WRITING on or off topic.

  • New York

35 Miles from Northeast to Southwest

Having to schlep my belongings from the Bronx to the Rockaways has reminded me of just low large New York City is - 35 miles from Northeast to Southwest. Here are a few pictures of the city and my travels from the past month.
  • Nostalgia

Morris the Cat is crankier than Garfield on a Monday.

Have you seen this oddball promo calendar from 1986 that featured Morris the Cat (of 9 Lives marketing fame)? I found it at an estate sale in Houston back when I was in college. 
  • Design

I love a fast food mascot that admonishes you.

There's something so very Québec about the rooster mascot for the chain restaurant "St-Hubert" - that finger wagging could be for any number of reasons, all fixable by excessive regulation.
  • New York

Prognoses for NYC from an outsider looking inward.

New York CIty of today? Still the biggest, singular superpower in a large cohort of global cities, but in a very slow decline.
  • Design

The first and last annual License Plate Awards

This is my list of the best and worst license plates, for various reasons, and some are simply ones I love to hate.
  • Personal

I guess he’d rather be in Colorado

I am spending some time in Denver before heading all of the way west. To that end, I would rather live in the imagined Denver that never was.
  • Music

Sledgehammer: A self-help motivator in the form of a pop song

The video to "Sledgehammer" reads like Teletubbies on angel dust, or a kindergarten K hole. But the lyrics of the song are inspiring and a call to arms for someone who's down on their luck.
  • Family, Nostalgia

Memory lane rabbit hole: photos from my childhood

I had some foresight to scan many of my childhood and family photos, before they were stolen out of my car.
  • Family, Nostalgia

One does not need photographic evidence

One of the few things I still have that I can treasure from my childhood are the family photos and school papers that my mother lovingly saved for decades.
  • Music, Nostalgia

You know what rings my bell? That sound on Anita Ward’s disco classic!

Sometime during that awkward phase in adolescence where I had obtained a learner's permit, but did not yet have "off campus lunch" at high school, I bought a "Best of Disco" CD compilation at Hastings in Wenatchee, Washington.
  • Design, Music

Putting the ‘funk’ in Westdeutscher Rundfunk: Das Millionenspiel

If ever there was a moment where all things brilliant converged into one 60 second montage, it would have to be the German made-for-TV movie "Das Millionenspiel" (The Millions Game).
  • Music, New York

Two teen movies with great soundtracks and bad plotlines

It seems like the 'serious' teenage runaway movie was almost a trope circa 1980. I can think of two in particular, which featured pretty bland, terrible, melodramatic plotlines, yet contained fabulous music on their soundtracks.
  • Photography

A whole bunch of signs

I've always loved road signs - even as a little kid, many of my drawings featured highway signs or billboards. I love them so much because they tell you where to go, and also where you've been. They are the metadata of the physical world, and what they can tell you contextually is priceless.
  • Music

Just take your place in the driver’s seat

Backlashes work in all directions, at least they went every which way in the Winter of Discontent in the late 1970's in the UK.
  • New York

NYC lately: September 2024

Here are some photos of New York City from the past few weeks. Most of the high-rises in Long Island City and Greenpoint were certainly not there at all when I lived in that area 15 years ago.
  • AI

Casual mistakes from the world of AI

I analyzed some of my Google Photos and did a bit of QA on their AI logic - some of the mismatches are pretty funny, but it's quite accurate considering how many thousands of photos it processes in just a single user's account.

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Further Back

One does not need photographic evidence

•
7 months ago
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Family, Nostalgia

You know what rings my bell? That sound on Anita Ward’s disco classic!

•
8 months ago
•
Music, Nostalgia

Putting the ‘funk’ in Westdeutscher Rundfunk: Das Millionenspiel

•
8 months ago
•
Design, Music

Two teen movies with great soundtracks and bad plotlines

•
8 months ago
•
Music, New York

A whole bunch of signs

•
8 months ago
•
Photography

Just take your place in the driver’s seat

•
8 months ago
•
Music

NYC lately: September 2024

•
8 months ago
•
New York

Casual mistakes from the world of AI

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8 months ago
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AI

Dancing with Kamala in Kwebec

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8 months ago
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Fanfic

My homophobic grandma & Phil Donahue made me gay, gurl!

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8 months ago
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Family

I live for a musical surprise.

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8 months ago
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Music

From preschool prognoses to conventional Democratic wisdom

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8 months ago
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Politics

Ballz to the Walz

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9 months ago
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Politics

Where being different is the only thing in common: NYC’s ties that bind

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9 months ago
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New York

Josh Shapiro: a choice that forces a reckoning of our biases

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9 months ago
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Politics

The musical joy of sisterhood runs in the family with The Roches.

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9 months ago
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Music

Matt Rutledge is A developer/designer.