I picked up a new bike this weekend from someone on Craigslist! A ~1995 Schwinn Passage in perfect condition. It’s a great little touring bike and I’ve already put 25 miles on it.

Looks like Sid Meier and the gang at Firaxis have announced Civilization V, the latest game in the greatest video game series that has ever existed!

Here’s the trailer.

It’s going to be an extraordinarily long wait until Fall 2010.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article this morning on how carpenter ants have been borrowing out of their exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences.

One of the anecdotes they relate is the story of an octopus that snuck out of its enclosure at night and would snatch crabs from another tank. I’d actually heard this before, but didn’t realize it happened here!

About 10 years ago, Mr. Shepherd says, crabs kept mysteriously disappearing from a tank in the old academy. The culprit was a giant octopus two tanks over, which used its tentacles to sneak out at night and snatch crabs, he says. The octopus tank has since been wrapped in AstroTurf.

I’ve written about crazy octopi before.

One day, I’ll have my pet penguin…

I always wondered how they filmed a number of these outdoor scenes in movies / television. This is devastating though. It’s like finding out Santa Claus isn’t real.

[Via Kottke]

Went out shooting some photos today, for the first time in what feels like ages. This is one of my favorite photos that I’ve taken in a long time. The sculpture is Ecstasy by Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito and was installed at Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley last week. It’s on display until June 18, 2010.

More information is available on the Black Rock Arts Foundation blog.

First displayed at the Burning Man festival in Nevada in 2008, Ecstasy is one of the eight monumental metal figures of the artists’ masterpiece, Crude Awakening. In Crude Awakening, these eight figures surrounded a 99-foot tall wooden oil derrick in gestures of prostration, worship and exaltation. Alone, Ecstasy embarks on a hopeful journey. Instead of throwing her head back in reverie to the oil derrick, she gazes wistfully into the open sky as she steps forward into an optimistic future, free of dependency on fossil fuel.

Remember when phone booths used to be pretty prevalent? I wonder how long it will be before electronic communication renders these guys obsolete?

Awhile ago, AT&T released an app for the iPhone called Mark the Spot, which allows users to send a message to AT&T pinpointing their location, the problem (dropped call, no data coverage, etc), along with various diagnostic information. I use it often.

One thing I’ve noticed lately though is that whenever I open the program to report a problem, my iPhone instantly finds a connection. Have you seen this strange phenomenon?

I think AT&T is toying with me.

A photo of mine appeared in an article about Veronica Belmont and Ryan Block in Geeksugar, for their series of “Geeks We Love” articles!

Nikon D300, Nikkor 24mm f/2.8, and an SB-600 flash w/ LumiQuest 80-20 diffuser.

This weekend, a number of our friends ventured to Lake Tahoe for some R&R. We stayed in a friend’s family’s cabin, went snowboarding, and watched the Super Bowl.

Of course, the perfect way to start (and end) the trip is by visiting In N’ Out.