the Father of the $5 Footlong
The story behind the five, five dollar, five dollar foot-long.
In September 2007, Steve Sager, a Subway development agent who oversaw about 225 franchises across South Florida, heard about the success of Frankel’s $5 deal. He decided to try it in a troubled Fort Lauderdale outlet on Commercial Boulevard, a gritty thoroughfare dotted with strip malls. On the first day of the promotion, the store nearly ran out of bread and meat. Sales doubled.
Meg Pokrass was kind enough
to interview me for SmokeLong Quarterly.
spam name
Pearlie Bernal
MS Paint Adventures
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A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, is this young man’s birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name! What will the name of this young man be? |
A Day In The Life
Daily Drop Cap
Daily Drop Cap. (Via Abigail Schilling)
Honda EV-Cub
A two-wheel drive electric scooter.
Lady Magic
Nancy Lieberman will become the first woman to coach a men’s basketball team.
Lieberman, a Hall of Famer who has done pretty much everything there is in the scope of women’s basketball. Now, she’ll go to work as the coach of the NBA Development League team in Frisco, which will begin play in the 2010-11 season.
cha-ching
Let’s get ready to rumble! = $400 million.
Formalin Preservation
In the preservation of animal specimens for study, animals are usually preserved using formalin where the whole body would be immersed in the posture in which it is supposed to stay permanently because it will be hardened. The ratio of formalin to carcass must at least be 12 to 1 to ensure a good fixation.
More here.
Via CP.
levi’s gran fondo | the pacific coast highway
Freewheeling down the 18% grade it didn’t take long to reach the left turn onto the Highway 1. Volunteers stopped traffic and waved us onto the two lane highway. We continued downhill, using most of the right lane to take the switchbacks. When the road turned and we rolled toward the ocean the cold wind blasted me in the face; I shivered.
There was a short, mild incline just after the decent then the road flattened and several short pace-lines formed. I had expected a severe crosswind as we road parallel to the beach and was happy to find that the wind was mostly behind us.
Every few seconds I wanted to stop to take a photo. I never did. Instead, I rode on, a little worried that if I stopped riding I’d never want to start again.
It was and easy tempo past Jenner and over the mouth of the Russian River. Just after the river we stopped at what would be our last break. Quickly, we snacked and filled our bottles and then we were back on the road.
Either the road turned or the wind shifted but almost immediately the ride was a lot less pleasant. Gusts pushed my bike and I around. Ahead there was a left turn that promised to lead us out of the wind and, maybe if we started in Jenner, I might have looked forward to escaping the brutal wind but at mile 75 I didn’t even want to think about Coleman Valley Road.
a giant pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus
“Didn’t have time to hit the brakes. The elephant blended in with the road,” driver Bill Carpenter said Thursday. “At the very last second I said ‘elephant!’”
quote out of context
He’s describing a director, but I won’t say who:
He creates overly precious paintings inhabited by emasculated man-children who knit sweater vests to the accompaniment of Belle & Sebastian while fantasizing that they’re macho enough to skin a caribou with a pocketknife.
Andrew
Thanks to one of your posts, I found myself sitting in a bathtub this afternoon wearing a new pair of blue jeans.
Kuniyoshi
Lady Gaga, pianist
I had no idea. (via Lex A)
Horton Foote Enhances Harper Lee
Film version, To Kill a Mockingbird. Screenplay by Horton Foote. Atticus on the porch, overhearing the bedtime conversation of his children.
Jem?
Uh-huh.
How old was I when Mama died?
Two.
How old were you?
Six.
Was Mama pretty?
Uh-huh.
Was she nice?
Uh-huh.
Did you love her?
Yes.
Did I love her?
Yes.
Do you miss her?
Uh-huh.
home coming
He prayed for a moment in the silent night, [...] and for Lewis, too. In another year he would be sailing for England. That would be a coming home, also. England and Oxford. And he and Lewis would talk deeply and drink some beer and perhaps, as Lewis had written, get high.
- Sheldon Vanauken on his friend C.S. Lewis, A Severe Mercy.
(via)
List of cats with fraudulent diplomas
It’s a wikipedia page. (thanks, Scott)
East Berlin
Tyler Cowen remembers East Berlin:
I saw soldiers goose-stepping down one of the main streets. In the stores old ladies yelled and swung their brooms at me. Many buildings still had bullet marks or bomb damage from World War II. In a restaurant we ate a rubber Wiener Schnitzel and shared a table with an East German family; they did not have enough trust in their government to speak a word to us. I was unable to spend my mandatory thirty-mark conversion on anything useful; I carried back some Stendahl and Goethe but didn’t want the Lenin. This was in the capital city in the showcase of the communist world.
My biggest impression was simply that I had never seen evil before.
Japan to build solar station in space
With few energy resources of its own and heavily reliant on oil imports, Japan has long been a leader in solar and other renewable energies and this year set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.
But Japan’s boldest plan to date is the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which arrays of photovoltaic dishes several square kilometres (square miles) in size would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
“Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming,” researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, wrote in a report.
“The sun’s rays abound in space.”
the infamous oswald photo
The infamous photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle in his backyard would have been nearly impossible to fake, according to a new analysis by a Dartmouth College professor.
“You can never really prove an image is real, but the evidence that people have pointed to that the photo is fake is incorrect,” Farid said Thursday. “As an academic and a scientist, I don’t like to say it’s absolutely authentic … but it’s extremely unlikely to have been a fake.”
With the modeling software, he was able to show that a single light source could create both a shadow falling behind Oswald and to his right and one directly under his nose. Farid admits even he was skeptical before starting his research.
A few versions of the photo here.
the snood that saved christmas
The trend emerged on the Fall 2009 runways of designers like Missoni (knit snoods) and Burberry (plaid snoods) and also made an appearance in the commercial collections of Donna Karan and Yves Saint Laurent. Now it’s gone mainstream, with retailers ranging from American Apparel to Zara getting behind the loopy style with snoods of varying lengths and monikers. The British version of GQ magazine’s Web site recently posted a “Guide to Snoods,” suggesting wearers try it “over a chunky knit or tailored jacket.”
laptop steering wheel desk
2 new from $18.75.
Weekly Picture 167
Camouflage, Highway 71, TX, 11.05.2009
