Christopher DeLuca

Follow @chrisd on Micro.blog.

The manhattan Alamo has a VHS collection. The ghost of Kim’s Video poking out.

A shelf of VHS tapes, mostly obscure,B, or Japanese genre films.
A clear day view from an elevated train platform looking down a bustling urban street lined with buildings. The street is filled with cars and a few pedestrians, with patches of snow on the sides and a clear blue sky above. The city skyline is faintly visible in the distance under the soft glow of the setting or rising sun.

Astoria Boulevard from the train station.

You know when people say, “We can laugh about it now”? I had to learn not to laugh about it then.

I wrote an Architecture Decision Record to Use SVGs for icons for Lullabot along with some of my wonderful co-owners. I’m so happy this is not at all controversial in 2024.

I’m letting my beard grow out for the winter. Currently, it’s at the “curling up under my neck” phase. Something must be done.

Made a delicious lentil curry off my chef friend Kayla’s recipe.

A green bowl with a yellow lentil curry inside. There’s chopped herbs on top, and an orange yolked soft boiled egg broken on top.

My psychedelic improv team the Cat’s Cradle is playing the Player’s Theatre again March 1st at 9:30pm. Get tickets before time folds in on itself (discount automatically applied).

Image of a black box theater, with several improvisors arrayed on stage in a twisty stage picture. Titles are superimposed over the image in neon lettering. The title is “Cat’s Cradle”, followed by the date of the show, “Friday, 03/01 @ 9:30pm Players Theatre NYC” and a link to tickets at catscradleimprov.com. A quote appears at the top: “High energy, psychadelic, improv comedy”

Apropos of nothing, I’d like a band called “Pesto Acropolis” to exist.

Things Unexpectedly Named After People wat 😦

Over the weekend I saw the Black History Month Check In Show, an evening of all black improvisation and one sketch. Such a funny show.

Six black improvisors, half women half men, dancing on a black box theater stage.

Artists compete with each other for status so fiercely that they often run out of ways to look more upper-class. So, a favorite maneuver is to adopt patterns from the lower class. But while they might wear clothes designed for factory workers, they wouldn’t wear polo shirts or khaki pants because those are coded as middle class—too much danger that their competitors might not understand their advanced maneuver.

A fascinating long-form on how taste is informed by status seeking from Dynomight Internet Newsletter.

Eat at Haidilao Hot Pot in Flushing yesterday. Meal lasted ~3 hours. So damn good. I only have one photo of the food from before anything was cooked as after I was too busy stuffing my face.

Four soup bases in the center of a table, two ladles sticking out of the broth. Some peppers and crispy tofu peak out. There's a small plate of pineapple next to the soup.

I added a search page to my blog. Let me know if you find anything interesting.

Has there ever been a bigger drop in quality in album art than between the first two Danzig albums?

The first record? One of the most iconic images in hard rock.

The first danzig album cover art, featuring a black field with a demon skull emossed in white

The second record? Prank.

The second danzig album cover art, featuring a black and white photo of Danzig's hairy white chest, his hands gripping a crucifix with a demon skull on it.
A photo of me on stage in a black box theater, shot from behind. I'm a bald, aging white man. I'm wearing black jeans and a pastel pink dress shirt. My hands a splayed out in eggagerated gestures. Some of my improv teammates, an Asian woman, three white men, and a black man, look on.

Got to perform in a wonderful, supportive speed-dating improv show last night. These shows are always so fun and the audience has such a great time, not to mention us the performers. Check loose corn on Instragram for upcoming shows.

Great piece on privacy and money, and why it matters to society.

Privacy suffers from a collective action dilemma: individually it isn’t worth much and so we don’t defend it, but lack of privacy is immensely costly when lost en masse. Moreover, our data, en masse, is worth a lot to corporations and governments. Thus privacy has few defenders and strong attackers.

Once, after a ring-bearer dog defecated in the aisle, she scooped up the dog poop with her bare hands to prevent the bride from soiling her dress.

Merely one of the bonkers stories of the world’s most successful professional bridesmaid. Ignore the vague waft of click-bait, this is a detailed, fully reported piece.

My brilliant co-owner Greg Dunlap has a Kickstarter up for his new book, Designing Content Authoring Experiences. If you work with Content Management Systems, you owe yourself a look.

Yesterday I Learned that the Chinese zodiac has subtypes based on the elements. So, 2024 is the year the Wood Dragon, and I was born under the Fire Tiger. 🪵🐲

These Stickers to Manage Replies by Don Hon seem useful. How cool would it be if they were built in to social media sites?

I added a faint grain to the background of my site, but I keep thinking it’s too subtle and just looks like your monitor is dirty.

It’s a snow day in Astoria ❄️

Accumulating snow as seen through my water streaked and screened window. Two and three story buildings are dusted with snow. The sky is white obscuring the bridge almost completely.

Welcome to the Webmention-a-verse but she’s a girl…!

Had amazing Sichuan food at Hupo in Long Island City. So good, I’m jealous of my past self.

Dishes of golden tofu, beef stew , crispy tofu, and rice.

I’m very glad I’m not thirteen anymore, because I did improv practice then played Magic instead of watching the Super Bowl, and that would have gotten my ass kicked. 😎