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Courtesy of J (and maybe iTunes helped a little)

20 Years Ago...

"20 years ago today - Sept 22nd 1990 - Nirvana played their biggest gig to date when they appeared at the Motor Sports International Garage in Seattle. Drummer Dave Grohl who would audition for the band in a few days time was in the audience of 15,000 people."

- whoever is running Nirvana's facebook page (of all places)

Cell Phone Pics

I rarely bust out ze old cell phone and start snapping away, but you know, here and there I snap 'round town. Just got a new phone, these are pics from my last two. PS - If you have Verizon, don't bother with the LG EnV Touch, it's a piece - lasted less than a year.

This deli-front sign was pointed out to me by J. The irony is that The Best Sandwich in Town looks like shit. Who asks for asparagus on a sub? That's fucking gross.

I know this is hard to see, but it's a picture from a flight home from Nevis a couple years ago. This woman is using her baby as a food tray, eating a chicken platter off her baby back.

Dirty Pop

Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Please

the Dakota

Face on Fire

Ryan Williams look-a-like

Not only are you making the garbage man's day by leaving your toilet on the sidewalk, but then you have to go and fill it full of nastiness. It's a double negative sight to see.

Been Caught Stealing

This is a picture I took a few months ago at a grocery store on the Upper East Side. I enjoy the store's idea of swift justice - posting photos of thieves in plain site for all to gawk. Click photo to enlarge.

Gangsta Graphs

Why is Vincent Gallo in that video? More (much more) Gangsta Graphs here...

Green Space is a Vulnerable Thing

After visiting my friends in The Very Big City, I learned they knew little of the biggest natural appetite Down South has to offer. When she's done here, I'm sure she'll wander . . .

From Blue Ridge Outdoors, a regional rag:

Need another reason to hate kudzu, the green leafy vine that is pervasive throughout the South? How about this: a recent study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that kudzu is a contributor to surface ozone pollution. The invasive plant, which was introduced in the U.S. in the late 1800s for erosion control, emits high levels of isoprene and nitric oxide which combine with the nitrogen in the air to form ozone. The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia, showed the presence of kudzu can double the level of nitrogen oxide emissions from soil. Rampant expansion of kudzu could even increase the number of high ozone alert days in a given year.

Kudzu now occupies more than 7.4 million acres in the U.S., expanding at 120,000 acres annually. Kudzu vines have been known to grow up to a foot a day.

But don’t think kudzu is all bad. Some Southern families have used kudzu as a food source for decades, cooking up fried kudzu leaves, kudzu quiche, steamed kudzu…And some entrepreneurs have been trying to turn kudzu into a biofuel cash crop as well. A study published two years ago in the journal Biomass and Bioenergy claimed an acre of kudzu could yield about 270 gallons of ethanol, comparable to the 210 to 320 gallons per acre that corn yields.

While using kudzu as a biofuel is promising because it requires no water or fertilization, harvesting the weed for fuel has proved difficult and costly, as the roots sometimes grow six feet deep beneath steep slopes. But getting rid of kudzu has always been a challenge. The U.S. Forest Service has researched kudzu management and removal for decades. So far, the best form of kudzu eradication that researchers have uncovered, is goats.

Numbers:

2,500 — The number of years kudzu has been used in traditional Chinese medicine, primarily as a treatment for hangovers

60 — Length in feet that a single kudzu vine can grow in one warm season, roughly one foot per day

400 — Weight in pounds of a kudzu root

30 — Number of vines that can grow from a single root

In other Southern news:

This hometown hero also sports quite the appetite, though hardly the tact to stomach it.