Food Star: Amazing unmanned bento shop! The staff leaves the store after finishing making [11min; website].
this is a piece i call The Big Car Piece That Really Makes You Think
bought a car today
there was a problem with the order
and it was way too big
had to use a ladder to get in
tires crushed other cars
had to hit the gas a little to get over the 7-11
parking garage, 50 spots adds up
Tracklib: Sample Breakdown ‒ The Most Iconic Electronic Music Sample of Every Year (1990-2024) [31min].
Contrapoints: Conspiracy [2hr 40min].
Family Mart’s Famima’s Dreaming Receipt Pillow contest (2024). Two winners. The pillows are out there.
This of course reminds me of the artist at ひとり店【ノワール】 Hitori Shop [Noir]:
Promotional ruler, Sucher Packing Company, Dayton Ohio. “TRY SOMETHING NEW!” “HAMSATION (IN ITS NEW FORM)” “A GOOD RULE FOR SCHOOL ‒ WAKE UP AND EAT Sucher’s yummy HAMS ‒ BACON ‒ SAUSAGE ‒ WIENERS” “THE DIFFERENCE IS DELICIOUS”
hamsation
Not Just Bikes: How is a Bike Tunnel this Freak’n Great!?
It’s fun to watch these as a USA American. “Huh, there are tunnels ... for bikes? Huh.” And “They’ll never do that here. Maybe in 100 years.” And “Well, that was depressing.” [FX: crawls back into USA hole]
Rode up to the closest grocery store today, to run in and get some quick survival snacks. There was another bike on the rack, and a woman standing nearby, looking around. She moved a bit away to let me roll closer. “I wouldn’t lock up here, there was a tweaker here trying to get this bike, trying to cut through the cable. We told him off. I’d lock up your bike on the other side.” She was waiting for the bicyclist. I thanked her and rode over to the other side of the store. They don’t have bike racks there, just some railings, so I locked up there. Went inside, got my snacks. The lines were long enough that I wasn’t going to wait around with this known crimer roaming about. I’m using a chain and a cable, going to ditch the cable but have been putting it off for reasons. Cables are honestly for locking up your bike to balloons, for example, or papier-mâché creations. They’re butter to crimers, you can fall off twenty-seven turnip trucks and still know how to get through any cable relatively quickly with easily-acquired tools.
Where do crimers get the confidence to start sawing through a bike cable in broad daylight? From the store’s designers. They happily shunt bike racks off to a corner, off to the side, around the back, whatever. Wherever there aren’t eyeballs, there aren’t people milling about, that’s where the bike racks go. Thanks, thanks a million guys, brilliant planning. Take one of the parking spots for cars immediately next to the front door, and make that a bike rack. This is not rocket surgery. This store, they put the bike rack at the corner of the store. So if, as happened today, a big USA American truck parks in the spot next to the bike rack, that’s a nice wall that keeps people from noticing you hacking away. They actually have a greeter at the store, and as I was prematurely leaving, I noticed he had taken up a position right at the corner. So that will work for awhile, until everything resets tomorrow. The other store I go to, the bike rack is both on the side of the store, and far enough back that you can’t roll the carts next to the rack, the radio signal cuts out and the brakes engage (that’s how that tech works, right? Surprise, I don’t care). It’s around thirty feet away. I have to get bags every time, because I’m not going to walk back and forth ten times to empty the cart into my saddle bags. They’re really beefy bike racks, but they’re hidden from view.
I didn’t buy the snacks. They’re leaving money on the table alla time. Not like I’m pro-capitalist, just, seems to be the only thing that motivates anyone in the US with a business. It sure ain’t making people feel safe/secure. If I had a store, I’d make room inside the store for bicycles, because it would be worth more than whatever merchandise I could put in the same space. Wait ... I have it. Enclose the parking area, and the whole place becomes one giant store that everyone can drive/bike into. Brills. #BRILLS
Excerpt from Deceptive Pratices: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay (2012; 6min).
Unrelated: Wooster Collective is posting again.
The Secrets and Mystic Lore of the Ancients Purported to Be Revealed through the Research of these World’s Great MASTERS Standard O and B Supply Co. Chicago Illinois. Catalog No. MCMXLIV (1944).
Every page a revelation. What a corker. Fool your friends, Know and overcome your enemies. How to Grow Gold. We make no such claims for Divine Ecstacy Brand Candles but only Guarantee them to burn continously with much bright radiance for 14 hours.
Vox: The day women shut down Iceland [9min].
The New Yorker: When the Government Tried ‒ and Failed ‒ to Silence Catwoman [12min].
See also the Eartha Kitt interview in Incredibly Strange Music: Volume I which begins with the White House incident.
Worst biking day thus far. Very cold day. One minivan driver had to have seen me but still had to skid to a stop at the bike/ped path intersection. I have only been in a tight situation vis-a-vis driver stupidity only once, this one wasn’t a problem. Saw it a mile away.
Problems are the drivers that see me coming up on the intersection and decide to just putt through/cut me off and (this is the problem bit) for some unfathomable reason decide to wave at me. Happened twice today. Nowadays, I go out of my way to enthusiastically wave back with a big-ass grin, because that’s what they wanted, right? The wave doesn’t mean “Yeah, I’m an asshole, such is life, I’ve done this hundreds of times” ... does it?
Anyway, a little later I wiped out because a hidden car came through an intersection. Not a “tight situation,” I just couldn’t stay upright after braking. The groceries were not damaged and we all got home safely.
Four exciting interactions with one grocery trip. Probably more than usual because the cold weather = less bicyclists = less awareness that bicyclists exist in the rotted, graying minds of zombie drivers.
American Visionary Art Museum: “Grandma’s Bottle Village: The Art of Tressa Prisbrey” ‒ Full Movie [29min].
Japanese Noodles Udon Soba Kagawa Shikoku: 600 Customers a Day! A Hidden Self-Service Japanese Restaurant in a Remote Rice Field! [35min]
The Filmosophers: David Lynch on the Quest for the Perfect Milkshake [4min]. “David Lynch discusses his quest for the perfect chocolate milkshake during his 7-year daily lunch visits to Bob’s Big Boy Restaurants.”
The Soak: Why Ghibli Succeeds Where Disney Fails [42min]. Kind of needed this today.
Advertisement, Kuttowait Butter Cutter Company, Trade, Detroit (1906). “How much do you lose on butter? Can’t tell exactly ‒ eh?”
1933: Duck Soup ‒ How Satire Works [15min].