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In order to lock in your sequential and permanent Guerilla Drive-In Member Number, you must send in two things: the seven-digit access code that the MacGuffin is broadcasting, and a picture of you at the location. Here are new Guerilla Drive-In members 018, 019, and 023, skulking around the restrooms in dark glasses and hoodies:…

Kate and I got into an argument at Waterloo Gardens this morning: Kate: “I kind of want to find a planter that’s a statue head. I don’t know whether Beverley Nichols would have liked it or been horrified by it. And then there’s that poem, about the giant head…” John: “Huh? Giant head?” Kate: “Yeah,…

More great things about suburban West Chester: My brother-in-law Matt has been rebuilding the wall extensions on local underground skating hangout “The Dust Bowl.” This is a place right near King of Prussia that I was nowhere near cool enough to know about as a kid (but Matt was.) It’s a concrete-lined ditch with angled…

I love special-purpose gear. I especially love special-purpose gear in bright colors. And I freaking LOVE special-purpose gear in bright colors that conjures ADVENTURE. And helicopters. So I’m incredibly fortunate that firefighter uber-outlet The Fire Store is just around the corner in Coatesville. I went there on a SECRET MISSION this morning to talk to…

Barack Obama was at West Chester University today, appearing on a road tour of Chris Matthews’ Hardball. Barb was stuck in Harrisburg, so Kate and I got to use her VIP tickets. Without Barb there, they were downgraded to semi-VIP tickets, but that was even better because we got to sit right next to the…

Like Slim Pickens, I never met a meme that I didn’t want to ride all the way down. So I went ahead and registered the inevitable URL. Announcing NERDLEPOINT DOT COM! Look! I have a header and everything! I’ve been looking for an excuse to use both my Tintin fonts, and so I was delighted…

I really like how QRcodes —cryptic, digital, unintelligble — are at one extreme end of the “real versus digital” numberline, and needlepoint — dense, wooly, handmade — is way way waaaaay at the other end of that same numberline. I get a little bit of a worlds-colliding, mad-scientist thrill when I can coax a URL…

I started putting up Guerilla Drive-In flyers around West Chester. It’s got nothing but the GDI logo and a QRcode with a special landing URL on it. If even a single nerd out there sees the flyer, snaps the QRcode with a cameraphone reader, and hits the special landing URL encoded in it, I’m going…