When the big hand is on the "Then" and the little hand is on the "Maybe later"...

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Now that we've got a mammoth mahogany timekeeper, we're working on telling time with the Critter. When the bells chime, we all stop and count the chimes together out loud, and then introduce the concept of o' clock. Last night, we paused the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica (it's crazy good) as the bells chimed again, and turned to the Critter. Me: Eight bells. What time is it, then? Critter: (pauses and thinks) Now. No more Kafka-hour specials on Little Einsteins for that kid.
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What you never knew we always needed

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A whole lot of really cool stuff has been done with Google Maps. Here's a new way on the web to document your best dumpster-diving finds. Garbagescout.com now provides a google-mapped location & photographic catalog of all the best garbage in New York City. Why? In their own words: "What is the motivation behind GarbageScout? Garbagescout is a conversation, both practical and philosophical' , about what we throw away. I'm guessing it was a couple of guys with one too many MGD longnecks and way too much time on their hands, but we can go with 'practical and philosophical' if we want. From their website:
How to post: From your phone, email a picture of your find to "street@garbagescout.com", In the body of the email type a description @ location. For example: furniture old chairs@123 East Broadway computer monitors look good @ west 79th street & broadway bike wheels and parts @ 345 west 21st.
Which begs the question: "Weird medical equipment"? Who the hell is a) throwing it out curbside, and b) interested in picking it up? Never mind. I don't want to know.
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And while we're on the subject of keeping time

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Check out our new timepiece. This thing was built sometime around 1790 within about 50 miles of where we live today. And it's still ticking away like a champ. Getting one of these has always been on my list of things to do, but it weighs about a ton, so I'm afraid it's never going to move again, and we're terrified of winding it, for fear of somehow destroying the giant clockwork goodness that we just invested so much in. But the chimes make us happy. We run out of whatever room we're in and watch the clock make "ding...ding...ding..." noises every hour. And then we salivate, because we're Pavlovian like that. See that look on the Critter's face? That's the look she gave when she realized that we decided an ancient, quasi-accurate clock was a more gratifying investment than a diploma from a private univeristy. That's her "Goodbye Princeton. Hello Junior College" look.
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