Andy Laub

Back from Chicago! Architecture today, cars…soon.

I believe this was IBM Plaza.

Cranes, working on The Donald’s new building. They had just started this last summer.

Watching the cranes.

I’m not sure hocking bags was what they meant by Design Within Reach.

Obligatory cockeyed skyscraper shot.

I can’t think the name of this company without hearing the music to go with it.

This company doesn’t have music, but they make up for it with great burritos.

The amphitheater at Millenium Park on Michigan Ave.

The beams that criss-cross the seating and greenspace in front of the stage.

One of a pair of lions in front of the Chicago Art Institute.

The Sears Tower and friends, as seen from our hotel window.

A building across from our hotel.

Another building rising above the building across from our hotel.

Back when I was 8 or 9 years old, my parents got me one of the Game & Watch games from Nintendo. It followed along with those old Tiger games (or an LCD watch) where you could see the different parts and they just turned on and off as necessary.

That means that Mario’s Cement Factory was my very first Nintendo game, ever. Anyway, 15+ years later I picked up a copy of Nintendo’s Game & Watch Gallery 4, which not coincidentally includes Mario’s Cement Factory in both original and remastered glory. The whole package is really quite nice, with both the original and “new” versions of all the games on there, and it’s a fun little time waster. Between that, Tetris Deluxe, and Dr. Mario, me and the GBA should be contentedly occupied all the way down to Chicago.

I am also happy to report that Panther is a thing of the past, at least on my Powerbook. Tiger is installed and Spotlight is indexing the big boy (my FireWire drive) right now. It was a pleasantly uneventful update. I haven’t played much with Dashboard, though I did grab a system-monitor widget which works real nice.

I also downloaded an iPhoto companion called iPhoto Buddy, a free app that lets you break your iPhoto library into pieces (for example, I made one for 2006, 2005, and pre-2K5), something that will help my poor machine work a little faster.

Finally, a couple of site notes. Now that I finally am “with it” and have Safari 2, I get that wicked little RSS button in my address bar. The first thing I did was rip off some of PDF’s header code to make mine show the RSS button as well (and it works!). Now that I have that I can actually look at my feed and make sure I’m happy with it. Eventually.

Del.icio.us has been behaving rather sporadically lately as well. I can’t figure it out, but sometimes my site only shows 3 links and sometimes it shows the proper number (I think it’s set at 7 or 8 right now). I’ve seen this in Firefox and both versions of Safari, and on other computers that aren’t mine, so it’s got to be something with del.icio.us or something with Magpie RSS. Let me be clear though — I haven’t changed any code; this is completely random. Any thoughts?

There’s a certain sense of excitement and satisfaction when your attempt to find a certain thing or things by rooting through boxes proves to be successful.

Shown:

• NES (2/2)
• SNES
• Pac-Man (1/2)
• Mega Man 5
• Super Mario Brothers 3
• Super Mario Kart
• Super Mario World
• Mega Man X
• Final Fantasy III
• Chrono Trigger
• Earthbound (a song from which reminds me of that new Strokes song ‘Juicebox’)
• RF Switch (1/3)
• NES Controller (1/4). On that subject, remember when consoles all came with 2 controllers?

The Nintendos in are happy in their new home spot.

Our apartment is one of six in recently-renovated (2004) historic building. As is common for this sort of thing, the apartments had to be architected to fill up the existing space rather than the other way around. This is important because of its fundamental contribution to the existence of what we call “the media room.”

Back when the building was a multi-level store (I believe), there was an accounting office that sat on its own level, between the formal first and second floors of the building. As you walked up the back stairway, you’d stop on the landing leading to the office before continuing to the second story. When this most recent of renovations happened the lower stairs were removed and the accounting office became concatenated with one of the apartments — ours.

Like I said, media room. A place to get away from everything else and just play games, watch movies, or just make as much noise as possible.

One of the best parts is that thanks to said stairs, the media room walls are not adjacent to any other apartments; just with the (empty) business on the first floor.

Countless feet of cables.

There’s a whole box of assorted remotes waiting to jump in and take over for this one.

Considering my obsession over black gaming hardware, what’s with that spice Nintendo controller? Good thing it’s Abe’s favorite color.

I told you — black.

And some obligatory macro shots…

…of the ceiling light…

…the CD changer…

…and some candles.

Another year gone. Today marks the beginning of my 26th year, when I officially enter my late mid-twenties. What better way to celebrate than with macro shots of watches that I never wear?

Diesel. I bought this for Abe’s Christmas present a couple years ago.

Diesel. The detailing is really nice, and the leather super soft.

Diesel 10BAR. I think this one’s my favorite. The metal bars in the band are laid into green rubber.

Diesel 10BAR. Geometry!

Fossil Blue(s). The quintessential Fossil watch series.

Fossil Blue Light-up. It pretends to be a chronograph, but it’s just the day of the week.

Fossil Blue Titanium. Super light, but this one really does have a chronograph.

Fossil Digital. The screen is a light-on-dark LCD instead of the other way around.

This one’s rather old-timey.

In this case, the plants indigenous to the atrium of our building.

You find the best things in the most surprising places.

Saturday we finally got a chance to stop at the Land Rover dealership in downtown Minneapolis and the experience stuck with me as being one of the neatest dealer facilities I’ve ever seen. The entire place sits on a city block, and consists of a medium-sized one-story showroom attached to a 4-story parking ramp.

Look up in the parking lot and take note of the LR3 on the roof. Walk past the de facto Land Rover test course to enter the showroom and absorb the sight, feel, and smell of some of the finest cars Britain has to offer (Do you like luxury?). In the middle of the showroom is a spiral staircase leading down to another showroom, which could’ve been where they kept the sold stock.

Follow the basement hallway towards the parking ramp and it starts to get even more interesting. This is the indoor used car area. You’ll notice a couple older M-B cabriolets in addition to a Jag and one of 4 Lotus Elises scattered about. Walk between the rows of cars, past the Jags and a couple of bargain Range Rovers and there is easily one of the most picturesque sights in Minneapolis.

THE. ELISE. IS. AMAZING.

Sadly, Land Rover and friends won’t be living downtown much longer. The last of the downtown dealerships will be moving up and out to a new location very soon. If you’re in town, check it out while it’s still open.

The time has finally come. I picked up a spanking new 60GB iPod on Friday night. The thing is just hott, too – this is easily the sexiest generation of iPod ever. The 60 loses a little something in aesthetics compared to the unbelievably thin 30, but more than compensates with capacity. Fitting also, that the 5G iPod coincidentally constitutes the 5th member of our household iPod family.

I also bought one of the new universal docks because I was unsure as to whether the 3rd-gen dock that I got with my other iPod would be compatible. They both fit snugly in the same dock adapter (#10) that came with the new one, but I’ll have to wait until Tuesday when I get to work to see whether it’s a similar situation with the existing dock.

For $40 the universal dock also includes adapters for the iPod mini and all the 4G iPods which is rather convenient but unnecessary. I only wish the 5G iPod came as well-equipped. $360 2 years ago got me a 15GB iPod, a dock, a firewire cable, headphones, a carrying case, and wall plug. And while this new iPod adds some great features, the dock becomes an extra rather than a given, and I’m just happy I can continue to use the old power brick. Fortunately, a very nice simple case is included, and while I was disappointed in the lack of FireWire support, the USB 2 seems to work just fine.

I’ve yet to play any videos on it and have only used the photo feature briefly. According to this, a copy of Quicktime Pro will convert any videos you’d already view in Quicktime (mpeg, MOV, or AVI) into an iPod-ready format. I’m trying this right now, so I’ll try to follow up. It seems to work well, and given that Pro for Windows and Mac are the 3rd and 4th best sellers in the Apple Store right now I’d bet others agree.

Parties, pool, googly eyes, badgers, Frankenstein’s monster, stroked-out cats, raccoon heads.

I swear, Bender has to be the freakin’ Volkswagen of cats – always something wrong.

Somehow he managed to get a hole in his epidermis that was promptly sewn up by our vet. How does he get himself into these things? Anyway, sorry – I warned you it was gross.

Fall is here, so is the internet dead? Nobody’s blogging, nobody’s emailing. I guess we’re in hibernation.

Nope, no lulls here! Anyway, here’s a Land Cruiser from back when they were still good.

As a car enthusiast, it pains me to see cool cars gone to waste. I came across this Jetta GLI today (here’s how they looked in their heyday) and it was just beat to hell, which is sad. It was sitting in the budget corner of a car lot, and it’s one of the many times that I wish that I had the resources and ability to restore it to its former majesty.