Jun 2005, 184 entries

Shipped on 06/30/05.

It's 1968, and Matthew (Michael Pitt) is an American college student furthering his education by studying abroad in Paris. There, he meets and befriends twins Theo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green) through a mutual affection for the cinema. All the while, France's chaotic political terrain looms in the background.

I wish there was a version for laptops

Oh my Lord Jesus Christ!

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Shakespeare's Globe Theatre:

I saw Henry VIII here right when it re-opened… in 1996? I was spending a quarter abroad in London at the time and I love my Shakespeare, but this particular play wasn’t that great.

Erik Benson completed this goal (worth it!)

Erik Benson added an entry regarding The Palace Kitchen:

I’m going here tonight.

I just love this place because it’s fancy but it doesn’t take reservations (so it’s not too full of fancy people). Also, it’s dark and the ceilings are high and the booths are tall. I could live there. Especially if the bartender and cook were part of the deal. They’ve got a great fancy hamburger if you’re ever in that fancy hamburger mood. The desserts are great too—and these Tom Douglas restaurants are all famous for their super light and delicious coconut cream pie. Oh, and their dessert wines are fun too. Okay, maybe that combo is a little untraditional to have all in one sitting, but who cares if each individual aspect of it is delicious?

Erik Benson completed this goal (worth it!)

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Help test Tootietails: the next new thing from The Robot Co-op:

It’s open to everyone now… check out your profile page to see a link to your new 43 Places profile page and start adding places you want to go, or have already been. Or, just go here:

http://www.43things.com

It’s been so much fun working on this… remembering all the places where crazy things have happened, daydreaming about where to go next, etc. Check it out and cross this off your list. :)

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Shorty's:

I’ve been kicked out of this place (not my fault), I’ve met crazy Austrailians who I ended up wandering around with until daybreak (we bought a 40 off a bum because we missed closing time), and I learned about the best way to shoot a bullet through my skull when committing suicide from some brain scientists from Chicago. If I’m ever bored, I know I can go to Shorty’s.

erikbenson posted a photo:

We’ve been hard at work on our next release (codenamed “Tootietails”) and we are really grateful to everyone who has helped us out with some early testing.

So by way of introduction, the next new thing from the Robot Co-op is a little site we call 43 Places. It’s a way to share stories about great places in your city and around the world. We hope it wil become the same sort of fun that 43 Things has become for tens of thousands of users.

None of projects are ever “done” – they just hit milestones. The first milestone for 43 Places is coming up, as we get ready to release it to the public. We’ve had to leave at least half the good ideas behind in order to get this first half out the door. So getting this site “launched” this week is just a first milestone on a great adventure. One of the really satisfying parts of building sites like 43 Things and 43 Places is that we get to build them together, with you and with the help of great talented people. Like the team at Mule Design who’ve been helping us with this release.

We’ll try and share a bit more about the site over the next few days for those of you who wondering about it. If you’ve got questions, ask away in the comments and if you want an invite – add this goal to your list.

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Corn Palace:

Anyone who’s taken the 90 across the country knows that there are about a bazillion signs promising the greatest achievement of man for almost 300 miles in both directions. Perhaps it’s only surpassed by the Biggest Ball of Twine.

The Corn Palace, I assumed, was a palace made of corn. That was the problem! I assumed. It’s neither a palace nor is it made of corn. They should consider renaming it the Small House Covered In Corn. And only put signs up for it after you get within 5 or 10 miles of it (or maybe just a little icon on the exit sign would suffice).

Note how even the website doesn’t have any pictures:

http://www.cornpalace.org/

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Charlottesville:

He’s a photographer for the local paper and gets to hang out with models, rock stars, and people getting married (okay, that last one doesn’t sound so fun). Jimmy, I’m going to visit you before you move back!

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Myrtle Beach:

The water is warm, the sand is really big, and the people… they’re not nearly as plastic-surgeried-out/permanently-tanned/personal-trainered-for-max-buffness as they are at the Southern California beaches where I grew up. It’s not natural!

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Palmyra:

You can visit the house of the founder of Mormonism… or rather the Church of the Latter Day Saints. I attended the Hill Cumorah Pagent in 1996 (I think), staying at my friend’s house who (of course) was Mormon. It’s a nice small town and their Pageant was impressive… lots of youths dressed up as lambs, cows, or in full toga goodness. Check it out!

http://www.hillcumorah.org/Pageant/

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Georgia:

Our 1976 Ford Chateau that we got for $400 had a problem with overheating. For a while, we only drove it at night. Then, it started slowing down… even at night. First it wouldn’t pass 60, then it wouldn’t pass 50, then 40, then 30. We decided to look for a mechanic and got off the highway onto a small dirt road. We found a tiny gas station about 10 miles in and the car died completely. The gas station was closed. There was a dead dog lying on the side of the street. Then it started pouring. Hm.

So two of us hitchhiked and got into this El Camino with curtains between the front and tiny back and their accents were so strong we could barely understand them. They took us somewhere and insisted that we pay them $20 for the ride. We got a new fan and a new starter (our two best guesses) and a ride back. In the end, the problem was a loose wire.

That was Georgia!

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Campbellsville:

Spent 2 weeks during Christmas 2002 wrapping gifts in the Amazon warehouse. The gift line was very competitive amongst us overpaid elves who had been flown in to gain some perspective into the company. Every gift you wrapped would result in one peeled off sticker stub, and people would stack them up and count them at the end of the day to see who could wrap the most gifts.

That was fun for a little bit. But then, I decided it would be more fun to tamper with the results during lunch and witness the confusion when someone who thought they had been doing so good really only had a mediocre day, and the slacker of the day actually rose above (maybe they were in a gift-wrapping zone and didn’t know it). What power! I felt like Robin Hood.

The other fun part of Campbellsville (since it is in a dry county) was driving out of the county and looking for liquor. You can buy bottles at drive-thrus and feel like you’re back in the 20’s. The Maker’s Mark distillery was nearby as well and I enjoyed dipping a few bottles of my own to take home.

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Vail:

My friends lost their dog while camping here one week, and they had to leave before finding her. I returned a week later and looked for the dog, calling out her name, “Parma!”, knocking door-to-door, asking people if they had seen a big german shepherd.

The weirdest part of the trip was that I actually found her. She was dehydrated and near death, passed out under a bridge next to a small creek. We got her to the to hospital, gave her a pin in her leg, and she went on to live many more happy years.

Erik Benson added an entry regarding Yellowstone National Park:

There was this one day where a bunch of us starting hiking out in a random direction and found ourselves in this ENORMOUS field. Sometimes you forget how big and open the world can be when there aren’t any buildings or obstructions in the way. And the air was clean so we could probably see 20 miles in every direction. And way down there we spotted some buffalo (or like-animal) and wanted to go see them up close.

Hours pass.

We’re getting closer and closer, and the buffalo are looking bigger and bigger. Soon, we start to get scared. They’re too big, and we’re pretty defenseless in this huge bowl of a valley… so we decide to steer clear and miss them by a few miles.

Then they start walking towards us and we nearly pee our pants because we think they’re going to come EAT us. Maybe they were carnivorous buffalo, you know? Anyway, somehow we manage to survive but it was one of those “hey we share this world with buffalo and they’re pretty scary but if we leave each other alone maybe we can get along” moments. I have them every once in a while.

This is pretty cool. Is David going to build it into Rails for us?