This is pretty funny. Via hackaday.

(For those who don't know, 127.0.0.1, synonymous with localhost or loopback, is a reserved IP address that always points back at your own machine.)

Well, like Catherine said, our weekend was great. Good friends, nice weather, and plenty of wine -- nothing to complain about there.

I really liked Chicago, but I came away feeling that it's got a serious branding problem. You know that guy in college who suddenly decides he needs an "in", and tries a little too hard to manufacture a unique identity? Overnight, he becomes, let's say, "that juggling guy". And juggling is fine, and actually pretty great when performed at a very high level. But come on, is that really going to be your whole shtick? The rest of us just kind of wanted to hang out. And I was going to eat that orange you just took.

Chicago, you're like that. You're really a great city, and you have a lot to offer. It's just that sometimes it seems like you try a little too hard. Improv comedy and deep dish pizza are both perfectly nice, but give it a rest already. It's okay to just be you. I know Seattle's got coffee and rain, and San Francisco's got the gays, and New York's got everything and being a jerk about it. But let's face facts: deep dish is basically just a lazy man's lasagna, bad improv ala the American Whose Line Is It Anyway makes people like me want to murder-suicide everyone on stage, and the whole Blues Brothers thing is too detestable for words.

Also, what's up with this whole "second city" thing? Isn't that a bit defeatist? At least stop putting dual antennae on top of all your skyscrapers. It's like the whole skyline is proudly proclaiming "we're number two!" You've gotta dare to dream, Chicago.

I suggest getting back to your strengths. You've got the whole wind thing -- that's nice and abstract (if a bit effete). How about a kite festival? And you should totally name your new WNBA team after it. Oh, and the Cubs! Let's not forget them. Now that the Red Sox are tragically successful, you've got America's #1 hapless baseball team. It's adorable.

And of course there's the El. The soothing clacking; the infinitely painted-over ironwork in the stations; Charles is right: it's exactly like riding The Grizzly at King's Dominion. You should sell tickets! Oh. Right. Well, maybe getting some funnel cake stands and guys wandering around dressed up as Klingons would help draw the crowds.

Finally, you've got Lake Michigan. I'll be honest with you: I think "great" is overselling it. Nonetheless, it's a pretty good lake, and you should run with it. You just need a good slogan to sell it -- something snappy and assertive. How about, "All the lake, none of the Mormons"?

there has got to be somebody out there who wants to see "mr. and mrs. smith" with me, right? right?....gawker's jessica coen says that it "was the perfect, mindless summer flick. If Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie weren't fucking off-camera in between every take, then they are the best actors on the face of the earth."

back from a fun if whirlwind weekend in chicago, where tommy and i hung out with charles, his family (including his sister, who graduated from uchicago - congratulations johanna!) and mssr. nye. twas fun, if excruciatingly hot and humid - almost worse than normal d.c. summers. please lord tell me that isn't normally the case with chicago summers. if so i think i will melt and die, because it is just not fair that in addition to much more terrible winters, i will get summers that are the equivalent to those of d.c., which are so awful they make you want to wear clothing made out of ice cubes and electrical fans. anyway, the apartment search continues - it's just too early, i guess, for me to find a place for september 1. all the places i called and harassed told me to check back in late july, so i wouldn't be surprised if i have to make another trip back to the windy city to find a 400sq ft abode of joy. and a cat. did i tell you i'm getting a cat? i'm so going to do this to it all the time. (PS - to buddies who live in chicago that i did not contact to tell of my arrival, don't take it personally. we had a full schedule with graduation-related stuff, and, like, i'm moving there in a few months, so you can see me then all you ever wanted.)

so. i obviously have nothing interesting to say, so here are some links!

-gopnik hits the biennale in venice

-an article on development in U street (courtesy of matt; be sure to read his commentary as well); article only serves to underscore the fact that I WILL NEVER EVER OWN REAL ESTATE IN THIS CITY UNLESS I BECOME A HIGH CLASS HOOKER

-five things you didn't know you could track with RSS (some of them i did know, like packages and weather, but i didn't realize you could do tv listings and library info as well. soon you'll be able to track EVERYTHING with rss, including a) people who have crushes on you b) your mortal enemies and c) puppies

-bob mould talks to billboard about his new album and tour

-beep thrills - a city paper article from last week about a series of mysterious beeps in a man's falls church home and the internet cult that originated in order to find them.

“You couldn’t tell where it was coming from,” said the 28-year-old Byrnes. “You’d go to one place and say, ‘It’s coming from across the room.’ Then you’d go over there and the sound would come from where you were just standing.”

When the beeps first began, Byrnes stood under every smoke detector in the house to listen for the telltale screech of a dying battery. He also gathered a group of friends and positioned them in various strategic spots, hoping to triangulate the beeping. But everybody pointed in a different direction. His experimental side exhausted, Byrnes finally decided to try to ignore the new soundtrack to his life.

“It’s really a testament to my apathy,” he says.

When the power went off on his block in February and the neighborhood sat in silence, Byrnes was at home, blanketed with beeping.

Byrnes’ beep-enriched existence might have continued ad infinitum if not for his impending wedding to Lindsay Moss. His betrothed was not a fan of the beeping. Moss issued a directive: Fix the beep by June 17, her prospective move-in date. “I told him I wasn’t going to move in if it was still beeping, but the reality is that I would have anyway,” she says. “I was going to be on his ass every day until he figured it out.”

But I still really want to see Howl's Moving Castle. Now: how to fool Catherine into it?