In which I have been sick all week and too lazy to come up with something good, but you should read most of these. Or look at the pictures.

Yo, read these.



This article isn't nearly as good as how awkward the author is:
Pole Dancing and Pasties Again?  Get Me the Remote
The New York Times
 First let me say that I yield to no man in my fondness for naked women. I have seen several in person, though none recently, and rank them right up there with a good sunset or a crisply turned double play on my list of things worth looking at.

but the pictures in this one are dreeeeeeeamy.
How Dreamy is the Dreamliner?
The Wall Street Journal
The Boeing 787 "Dreamliner" is supposed to revolutionize air travel: better cabin climate, less airsickness, reduced jet lag, fewer headaches—and even babies that may not cry as much.
With the 787 at its three-month anniversary in service, these promises were put to the test on an 11½-hour flight from Tokyo to Frankfurt earlier this month. Overall, cabin comfort was clearly better, and big windows and voluminous overhead bins are definitely cool. But make no mistake—it's still an airplane.

Same goes here.
Ready, Set, Gorge! DC's Ultimate Food Challenges
The Washington Post
While BGR owner Mark Bucher said each location serves up a few 9 Pounders per week, only one person has conquered the thing solo: competitive eater Sonya Thomas. "I had to dunk the bun in the water so I could eat fast, and then I separated meat and bun," Thomas said. She accomplished the feat in less than one hour, far better than The Washington Post newsroom, which only managed to make it through half of the burger before throwing in the towel.   
 
I hate Charles Dickens, and this guy potentially loves him too much, but still, worth reading.
The World of Charles Dickens, Complete with Pizza Hut
The New York Times
Dickens World, in other words, sounded less like a viable business than it did a mockumentary, or a George Saunders short story, or the thought experiment of a radical Marxist seeking to expose the terminal bankruptcy at the heart of consumerism. And yet it was real. Its existence raised a number of questions. Who was the park’s target audience? (“Dickens-loving flume-ride enthusiasts” seems like a small, sad demographic.) 

Christie is too big for irony.
Gay Marriage, Passed, Awaits Veto By Christie
The New York Times
On Thursday, Mr. Christie declared the Legislature’s action merely “an exercise in theater.” 
“I’ve given them an alternative,” said Mr. Christie, who spent the day holding a news conference to announce that WrestleMania was coming to MetLife Stadium in 2013...


<<insert obvious joke about WSJ being written by grouchy old men>> But seriously, great and accessible piece on the neurology of human development.
What's Wrong with the Teenage Mind?
The Wall Street Journal
Recent studies in the neuroscientist B.J. Casey's lab at Cornell University suggest that adolescents aren't reckless because they underestimate risks, but because they overestimate rewards—or, rather, find rewards more rewarding than adults do. The reward centers of the adolescent brain are much more active than those of either children or adults. Think about the incomparable intensity of first love, the never-to-be-recaptured glory of the high-school basketball championship.  

<<insert obvious joke about WSJ being jingoistic>> But seriously, once we get past the panicked protests about not loving France, this is an interesting look at cross-cultural child-rearing.
Why French Parents are Superior
The Wall Street Journal  
 Rest assured, I certainly don't suffer from a pro-France bias. Au contraire, I'm not even sure that I like living here. I certainly don't want my kids growing up to become sniffy Parisians...

Frédérique had recently adopted a beautiful redheaded 3-year-old from a Russian orphanage. At the time of our outing, she had been a mother for all of three months. Yet just by virtue of being French, she already had a whole different vision of authority than I did—what was possible and pas possible.

  And I do love a list.
The World's Costliest Cities
The LA Times
While Zurich took the top “honor” from Tokyo in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s most recent world-wide cost-of-living survey, the Japanese capital was runner-up. The survey, which is published twice a year, uses prices of goods and services such as food, transportation, utilities, private schools and domestic help to calculate scores for each city, using New York as its base with a score of 100. Zurich and Tokyo scored 170 and 166, respectively, indicating that they are about 70% and 66% more expensive to live in than New York.