There will be a photo hiatus until next week. In the meantime, enjoy these three amusing excerpts.

This has birders, birding and ascension, all in the same sentence:

“In hindsight, say birders, the best thing to happen to Colombian birding was the ascension in 2002 of conservative President Álvaro Uribe.”

Interview with Michael Bay about Transformers, from today’s wsj:

Did you add testicles to the robots, too?
No, those are construction balls.

Bad copy of the week, from a Trump ad:

‘She likes one towel for the the pool, one towel for the beach and one for which we have no idea. We simply make sure she gets all three. After all, when you promise five-star service you must expect your guests to wrap themselves up in it. No matter how many towels it takes (emphasis mine).’

Taken at North Pond.

Northerly Island is a great place to get impaled on rebar remnants, if that’s your thing. Maybe the chunks of pavement and rebar were placed along the peninsula to guard the buried mayoral treasure from pirates.

Don’t sit here. Or anywhere on Northerly Island.

A little pond by the lakewall, and now that I think about it, a pretty good setting for a stop-motion claymation movie. Especially if you want to impale something.

The horror! The horror!

Palate cleanser.

I love this 1930s-style singing coffee beans e-card from Klipp og Lim, a content agency in Norway. As they describe it, “These three coffe beans has formed some kind of A Capella group, singing a song about friendship, coffee and happiness. The film is a bit sad in the middle but the mood picks up again and ends happily.”

Ducklings and bubbles.

This looks like the Wood Duck’s school photo:

This man (one in a group; I call him Heinrich) is seriously into whatever he’s doing. He’s got a metal detector, a toolbelt, ear protection, work gloves…and knee pads. Maybe North Pond is the next Mycenae.

Are you a transient/hobo looking for an affordable hotel room? The Marshall Hotel in Chicago has a room (and a sign) with your name on it. Hotel amenities may include freight line timetables, liquor store directories, mulligan stew get-together every evening and complimentary bindle sticks. Our staff speaks fluent Hobo and Hobo Semaphore!

Everyone should have a Donald Duck head in their office…though I’d prefer the “Angry Donald” head.

We need a few of these in Chicago, though it’s meant for the mountains: the new Pininfarina-designed Prinoth snow groomer called the Beast (see also: Everest, Bison and Leitwolf). “We have created the perfect workplace for drivers of the Beast.” (Via Dexigner)

The WSJ wine writers visit Bin 36.

“Militant caffeine addict” Aleksandar Hemon describes 6 Chicago places that influenced or inspired his fiction. “Nelson Algren used to drink there and brought along Simone de Beauvoir with whom he was having a famous affair. The locals fondly remembered her as Simon the Beaver.”

Finally, here are some of my favorite quotes from this bird diaper flight suit site (don’t ask). Also, I think a bird wrote the product copy.

- Bird Diapers prevent embarrassing accidents and dangerous fly-aways when used with the optional leash

- Flight Suit Bird Diapers allow for carefree socialization

- Bird Diaper poop pouch should be positioned directly under vent

- Before I found these I had bird poop down my back

- My birds became angry and annoyed