While opening up a new brokerage account:

Part of me wanted to see what would happen if I selected either of these options, but I tend to lose all sense of adventure when money is involved.

ak++ and aarti++ for hosting.

Random things too tiny, and possibly too stupid, for individual posts

Movies I’ve watched in the past 8 days in 5 words. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - Sexploitation! I really watched that? No Country for Old Men - Amazing, go see it. Now. Eastern Promises - Also awesome, avoid bath houses. Host - Koreans are lovable, tasty people. La Dolce Vita - Seven nights, Hedonism. Poor Rome.

This spinning beach ball of death is funny. It comes from Took my hands off your eyes too soon, at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea. Say what you will about contemporary art, but this gets a thumbs up in my book. It’s not worth a trip to the west side or anything, but if you happen to be in the area.

Snickerdoodles. Shortening or butter? Joy of Cooking is a butter recipe (is this because I have the new edition?) but I suppose I’ll have to try it both ways before declaring a winner.

I’ve been a recluse all weekend — I spent Saturday night listening to Lauryn Hill and making a new wordpress theme for the ol’ blog. It’s based on a recent photo and is supposed to be as minimalist as I can get away. No search, calendar, blogroll, shared items, widgets, etc. It should still feel a little like kubrick anyway.

And lastly, I’m going on a road trip from NYC to Austin mid-December. Are there any must-see attractions in any of PA, VA, MD, TN, AL, AR that I should know about?

So Z and I headed up to Yorktown Heights last weekend for a combined pumpkin + photo adventure. As much as I love this city, getting out is great for new colors and interesting shapes/textures. It was also a good chance to play with her Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. I’ve sort of fallen in love with it so I’m not sure she’s getting it back. Besides being much faster than my 28-135, I love the images this thing produces, and the focus distance is much closer.

And of course there was pumpkin pie and apple cider donuts. Yum. The least pleasant thing about going to small towns is getting food recommendations from the locals. Panera bread? really?

Photos here and here.