The annual Patriot’s Day game has an early morning, 11:00 AM start time. Since the Marathon course goes right through Kenmore square the convergence of the two events is occasionally serendipitous- the game getting out just as the elite runners are hitting the square.
• The Boston Celtics, truly great again for the first time in twenty years, open the NBA playoffs against the Atlanta Hawks. I know the NBA is hoping for the return of the dream match up to end all dream match ups- a Celtics/Lakers NBA Final.

  I’d be pretty happy with that result too <- understatement.

• Over in Europe, the spring cycling calendar continues with The Amstel Gold Race on the 20th, La Flèche Wallonne 2008 on the 23rd and Liège-Bastogne-Liège on the 27th. While they don’t possess the grand drama of the grand tours, the spring classics are dependably great racing and this week of back-to-back-to-back action is an annual highlight.
• Closer to home the top American riders will all be on the start line of the Tour de Georgia. Folks like George Hincapie, Levi Leipheimer, Tom Danielson, Dave Zabriskie, Chris Horner, and Bobby Julich will be vying for top honors in this challenging race through the state of Georgia.

  Of special interest, as always, will be the premier stage in all of North American cycling, the mountaintop finish atop Brasstown Bald. The nearly mile high peak brings the best out of the American climbers and adding a win atop Brasstown Bald is one of the most impressive victories a cyclist can earn on North American roads.

• Women’s Marathon 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials will be held in Boston the day before the Marathon (the 20th.) I’m not sure if I can make it out but it might be a lot of fun if I’m able. How often can one say they’ve seen two marathons live in two days?
• The Bruins? Heck, they might even be able to pull of an upset of Les Habitants. Not that I pay much attention to hockey anymore, but I know some people that do, so I’ve got to shout out the Bs
• Chelsea play Manchester United on April 26th. A game which could decide the Premier League. Fun times.

Did I miss anything? Even if I did that’s enough to keep me entertained and my DVR in good shape for a while. Good times.

…could fill a book.

No. Really. And it’s a big book too.

It’s true. While I have a basic grasp of regular expressions and can repurpose/edit other people’s more complicated ones to fit my needs, I’m actually pretty crap at writing anything beyond the most basic on my own. Being an irrepressible geek, that’s kind of embarrassing. I’m a code nerd. I should know this stuff.

What am I going to do about it? I’m not going to buy tha book, I know that for certain My reading list is already too long and that’s one big-ass book.

What I’m going to do instead is practice, practice, practice and write up my results here for all the world to see (and hopefully critique?) Lord knows when this will actually happen as this April is the busiest month of my life, but it’s coming at some point. There are just too many times where I have this nagging suspicion that, were I just a regexp ninja, I could do something really fancy/efficient/wizardlike.

The panel was a lot of fun.

Not surprisingly, considering the the smart folks I was paired with, I learned a few things myself, the two biggest:

1. People are really excited about the potential of Opensocial. I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it was interesting how unanimous the excitement was amongst the panel members (and that ignores the actual Google employee on the panel)
2. Adobe AIR is the best solution going for cross-platform desktop widgets. Why? They’ll run on a Mac, Windows and even Linux and the development platform (Flash/Flex) is one that is widely supported and relatively easy to staff. compare that to the specialized knowledge needed to unlock the power of some of the other platforms and the fact that work needs to be split amongst them and Air is the way to go.

Thanks to everyone that came out!

This has to be one of his finest moments. Just the circumstances alone are enough to make it a top work, but when one considers the number of Closed Circuit cameras there are in London it get pushed near the top of the heap.

photo courtesy of Flickr user muggy

Banksy pulled off an audacious stunt to produce what is believed to be his biggest work yet in central London.

The secretive graffiti artist managed to erect three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence despite being watched by a CCTV camera.

Then, during darkness and hidden behind a sheet of polythene, he painted this comment on ‘Big Brother’ society.

More:

Graffiti artist Banksy pulls off most audacious stunt to date - despite being watched by CCTV | the Daily Mail

Thanks Ryan!

(photo courtesy flickr user Klara Kim)

Banksy was named one of the The 100 most powerful people in British culture

84 Banksy, 34, artist. Once a guerrilla artist of the streets, Banksy now routinely sells his work for six-figure sums. Despite this, he has managed to retain his anonymity.

None too shabby.

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

I’d never read this web usability classic before and my to-the-point review is this:

There’s a reason this book is a classic in the field. It’s smart, well written, funny and damned easy to read through*.

Quick hit reviews aside, I was surprised to learn that this book was at least partially written in a Bruegger’s that I frequent. It’s true. Steve Krug lives in the next town over and tapped out at least some of the book in a Bruegger’s just a couple of miles from here. I feel just that much smarter by association

*It’s a perfect book for a plane trip, so if you work on the web and haven’t read this book pick it up before the next coast-to-coast or transatlantic (or pacific) flight. You’ll be a better designer/developer/manager when you land on the other side.

Contempt Le Mépris

While not my favorite of Godard’s films, Contempt is still a film worth seeking out- especially in a newly restore print making the rounds. While any of Godard’s films from the period are worth the time on their own merits, Contempt is most noteworthy, at least to these eyes, for being a classic vehicle for Brigitte Bardot.

For starters, she’s lovingly filmed- which is a singularly enjoyable enhancement to any film - assuming your preference is for women. Thankfully, since I saw this with my girlfriend, her performance is truly memorable, which makes the whole male gaze thing more palatable for folks who are less interested in staring at Bardot for an hour and a half. For most of the film’s 100 minute running time, she’s a mistress of attitude, posture and expression, grinding her husband (for whom she feels the titular contempt) into paste. Possessing an incredible, hypnotic screen presence, Bardot owns the film completely and does so much in the details it’s basically impossible to take your eyes off of her. That includes the time she spends partnered up with scene swallower Jack Palance. If she can deflect that guy’s ability to distract and annoy you know she’s up to something.

Check it out if you get the chance.