Rosenbach

We live a few blocks away from the Rosenbach Museum of rare books, but had never gotten around to going inside - the conditions of it being open, us remembering it exists, and us having time to go just never all aligned. But last month it was featured on the Colbert Report, which finally galvanized us into putting a visit on our calendar for yesterday.

The first thing you see when you walk in is the Maurice Sendak and Stephen Colbert exhibition, which really does feature empty bottles of Bud Light Lime, a crumpled deli receipt, and Colbert's notebook next to a manuscript of Ulysses. It also features items from Colbert's interview with Sendak (including a ziploc bag containing 246 penises and butts excised from In The Night Kitchen), and a sampling of books from the museum's collection that contain poles in them.

Beyond the Colbert exhibit, the museum was bigger than I had expected, and had a much more diverse array of objects than just rare books - including Robert Burns's powder horn, Lord Byron's card case, a variety of ancient Egyptian burial jewelry, and a giant awesome clock with a golden snake whose tongue points to the time. Of course, there were plenty of neat old books too - my favorite was a manuscript of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which later turned into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so I can't show you the beer bottles or the snake-tongue clock. But for those of you who will be coming to Philly for our wedding, why not consider pre-gaming with a museum visit? Nothing to get you in the mood for a wedding like a baggie full of cut-out penises!

Band band band!

This weekend, for the second year in a row, I met up with my high school band friends and headed to Allentown for a drum corps competition. Unlike last year, when it rained pretty much the whole time, this year the weather was perfect. I was too transfixed to take any pictures, but when I got back I found some videos to share the awesomeness.

The crowd favorite was definitely Jersey Surf, specifically their rendition of Party Rock Anthem. Yes, Party Rock Anthem (skip to 11:30 for the relevant part):

It was actually pretty neat in person. This video is from a few weeks ago, but on Saturday they had replaced the whole horn line playing the melody with just a few horns playing it into a mic with some sort of filter-y sound effect thing that made it sound cool. I couldn't find a more recent video, though :(

The Cadets are my perennial favorite, but I was slightly nervous when I heard that their show this year was themed around Christmas. It turned out to still be awesome (this video is from a rehearsal, but it's still pretty impressive):
It's weird to think I am (way) too old to participate in drum corps anymore, since you can't be over 21; even the "all ages" version has a max age of 25. Not that I was ever that good anyway, it's just weird to be too old for something that's not, you know, a ball crawl.

New Orleans, and the best wedding present ever

I spent this past week in New Orleans for a conference, and had a great time eating lots of delicious food and marveling at all the beautiful wrought iron balconies. But, the best thing that happened by far was the wedding gift my colleagues gave me (since this was the last time we'll all be together before I get married):

This gives me a whole new idea about how to wear my hair on the big day...

That takes the (wedding) cake

In the course of wedding planning, I have come across a decent number of ridiculous wedding services - from paying hundreds of dollars to freeze dry your bouquet to hiring a composer to write a custom processional just for you. But I recently stumbled onto the craziest one yet: pay this company money for a "SunTender" to "guarantee sunshine on your wedding day with a Sunshine Guarantee Certificate."

As far as I can tell, you ask someone to be your "SunTender" and if they agree - God knows why anyone would - they pay the company $125 for a "Presentation Folio (containing the Sunshine Guarantee Certificate and Gold-plated Lapel Pin) as well as the beautifully bound SunTender’s Guide," which contains training materials about the ins and outs of the complex art of SunTending. The SunTender also pays the company a $250 "Gift Deposit," which is returned if the weather is good, and paid to the bride and groom if it rains. According to the company, this means that "If the sun shines on the wedding day, then it worked. If the sun doesn’t shine, it pays. Either way, it works!"

So, basically you ask someone to pay you money if it rains on your wedding day, and to pay extra money for the privilege of enshrining the whole debacle in the form of a Certificate and a Gold-plated Lapel Pin. I think the whole thing might be a front for some weird religious cult's indoctrination mechanism.

Anyway, this all leads me to the obvious follow-up question: Who wants to be our SunTender??

New Digs

Last week our office moved across town to a nicer building, since our old office building was somewhat decrepit. However, our old building was a perfect 15 minute walk away from my house, and this new one is a cruddy 30 minute SEPTA ride away. So, I used to have a lovely free commute and now I have to pay money to be crammed into a subway car with a bunch of sweaty Philadelphians - I'm not yet convinced the nicer building is worth it.

Other tradeoffs: My new cubicle is newer/cleaner, but also smaller than my old one:

There is nowhere for me to look while I'm thinking without creepily staring at one of my neighbors.

Our staff was split between several rooms at the old building, and now we are all together in one big space. Except, the space is really, really open so you can see/hear what everyone is doing at all times:

The old office was in Center City, and had a lot of nearby restaurants for when you didn't pack a lunch. The new office is next to a graveyard, which contains the creepiest grave of all time:

An eyeless, half-naked doll would be sad on a little girl's grave, but on a 68 year old man's grave it is kind of unsettling.

There is some cool stuff near the new office too, like this giant fish mural:

And this building with trees growing out of it:

And this house, which upon closer inspection has a gargoyle on its roof:

And upon even closer inspection, has a Chucky doll in the attic window:

So, you know. Strikes and gutters.

Look at Ben!

Ben's friend who went to Australia with him sent him this nice picture from their trip:

The Sydney Opera House looks pretty much exactly how I imagined based on Finding Nemo:

Pixar really does their research.

Ben's back!

Ben has been in Australia forever, and thanks to a delayed flight and resulting missed connection he got back a day later than he was supposed to. But, he's here now, and he brought me a stuffed wombat and some kangaroo-infested Australian money!

The wombat lives in a "wombank."

Seriously, they have kangaroo money!

While he was down under, Ben learned that Melbourne was founded by Batman. John Batman, that is. Lots of stuff is named after him as a result:

He also learned that the Australian equivalent of the Ivies is the "Sandstones," for self-explanatory reasons:

I guess he also learned stuff about robots, since that was the whole point of his trip, but mostly I wanted to hear about Batman and wombats.