Ira Glass of “This American Life” explains why artists — or anyone who takes pride in his work — hit that ceiling of my-hands-are-so-dumb frustration… and how to beat it.

Very insistent. It’s almost like trying to order something at The Pump that doesn’t include a pita.

I’m sitting here in Union Square at the one-night-only 25th anniversary WarGames re-release. (Much of the audience seems approximately the age of the movie itself, incidentally.)

During the scene where David and Jennifer are leaving Falken’s house, the projector cuts out. Totally dead. 10 minutes later, the theater manager shows up and says that “the satellite link for this event has gone down. Not just this theater–the whole country. Some kind of computer glitch.” Raucous laughter. The manager looked confused by the reaction.

Maybe instead of this satellite whiz-bangery, we should have left the humans in the loop?

UPDATE: 20 minutes later, back up! Onward to DEFCON 1!

Robert Soloway, the “spam king”, is going to jail. The real story, to me, is that a different spammer broke out of prison two days before:

Another notorious spammer, Eddie Davidson, escaped from his prison camp in Colorado on Sunday, authorities said Tuesday. He had been serving a 21-month sentence after pleading guilty to spam charges in December.

(Cue the theme from The Great Escape…)

And yeah, duh, the car is registered in Texas.

Dinner was great, though — we finally have a good thai restaurant (Dee Thai, 47th Street and Queens Blvd.)  Ka Moo Nam Dang: ultimate thai-style porchetta (porchetta being Italian-style pulled pork, but not shredded and more roasty.)  So much fat.  So much delicious hot sauce. Mmmmm.

Woohoo!  This August 9th, 16th, and 23rd, Park Ave will be closed to motor vehicles.  The route will connect the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park (at 72nd Street.)

NYC is becoming way more car-hostile in recent months, and as a walker/biker/subway-rider, I could not be happier. Maybe one day, in the future, people will work near where they live, rather than commute 2 hours each way. Maybe one day, in the future, people will dismiss wasteful things as wasteful.  Maybe one day, in the future, it will start getting easier to breathe, rather than harder.

Started the Hundred Pushups program this morning.  Pushed 40 for the initial test.  Not bad for first thing in the morning, and puts me squarely into Level 4 (30-49 reps).  The program runs 6 weeks (3 days per week) and gradually ramps you up to the goal.

I love their site — nice and clean, and thank Jeebus they are using print stylesheets properly.  For a printer-friendly version of the site… you just print it! Ah, the miracle of basic CSS, which continues to escape most corporate sites.

Nature is pretty cool sometimes.

Growing up in New York, you kind of become immune to a lot of the majesty of skyscrapers (and they are majestic, really, even if you don’t care for their particular style.) Visiting other cities, you can gloss over what has gone into the towers, transportation system, utilities, and the general state of the place.  For many years I was completely unaware of the poor air quality in various cities because I was so used to Manhattan’s smog.

It’s fully a cliche when NYers do impressions of tourists with their jaws dropped and their necks bent back, and their feet all a-waddle, as they try to get their brains around even one building being that tall, let alone most of them.  “Why are they snapping so many goddamn pictures?”  It’s impressive.  It’s a massive feat of design, human drive, and engineering.  And there are hundreds of them.  If you have the time to think about it (and we don’t), it can make you feel a lot of things… including, well, small.  Artificial infinity is staring down at you.

But then I recall JD’s assessment of Hawaii: “it’s really nice in the sense that it’s the kind of place where you’re assured on a daily basis that Nature loves you.”

DEVO last night, and now this on The Cellar this morning. This giant ball balances the Taipei 101 skyscraper as it sways due to winds and earthquakes.  Similar counterweights have been used in other skyscrapers, including Citigroup Center.

Click through for video proof that it’s sweet deep inside.

(Photo credit: winkshot)