(Illustrated) blog du jour.

Surfing’s an addiction. It’s like a sexual addiction, almost, (…) You’ve gotta get it all the time and you can’t own it and… the fact you can’t own it sucks you into it. And, it’s why so many people decided it was easier to smuggle dope and get large amounts of money for a small amount of work and then live off the proceeds and go surfing. It caused a lot of people to go down some dark tracks.

~ Indies Trader’s Martin Daly, in Sea of Darkness

Eli says he gets in rhythm when he is paddling about two miles from shore. There’s less current out there and it seems to be where he gets his best glide. He said that whales, dolphins and birds seem to prefer traveling along this watery thoroughfare as well. Eli does these paddling adventures for no other reasons than to see a place. No cause, no fanfare-he just really loves being out there.

Paddling ten miles a day. I love paddling, but this is brutal.

/via Joe Curren

In 2001, a PowerBook G4 would have set you back $3500. Suppose instead that you had purchased $3500 in Apple stock instead of the computer…that stock would now be worth about $110,000. Even an original iPod’s worth in AAPL ($399) would be worth almost $12,000 today.

~ Kottke’s Buying Apple stock instead of products

I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep. Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex. Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase. But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

~ John Green, Looking for Alaska

T-shirt du jour. Has my vote!

…13 grand
a year in the meadowlands
bored and rural-poor, lord, at 35, right?
I’m the best 17 year old ever

In here, though, the yields are otherworldly. “We actually kept a tally of how many cherry tomatoes we grew,” Mr. Torcellini said of last summer’s crop. “And from one plant, it was 347.” A trio of cucumber plants threw off 175 cukes.

From the NYTimes article on aquaponics. Interesting read. The wastewater from the fish fertilize the plants, which are grown in gravel, not soil. What’s not to love?

Heartbreakingly beautiful photos and stories. The previous showcase, Local Flavor, is also *very* good. Just make sure lunch or dinner is a few minutes away, or else…

I Love Typography’s Google before you Tweet print. How long until someone makes a t-shirt out of this?