clue free

It’s still hard to get too many pictures of Pripyat, abandoned city of the Chernobyl disaster.

This is one of the few events of the 1980s that can pull me in for hours any time it’s brought up. Probably because it’s so close to what a scenery-gobbling sci-fi disaster movie would be like. Having seen several of these photojournals, finally playing STALKER should be eerie beyond belief.

A distant runner-up event is the Challenger asplosion, which I watched happen while home sick from school. I had a really great cowboy costume (red rayon outfit with cheetah-print chaps—classy!) and a cap gun. I was lying on the couch in this outfit, watching game shows, and absently firing the gun into the air. One of the sparks from the cap gun landed on my adorable chaps, which immediately became adorable flaming chaps. With reaction time that would have impressed they who made Duck & Cover, I remembered to “Stop, Drop, and Roll” and dove to the floor to commence rolling. Rolling took place for about forty seconds, even though the fire was obviously out within ten.

About an hour later, I was wearing sweat pants when the space shuttle exploded without warning. It was a memorable day.

Post-election links having (almost) nothing to do with politics:

• This Fucking Election captures all the catchphrases of these last two brutal years.
• Tim Schafer’s bizarro life presents him with a semi piled high with cement caskets, and he has the good sense to blog it.
• We Bleed Design: Very clever interplay between foreground and background imagery; scroll down for the win.
• Writer’s strike? No problem; Annie Hall with all dialogue stripped out is still a super-hilarious picture.  And while the study of any one Woody Allen credit roll would suffice, The Art of the Title Sequence appreciates a broader style.  Several are better than their films deserve.
• There’s an ultra delicious burger waiting for me at Hodad’s in Ocean Beach, CA. I must possess it…
• Chilling on-the-ground images of the town near Chernobyl, which still has a couple hundred residents. Slogging through page after page of empty-shell communist apartment buildings makes the last page of the gallery all the more poignant, as you see snapshots of the town before the disaster–full of happy children.  It’s like a Jerry Bruckheimer opening sequence in reverse!
• Japan continues to amaze as they deliver Kewpie Mayonnaise, which comes in a plastic bottle (okay) in a plastic bag (WTF?!?)  Frivolous packaging FTL.  And it has MSG.  BTW.  Also, please enjoy hilarious and inventive bento at Wackyfun Food Art Time.