But alas, I’m making a post to lament the fact that I never post anymore.

So let it be known that the quick links and things that used to get compiled into quickies posts are mostly winding up on my Twitter, so follow me there for fun and games.

But, here are some things that didn’t make it to the Twitter.

+ Urban Sketches has some really cool drawings of Brooklyn.

+ Here are some women pioneers.

And that’s all she wrote. I am laaame.

+ I only just stumbled upon Effed in Park Slope’s expose of the Atlantic Center Target, the worst Target on the planet. part 1 | part 2 | part 3

I can verify that this is indeed as bad as it looks in the video. It’s so badly mismanaged and understaffed. The lines at the checkout are usually so long that people just abandon their carts. It seems to me that Target would make enough money from one of those abandoned carts to pay the salary of another cashier, you know?

+ Passive Aggressive Notes find notes that are passive aggressive about typography.

+ Here’s a whiny “Those kids today!” article about how college kids are reading Twilight instead of the classics. I have a BA in English lit, so believe me, I’m on board with this rant to a point, although, I don’t remember doing a whole lot of recreational reading when I was in college. I had to read, on average, 3 books a week for my classes, so that didn’t leave a lot of time for other things, and when I did read extracurricular books, they were mostly fluffy things to contrast against the Serious Literature I had to read for class.

+ WTF, clothing retailers? Although my beef with this post is the comment about “average women” having larger waists. You know what? Can we just agree that clothes are not made for real women’s bodies and move along? Because, actually, finding pants that are big enough for my hips inevitably leaves me with pants that are too big in the waist, so speak for yourselves. But, still, it seems stupid that clothes stores are so adamant about not stocking bigger sizes.

+ Check out these Whirl Girls, chorines from 1921.

+ I mentioned that I recently got a Kindle. I think the advent of this Kindle and its competitors is starting to make ebooks more popular and accessible to the masses in easily-readable formats. So, is one advantage to ebooks the embarrassment factor? I mean, I read a lot of romance, and so much of it just has ridiculous cover art, and if I’m reading on the subway, I don’t want everyone judging my books by their covers, you know?

+ Blast from the Past: Battle of the Cartoon Girl Bands.

+ Corollary: I spent part of this weekend looking for a particular Smashing Pumpkins song, and then I just saw this commercial using a song that is so evocative of high school for me (I was a huge SP fan). So strange to hear the song in a different context.

Today is International Women’s Day.

Also, check out this great site put together by the New-York Historical Society: Brooklyn Revealed. Lots of old photos of Brooklyn and histories of the 6 original towns that made up what we now call the borough of Brooklyn. This photo of Eastern Parkway amazes me; the museum looks so lonely out there by itself! I wish I could find a contemporary photo from the same angle, but alas. I did find this postcard that shows all of the apartment buildings that have since been built across the street and here’s my photo of the museum.

I am apparently only good at posts full of links lately.

+ Gawker prepares for Watchman by looking at photos of New York in 1985.

+ I’ll have you know that I am a geek, thankyouverymuch.

+ Speaking of geekery, Jezebel ponders when it became uncool to be smart, citing a woman who won a quiz show in the UK.

+ The Girl Scouts are trying to modernize. Which is awesome. Although my life is sadly lacking in Girl Scout Cookies.

+ If you thought Monday was snowy, check out these photos from the blizzard of 1888. I’d guess we got almost a foot in my corner of Brooklyn on Monday, enough to inspire people to go cross-country skiing in prospect park.

The Manhattan Bridge from the Brooklyn Bridge, taken last spring

I have kind of a soft spot for the Manhattan Bridge. I think of it as my bridge, because it’s the one I cross most often, either on the subway or by car, it’s the most direct route from Manhattan to my neighborhood in Brooklyn.

The Bowery Boys have a photo taken 100 years ago showing the bridge-in-progress. Neat, huh?

Some delicious trivia:

+ The bridge is 6,855 feet long. (That’s 1.3 miles.)
+ The bridge took 8 years to build.
+ There is no toll.
+ The somewhat ostentatious Manhattan Bridge Plaza on the Manhattan side (the entrance to the bridge on Canal Street near 3rd Ave) was completed in 1916, and it’s kind of a monument to classical architecture. And it is ridiculous, though probably not more so than other iconic New York arches such as the Washington Square Arch and the Grand Army Plaza Arch.
+ Some of the cabling was designed by a gent named Moisseiff, who went on to design the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and we all know how that went.
+ The subway tracks on the Brooklyn side are the same as they were when subway service began over the bridge in 1915. Today, the B, the D, and the Q run over the bridge. (When I moved to New York, there was no service over the bridge, so it’s pretty cool that there is now, mostly because it makes the trip between Brooklyn and Manhattan on the Q super speedy!)

Here are some links:

Wikipedia
Forgotten New York
My Brooklyn Bridge photos, which include a bunch more of the Manhattan Bridge.

+ Buy a book! (Help me keep my publishing job!)

+ Speaking of publishing, romance ebook publishers seem to be taking over (or at least wanting to take over) the dead tree market. I’m interested in ebooks both as a consumer and a… producer? Ebooks are less expensive to produce, and I think they will become more prevalent when the cost of ebook readers goes down, but in the short term, ebooks of popular titles are available, as are a lot of interesting alternative books that might not get picked up by traditional publishers. (This is particularly true of GLBT romances, and some ebook-only publishers are putting out some good, genre-bending romances.)

+ Also, Writer Beware has a good, brief summary of last week’s industry bloodshed.

+ Check out the Brooklyn Hall of Fame.

+ Interesting Times article about art and artists in Green-wood Cemetery. (See also my trip to Green-wood.)

+ Problematic Barbies.

I waited in line for an hour and half to vote this morning. You can see photos of The Line on my Flickr.

I’m now at my brother’s place in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. We’re watching the returns. I’ll update this post as funny and/or surprising things happen. Stay tuned!

7:50: Some reporter on MSNBC is demonstrating the confounding ballots in Florida. My brother says, “Why the fuck do they do this to the old people?” It’s true, it’s like the people in Florida deliberately tried to find the most confusing ballots ever. You’d think they’d learn. In New York, we still have the really old voting machines that were built ca. the Stone Age. They work reliably!

All these swing states leaning McCain (Virginia, etc.) are making me nervous. I guess we’ll know more in a few minutes.

8:05: Pennsylvania Victory Dance!!

9:08: No real surprises on the map at this point. Chuck Todd on MSNBC is saying it’s a lot closer than everyone was expecting. I start chewing on my nails.

9:22: Obama wins Ohio!! Terrorist fist bumps all around!

9:31: New Mexico! Dancy Dance!

9:42: Chuck Todd rescinds what he said about this looking a lot like the 2000 and 2004 race. Ohio and New Mexico seemed to have turned the tides.

10:00: Iowa! And we switch from MSNBC to Stewart/Colbert.

10:20: Elizabeth Dole loses. Steve Forbes is on the Daily Show.

10:54: You know, if Obama wins California, Washington, and Oregon, this show is done. We’re getting the champagne ready. My brother says, “You know what’s refreshing? We might find out who wins before midnight.”

11:00: We switch back to MSNBC, where they’re getting all wistful about the Obama presidency. Done deal? Here comes the polls closing at 11: OBAMA WINS IT!!!!

11:02: Speech! Speech! Speech! My brother is apparently incapable of opening a bottle of champagne. Oh, wait… we seem to have broken a glass in the process, but we have champagne now. People are cheering out in the streets. Cell phone reception isn’t working because everyone in the country is calling each other.

I gotta say, it’s pretty exciting!

11:16: There’s an incredible amount of noise coming from the streets. There’s a lady down there banging two pots together. People are shouting out their windows. MSNBC calls Florida for Obama!! There’s even a collective cheer of O-Ba-Ma from the streets!! Jesse Jackson is crying on the TV!

11:18: McCain concedes!

11:30: There is literal dancing in the streets.

11:45: There are firecrackers outside!

12:00: Obama acceptance speech. Yeah, bitches. It’s a good speech.

I suck at this blogging thing, eh?

Well, some news and notes:

1. Uma Thurman and Jesse L. Martin have joined the cast of the new Muppet Christmas movie, which is especially notable as it’s been filming in my corner of Brooklyn. I, in fact, walked through the set last week when they were filming on 8th Ave in Park Slope conveniently between work and my apartment.

2. Gawker had an interesting round-up on Friday of scientific explanations for why people vote Republican.

Speaking of politics, I am going to try my darnedest to liveblog or at least write extensive commentary on the debates.

3. Did you know that the very first baseball park to charge admission was right here in Brooklyn? And now, thanks to the new Yankee and Shea Stadiums (or “Citifield,” whatevs) we New Yorkers get to pay through our noses for baseball. So much for America’s pastime.

On this day in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge opened. There are festivities related all weekend.

I actually walked across it myself a couple of weeks ago. You can see my photos here.

See also: Gothamist, The Bower Boys, and some documentaries: Ken Burns, and there’s also an episode of Modern Marvels. These are both available on iTunes. The Ken Burns documentary is a little more thorough and artistic.