Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Coolest websites: Lescaux caves, Esperanto, urinals, Hunter Thompson
Russian brides, anarchy, San Diego's Ridout Plastics, Unarius, prison penpals, ghosttowns, Ayn Rand, house rabbits, DuctTapeGuys, Padres fans, where to buy a Russian sub
Lescaux site. Paintings in the cave are about 15,000 to 17,000 years old.
Explore Lescaux caves with your mouse
What else should we expect from the French? The site tells a complex narrative in a wonderfully modern and abstruse way. At the same time, it’s told with pride and elegance. The story itself, like the cave paintings, is a beautiful one, and the site, wisely, lets it unfold slowly and somewhat randomly. But the browser, like a teenager eager to get to the next level, moves fast and so stumbles across the stunning images.
By Justin Wolff, Mar. 22, 2001 | Read full article
From Esperanto site. All nouns end in o, adjectives end in a, and adverbs end in e.
Esperanto — no irregular verbs
Most people are perfectly happy with their own language, and those very few who have the luxury to learn another prefer one that allows them to read Italo Calvino, Thomas Mann, or Li Po untranslated. To be blunt, no good literature has been written in Esperanto, and as Fernando de Diego, a Venezuelan who writes in Esperanto, admitted, “Fifty percent of Esperanto translations are lousy translations of useless works."
By Justin Wolff, June 14, 2001 | Read full article
From urinal.net. Time spent at a urinal is a time for introspection, relaxation, exhalation, and frankness.
The beauty of urinals
Urinal.net attempts to recover some of the enchantment once associated with urinals. Ever since Marcel Duchamp “recovered” a urinal (on view at the site) from the street and displayed it at a Dadaist exhibition, the porcelain receptacles have been the butt of jokes. But Duchamp's “ready-mades” or “brain facts” were serious testaments to banality, to the futility of defining art as anything other than a philosophical decision.
By Justin Wolff, July 19, 2001 | Read full article
Hunter Thompson just copied Annie Leibowitz
But just because Thompson is up to date technologically doesn’t mean that he’s in step. He may be a sports buff (he began his career as a sportswriter in Florida), but in his inaugural “Hey, Rube!” column, he proposed several ways to shorten baseball games, a sport he abhors. “Not even the New Rules would drag me back to the Ballpark,” he wrote.
By Justin Wolff, Aug. 9, 2001 | Read full article
A nice 63-year-old American stands a better chance of scoring than a 31-year-old loser.
Find brides on the Volga
Begin by selecting a number of Russian women that interest you from our Main Photo Gallery. Our search engine can be quite helpful in narrowing your preferred criteria. The women profiled here are quite adept at judging character and frequently hold substance of character in higher regard than age.
By Justin Wolff, Aug. 23, 2001| Read full article
From Anarchy site. "Without some means of exact time keeping, industrial capitalism could not continue to exploit the workers."
Anarchy on the web
Emma Goldman grew up in a “petit-bourgeois ”Jewish family in the Baltic region of Russia. After emigrating to the United States when she was 16, she worked in a Rochester, New York, garment factory before settling in New York City in 1889. Already influenced in her youth by the radical culture of St. Petersburg, she soon joined the anarchist movement and advocated violence; she helped Alexander Berkman plot to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.
By Justin Wolff, Oct. 4, 2001 | Read full article
From Ridout site. Ridout Plastics has grown from 8 to over 65 employees.
Ridout Plastics — beyond Preisendorfer surfboards
One of Easton’s primary lessons is that “content” is not the kiss of death. So long as a site provides a clearly stated service, it can load up on content and still succeed. Ridout.com serves as a fine example of this precept. A client can visit the site to order a custom-made skateboard or an oddly shaped piece of plastic tubing and receive as a bonus an education in the expansion and contraction properties of Plexiglas (acrylic).
By Justin Wolff, Nov. 29, 2001 | Read full article
Unarius site. Preparing for the landing of a Pleiadean starship.
San Diego's spiritualists battle local scientists
San Diego is a logical venue for disputes over the paranormal: it is home to alternative lifestylers and first-rate science and research institutions. The landscape of the region also breeds opposing explanations of odd phenomena. Desert places attract spiritualists and scientists, both pursuing answers to serious questions among extreme geography and light-streaked night skies. And the military’s presence here complicates these matters: its furtive experiments and luminescent flying machines are mistaken for paranormal activity.
By Justin Wolff, June 18, 1998 | Read full article
Inmate.com homepage. "It’s sweet to be remembered, but often cheaper to be forgotten.”
Prison penpals
Unless you’re a relative, I imagine it would take a big and courageous heart to reach out to the likes of Anthony “Two Guns” Fletcher. According to Two Guns’s site at the Inmate Home Pages, the state of Pennsylvania convicted him of first-degree murder by such unjust means as destroying “exculpatory medical evidence and manufacturing autopsy reports.” Though Two Guns’s bragging about his life before his conviction might scare away some sympathizers, it probably wins more over.
By Justin Wolff, July 2, 1998 | Read full article
Ghosttowns website. Decline and ruin are common occurrences treated with a Darwinian detachment.
Loneliest towns in the U.S.
Of a ghost town in Imperial County, California, he writes: “Twenty-five miles from Yuma, Arizona, north of Highway 80, is the ghost town of Tumco, California. A track walker whose last name was Hedges made a find in the early 1880s that created some excitement (and) that eventually lured as many as 3000 persons to the site."
By Justin Wolff, Oct. 29, 1998 | Read full article
San Diego House Rabbit Society. "Spend time just sitting quietly on the floor."
Extreme rabbit lovers
The site gives vivid descriptions of how rabbits might fight, nip, and mount each other in territorial disputes right in your living room. “Fighting is usually an instantly, purposely vicious attack. Rabbits sometimes attack the other rabbit’s face, underside, and genital area.” Notwithstanding their fierce resistance to domestication and socialization, the San Diego House Rabbit Society does its best to sell rabbits.
By Justin Wolff, Sept. 30, 1999 | Read full article
Ayn Rand Institute site:.“A is A. Facts are facts.”
The dangerous Ayn Rand
It’s not Rand’s idealization of machismo and corporate tactics that appeal to me (though I must say that the best testament to the androgyny of Rand’s credo is Rand herself, an ambitious, calculating, and very successful intellectual), it’s her unwavering Objectivism, her consistent dedication to a philosophy other than religion that I admire.
By Justin Wolff, Jan. 13, 2000 | Read full article
DuctTapeGuys site. Duct tape doesn’t work on ducts.
Duct tape madness
The versatile tape was used as a mending material that could be ripped by hand and used to make quick repairs to jeeps, aircraft, and other military equipment. Johnson & Johnson Company, which had by then developed its own line of adhesive tapes, helped the war effort by combining cloth mesh, which rips easily, with a rubber-based adhesive and a rubberized coating.
By Justin Wolff, Feb. 10, 2000 | Read full article
Padres site. At least the Padres aren’t one of the “Big Four.”
A place for Padres fans
The off-season is a tricky time. Those of us who cheer for teams besides the Yankees need a respite from our unrequited love, but at the same time, the winter is about prospects. It’s about every connotation of the word: rookies, new acquisitions, rising averages, the meaning of last year’s late-season surge, dreaming about surveying those below you from the top of the field. First place. Winning. Winning the World Series.
By Justin Wolff, Apr. 13, 2000 | Read full article
From SmokingGun site. Russia, we know, has been selling portions of its huge weapons cache.
Where to buy Russian sub
I need a huge, wasteful engine. I need a generous captain’s quarters, a classy mess hall, and a state-of-the-art marine toilet. I need chrome detailing, lots of knobs and dials set in a mahogany control panel, and the very best periscope available. And range. I need lots of range. I’m not interested in commuter submarines. I need an attack sub. Something expansive enough for my chronic road rage.
By Justin Wolff, Nov. 9, 2000 | Read full article
Northern Light has best search engine, if the volume and inventiveness of query returns is any indication.
Northern Light and its customized folders
I know plenty of people who have always found the Web an empty place — a place even more frustrating than the endless aisles at Vons and Longs Drugs, where one freezes in front of soaps and toothbrushes.
I hate the 15 minutes I waste trying to decide what’s more important for the long-term health of my teeth — but I hate those minutes less than the ones I waste trying to find travel and consumer advice online.
By Justin Wolff, Dec. 21, 2000 | Read full article
Here's something you might be interested in.
Coolest websites: Lescaux caves, Esperanto, urinals, Hunter Thompson
Russian brides, anarchy, San Diego's Ridout Plastics, Unarius, prison penpals, ghosttowns, Ayn Rand, house rabbits, DuctTapeGuys, Padres fans, where to buy a Russian sub
Coolest websites: Lescaux caves, Esperanto, urinals, Hunter Thompson
Russian brides, anarchy, San Diego's Ridout Plastics, Unarius, prison penpals, ghosttowns, Ayn Rand, house rabbits, DuctTapeGuys, Padres fans, where to buy a Russian sub
Lescaux site. Paintings in the cave are about 15,000 to 17,000 years old.
Explore Lescaux caves with your mouse
What else should we expect from the French? The site tells a complex narrative in a wonderfully modern and abstruse way. At the same time, it’s told with pride and elegance. The story itself, like the cave paintings, is a beautiful one, and the site, wisely, lets it unfold slowly and somewhat randomly. But the browser, like a teenager eager to get to the next level, moves fast and so stumbles across the stunning images.
By Justin Wolff, Mar. 22, 2001 | Read full article
From Esperanto site. All nouns end in o, adjectives end in a, and adverbs end in e.
Esperanto — no irregular verbs
Most people are perfectly happy with their own language, and those very few who have the luxury to learn another prefer one that allows them to read Italo Calvino, Thomas Mann, or Li Po untranslated. To be blunt, no good literature has been written in Esperanto, and as Fernando de Diego, a Venezuelan who writes in Esperanto, admitted, “Fifty percent of Esperanto translations are lousy translations of useless works."
By Justin Wolff, June 14, 2001 | Read full article
From urinal.net. Time spent at a urinal is a time for introspection, relaxation, exhalation, and frankness.
The beauty of urinals
Urinal.net attempts to recover some of the enchantment once associated with urinals. Ever since Marcel Duchamp “recovered” a urinal (on view at the site) from the street and displayed it at a Dadaist exhibition, the porcelain receptacles have been the butt of jokes. But Duchamp's “ready-mades” or “brain facts” were serious testaments to banality, to the futility of defining art as anything other than a philosophical decision.
By Justin Wolff, July 19, 2001 | Read full article
Hunter Thompson just copied Annie Leibowitz
But just because Thompson is up to date technologically doesn’t mean that he’s in step. He may be a sports buff (he began his career as a sportswriter in Florida), but in his inaugural “Hey, Rube!” column, he proposed several ways to shorten baseball games, a sport he abhors. “Not even the New Rules would drag me back to the Ballpark,” he wrote.
By Justin Wolff, Aug. 9, 2001 | Read full article
A nice 63-year-old American stands a better chance of scoring than a 31-year-old loser.
Find brides on the Volga
Begin by selecting a number of Russian women that interest you from our Main Photo Gallery. Our search engine can be quite helpful in narrowing your preferred criteria. The women profiled here are quite adept at judging character and frequently hold substance of character in higher regard than age.
By Justin Wolff, Aug. 23, 2001| Read full article
From Anarchy site. "Without some means of exact time keeping, industrial capitalism could not continue to exploit the workers."
Anarchy on the web
Emma Goldman grew up in a “petit-bourgeois ”Jewish family in the Baltic region of Russia. After emigrating to the United States when she was 16, she worked in a Rochester, New York, garment factory before settling in New York City in 1889. Already influenced in her youth by the radical culture of St. Petersburg, she soon joined the anarchist movement and advocated violence; she helped Alexander Berkman plot to assassinate Henry Clay Frick.
By Justin Wolff, Oct. 4, 2001 | Read full article
From Ridout site. Ridout Plastics has grown from 8 to over 65 employees.
Ridout Plastics — beyond Preisendorfer surfboards
One of Easton’s primary lessons is that “content” is not the kiss of death. So long as a site provides a clearly stated service, it can load up on content and still succeed. Ridout.com serves as a fine example of this precept. A client can visit the site to order a custom-made skateboard or an oddly shaped piece of plastic tubing and receive as a bonus an education in the expansion and contraction properties of Plexiglas (acrylic).
By Justin Wolff, Nov. 29, 2001 | Read full article
Unarius site. Preparing for the landing of a Pleiadean starship.
San Diego's spiritualists battle local scientists
San Diego is a logical venue for disputes over the paranormal: it is home to alternative lifestylers and first-rate science and research institutions. The landscape of the region also breeds opposing explanations of odd phenomena. Desert places attract spiritualists and scientists, both pursuing answers to serious questions among extreme geography and light-streaked night skies. And the military’s presence here complicates these matters: its furtive experiments and luminescent flying machines are mistaken for paranormal activity.
By Justin Wolff, June 18, 1998 | Read full article
Inmate.com homepage. "It’s sweet to be remembered, but often cheaper to be forgotten.”
Prison penpals
Unless you’re a relative, I imagine it would take a big and courageous heart to reach out to the likes of Anthony “Two Guns” Fletcher. According to Two Guns’s site at the Inmate Home Pages, the state of Pennsylvania convicted him of first-degree murder by such unjust means as destroying “exculpatory medical evidence and manufacturing autopsy reports.” Though Two Guns’s bragging about his life before his conviction might scare away some sympathizers, it probably wins more over.
By Justin Wolff, July 2, 1998 | Read full article
Ghosttowns website. Decline and ruin are common occurrences treated with a Darwinian detachment.
Loneliest towns in the U.S.
Of a ghost town in Imperial County, California, he writes: “Twenty-five miles from Yuma, Arizona, north of Highway 80, is the ghost town of Tumco, California. A track walker whose last name was Hedges made a find in the early 1880s that created some excitement (and) that eventually lured as many as 3000 persons to the site."
By Justin Wolff, Oct. 29, 1998 | Read full article
San Diego House Rabbit Society. "Spend time just sitting quietly on the floor."
Extreme rabbit lovers
The site gives vivid descriptions of how rabbits might fight, nip, and mount each other in territorial disputes right in your living room. “Fighting is usually an instantly, purposely vicious attack. Rabbits sometimes attack the other rabbit’s face, underside, and genital area.” Notwithstanding their fierce resistance to domestication and socialization, the San Diego House Rabbit Society does its best to sell rabbits.
By Justin Wolff, Sept. 30, 1999 | Read full article
Ayn Rand Institute site:.“A is A. Facts are facts.”
The dangerous Ayn Rand
It’s not Rand’s idealization of machismo and corporate tactics that appeal to me (though I must say that the best testament to the androgyny of Rand’s credo is Rand herself, an ambitious, calculating, and very successful intellectual), it’s her unwavering Objectivism, her consistent dedication to a philosophy other than religion that I admire.
By Justin Wolff, Jan. 13, 2000 | Read full article
DuctTapeGuys site. Duct tape doesn’t work on ducts.
Duct tape madness
The versatile tape was used as a mending material that could be ripped by hand and used to make quick repairs to jeeps, aircraft, and other military equipment. Johnson & Johnson Company, which had by then developed its own line of adhesive tapes, helped the war effort by combining cloth mesh, which rips easily, with a rubber-based adhesive and a rubberized coating.
By Justin Wolff, Feb. 10, 2000 | Read full article
Padres site. At least the Padres aren’t one of the “Big Four.”
A place for Padres fans
The off-season is a tricky time. Those of us who cheer for teams besides the Yankees need a respite from our unrequited love, but at the same time, the winter is about prospects. It’s about every connotation of the word: rookies, new acquisitions, rising averages, the meaning of last year’s late-season surge, dreaming about surveying those below you from the top of the field. First place. Winning. Winning the World Series.
By Justin Wolff, Apr. 13, 2000 | Read full article
From SmokingGun site. Russia, we know, has been selling portions of its huge weapons cache.
Where to buy Russian sub
I need a huge, wasteful engine. I need a generous captain’s quarters, a classy mess hall, and a state-of-the-art marine toilet. I need chrome detailing, lots of knobs and dials set in a mahogany control panel, and the very best periscope available. And range. I need lots of range. I’m not interested in commuter submarines. I need an attack sub. Something expansive enough for my chronic road rage.
By Justin Wolff, Nov. 9, 2000 | Read full article
Northern Light has best search engine, if the volume and inventiveness of query returns is any indication.
Northern Light and its customized folders
I know plenty of people who have always found the Web an empty place — a place even more frustrating than the endless aisles at Vons and Longs Drugs, where one freezes in front of soaps and toothbrushes.
I hate the 15 minutes I waste trying to decide what’s more important for the long-term health of my teeth — but I hate those minutes less than the ones I waste trying to find travel and consumer advice online.
By Justin Wolff, Dec. 21, 2000 | Read full article
Comments