It is absolutely magnificent outside

IF YOU HAVEN’T GONE OUTSIDE TODAY (AND YOU LIVE IN NYC) THEN STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND GO OUTSIDE. IT IS SUPER NICE OUT. BREEZY, WARM, AND SUNNY! I JUST CAME BACK FROM BIKING UP AND DOWN THE WEST SIDE. I’M TIRED, BUT I FEEL SUPER GREAT BECAUSE IT’S FINALLY WARM AND SUNNY! SPRING IS [FINALLY] HERE AND SUMMER IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER! YAY!

This week’s TIME and NEWSWEEK might be worth reading.
Shaozhuo Cui, a photo editor at Virginia Tech’s Collegiate Times, shot this batch of photos last Monday. Cui was the Asian man who some of you might have seen on the news handcuffed and sitting on the grass. This is because the police initially thought he was the shooter because he matched the physical description of the Seung-Hui Cho.

Note: The NEWSWEEK website sucks. It’s a huge memory hog. Why?

Listen to Swedish musician Tobias Froberg cover Justin Timberlake’s What Goes Around…Comes Around. It’s quite good.

NOTCOT does some Dyson first-person shooter cleaning. This is kinda funny because I never thought a vacuum cleaner could look so neat. I really want a Dyson vacuum cleaner but they are just so expensive. :(

I think these are wonderful and beautiful ads for McDonald’s breakfast. Makes me want to use the bag a meal function on the McDonald’s website to see how “healthy” my McDonald’s meals might be.

How fun does this Paddy Chair look to sit in? I want one for my insane self! Unfortunately, this chair is not in production. [via]

Back in the Summer of 2005, I worked across the street from the Empire Roller Skating Center in Crown Heights. I saw it 5 days a week and walked past it on my way to grab lunch almost every day. Although I’ve never been inside, I sort of feel an odd connection with its closing last Friday. I guess when I see something for so many days in a row like that it doesn’t really matter whether or not I’ve been inside. It was, whether I liked it or not, a part of my Summer 2005. Anyway, the roller skating center is officially closed now, sold for $4.5 million to become a storage facility. Wow, I never would have thought that any building in that neighborhood was worth that much.
Their website is still up (but it looks like it hasn’t been updated in a while). The New York Times has a small photo slide show of the Empire Roller Skating Center.

Speaking of new developments in places, Big Box Watch is a website dedicated to informing people about imminent retail store openings in your neighborhood. It currently tracks 8 big box stores (Best Buy, Home Depot, Ikea, JC Penney, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, Target, and Wal-Mart).

The Blasphemy Challenge is the weirdest project I’ve ever come across. The project is this:

You record a short message damning yourself to Hell, you upload it to YouTube, and then the Rational Response Squad will send you a free The God Who Wasn’t There DVD.

You may damn yourself to Hell however you would like, but somewhere in your video you must say this phrase: “I deny the Holy Spirit.”

Why? Because, according to Mark 3:29 in the Holy Bible, “Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin.” Jesus will forgive you for just about anything, but he won’t forgive you for denying the existence of the Holy Spirit. Ever. This is a one-way road you’re taking here.

Further proof that most people have no idea what they’re getting themselves into.

Quick life update: Things are swell! :)