Incognito mayor catches naughty cablecar conductors

"He usually rides [the cablecars] on Sunday down to the Powell Street turnaround...He likes to check and see how the tourists are being treated."

...At one point, he even kept two recycling bins in the trunk of his town car so he could scoop up litter he spotted while driving from meeting to meeting.

But apparently some people, like the Chief of Police, are less than impressed with this whole civic-minded thing (which apparently came to include the mayor getting irate about all the drug dealers he kept seeing when jogging through the Tenderloin).

"With all due respect, Mr. Mayor, we could put a cop on every corner, and the drug dealers would just deal in between them,'' Delagnes said. "But if you are really tired of seeing drug dealers, there is one solution I could suggest."

"What's that?'' the mayor asked.

"Try jogging somewhere else."

Just no pleasing some people...

Intelligent refrigerator poetry magnets!

I'm in love!

(Thanks to Blog of a Bookslut for the link.)

(And I love John Bellairs too, though The Face in the Frost is more my cup of tea. What a wonderfully freaky book.)

In brightest day, in darkest night...

Catwoman-drawing memes don't do anything in particular for me. But now there's a Green Lantern-drawing meme going around. That's a whole 'nother story.

...And so is this one. I can't find my copy of the comic it appeared in: it's been lost after many moves. But I stumbled across the original file the other day.

In honor of the meme, therefore (since I can't draw):

"Social Occasion"

Ferrofluid sculptures

I could watch this for hours: it's a shame the video is so brief.

Sachiko has taken this idea of liquid architecture more literally with these stunning sculpture made from Ferrofluid which changes its state by the introduction of electro-magnetic waves into the fluid, turning it solid.

(Thanks, Posicat!)