apple juice

From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing drizzle. But these houses are part of a revolution in building design: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in. There is, in fact, no furnace.

via The Energy Challenge – No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in Innovative ‘Passive Houses’ – Series – NYTimes.com.

I wonder if this would work in Minnesota?

Most conversations about my car go like this:

“So that thing is a diesel?”
“Yup”
“Um, how’s it start in the winter?”
“Pretty good.”

So, I decided to take a little video. I have an enormous minnesota accent! Do I always have that?

Geez.

Anyway, enjoy me being a nerd.

Many people will tell Mr. Obama that taxing carbon or gasoline now is a “nonstarter.” Wrong. It is the only starter. It is the game-changer. If you want to know where postponing it has gotten us, visit Detroit. No carbon tax or increased gasoline tax meant that every time the price of gasoline went down to $1 or $2 a gallon, consumers went back to buying gas guzzlers. And Detroit just fed their addictions — so it never committed to a real energy-efficiency retooling of its fleet.

via Op-Ed Columnist – The Real Generation X – NYTimes.com.

emphasis mine. The stupid thing is that Ford, GM and Chrysler make more energy efficient cars for other markets! So where are those cars for America?

Two factories in the Irish Republic produce more than 150 million frozen pizzas a year.

via BBC NEWS | Business | Inside a frozen pizza factory.

You have to check out that link and watch the video. Amazing! 150 million pizzas!

In these hard times, you deserve two “best films” lists for the price of one. It is therefore with joy that I list the 20 best films of 2008, in alphabetical order. I am violating the age-old custom that film critics announce the year’s 10 best films, but after years of such lists, I’ve had it. A best films list should be a celebration of wonderful films, not a chopping process. And 2008 was a great year for movies, even if many of them didn’t receive wide distribution.

via The best films of 2008… and there were a lot of them :: rogerebert.com :: News & comment.

If 2008 was a great year for movies, it was a bad year for me actually seeing movies.

Time to go pump up my Netflix queue!

Amtrak ridership in Minnesota continues at a record pace, greasing the rails for high-speed train service between St. Paul and Chicago.

via Next stop: Fast St. Paul-to-Chicago train?

I love it… greasing the rails. Seriously though, great news! Hopefully rail transit will be part of the new public works projects. I would love to be able to take a train to Chicago or Duluth. Let’s make this happen!

We’ve received tons of messages on facebook the past couple days. It is really awesome to hear from so many friends!

Though, one message in particular caught my eye this evening:

Minneapolis SnowEmergency added you as a friend on Facebook…

Huh?

I clicked over to the profile for a look. It’s pretty dang hilarious. Can’t tell if it is a joke or not (I do have a couple friends who are truly clever and would set up something like this).

Under interests:

I’m mostly interested in streets cleared of snow from curb to curb.

Favorite Books:

Non-fiction books about residents of Minneapolis shoveling their sidewalks within 24 hours of a snowfall. Go to the library and ask for the “Snow shoveling motivation” section. I promise they won’t laugh at you.

I don’t know if you have to live in Minneapolis to find this funny. Do other cities have the Snow Emergency? But this is just the sort of quirky thing that makes living in Minneapolis so funny.

I mean what kind of city makes videos like this:

Wow.

(If you’re on facebook and live in Minneapolis, you may want to friend Mr. Snow Emergency. They’ll post a status update when it’s time to move your cars! I think Facebook has a policy of not allowing fake people to have profiles, but whatever.)