Test Tubes

I found this Ziplock bag of centrifuge tubes in front of my apartment building when I lived in Allston. I thought it was an odd thing to be lying around. The bag contains one cryo-marker, 2 dry-erase markers (red and green), 2 centrifuge tubes, 2 ... oh crap, i can't remember what they're called-- test tubes of some sort, and a bunch of small sample tubes. The sticky note on it says:

017-07-vx1
CORJ 44
04/09/2005

What's it all for? I have no idea. Everything was completely unused and unlabelled. I used to work in a lab, but I still can't imagine why someone would take this stuff home! Unless, of course, they're a freak like me who really likes lab equipment. This isn't even the cool stuff, though. Since it's Allston, I thought maybe it was for a drug lab. However this stuff is all plastic; it wouldn't make very good cooking equipment.

<-- there's all the stuff laid out.

This is the note on the bag -->

A Weekend In the Life of Jacob

Jacob E. lives a very busy life, and seems to be very organized. I mean, he types out his to-do lists (albeit on extremely colorful paper) and even puts his name at the top (the JACOB is not part of the paper's design). I often wonder what life would be like to be this organized. He seems to even schedule his social calls!

Knave of Smokes

Whoever owned this ashtray decided it was too cool to trash, yet too lame to keep. It was sitting outside the dumpster on the ground behind my apartment in Allston for a few days until someone moved it to the landing of the back stairs where it stayed for a few weeks. I picked it up even though I don't smoke, figuring I could find some use for this wonderful object that was "Made in Japan." It's interestingly made-- it's completely hollow. It was obviously molded, as there are chunks that are stuck to the side, and you can see the seams, but it's made from very hard porcelain. I wonder if it came in a set of all the card suits, or if there's something special about spades?

Adult Birthday

I had called this photo "adultbirthday.jpg", but Blogger wouldn't let me upload it. Perhaps they thought it was going to contain risqué imagery... Don't you think if I was going to upload nekkid pitchurs, I'd be smart enough to call them something else? Anyway, I found this wee sticky note on the floor of the store I was working in in Natick, MA. I thought it was amusingly cryptic. I think it originally was on the greeting card rack, meant to denote the particular subcategory. I could be wrong...

Your Tax Dollars At Work

I, for one, am glad that Social Security workers at least have good taste in music. I found this sticky note on the floor of the music store where I work today. That particular Ladytron song is on the CD The Witching Hour, which is their latest one. Being the music store dork that I am, I recognized it immediately (I'm also a giant Ladytron fan). I hope the government worker who dropped this CD found what he or she was looking for; it wouldn't be too hard as we carry that CD, and it's pretty much always in stock.

Cootie Catcher

When I was in elementary school, we called them "fortune tellers." Others inform me that the actual scientific name for them is "cootie catcher." Whatever the name, I found this one on my way to the train the other morning. The maker of this, however, never filled in anything beyond coloring the front (a nice touch, I usually just wrote in colors) and adding numbers. Bound by the lack of colored pencils, I wonder what he or she called the color in the upper right hand corner? Blue-Violet?

Mini Fake Grasshopper

Walk to train carefully, grasshopper! Today was a major score on my way to work. I found this little plastic grasshopper on the sidewalk in front of the Chinese-owned Thistle and Shamrock convenience store. It's very small (see quarter for scale), but the underside is impressively detailed (well, sort of).

Wash #3

I found this note on a seat of the Red Line train when I was on my way to work. I stared at it and read it over and over, but I still have absolutely no idea what it's about. Apparently #3 is going to be pretty clean, though, as it gets washed 3 times.

I'm rich, Beeyotch!

I found Ten Thousand dollars today on my way to the train! A couple of weeks ago I found this poker chip. Apparently the red ones are normally worth $5. So, I'm $10,005 richer just from my morning commute! Ah yes, the Game of Life. I always hated that game--it seemed kind of stupid that whoever had the most money in the end wins. I mean, we all die, don't we? That's why I made up my own edition in high school, called either "Death" or "Get a Life." I never decided on a name, but in this game you get sex changes, lose kids in accidents (you can only gain kids in Milton Bradley's world), and in the end everyone dies. Basically nobody wins the game, you just play it for kicks (kind of like real life).

Anyway, back to the subject-- the design of this money is pretty grim. I mean, come on--the "10,000" fading into the bottom? It looks like some reject printing from a former Soviet Union satellite. I had a 10,000 whatever (dinar?) note from the former Yugoslavia sometime in the early 90s when I was there. I'd scan it to show you what I'm talking about, except some douchebag broke into my apartment last year and stole all my completely worthless foreign money, much of it from countries that no longer exist.

Here's a bank note from Latvia -- this is sort of what I'm talking about:

Cell phones are SO COOL!

Whenever I get lonely, I just click open my Lizzie McGuire talking phone, and Lizzie says, "MMmmphhhhgp ppmmmmmggphh mmm phhffnsd." A few short months ago, she would say, "you're SUCH a great friend!" and my heart would warm up and I would realize how much I am uh, friended in this world or something.

Alas, Lizzie's batteries are running down, causing the fairy-like jingling noises her phone makes when you open it to go off at random times. They also interrupt themselves to start over, so it sounds kind of like early 80s rap music when were just getting into skratching and sampling. It goes

jingle jingJingJingJingJing jingle JingJingJingle

for a while and then stops for a couple of days. Today, however, you can make out Lizzie's voice as she says touching things like "K.I.T.-- you know, 'keep in touch, OK?' bye." as well as philosophical ponderers like, "cell phones are SO COOL." However, when you punch the number buttons, instead of a cheery beeping, they make the sound of a tape deck just after someone has pulled the plug. On the tape whose plug was pulled was a recording of a dying goose.

Since this is a "camera" phone, you can "take pictures" with it. This means that when you push the big round button in the middle, it makes a camera shutter clicking noise, and the "flash" on the front (see picture, left) is supposed to flash. Alas, there will be no dirty fake-photos looking up women's skirts on the subway today, as the battery is dying.

My favorite feature of this phone is the fake battery pack (see picture, right). Doesn't it look like you should be able to open up the back and take out the battery by pressing down on the tab near the top? PSYCH! That's just there to *look* like a real cell phone's battery pack. The real battery is stored in a chamber beneath that panel; one that you need a tiny phillips-head screwdriver to open. Such attention to detail!

I stuck this phone in the front pocket of my purse after I found it lying face down in a muddy patch of ground in Allston last summer, and haven't remembered to remove it until now. Several times my real cell phone has rung (kept in an identical pocket next to the LizziePhone bearing one) and I have answered Lizzie's phone by accident. I kind of wish I had a hot pink and poison green cell phone. Well, I'm SUCH a good friend to Lizzie, maybe she'll give me one for my birthday, because after all, cell phones are SO COOL!

20th Century Photo

Alicia Paul is learning a valuable lesson about art-- what Jane Tuckerman's email address is. OK, she's learning that Ed Weston hung out with "Diago" Rivera and Ansel Adams.

I think this is probably some notes from a photography class. Did Alicia lose interest before she got to Ansel Adams or Imogen Cunningham, or did she already know enough about them? I hope Alicia wrote down Jane Tuckerman's email address elsewhere, though!

Found on the ground in Central Square

Magnet Shape Choice

In our free country, we are lucky to have the freedom of choice. This freedom extends to the choosing of magnet shapes. Some Communist was trying to take away that freedom by forcing (albeit politely) the recipient of this note to take the round one. However, this country is still so great that the note-getter was able to choose a magnet shape of his heart's desire for the first one, I presume. This is a Post-It I found stuck to the stairs leading to the Outbound Red Line in Downtown Crossing T station today.

No Birds

We re-arranged the display fixtures in the store where I work yesterday. One of my co-workers found this picture underneath one of the fixtures we moved. It's written in black ballpoint pen on cash register tape. Nobody could figure out who the artist is, or what he or she has against birds.

Flakiness is Everywhere!

I was really psyched when I found this purple Post-It note stuck to the sidewalk in Downtown Crossing the other day. I had written a similar note the night before (even in black Sharpie!) and stuck it to my door where I would be sure to see it every morning on my way out of the house. I hope the writer of this note remembered his or her necessities that morning!

Beacon Drain Clogged

Is this a note a helpful landlord scribbled to remember which tenants needed a repairman? Is it a note designed to warn fellow Jehovah's Witnesses of perils in their door-to-door rounds? We may never know. Found on the sidewalk near Porter Square in Cambridge a few weeks ago.

Deconstruction Zone

This is a recent find; I picked it up outside Bruegger's Bagels across from the Porter Square T stop last week. Finding this is what prompted me to get off my butt and start this blog!

This poem was written on the back of a blank invoice form from ColorWorks Painting and Decorating stores that was haphazardly folded into quarters. The author seems to dislike apostrophes.

The text is as follows:

DECONSTRUCTION ZONE

THE TOLLS I PAY
Stay in the lines
theyre not people
theyre just traffic
I dont know
Ill just go

Ill leave halfway
through so the ending
doesnt ruin it for me

Trash Picking is Number 1!

I found this number one on the sidewalk in Ithaca, NY a number of years ago. I had incorporated it in a mobile, but it has long since fallen apart. I'm still looking for something cool to do with this small red one.

Rusty Metal bolt

I like rusty metal things. I found this in Allston, where one usually finds broken beer bottles and syringes and the like. I have no idea what it is from; maybe from the train yard? I found it by the train yard in Lower Allston. You are probably not very excited by this bolt, but I like it a lot.

Swimming Medal

I found this swimming medal on the ground when I was in elementary school. I kept it in my "treasure box" with other things that could double as either pirate booty, hidden chests of riches belonging to rightful kings of the land, or other imaginary worlds that have need for lost treasure. I liked the laurel wreath on the back; it looked very Greek and stately to me.

Life is Simple

Orlando Castillo wrote this touching letter to someone who discarded on the sidewalk in Allston. Although she (I presume it's a she, but you never know) didn't "burn it" as the letter instructed, she obviously didn't find this heartfelt confession from a Dartmouth Alum as touching as I did, even though he has a propensity to drive while drunk. I only have pages 3 and 5, I can only guess what the rest of the letter said.

Look, medieval coffin nails!

In Ireland, graveyards were often used over and over, people being buried on top of each other without rhyme or reason. This was the case in one little churchyard in Kinfenora, Co. Clare. There had been a recent burial, and the archaeologist who was leading my group around stooped down to examine the freshly dug dirt. "Look, medieval coffin nails!" he said, and held one up. I kept 2 as a souvenir. The chunks at the top of this picture once looked like the bottom nail; in the 9 years I've had these, they have crumbled to bits.

End of the Christmas Party

There are only a few revelers left at this Christmas Party, and drunkenness is probably what's inspiring the last few stragglers to sing karaoke... Judging from the look on the one dude's face, singing probably isn't this person's main talent. The photographer who captured this moment wasn't the only one; I wonder what the lady with the white hat's picture looks like? Also, I like the 3 Stooges poster in the background. I found this picture on Brighton Ave. in Allston one night in January 2007.

Andy is a Safe Driver. Unfortunately, he is also a forgetful driver. So forgetful in fact, he managed to lose his name tag in the snow somewhere in Oswego, NY in the winter of 1994/1995. Hell, it could have been spring or autumn-- Oswego gets snow pretty much 8 months out of the year.

I always hoped that Andy was a Manager In Training or some other such thing, and not that he had gone to MIT and this was now his reward.

Allston Squiggle

This Polaroid was on the sidewalk in Allston sometime in 2006. I can't tell what the picture is supposed to be of, but I really like the light squiggles and the way it came out.

Croagh Patrick Rock

Croagh Patrick is Ireland's holy mountain. It is said that St. Patrick fasted for 40 days on its summit, and that it was from there that he drove the snakes out of Ireland. For millennia, pilgrims have climbed this mountain, often with barefeet, or on their knees (these practices are discouraged, though).

I found this rock on one trip climbing the mountain (climb is an extreme word, it's more like a brisk upward hike). You can't tell too well from the picture, but it has a cross on it where two veins of quartz (?) intersect at right angles. You can only see the cross when this stone is wet. As I was descending the mountain, it had begun to sprinkle, and I noticed this stone.

I'm probably the least religious person on the planet, though I do have a healthy amount of superstition. I've kept this as my lucky rock ever since I found it (in the mid-90s sometime).

Redhead with Nosering

I can't remember where I found this Polaroid; I think it was in Medford. It's very blurry, but the girl pictured seems really contemplative. Is it even a girl? Now that I'm looking at it, it could be a boy...

Headless Action Figures

Last year I walked or rode my bike to work every day the same way. The walk took me past a church that is known for youth outreach programs. They have punk shows in the basement and festivals for all sorts of diverse peoples I didn't even know had a significant presence in Allston (like the recent Hmong Weekend). On two separate occasions, a few months apart I found these headless toys. I thought the genie guy was Jafaar from Disney's Aladdin, but a co-worker corrected me; it's a Yu-Gi-Oh guy. I'm not sure who the dog is.

Someone on that street must enjoy ripping the heads off action figures!

Girls on Vacation

My roommate found these pictures of this little girl and her friend. I'm not sure where the picture is taken, or what exactly is going on. The two girls look like they're having lots of fun, though!

Army Surplus earring

I just found this; I had no idea that I still had it. I found it in the pocket of a jacket I bought at an army surplus store when I was about 15 (ca. 1987). It just turned up again in the bottom of my hardware drawer. Go figure! The jacket is long gone, but the earring remains.

I was always intrigued by this really ugly, cheap earring. The "diamonds" are really bad imitations in plastic, and the gold colored sheen on the metal was wearing off in many places. Was it part of a pair that a soldier bought for his wife/girlfriend? Was it leftover from a night on the town? Was it the incriminating evidence from a cross-dresser?

Trash, Trash, Trash!

I have a habit of picking shit off the street. Here is the continuing saga all the crap I've found over the years ...