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overlooking the strange interpretation of north america's geography, I so want this to be a reality.

I'd be hopping on trains all over the freakin' place.

[image from here]
[Taken from the Penguin book "Transit Maps of the World" by Mark Ovenden]

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ok sports industry, I have a bone to pick with you.

look, I understand women's sports will never be as universally popular as men's.
I get it.
I may not 100% agree with it, but I get it.

that being said, the disparity of attention given to the two is appalling.

March Madness. aside from NFL playoffs and the Olympics, it's my favorite time of year. I love the atmosphere, the games, the 'anything can happen' arena of the bracket.
and, coming from a state in which both the local university's basketball teams kicked ass, I am used to the women's games (and subsequent achievements) getting just as much attention as the men's.

but I am not in my home state at the moment. haven't been for a good long while now. and when abroad or, as recently, down south, I turn to numerous reputable and well-known national sports websites to catch up on the goings on in the sports world.
which in mid-march primarily focuses on tournament brackets.

and here's where it starts to get f***ing annoying.

the men's tournament: articles, discussion, up-to-the-minute and realtime updates, both live and pdf printable brackets. which is great. I love it. bring it on.

women's?
ne'er to be seen.

out of the four websites I frequent (I practically live on them during the NFL season), I was able to find information on the women's tournament on one.
one.
and that site doesn't even have a bracket available.
I had to google image it and eventually found one on the huffington post's website.
(did you know the huffington post had a sports section? I did not. learn something new everyday.)

now, these are pretty much the top four sports coverage entities in the country. they are respected. they have magazines and tv shows. they employ top writers, including many a former athlete.
so what the hell are they playing at?

the argument is there isn't enough interest to warrant the time and effort to provide the same amount of coverage as mens sports gets. the argument is not enough people care.

and the response is the majority will not bloody well care if the media keeps acting like women's sports are somehow inferior and don't matter as much.
as long as the leaders in sports coverage push women's sports to the side, hide them under dismissive labels, or don't acknowledge them at all, the general perception of their worth is not going to change.

and I argue that while women's sports may never command the same level of fan base, sponsorship, or media wealth, there are plenty of people who care.

and we are sick and f***ing tired of having to search the netherworlds of webpages for any indication that the sports we enjoy and support exist.

it's 2013.
sports is no longer the realm of the chauvinistic and the misogynistic.
so get with it.

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I actually miss the rain.

the driving, soak you to your skin, turn your umbrella inside-out, make you curse the invention of clouds rain.

I miss walking in it.

I miss staying inside with a cup of tea and a book watching it.

but mostly, I miss the rain because it was london rain.

and oh how I miss london.

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found this cleaning out the attic the other day. 
couldn't help myself. 
I'm a sucker for red-headed shenanigans.

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so don't really want to spend a lot of time on this post, I am still really bummed about it (as evidenced by the fact that these events went down over two weeks ago, I and I am just getting around to this now), but we will not be returning to london.
shall we say, things went down. things involving sadistic border control officers, immigration holding rooms, fingerprinting, attempting to sleep on the floor in a locked room in the bowels of heathrow airport (and failing), and an eventual deportation back to the US.

there's no use expounding on the downsides to this development (I've done that enough in my head anyways), so here going to focus on the positives.

-unlimited cheerios and cheez-its

-no barriers to getting to the two weddings this summer we are invited to

-closer to family and friends on this side of the pond

-I might actually get to eat the lobster my family has been so kind as to call me internationally to tell me they were having over the past few years
-girl scout cookies


and ok then. enough on that.
on to more interesting (and less depressing) things!

all these have caught my eye lately.

This house is 7 feet wide, built in 1830 by the cranky owner of one of the buildings next door because he wanted to keep people from using the alley next to his house.

we all know I like odd buildings, constructions that are just a little bit strange or imperfect. but houses built specifically out of spite? that I am definitely on board with.

'the E-inkey Keyboard Concept, designed by Maxim Mezentsev & Aleksander Suhih. The keyboard (hypothetically) uses E-inky technology to create a keyboard whose keys are customizable and responsive to the programs you are using.'

I want these murals by PIXERS in whatever future home I may own.

this 'accidental movement':

When war between Israel and Iran seemed imminent, Israeli graphic designer Ronny Edry shared a poster on Facebook of himself and his daughter with a bold message: "Iranians ... we [heart] you." Other Israelis quickly created their own posters with the same message -- and Iranians responded in kind. The simple act of communication inspired surprising Facebook communities like "Israel loves Iran," "Iran loves Israel" and even "Palestine loves Israel."

Ronny Edry of Israel accidentally created an online movement for peace in the Middle East when he posted a Facebook image that declared "Iranians, we will never bomb your country."

The image became a catalyst for dialogue between the people of two nations on the brink of war.

there are no words to describe how much I covet these.

this hedgehog statue in Kiev...

...which led to the discovery of this ridiculously cute short animation, Hedgehog in the fog, created by Yuri Norstein in 1975.



and finally just the overall wintery insaneness of this.
[necessary to click link, no way to embed video...]

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