A screencap from the Northwestern Online Store, who were apparently just as surprised as the rest of us by the upgrade to the Outback bowl:

To be fair, the email they sent out that I clicked on to get to that page had the properly photoshopped hat with the Outback logo on it….though all the shirts had the date a little off:

Dude, we totally got to the Outback bowl last year! Go tell Missouri they have to re-play last year’s Alamo bowl against Iowa now!

The first, both pretty and telling, comes courtesy of the New York Times’ photography blog’s feature on Dubai. Lauren Greenfield, who had mostly been documenting the way the recession hit here in the States, went over to Dubai and snapped this telling shot:

The juxtaposition of the impotent palm tree next to an empty McMansion, both of which are on a man-made island built in the shape of a palm tree, is just too fantastic.

The second is just a random one from a story on the LA Times’ local breaking news blog about a Shetland pony that was found wandering around the streets of Norwalk. Just an outstanding shot by the Times’ Don Bartletti of an animal control officer trying to calm the pony, gorgeously backlit by the sun.

Sometimes it’s just the random stuff that happens around town that turns into a really amazing photo.