Rexfeng

Some Simpsons couch gags are funny, some are cute, and some are imaginative. The latest gag, created by Don Hertzfeldt, is unsettling. It starts with Homer sitting on a strange device that accidentally turns time back to the late 1980s, morphing his face and body to its original incarnation in the process. He tries to reverse the process, but slams time forward to the 101st century, a nightmare future where Marge is a clump of talking hair and Maggie is a free-floating blob that demands you buy "SAMPSANS"-branded products.

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When you first come to Eighth Avenue between 43rd & 44th, it appears to be nothing more than a strip of touristy gift shops.

Swing around the corner on 44th Street, and you’ll just find a row of restaurants.

But look at this intersection from above, and you’ll see something unusual hidden from view…

Nestled behind the outer wall of buildings, an inner structure topped with an eight-sided dome:

What is it? As it happens, you can go check it out in person simply by passing through the doors of one of the few good restaurants in Times Square, John’s Pizzeria.

Head through the entrance hall…

…pass through the arches…

…and step into the main room of the restaurant…

…and it shouldn’t take long before the dimensions start reminding you not of a pizzeria…

…but instead, a church, complete with its former balcony-level seating and stained glass windows.

Oh, and be sure to look up…

…to see one of the most beautiful stained-glass ceilings in New York:

Seriously, how gorgeous is that?

A closer look…

And a little closer…

Nearly 100 years before it was serving the best pizza in Times Square, this was home to the Gospel Tabernacle church, founded by the evangelical Protestant preacher A. B. Simpson. The church was always inset from the street – the attached buildings on Eighth Avenue and 44th Street housed a missionary training college offering three year courses for men and women (separated, of course), as well as a bookstore. Below, the entrance on 692 Eighth Avenue in 1931…

…and today.

The church flourished in the early half of the century (below, a picture of the church in its heyday), but by the mid-90s, it was abandoned and in a state of decay (special thanks to reader Matthew for locating a picture!).

In 1995, the property was purchased by Madeline Castelotti and renovated into a John’s Pizza location.

It’s interesting to search for the remnants of the former church. Clearly, the altar would have been located behind this mural (would love to know if it’s still hidden back there!).

Still lining the walls are stained-glass windows in triplets…

…some still allowing in light…

…while others have since been blocked by exterior walls.

I’d say it’s a safe assumption these are the original chandeliers from the church:

Finally, I love that the balcony area was kept, which really retains the character of the church:

To get a sense of the strange geography of the place, head to the bar…

…where a skylight gives you a sense of exactly where you are amongst the jumble of surrounding buildings:

Unfortunately, I was unable to find any historical pictures of what the interior of the church used to look like (if anyone can find any, please send them my way). I did manage to dig up a picture of the 8th Avenue entrance…

…which today leads into the kitchen.

According to the John’s website, this is the largest pizzeria in the country. While I have no clue if this is accurate or not, I do know that this place serves a damn good pizza, and is one of the few reasons I look forward to making the requisite Times Square tourist visit when relatives come to town.

And lest anyone have a problem with a church being turned into a pizzeria, really stare at the ceiling overhead. Pretty sure it was what God intended from the beginning.

-SCOUT

The best part of waking up is either free or doesn't cost a lot today.

Normally, we have a very low tolerance for fake national food holidays, but we can't ignore the crucial fact that many, many cups of coffee today are discounted or complimentary because it's "National Coffee Day." Predictably, it's mostly chains going in on this, but here you go.

• Dunkin' Donuts: A medium-size Dark Roast coffee is free today, then goes to 99 cents for the rest of the week.
• Krispy Kreme: Customers can get a free 12-ounce House, Dark Roast, or Decaf coffee, or for $1, upgrade to a mocha, latte, or iced coffee.
• McDonald's: Participating locations have been running this deal since last week, but small coffees are free today during normal breakfast hours.
• Tim Hortons: Any size regular or dark roast coffee is $1.
• The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co.: Free hot or iced coffee with any purchase.
• Kangaroo Express: Customers at the Southeast chain's stores can grab a 12-ounce Bean Street coffee for a penny.
• LaMar's Donuts: Free 12-ounce coffees all day.
• Peet's Coffee & Tea: Participating locations are running a buy-one-get-one-free deal all day good on drinks that aren't juices or bottled beverages.
• Starbucks: Starbucks is doing free samples of its Ethiopia Coffee Blend.

[RestaurantNews.com via NYT]

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: news, coffee, dunkin' donuts, freebies, krispy kreme, mcdonald's, peet's coffee & tea, starbucks, tim hortons; @digital-news

Given the avalanche of new smartphones this fall, there's a good chance that your data use is about to spike as you put that fresh hardware through its paces. If so, AT&T might just have you covered. It's running a promo between September 28th and...

Carmen Segarra is a former FTC regulator who joined the fed after the financial crisis to help rescue the banking system -- but she was so shocked by the naked regulatory capture on display that she ended up buying a covert recorder from a "spy shop" and used it to secretly record her colleagues letting Goldman Sachs get away with pretty much anything it wanted to do. Read the rest

It turns out all it takes to reverse a decade-long sales decline is to slap names onto soda bottles. Coca-Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign, which saw names like Chris, Alex, and Jess, as well as monikers like "BFF" and "Wingman" emblazoned on bottles and cans, is credited for increasing the company's US soft drink sales by 0.4 percent year-over-year, according to data reported in The Wall Street Journal. The increase came after 11 straight years of dropping sales.

The containers seemed perfectly designed for social media — nothing makes drinking a Coke special like seeing one with your name on it, and plenty took the opportunity to share photos of cans on Instagram. Some 250 names were used in the campaign, and custom-made machines that...

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Two men in Willowbrook are dead after one of them accidentally shot and killed his friend before turning the gun on himself early Sunday morning. [ more › ]

Emergency room physicians are leaving patients with hefty bills: More and more, doctors who work in emergency rooms are private contractors who are out of network or do not accept any insurance plans.

Since Amazon Prime's two-day delivery apparently doesn't apply to business acquisitions, Amazon's acquisition of streaming service Twitch, which was announced on August 25, has only just been finalized. A filing with the United States Securities and...

People are drinking less orange juice every year, and on top of that, citrus crops are being ravaged by foreign bacteria that's rendering huge sections of crops worthless. All that has led Florida orange growers to completely reimagine their OJ mascot from a goofy looking orange wearing a cape, to a strapping superhero that hangs out with Iron Man and the rest of The Avengers. What could be cooler than that? Maybe an ice cold glass of fresh Florida orange juice, according to Captain Citrus, who is actually a man named John Polk who lives on an orange grove and has something called "solar pods" in his body that allow him to cheat certain death.

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While flying south of San Francisco recently, photographer Julieanne Kost managed to capture this beautiful series of photographs that look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. The color in the photos isn’t altered, nor were the images taken with an infrared lens, instead what you’re seeing are countless trillions of microorganisms thriving away inside shallow salt ponds. It takes an average of five years to transform bay water into salt brine, during which the various organisms that live in the ponds undergo a dramatic chromatic shift as the salinity increases. You can a bit more about the process over on Amusing Planet, and see more of Kost’s photograhs on Behance. All photos courtesy the photographer. (via This Isn’t Happiness)

"No man's hand will stay my fork," the blogger says.

Earlier this month, a lucky writer who goes by "Vino" managed to sidestep all of the black market fakes to score one of Olive Garden's vaunted Never Ending Pasta Passes. The chain issued only a thousand, and at $100 a clip, they entitle bearers to vast amounts of pasta bowls in various permutations, plus unlimited Coca-Cola soft drinks. Naturally, Vino set out to document seven straight weeks of eating nothing but the stuff on the punnily named All of Garden. Less than a week in, it's clear that the blogger has in fact embarked on the journey of a lifetime.

Sure, Vino somehow isn't the only one plowing through veritable mountains of fettuccine and penne right now — ABC is doing it — but he's certainly the only one who's vowed that "no man's hand will stay my fork" and otherwise gives concoctions colorful names like "Mortality," which is what the chicken fritta, three-meat sauce, and angel hair concoction seen above was dubbed.

The description of the leftovers: "The busboy scrapes your remains into a giant bucket without a thought, and your earthly form returns from whence it came — the padlocked dumpster behind the Olive Garden." If this guy isn't the Charles Lindbergh of five-cheese-marinara-sauced rigatoni with chicken fritta, he is certainly the Pablo Neruda of meat-sauced cavatappi with Italian sausage.

This shrimp and whole-wheat linguine combo gets the existential moniker of "Solitaire," and naturally comes with a riff on sharks and their prey. Other names for dishes include the self-explanatory "Cheesetube Extreme" and the more aspirational "Stouffer's."

We reached out to Vino, who seems to be named Alex and may or may not be in Fargo, North Dakota. We wanted to find out what prompted the almost two-month-long gauntlet of pasta, so we reached out and had a reply in minutes.

Olive Garden's Pasta Pass seemed to beg for someone to attempt what I'm doing, and I felt I could do it better than anyone. Also, I came up with the pun and that kind of cemented the whole project.

There are about six weeks, and more than 130 possible Pasta Bowl combinations, left. Go and wish this guy strength right over here.

Related: There’s a Thriving Black Market for Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta Passes
[Official site]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: gauntlets, all of garden, olive garden, pasta pass

The Pokémon Trading Card Game just showed up on Canada's iOS app store. This means that it's likely heading to other territories soon too. The Pokemon Company announced it during the Pokemon World Championships last month. For now it's iPad-only, but it syncs up with the long-running desktop version.

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The liquid nitrogen-based ice cream shop is expanding with two new Eastside stores.

Ice Cream Lab, which opened with a high-tech creamery in Beverly Hills, is already launching two new locations: one in Pasadena and another in the heart of Little Tokyo next to Spitz. Founders Joseph Lifschutz and Tommy Ngan are also looking at a Westlake Village locale for their state-of-the-art shop, which uses liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze batches of ice cream to order. The first expansion will occur in Pasadena on October 24 in Old Town.

Some favorite flavor and topping combinations at the Lab include Angeles apple pie, made with cinnamon, apples, and graham crackers, or the blue velvet cupcake ice cream with cream cheese icing. Priced at $5 for a medium and $7 for a large, it's a shareable treat.
· All Ice Cream Lab Coverage [~ELA~]

You could say that's pretty big. You can say it's even as big as Pikachu really is, because, well, it is.

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As reported on Games in Asia (via Venture Beat) this unofficial recreation costs about 300RMB or $49. With it you get two sets of every class' card, four of every normal and legendary, and extras for the ones with multiple spawns (like good old Unleash The Hounds).

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With the eyes of a city and a sport upon him, Derek Jeter smacked the winning hit in the final at-bat of his final game at Yankee Stadium.

Tight security and hugs all around.

Here, now, finally a tipster writes in to give a first-hand account of dinner last night with one President of the United States Barack Obama at the hippest restaurant in New York Estela:

I was there last night with three friends (we have a monthly dinner scheduled) and entered around 30 minutes before he left. They had the circle table in the back right next to the bathrooms. Place is loud so it is not like you could hear anything they talked about. We first had to go through police barricades on Mott and Prince. Once we were let in there to get to E Houston, we had to speak with secret service. Secret Service had the reservation list and made us call the restaurant while outside and have the host come out to get us. Once she ok'd us, SS ran a metal detector and searched our bags. Once all was a go we went inside and hung out at the bar as the host let us know our reservation might take awhile. She was very nice about and also didn't know how to handle all the commotion. At least 6 SS people were inside and as you may know the restaurant is small and tight. Obama stayed put all night until he left. On the way out, Michelle was let out first and Obama was right behind. As some people got up he started shaking hands and even gave one woman a hug (after her boyfriend told him it was her birthday). Overall a wild experience, especially with the Secret Service all over and massive amounts of people outside just staring into the restaurant. I thought Estela handled everything perfect.

So there you have it. The POTUS will, in fact, give you a hug if he's told it's your birthday.

DJs now routinely make deliberate mistakes mixing tracks so that people will know they're mixing the tracks by hand and not just using software to automatically match beats.

DJs all over the world are now deliberately making mistakes during their mixes to prove to fans and critics that they are in fact real DJs.

The latest craze, known as miss-mixing, is proving very popular amongst digital DJs as a way of highlighting that they are actually manually mixing tracks rather than using the sync button.

Michael Briscoe, also know as DJ Whopper, spoke about miss-mixing with Wunderground, "Flawless mixing is now a thing of the past, especially for any up and coming digital DJs. You just can't afford to mix without mistakes these days or you'll be labelled as a 'sync button DJ.'"

As computers get better at things like DJing, cooking, writing, and the like, imperfection may become a mark of human-produced goods and media. In the future, we'll be urged to buy not just hand-made but Human Made™ the way people go for American made, locally made, organic, artisanal, or vintage goods nowadays. The problem, as Tyler Cowen notes, is if computers are smart enough to DJ, they're certainly clever enough to be a little sloppy too.

Update: I gots hoodwinked! Wunderground is a satirical site...DJs are not intentionally making mixing mistakes. But the idea is not all that farfetched! Under the doctrine of even if it's fake it's real, I'm satisfied with my conclusions. (thx, ken & mumoss)

Tags: music

This is pretty much the only time snarks could be considered adorable. They are usually vicious (adorably vicious).

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South Park has been running for 18 long seasons, but it still has an incisive wit unmatched by most shows, and real power to change our viewpoints: if you didn't think the Washington Redskins' name and imagery was offensive before, it's hard to argue after watching its newest episode. The episode, titled "Go Fund Yourself," is an incredibly effective piece of satire that attacks Kickstarter, startup companies, and the NFL, but saves its most potent ammunition for the Redskins' owner, Dan Snyder. Viewers in the United States can watch it now at South Park Studios.

The show is a sustained blast aimed at the offensively-named football team after six of its trademarks were cancelled by the US patent office. It characterizes Snyder as...

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By 2025, the biggest cities in the world will not only be bigger, but exceptionally denser. According to a new study, Hong Kong will be the densest megacity on the planet, almost twice as crowded as the runner up. And here in the U.S.—and this might be a real shocker—Los Angeles may be more dense than New York City.

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Some of you might recognize the cute StarCraft characters from the Carbot Animation series. They're unmistakable. After all the episodes on YouTube, the creator of the series is now working on an actual working map for the game, with his characters and animations replacing everything.

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Late last week, ex-NBA player Rex Chapman was picked up by Scottsdale, Arizona police on felony charges of theft and tracking in stolen property. According to the police, that's because Chapman made off from the local Apple Store with over $14,000...

I think this guy is the T-1000 robot from Terminator 2, but for chopping onions instead of assassinating future resistance fighters. Evidence:

1. In the brief view we get of his face at about 20 seconds in, he is not even really looking at the onion. Total robot move.

2. Um, he's like superhumanly fast at chopping that onion.

3. The T-1000 can easily morph into other people, like this fast watermelon cutter or this pancake flipper or this lemon chopper. Different people, same shapeshifting food prep robot from the future! (via @kdern)

Tags: food   video

Los Angeles has some of the best Korean food outside Korea. [ more › ]

Get on it before 800 Degrees officially opens this Friday in Old Town Pasadena.

800 Degrees' newest L.A. location happens to land right smack in the middle of Old Town Pasadena in the former Louise's Trattoria. Remember that this one has a really great mural that's being uncovered for everyone to see once it opens this Friday, September 26. In the meantime, enjoy a FREE pizza of your choice today from 5 to 9 p.m. if you show that you're a follower on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Get on it, Pasadena folks!

The spicy food festival hosts some of the best chefs in town, all using the famous rooster sauce.

The second annual LA Sriracha Fest, produced by FoodGPS and The Sriracha Cookbook, hits Chinatown this year on Sunday, October 19 right in the heart of the northern Downtown district from 3 to 6 p.m. Among the chef participants: ShopHouse's Nate Appleman, SQIRL's Jessica Koslow, Willy B's Christian Page (formerly of Short Order), Jitlada, Komodo's Erwin Tjahyadi, Eric Greenspan, Eggslut's Alvin Cailan and Johnny Lee, Beachwood Barbecue's Gave Gordon, The Gadarene Swine's Phillip Frankland Lee, Little Jewel's Marcus Christiana-Beniger, and Ink's Mei Lin.

The all-star chef lineup will be preparing a slew of Sriracha-based dishes (even desserts!), along with local craft beer (think Eagle Rock Brewery, Beachwood BBQ & Brewing, and Golden Road), drinks by Warwick's Damian Windsor and Jason Bran, and coffee from Portola. Tickets run $59 in advance and $69 at the door, so pick them up early. VIP tickets run $90 (in advance), with guaranteed seating and early admission.

LA Sriracha Festival
October 19, 3 to 6 p.m.
943-951 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tickets Available Here

Juli Clover, reporting for MacRumors:

Following the release of iOS 8.0.1 this morning, numerous of users found that their cellular service was disabled, reporting “No Service” messages after updating. Affected users also appear to be experiencing problems with Touch ID, which seems to be completely non-functional. […]

Apple has pulled iOS 8.0.1 from the Developer Center and it is also no longer available via an over-the-air download.

Embarrassing.

Update: If you already upgraded and are seeing any of these problems, Rene Ritchie has instructions for getting back to iOS 8.0.0.

Without coordinated global action, climate change will inevitably render places across the world uninhabitable. The good news: maybe Alaska won't be so cold for a while.

In a new article for the New York Times, Jennifer A. Kingson quotes experts who give jarring, darkly comic opinions on which places in the US will be the least devastated:

"If you do not like it hot and do not want to be hit by a hurricane, the options of where to go are very limited," said Camilo Mora, a geography professor at the University of Hawaii and lead author of a paper published in Nature last year predicting that unprecedented high temperatures will become the norm worldwide by 2047.

"The best place really is Alaska," he added. "Alaska is going to be the...

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