My new favorites

My new favorite magazine and my new favorite show.

I think I heard about Make magazine on a tv show - can't remember which - and was lucky enough to find it at Border's. Each issue is practically a mini-book and has a bunch of articles on weird, interesting and practical stuff people are making on their own, either through hacking old machines or buying parts and making stuff from scratch. The last 20 or so pages are also filled with step-by-step instructions for projects you can do at home. I've been looking for a hobby and this sure beats video games, so I'm thinking I might try a few of these things out.

Cities of the Underworld is just plain awesome in almost every respect. Each show goes to an old city in Europe (so far, I don't know if they're planning on going elsewhere) and the host, along with his intrepid camera crew and local guide, delve into the buried past. Some of the locations are amazing and you see the foundations of modern buildings that were built on walls that are maybe 1500 years old. I guess they knew how to build back then. You get some nice historical background on the architecture, what happened in the city, why these areas were buried and so on. You also get the frenetic host's rather annoying habit of saying "And nobody knows this is here!" at least 5 times a show. Which is probably true of some of the locations, but in the Paris show, he said that in the midst of tunnel walls that were completely covered in modern graffiti, and I mean miles and miles of graffiti. Apparently somebody knows its there.

Check 'em out.