The big red five. That sucker is huge, twice the size of all the other 5's on the bill. It fills up nearly half of the available vertical space. And it is Helvetica, as if it needs to be any more omnipresent than it already is.

When I think of American money, I do not think Helvetica. I think of that curvaceous script font used for the other numbers. I would be happier if they tripled the size of one of the other 5's. What about something more like this:

Now doesn't that look better? Color it some bright color, and it would be good to go. I hope that the next redesign does not fall into to the helvetica trap. Fortunately, there are no san-serifs in the one dollar bill.

That's my two cents.

I have not told you very much about my house, so I feel that I should start with my back window, and my Pavlovian pet. A while back I made a video about it:

The other day, after tossing a snack to the dog, I looked down into my neighbors back yard and I saw an entire side of beef, or perhaps pork. I took a picture, as it is not often I see a half carcass, let alone one that is not in a butcher shop.

I read recently that ordering in bulk is the most economical way to buy meat, but a side of an animal seems like a logistical nightmare. If a recipe calls for a side of pork, just imagine how many eggs you would need. Perhaps this a large family gathering?

To leave things on a more spring-like note, I make it to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens this weekend with Christy and we enjoyed the cherry blossom excitement. I am happy to see that spring is here. Best time of the year.

I mention this because I have been recently thinking about my morning commute. It is, in some ways, the highlight of my work day. For one, it is quite likely for me to see someone I know on the way there. To date, I have seen: Abby, J.R., Linsey, Cara, Matt, Kim, Sam and Sophie. Every morning there is a good chance that I'll have to put aside my paper and catch up with the latest with happenings.

And that is the people that is just the people I actually know. There are the others, the characters who commute with me, as we all wordlessly travel up to Queens and over to midtown. There is the girl who looks like Carin, who could quite possibly could be her. There is mustache dude with the impressive but unsightly handlebar number. The small-headed girl with the brown bob. The tall, somewhat annoying, over-talkative hipster guy. And so on...

I suppose I may be overstating this a little bit. Along with these familiar faces are hundreds of people who remain unnoticed, little more than obstacles on my path to work. It is with them I feel like part of the herd, all of us headed off to Manhattan for one more work day. To counter that, I have the comfort of having these people whom I recognize, the individuals in the faceless group, who remind me that I'm not the only one out there who does this commute thing. And I'm glad they ride with me.

It all started with a This American Life show on superheroes. In it, one of the TAL reporters, John Hodgman—more popularly known as the PC guy in the Mac ads—had this question that he would ask at parties. Ask the question, and just like water to a sponge, the conversation blossoms. Let's get this question of of the way right now. The question is:

Given the choice between flight or invisibility, what would you choose?

If you have not heard this question, you must now take a break from this reading and go ask someone this question. Go right now, and ask someone, ideally a random stranger, and come back when you have an answer. Really, go do that right now, and come back when you are done.

Wasn't that fun? Wasn't that so much better than asking about work, majors or, not to put too fine a point on it, most anything else you can thing of? This is the allure of the question.

I've toned down the use of this question, but it came up twice this week in passing. On one occasion, I was talking about the purchasing process at thesuperhero store in Brooklyn, where you have to say your superhero name to buy things, and hence you need to have a some sort of moderate background story to support that name. So when I buy my McSweeney's, I tell them my name is Subway man, and I have the power to control all the trains in New York. While I think that this is a suitable superpower, the crowd was unimpressed, which lead to a general superpower discussion, and inevitably, the question.

Last night I was telling my friend how I got called on this question—someone actually had listened to the above radio show—unfortunately, one of the people in the group had not heard it, and we got sucked into the conversation again. My poor girlfriend and one of my best fiends had to again be sucked into the unavoidable superhero discussion. And for that, I am not proud.

I am sad that there exists not a better question, but I've tapped this question out. I vow from here on out to not ask anyone the question.

This morning I was talking to one of friends about how I am feeling about this never-ending best-election-ever situation. I came up with an analogy: this Democratic nomination is like The Ashes if the cricket match were to last, say, months, and I were to care about cricket. Both have oblique and seemingly non-sensible rules and it is hard to tell who is winning, even if you know what is going on.

Even though I know the race will go on, I still have a knot in my stomach because I want my side to win. Tomorrow will not be the end of the game, but the score will be different, and that my friend, is exciting. I best get some sleep so I can see how my old state votes. Don't mess this up, Texas.

What is going on here? Where is the usual liberal splintering and disillusionment that I have grown so accustomed to? What, is there no Deanesque— or should I say Huckaberryesque&mdash:candidate to siphon off the party's enthusiasm? How the heck did MoveOn choose a candidate that could actually, realistically, win the nomination? By some great stroke of luck, the famous Democratic tendency towards self-destruction has been corralled and transformed into a positive force. More voters and more excitement is now being put into the selection of one of two very similar, mainstream candidates.

And you know what? I know that it'll get ugly one of these days, but it is great to see an election being played by increasing the vote count rather than dropping it.

This makes me feel better about not being confident of whom to vote for the morning I woke up. I have been leaning towards one candidate, but I am not at all upset to learn that my state was won by the candidate I did not vote for. I can be happy with the outcome, whatever it may be. Guilt-free wonkness. Awesome.

As far as the Republicans go, there nomination process looks very similar to what lead to John Kerry. I will be interested to see if they can rally behind a moderate. Stranger things have happened, but the one of biggest lessons of four years ago is that people vote for candidates, not against the alternative. Obama or Hillary hate alone will not be enough to win the election.

Comments anyone?

Where is the Bud bowl of today, I ask? Beer cans playing football, that is all I ask for. I fear that the Bud Bowl would never make the cut. Is it too risky in this post-wardrobe malfunction era for a beer company to so directly advertise its wares?

Time to move on. Big day tomorrow. Election post to come soon.

On a personal level, Sushi gives me much joy, it saddens me to read that some of the best tasting items on the sushi menu are bad for you. Take away the thermometer fixings and the whole menu happens to be both good tasting and good for you. If the best of the best has quicksilver in it, I can't but wonder if the fish in my pay-scale come equipped with some type of heavy metal. One more thing to keep in mind for this omnivore's dilemma with seafood. (Say, for example, that whole, we-humans-are-eating-too-much-fish issue.)

What got me thinking is this nifty graph that came with the article. To research this, I suspect that the reporter used this as an excuse to eat at some of her favorite sushi joints at lunchtime. I envision her walking around midtown and snaking on an apparently dangerous number of bluefin nigiri, for a few weeks , all the while pocketing one or two pieces from each joint to give to the scientists. Doing this on a reporters budget, she'd probably skip the amazing places like Masa, and stick to the places that are either good or excellent....

I decided to make the following mashup to see if my theory is correct:

Quicksilver and Stars, an Unscientific Survey & Mashup

After doing all that cutting and pasting, I'll let you make your own conclusions.

Yes, that is fake stone behind the couch. A good number of our walls are going through some sort of identity crisis. Another entire wall in the rumpus room has transformed into a mirror. That's right, floor to ceiling for a good two to three meters in width. (I did my best to cover most of it, but a full length mirror does come in pretty handy.) In the kitchen, the wall above the oven is pho-brick. That is, they took real bricks, cut off the brick's face and glued them upon the wall in a brick-like pattern.

I love the walls. In fact they are one of the bigger reasons we took our flat. I have no idea why I like them. Maybe it is just that they are so different from all those other walls out there. People just don't seem to put in as much effort into walls as they used to. It's a damn shame, too.

We have collaborated to make an official Christy Powers website, and it is now all spiffed up and ready for you to visit. All of the images have been loving optimized for your viewing pleasure. You can now make that Christy Powers studio visit from the comfort of chair where you now sit. I am betting that the site will inspire a few of you to come over to Brooklyn and check out her studio.

She loves to have guests come see her latest work. Feel free to drop her a line and make some plans.

Without any more delay, here is the link:

ChristyPowers.org

I had a beard at the beginning of the week. They tend to happen whenever I travel. I got into the habit when I went on one of my more crazy trips, a voyage across the Trans-Siberian railroad. As there would not be much time to shave while on the tracks, I decided that I'd forgo the the 'You need to shave' look, and go straight to the beard. It worked out well, and I've pretty much kept up with the habit since.

I was just in Arizona for Christmas week, which is just about the right amount of time to grow a starter beard. By the beginning of this week, it was looking pretty good, only the stubbly-ouchie factor was still high. It would take some time before the beard would become soft, and long story short, it came off.

Beards have been in the news this week, with Conan and Letterman turning outdoorsy in support of the writers strike. With that comes the question that the non-bearded always seem to ask. Why? What does it mean?

It is a good question, one I pontificated upon this week in deciding if I was going to fully commit again to the full face of hair. The two biggest factors in getting rid of it were, one, work-related and two, a hope to keep my kiss quota up. I have said before that girls are the biggest reason that more men do not have beards, and I stick to that now. (My girlfriend, who happens to like bearded-Colin, thinks that beards are a way for men to hide. I just don't buy that.)

This beard article I read in the New Yorker, got me thinking that there may be something more to bearding. For me it is a celebration of freedom. Find me without a job, and most likely you fill find me with my beard on. I am missing my beard today, so perhaps I am missing my freedom that I had during vacation. It does not look like growing back my stubblies would bring back my freedom, but nevertheless the idea does have some appeal to me.

Well readers, if I were grow my beard again, what should be the meaning behind it?

I am pretty excited about what is in store for this year. I can not seem to get over that today is a huge election day. The first day of ten months of electoral battle. Right now, I have no idea who will end up in top. I kind of hope that these first few states all end up in a draw so that come my time to vote, it will actually mean something. I doubt it, but it would be nice. As a political junkie, this year looks especially interesting. There is a good chance that my horse may win the race this year, which would be a welcome change.

The Superbowl looks to be a dud this year, unless a certain undefeated team happens to slip up, but Beijing should pick up the slack. I heart the Olympics. Always a good time. Sure, I can not think of a singe athlete who will be playing, but there is always great stuff to watch. Of course, there are the obvious sports that I like along with everyone else, but maybe this will be the year that Handball will finally take off. That would be awesome.

Good friends are getting married. My brother is getting married. There are a lot of weddings to go to this year, in Texas, Washington state, upstate New York and a couple of other places that slip the mind right now. I'm always happy to see new places, dress up and celebrate.

Personally, I have a few projects that should come into their own this year, and once they do, you will be the first one to hear about them.

Fingers crossed, let it be a good year.

Thanks to couch overcrowding at my parent's place, the couch eventually followed me up to college in Denton--that's Dallas area for those of you not from Texas--where it regained the throne of head TV couch, taking the place of my brother's truly broken down, character-filled all-foam sofa bed. We got a dog, Keiko, and she liked the couch very much. She looked very cute on the couch, it must be said. However, she was probably the main reason that the couch started to look a little worse for the wear.

But that didn't stop the couch from making the trip to New York, where it lived for the next five years. Two years of it which it was slept on nightly by one of our third household members, one year was Peter, Eric's brother, another year was Andrew, our mutual friend. Both looked very cute on the couch, it must be said. However, they are probably the other reason that the couch started to look a little worse for the wear.

At the end, I decided that I could revive my couch by threading it up with new string. Many a Sunday was spent watching football and knitting the couch back into shape. It did help, but I just wasn't dedicated enough to fix all the worn-through spots. Who knew that knitting what such a pain in the ass? When it was time to move out of the old place, I found someone in need, someone crafty enough to finish the restoration, and I was no longer a couch owner.

(In Sydney, I was a couch renter.)

Coming back to Brooklyn to live in an unfurnished house meant that I had to finally face up to the fact that pillows and blankets a couch does not make. After far too much deliberation and delay, Christy and I have purchased a great new couch. It should be delivered right around Christmas time. And man am I excited. Who knows what life this couch has ahead of it. I can't wait to sit on it.