Bob Harris has his way with the North Korean border

This blog might just turn into a list of all the articles that I actually read in their entirety. Which is pretty rare...

The upside: if they don't make me laugh out loud, then they probably won't make it on the list.

On Boing Boing today, writer Bob Harris visits the DMZ between North and South Korea.

This piece is deliciously skewed, full of awesomely hilarious little nuggets.

Now I have to run out and find everything else Bob Harris ever wrote...

Bob Thurman talks about The Matrix

You've got to love Robert Thurman, using The Matrix to deconstruct reality: "It's just an analogy, but such a great analogy, The Matrix."

Recession tips from the undead

I have a confession: I read compulsively, but find very little that holds my attention these days. There's just too much bla bla bla out there.

But this... this is a rollicking good read:
6 tips for surviving a recession, taught by World of Warcraft zombies

After all, who would you rather trust for investment advice?

A. Investment advisors
B. The undead

Can we really say goodbye to the Internet?

We're all arrogant chez nous because we don't have a television. We never have. When I moved out of my parents' house, I just never wanted one. A few of my gazillions of past roommates had TVs. But most of the apartments I lived in over the past 20 years were TV free.

I used to read a lot of books. And go to movies. And write letters.

Now J and I use the Internet.

Sometimes J and I get all proud, thinking about how other families sit around with their kids and watch TV in the evenings. And we say things like "we're instilling the right values" by playing with our kids and singing songs and all that.

But let's face it: we've just replaced TV with something far less communal -- the Internet. Instead of joining mom and dad on the couch at the end of the day, our kids often see one of us, back turned, staring into a little box.

In their eyes, that little box has a lot of power. Where do mom and dad go? Why is that little box so important that we have to check it several times a day? And do Pingu and the Teletubbies live in that little box?

The fact is, that little box isn't important at all.

So we're getting ready to cut the next big addiction: the Internet. Right now, we're gathering up our big strong selves to turn it off November 1. Yep. Turn off our Internet connection.

Because we live in the middle of at least a dozen coffee shops with free wireless. And I'm sure, after a month of pacing, muttering and realizing I shouldn't have recycled the yellow pages, we'll be just fine.

Maybe I'll even start reading books again.

Loving the way back machine

It's no secret that I've been trying to update my portfolio lately.

The thing is, it's tricky to find something you wrote back in say, 2001, given all the comings and goings of dotcoms over the past ten years. That's the real reason why we love the way back machine... you can find all those long lost nuggets you worked so hard on before they crashed and burned.

I almost got weepy revisiting old sites like this one... Leisureplanet... ahhh... old friend. You coulda been a contender, except you mysteriously burned through $25 million before you attracted any users.

Checking out what the web used to be is like perusing old baby pictures. Sites we knew and loved looked so awkward before they grew up and found boyfriends with fast cars.

Check out:
Google from 1998
CNN, June 2000
Hotmail, 1998
Yahoo! ...way back in 1996
Netscape, 1996 (so self assured!)
Travelocity, also from 1996

Things I like: 20-somethings on bicycles...

I'm kind of old school... being, well, older and raised on the West Coast, I always had a fetish for bicycle couriers. The gritty, dirty ones that smell when you get into the elevator with them. Back in may day, they were hot: rough, fit, street-wise and iconoclastic to the extreme.

Actually, my thing for cyclists goes back even further, to the mid 80s, when Paul Weller and his buddy frolicked around in cycling jerseys to My Ever Changing Moods. Yummy.

All of a sudden, it's chic again to ride a bicycle. Whoo... is it ever. Sometime this summer I started to notice little punk kids, girls and boys, riding sleek little 1970s ten speeds like they were going out of style.

So now it's punk rock to have a stripped down Bianchi: no fenders, no gear... sometimes not even any brakes (or just one brake, if you're not that brave).

Punk rock 10-speed girls dress like squeegees, but a little more elegant. You can tell they're not squeegees, but in fact lefty college students, clad in big boots, spiky belts, fake fur... stretch pants and cutoffs, layered just so.

And the 10-speed boys... look way too delicious en route to Mile End, sporting little Italian cycling caps. Safety last. Fashion first. Some of the boys wear little caps and mustaches -- as if they grew them to look "just so" on that welcome back Kotter bicycle. Can little Adidas shorts be far behind?

But back to the bike couriers for just one minute. Lately, I'm tuning into a whole new breed, even more delicious than the 1990s variety. As if to defy the 10-speed kids, these road warriors wear dreadlocks, kilts, big fat earrings and giant boots.

These lads don't give a rat's ass for anyone's rules, fashion or otherwise. And it's lovely. One sports a big, curly 1900s mustache. Another has dangly, ladylike earrings shining inside his filthy hair. As if to say: cars suck, being in traffic all day is crazy, and I'm expressing my contempt for it all in my own special way.