POSTED: Wednesday, February 2, 2011, 5:00 PM
Every Wednesday, Critical Mass pokes around the blog world so you don't have to ...
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| denofgeek.com |
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➤ It's hard to go to a Philly blog without someone mentioning the city-approved explanation of why the last snowstorm sucked. How might they do this, you ask? Think of any boring office meeting and you have the answer: diagrams. As
seen on Phawker, the official mayoral diagram blames the untouched roads on, I shit you not, the "Philadelphia Snow Sandwich." I guess because everybody knows things are always more complicated in sandwich form. Here's the gist of it: When we had our storm, we had a small layer of snow first, then a small layer of ice, then a large layer of snow. When the "plows" came through the "streets" we were left with what the diagram describes as 2 to 4 inches of hardpack snow. With the weather that's rolling in now, he better start thinking of what to call accumulation of sleet, freezing rain, and snow. Perhaps a snow hoagie (snowgie) or snow salad (not even going to try that one) diagram would suffice.
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On The Walrus: Milton Babbit, a Philly native who died on January 29, has been known for a ton of awesome things that not many (if any) can also claim. First off, he was an crazy musical brain, getting his BA at NYU and one of the first MFAs in music from Princeton. Hell, Princeton liked him so much they let him stick around and teach. Many at Princeton said he revolutionized music education. After teaching for a bit, RCA gave him a job as a consultant composer to work with the RCA Mark II Synthesizer, which, according to some, he also used to "revolutionize" electronic music. In lieu of the Philly composer's death, NPR released a free streaming documentary about the guy's life.
➤ If there's ever a day in the year that Pennsylvania is more like some kooky far-away mountain village, its Groundhog Day. Respectable American citizens from all walks of life stop to take part in the strange ritual of trying to predict the weather by messing around with a rodent — all while dressing up like Abe Lincoln. Punxsutawney's got to pay the bills somehow, I guess.
Geekadelphia has been following Groundhog Day developments. They found that if you follow
visitpa.com on Foursquare and check in anywhere in the world with the word "groundhog," you'll get a Groundhog Day badge. It's only valid today, though, so you better hop to it. If there's anything geeks like its swag, even if its Groundhog Day swag. Leave it to them to find a weirdly specific, but kind-of-cool deal for free stuff. Got to admit, it doesn't look half bad.
BTW, the Groundhog saw his shadow today, which means this shitty winter's going to end soon! You better be right, you little asshole ...
