Buying local? There's an app for that.

I found this app shamelessly plugged in the comments for an article on the Com. Looks interesting. Maybe it's finally time to get a smartphone.

Ann Arbor hip hop

Friends, have you ever wondered what it would be like if Ann Arbor's neighborhoods had hip hop style rivalries with each other? Well I hadn't either until I stumbled upon local rapper Cromatic's music video "Dapped Up."



Cromatic is representing the west side, the Old West Side according to the chorus. If you see that Taurus wagon rolling down the street in Burns Park, you might want to get behind cover, because it's probably a drive-by. Wouldn't it be great if all the historic districts could produce such great musical acts?

Graffiti in Dexter

From the Com:

A $500 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons who wrote graffiti on the Dexter Commerce Building at Baker Road and Main Street in downtown Dexter recently.

Initial reaction: Wow, that must be some bad graffiti.
The article continues:

The graffiti said “there’s always a way up.”

Oh.

Apparently Dexter lacks the high quality graffiti we have in Ann Arbor. Sounds like the market is ripe for an emerging street art scene. Maybe someone could start covering the city with bear stencils.

Hat tip Lizzy

Primitive map

Very basic map found in the Arboretum.

Man in White

This begs the question, are we missing the performance art revolution?

Man In White from Michael Hovitch on Vimeo.

Parenting advice from a hawk

This red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)'s fledglings just left their nest in the Arb. If you look closely you can see this parent carefully showing its children (sitting above it in the tree) how to eat a chipmunk after catching it. The message here is clear: parents, if you want your children to be able to catch and eat rodents on their own, you will have to show them how.

DPS Daily Incident Log

As much as the Department of Public Safety's Daily Incident Log is, wouldn't it be interesting if AAPD had something similar? Then again, perhaps we don't want to know about every service call officers go on.

Are you living in a microhood?

Water Hill, Ann Arbor's newest microhood?

What exactly is a microhood? A microhood is a distinctive sub-neighborhood within a bigger established neighborhood. They can be defined strictly by geography or additional features that unify an area. For example, there are the student rental and rich people sections of Burns Park. And of course, there is always the newly minted Water Hill microhood. Are there other microhoods in Ann Arbor? Perhaps we could start calling the area of Washtenaw and Hill with all the sororities and fraternities "Little Athens."

Do you like to water ski?

Nah son.

Smooth transitions

I kind of love the videos made by various U of M departments. Are there any other good YouTube videos by U of M?