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February 28, 2023 |
![Osaka Towers Tsūtenkaku and Dai Heiwa Kinen Tō, Osaka](images/OsakaTowers0.jpg)
Something new to me, in Osaka. If we ignore that grotesque Sun Tower they
erected for Expo'70 the high place everybody knows is the
Tsutenkaku
in the Shinsekai entertainment district. I've stood under this tower, but
never been inside. Now I've learned of another, less conventional; the
PL or
Great Peace
Prayer Tower in Tondabayashi, south Osaka, also built in 1970, by the
Church of Perfect Liberty (PL). Unlike the
Tower of the Sun, doesn't
sound like you can go up inside this one anymore; click for bigger pic.
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February 18, 2023 |
- In this week's news, the BBC reports Mars
fined after two workers fall into chocolate vat. Note that it
was a vat of Dove chocolate, the good stuff. Because of this story, an older
one has surfaced, from 2015: I
nearly drowned in chocolate, confessions of a Syrian refugee's novel attempt
to cross the Channel in a tanker lorry.
- At Vintage Kids' Books My Kid Loves I learn of
The
Land Where Ice Cream Grows. Researching this very obscure title took me
back to my DC hometown, and an ice cream parlor there called Gifford's,
favorite of First Ladies, whose sole heir has a copy which he mentions in
his 2017 tell-all memoir, We All Scream. Reading that book
now, but it's summarized in a Washingtonian article,
the
Secret, Dark, and Twisted Story Behind the Gifford Family's Ice Cream
Empire. They had shops over in Montgomery County and NoVA, but none
near my parents' house so I don't have many memories; we were actually
Weile's
people.
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January 22, 2023 |
![Cat and Rabbit](images/catRabbit.gif)
It's Lunar New Year and although in most places it's a Year of
the Rabbit, in Vietnam it's The
Year of the Cat. |
January 21, 2023 |
The atmospheric river has dried up, the storms are over, and our trees remain inteact.
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January 12, 2023 |
![USSR flag USSR flag](images/su.gif) |
Immersed in this incredible seven-part Adanm Curtis BBC documentary,
TraumaZone --
What it felt like to live through the collapse
of Communism (and Democracy). No narration -- just titles,
sub-titles and mostly new-to-me video. Names the oligarchs, describing
how they became such, and concludes by identifying Putin as their creature.
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January 4, 2023 |
As I live under a couple tall trees, nervously awaiting the big storm
approaching California tonight, with its prediction of high winds. Meanwhile,
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December 31 - Good-bye, 2022 |
- I've been listening to Christmas music and the OTR
Cinnamon Bear on
ICAN, the International
Children Arts Network, which is carried on Portland public radio; but I'm accessing it through the
Radio Garden which has this wonderful
global interface with clickable green dots indicating all the radio stations. So many
green dots; find your local, or another.
- Quick slide-show at CNN Travel, ten of the
world's most fascinating abandoned towns and cities.
- And some more pics, at Vintage Everyday, Burning
Man in 1963 as imagined by an AI.
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December 26, 2022 |
- A listicle, Nine
Winter Traditions You Might Not Have Heard Of at Atlas Obscura (love to ride that holiday
subway train!) and at Lifehacker, a slideshow, the
13
Worst Health and Fitness Trends of 2022. I like that one of 75 Hard's five or six
non-negotiable rules is reading ten pages of non-fiction daily but I take a dim view of
that 12-3-30 workout.
- Speaking of fitness, after a two-year hiatus I resumed my almost every-other-day exercise
regimen this summer: stretching, two miles running on the treadmill, then some weightlifting
and finally the sauna. This means I'm back at the gym, hearing (and being æsthetically
assaulted by) the popular music. One contemporary hit stands out, though, Jax's
Victoria's Secret, with
its "Dude!" chorus.
- California Christmas Lights attempts
compiling those locations where residents go all out. Before I evacuated the Bay Area, one of
them, Christmas Tree Lane in Palo Alto became
a favorite, cruising slowly through with headlights dimmed and seasonal music on the car
stereo. Here in Sacramento there's a whole grid to explore, in Midtown, the
Fabulous Forties, where you can even find hot chocolate stands and live music.
- At the Smithsonian, Andrew
Parker's Pure Structural Colors, like peacock feathers and butterfly wings. He's a zoologist
who's figured out easy ways to reproduce them -- cosmically bright, they say. More at Wikipedia,
Structural Coloration.
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December 24, 2022 |
In the Washington Post, We're
drowning in old books, but getting rid of them is heartbreaking. Mentions
Wonder Books in Frederick, and Powell's of Portland, among others, all wonderful places but
never my own local, usually used bookstore.
(archive link)
Thinking back on all my favorites, I made this chronological list of the
places for which I was able to find links; depressingly, they're usually
to articles about the store's closing.
- Brentano's had
a branch in my local mall, when I was young. The best part was the space in
the middle which featured games and art.
- When I lived in Hermosa Beach I visited
the
Either/Or bookstore at least once a week.
- That was when I first went down to Long Beach for Ray Bradbury's favorite,
Acres of Books. An amazing
place, but a selection so picked over I never really bought much there. Instead, a
journey further east and into Orange County led to
- The
Book Baron, which was the best used bookstore ever. Huge, with a fantastic selection.
- When I first lived in Silicon Valley I spent a lot of time down in San Jose at the
Thrush
bookstore, with its rickety mezzanine level.
- The place most frequent then was
Bookbuyers
in Mountain View, which I could often walk to. Great selection, open late, and
they'd take almost anything for store credit.
- Finally, a little north, just beyond Palo Alto was
Feldman's Books which has moved away from his
pleasant location on El Camino (with its little garden between the two halves) but is
apparently still in business in Menlo Park.
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December 20, 2022 |
- More about those violet streetlights, noted here back in March. (They're arrays of LEDs;
solid-state chips, not bulbs.) At Business Insider,
The
Great Purpling, explained -- the yellow phosphor which makes the light from blue
LEDs white is delaminating. Unrealistic fears of the ultraviolet are frightening some,
but an article from last year should put those fears to rest.
Here's
Why Purple Streetlights Are Popping Up Around North Carolina quotes Duke Energy:
"There's no safety issues with the lights and they continue to work. They
are just purple."
- These are great -- The
Night Hawk -- Chicago storefronts by photographer Dave Jordano.
- At Rest Of World, many photos. This
is what a tech market looks like in eight places in Asia, Africa and South America.
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December 10, 2022 |
Just a couple videos today:
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December 5, 2022 |
A Brief Note on the URLs to get here:
For book-marking, etc please note - this page is at
www.wunderland.com/WTS/Rash/Default.html.
There's a handy, easier-to-remember re-direct/shortcut,
wunderland.com/rash.
Although you can naturally reach the same date through the
Archive
page, currently indexed by season; I've just learned (via spammers!)
that a February 2016 snapshot is available at
www.wunderland.com/WTS/Rash.archive -- seven
years out-of-date now, not to confuse it with the real thing.
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December 4, 2022 |
The New-Years trip to Vietnam for step-son's wedding is off -- mixed feelings
about that. But check this pick-list for Religion: I found on one of their visa
application pages. (There's more than one; and their site's navigation can be
confusing; I was actually unable to find my way back to this one, glad I took the picture.)
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