activities of daily living

after reading Andy Dehnart's lament on the state of graphic design in Florida, specifically regarding the choice of state quarter, I decided to check out some other coins. Apparently Michigan's coin was released early this year.

Suitably generic, the design falls into one of the traps outlined by Slate in their 2002 "Why are they so ugly?" feature: state outlines. At least they chose the simplest design over options that would've been cluttered with the bridge, the auto industry, or both. I guess that the geography of Michigan is mildly interesting -- Great Lakes and the two peninsulas situation -- and they didn't use a new motto.

Looking at the other quarters, it seems like people are really excited about flight (both space and heavier than air) and Lincoln. Luckily, neither of those could be included on the Michigan coin. I wonder if one of them will end up on the Washington coin? Maybe the powers that be will decide to feature George Washington on the reverse, making a legal two-headed coin.

What's your favorite state quarter?

probably all over the internet by now, Homeless NYU student documents life on Livejournal, gets a dorm room [site, homeless_at_nyu]

Commenting on the student who lived for eight months in the library, this quote from the NYU spokesperson is entertaining, if only for the definition of NYU student intelligence and eccentricity:

"N.Y.U. doesn't attract just smart students, it attracts smart, eclectic students," said Mr. Beckman, the university spokesman. "We had a film student who wanted to film a couple performing a live sex act in front of a class. We had students who set up a swimming pool in their dorm room. Now we have this fellow."
[nyt]

I wonder how uncommon this is (the homelessness, not the live sex in class). By the end of the week, will every campus newspaper have a letter to the editor from the local library sleeper?

Apparently it was the day after tomorrow¹ [ed: shouldn't that be the day before tomorrow? yes, but the movie reference is already a stretch. --or does the film's disaster happen "tomorrow," in which case "the day after" should be deleted? fuck if I know, there's no way I'm watching it] in Seattle today. During the course of my yoga class, the weather went from overcast to heavy rain to hail to traces of sunlight. The class is in a big studio with floor to (tall) ceiling windows on two walls; so we had a great view of the climate changes, and the eventual retreat of the IMA soccer players when the hail started.

By the time I left, I looked at the sky and wished that I had a camera to capture the tremendous variation in the sky. Luckily, the internet does not disappoint. A couple of great pictures are posted in seattle [ed: and also here --having a fake editor is fun!].

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(1) Isn't it nice that the major entertainment conglomerates have decided that we are once again ready to enjoy visual images of cities being destroyed?