I'm taking a break for a week or so. Enjoy the remainder of 2003 and may you have a fabulous 2004. Thanks for reading!
archive location

Tuesday, December 23, 2003

Boston's Big Dig, which started around the time I left the area and is still dragging on over ten years afterwards, hit a much publicized major milestone Saturday with the full opening of the I-93 tunnel. There is still much work to be done, however. It turns out the fanfare opening was actually an "interim opening" and the tunnel, technically, is not complete. Another lane needs to be finished. Commuters can expect lane closures and accompanying traffic headaches for a while longer. The dismantling of the elevated Central Artery will also take some time as the work is loud and nearby residents would like to sleep. It's going to be at least another year before the final major projects are completed.
archive location

I was planning to mention the WPIX (NYC Channel 11) Yule Log again this year, but what I didn't plan on was having more than nostalgia on which to base the topic. As fate would have it, a Seattle station, KCPQ-TV, is taking a page from sister station WPIX-TV's programming schedule and also airing a Yule Log on Christmas morning. Back in New York, WPIX is adding two more hours and additionally transmitting the blazing log on a High Definition channel. Imagine that, the Yule Log in HDTV. Amazing. And lest you scoff at the perceived popularity of a fireplace on television, note that the Yule Log regularly wins the ratings in its timeslot, and not just in New York. The Yule Log.net has a list of stations that will be broadcasting the fire this year. Maybe in a few years everyone will be able to tune into television fireplaces for a lovely Christmas Day. And no, it's just not the same watching it on the Internet (heck, it's just not the same watching it on cable TV. Luckily my parents' TV is still wireless).
archive location

Monday, December 22, 2003

For all the Wagner buffs out there who know "The Ring" mythology didn't begin with Tolkien, Alex Ross of The New Yorker muses over the connections between Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen and The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien for his part denied any influence, stating "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceased." But, consciously or not, the threads are there, in the cursing of the Wagnerian ring with "the lord of the ring as the slave of the ring," in the sword that is broken and reforged, in the return of the descendant hero to fulfill a quest, and in the woman who gives up immortality for the love of a mortal man. Ross doesn't turn his musings into a list of similarities or heavy political conjecture; the books have been around long enough for this to be a well-trod topic. After wandering through a brief music lesson and compare-and-contrast exercises, Ross ultimately aims to place Peter Jackson's movies with music by Howard Shore in the context of opera versus film music. In film, the visuals provide the cues for the soaring score. "But in opera the music takes the lead, generating an imaginary landscape that directors and performers struggle to realize however they can."
archive location

New York Times culture reporter (and self-admitted "Lord of the Rings" geek) Jesse McKinley delves into a subject that's been bothering me for some time now: the overuse of standing ovations. I have a simple rule for standing up during the applause portion of a show or concert. If I feel extremely emotionally moved by the performance or consider it an outstanding display of technical prowess, I stand up. These days it seems almost more of a statement to stay seated than to rise out of your seat. Audiences stand up as a matter of habit when they are pleased and happy. And maybe that's as it should be, for the performers certainly work hard and enjoy the ovations no matter how common they have become. I suppose I can reserve screaming "BRAVO" for the moments I used to reserve for standing up. After all, peering at the curtain calls from between rows of backs is a fruitless activity. But I'd rather there was a return to the true value of the standing ovation and the high compliment it symbolizes.
archive location

Friday, December 19, 2003

Ever wonder about the photos that come with the photo frames? Who are those people? Models? Images from stock photography? Some frames hold the photography of Dawn Wilde, who once worked in a photo shop and placed her casual portraits of relatives in a few of the frames for sale. The frames holding her photos sold better, and a representative from a frame company recommended she send her work in to his firm. Burnes of Boston has bought a few dozen of her photographs and not only does she get a percentage of sales, so do her subjects, who are nieces, nephews and children of friends. Older now, her models often see their younger selves looking out from store shelves.
archive location

How would you like to live in a house built entirely out of books? Well, actually, how about a house that just looks like it's built entirely out of books? Venetian artist Livio De Marchi created a wooden house that appears to consist of many books of all sizes. The furniture is made out of wooden books as well. And books are not all he carved for this house; there are also dishes and clothes. Surreal art of this sort is his forte. He also has a wooden Ferrari that is actually a boat he pilots down the Grand Canal. (thanks Jen!)
archive location

Thursday, December 18, 2003

Diamond-grower Gemesis has decided to submit each of its lab-created diamonds over 0.25 carats to the International Gemological Institute, an independent testing and appraising firm, for laser inscribing. Their diamonds will thus be identifiable as not natural, satisfying customer and industry concerns. Placing an inscription on the stone also follows the new trends in diamond branding to clearly label gems that would have otherwise lost their provenance and perhaps some of the perceived value that marketing creates through differentiation.
archive location

Cute cat alert! The oncilla is a wild cat from South America. It has some legal protection from hunting in certain countries, but it is still being killed in large numbers for its lovely fur. The males don't get over 6 lbs, so these are small felines! In researching the oncilla I came across the rusty-spotted cat which is even tinier. It makes its home in Central to Southern India and Sri Lanka. Both are significantly smaller than our "big-boned" domestic house cat who now weighs in at a pudgy 15 lbs.
archive location

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Grown Up Soda? Well it's called GuS for short and it's designed for the sophisticated, foodie-cultivated palates with flavors like "Dry Meyer Lemon" and "Extra Dry Ginger Ale." With cane sugar instead of the usual high fructose corn syrup, it scored high in BevNet reviews.
archive location

"Cheese Nun" Mother Noella Marcellino of The Abbey of Regina Laudis has been the subject of a New Yorker article and a documentary about her work in cheesemaking. An expert in cheeses made from unpasteurized milk, Mother Marcellino holds a doctorate in microbiology and received a Fulbright Scholarship to study cheese fungus in France. This week she journeyed from her convent in Connecticut to France and received the French Food Spirit Award from the Senate in Paris. She isn't planning to brave the cheese-sniffing beagles at U.S. Customs and will leave the yummy raw milk cheeses behind in France.
archive location

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

There's a Wallace & Gromit video game out, Project Zoo. It's available on PS2, XBox and GameCube.
archive location

Online gifts for cooks - Links to Sales
Sur La Table - Sale Items
Martha Stewart Tag Sale - Cooking & Baking
Crate & Barrel: Kitchen Outlet and Kitchen Sale
Williams-Sonoma Sale Items
Cooking.com Clearance
archive location

Gettin' creative with movie ratings at the N.Y. Times:
Although The Classification and Rating Administration (CARA) provides nicely concise explanations for their movie ratings, the New York Times reviewers often can't help adding their own embellished descriptions. Here's a list of current official movie ratings and their N.Y. Times review equivalents. For those who want to play "guess that movie", I've added a link to each movie's IMDB entry.

CARA: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, brief nudity and strong language.
NY Times: PG-13 for nudity, profanity and other grown-up stuff. (imdb)

CARA: Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, and some language.
NY Times: rated PG-13, which means that it gets away with a mountain range of undernourished double-entendres, strong language, tricky conjoined twin fistfights and alcohol consumption. (imdb)

CARA: Rated PG-13 for sexual content/humor.
NY Times: rated PG-13. It contains some saucy dialogue and a cheerleading routine that would steam up glasses on the old 42nd Street. (imdb)

CARA: Rated R for strong violence and battle sequences.
NY Times: rated R. It has violence, including enough ritualistic bloodletting for a week on the History Channel; alcohol use; strong language; and a chaste hint of sexuality. (imdb)

CARA: Rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences, related images, and brief language.
NY Times: rated PG-13. It has some bloody scenes of naval warfare (and shipboard surgery) as well as some salty sailor talk. (ohh come on, this one's easy)

CARA: Rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and frightening images.
NY Times: rated PG-13 for a stunning mastery of violence and intense scenes of bloodletting. (imdb)
archive location

Monday, December 15, 2003

50 million Costco hot dogs and 31.7 million IKEA Swedish meatballs are consumed a year by shoppers or folks just stopping by for a fast, cheap meal. Priced the same since 1985, Costco's kosher beef hot dog and 20 ounce soda will set you back a mere $1.50. IKEA cooks up a 65 cent hot dog. The SF Chronicle covers the solutions to the inevitable growling tummies that result from a shopping trip that can cover two football fields. In an accompanying piece, two brave reporters ventured into Costco, IKEA, Target, KMart, Walmart, and Sam's Club to test out the cheap eats and wrote mini-reviews.
archive location

Driving through downtown Seattle on a recent evening we passed by a distinctive building tagged prominently on its windows with the IBM logo. Curious, I searched the web when we arrived home and found some interesting trivia. The IBM Building, named after its primary lessee, was designed in the 1960's by Minoru Yamasaki, better known as lead architect of New York City's World Trade Center. Soon after the destruction of the Twin Towers, the Puget Sound Business Journal ran an article noting that the IBM Building was a precursor in design to the WTC towers. Yamasaki used "long exterior columns running from base to top" for both. At a mere 20 stories, the IBM Building seems a minute reminder of its taller siblings, but its a legacy that stands tall enough, particularly as a tribute to the architect.
archive location

Friday, December 12, 2003

The latest on a potential Firefly feature film doesn't bear much hope. Joss Whedon was interviewed for TV Guide and stated that there was not much to say at the moment. I wonder if Universal Studios will fund the film if enough people buy the Firefly series DVDs that were released this week. Go buy one now!
archive location

There's fun reading in Romenesko's Letters section as reporters write in with accounts of unusual and/or awful story assignments. From the San Jose Mercury news "One Christmas ... the then features editor strolled over to a colleague and assigned her to go 34th Street in San Jose and 'find a miracle.'" From the Rocky Mountain News: "Another lame story assignment. Hey! The new phone books are here!" One editor assigned a reporter to cover the vandalism of six garden hoses. Turned out the editor was one of the victims.
archive location

I now have a companion sentence to go along with my well-remembered-in-paraphase quote from the Boston Globe's circa 1990 feature on the sights of New England. The Globe's description of Connecticut amounted to one sentence: "It's a nice state to drive through." (This was before the Indian casinos turned Connecticut into a nice state to drive through and lose your shirt in.) My new companion sentence comes from The Late Show With Conan O'Brien,. They listed potential state quarter slogans and for my home state they settled on "Connecticut: The state the Red Sox have to drive through after losing to the Yankees". Don't forget, that's a nice drive.
archive location

Thursday, December 11, 2003

The Maunder Minimum, a period of very little sunspot activity, occured, probably not coincidentally, during the middle of "The Little Ice Age" a time of very cold winters. Those years, 1645 to 1715 A.D., overlap perhaps also not coincidentally with Stradivarius' "golden years" of 1700-1720, the time during which he produced his most prized instruments. A tree-ring dating expert and a climatologist have joined forces to propose the theory that Stradivarius' violins owe their superiority not only to the Cremona craftmanship but also the density of the wood that was available at the time. The slow tree growth during those cold years resulted in "uncommonly dense Alpine spruce." The researchers' findings were published in Dendrochronologia, the Interdisciplinary Journal of Tree-Ring Science this past July.
archive location

Japanese glassware maker Hario created a violin out of a very thin, heat-resistant glass. Photos of Japanese violinist Ikuko Kawai holding and playing the instrument are available from Getty Images archive. I couldn't find any details on the glass violin other than these photos (perhaps because I can't read Japanese). It appears that the bridge is wood, and the pegs and chinrest are either dark glass or the usual dark wood. The tailpiece, however, is clear glass.
archive location

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

The annual Kennedy Center Honors were bestowed upon their artistic recipients this past weekend. The 2003 honorees are James Brown, Carol Burnett, Loretta Lynn, Mike Nichols, and Itzhak Perlman. Sadly. one fixture of the yearly event, host Walter Cronkite, had to call in sick with laryngitis. Caroline Kennedy filled in. The show will be broadcast on CBS on December 26th. (Sci-fi TV fans take note that Scott Bakula, your favorite time traveling song and dance man, makes an appearance. And by time traveling I mean Quantum Leap, not that recycled Star Trek Enterprise plot fodder.)
archive location

The teapot is considered to be one of the first complex objects rendered in computer graphics and can sometimes be found as an Easter egg of sorts placed by 3-D graphic artists. Martin Newell created the first teapot rendering in 1974 or 1975 (accounts disagree). The teapot became a benchmark for graphics rendering. The actual teapot which Newell used as a model was on display at the Boston Computer Museum, which closed in 1999. Seth reports from his recent visit to the new Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, that the teapot is alive and well, residing in the Ephemera collection.
archive location

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

LEDs are cool. Literally. And I've been eagerly watching their adoption from traffic lights to car tail lights to flashlights and light lights. This holiday season, LEDs are gaining in popularity as bulbs for Christmas lights. Although they cost much more than your regular string of incandescent bulbs, the LEDs use less electricity and can last for 200,000 hours. One drawback I can think of is the lack of the melting effect that creates little holes in the snow when you turn your hot lights on under a blanket of freshly landed white flakes.
archive location

Winemakers are itching to sell their product to direct to consumers via the Internet and interstate shipments. Their distributors are fighting back, bringing up arguments such as easy availability of alcohol to underage drinkers. High profile litigators are working both sides. Kenneth Starr, the Whitewater prosecutor, is on tap for the wine industry. Robert Bork, 1987 Supreme Court nominee, has been hired by the liquor distributors. On one side there's the argument that a ban on direct shipments is unconstitutional, inhibiting the freedom of interstate commerce. On the other, there's Article 2 of the Constitution's 21st Amendment, which repealed Prohibition and gave the states the power to decide how they want to handle the alcohol sales. On both sides, the motivation is clear: money. The fight may ultimately end at the Supreme Court.
archive location

Monday, December 08, 2003

Largely forgotten in the American press, the 14th anniversary of the Montreal massacre of 14 women at École Polytechnique was observed on Saturday in Canada. Here, as recounted by CBC News, is what occured on that horrible day:

On Dec. 6, 1989, Marc Lepine, 25, walked into the engineering school with a semi-automatic rifle and, according to witnesses, shouted "I want the women. I hate feminists. You're all a bunch of feminists!" He separated the men from the women and opened fire on female engineering students. His shooting spree covered three floors and several classrooms. In total, Lepine shot 27 people, 13 of whom survived. He then shot himself.

Source: CBC archives for the Montreal Massacre. Thanks to Chris Corrigan's comment on BurningBird.
archive location

Unremarkable, boring, faceless, cookie-cutter? Such is the reputation of the ranch house, the most-built style of home in the 1940's to the early 1970's. They served to house the growing middle class in utilitarian 3bd/2ba practicality. As this style passes its 50 year mark, proponents of this "underdog of architecture" are pushing a renaissance of sorts. Ranch home owner Katherine Ann Samon wrote the book "Ranch House Style" after an unsuccessful search for reference material for updating her home. She's become a champion for the style, which she purchased originally only after an unsuccessful attempt to acquire a Tudor house. I'm living in my third ranch house. I grew up in one in Connecticut, purchased one in California, and ended up buying one in the Seattle area. Many owners, myself included, would admit that if the pocketbook would allow, we'd be in different digs, but I have twice chosen the ranch, cookie-cutter of its time, over the cookie-cutter "McMansions" of this era. It's possible I was attracted by the comfort of the only home I have ever known, but it must be noted that if there were a house to match the practical, no-nonsense nature of our lifestyle, the ranch would be it. (sources: N.Y. Times article on Katherine Ann Samon, Amazon.com details on Ranch House Style, L.A. Times article, read up on house styles at architecture.about.com)
archive location

Friday, December 05, 2003

Online luxury shopping is holding its own as the economy moves towards recovery. Retailers seem to be, as they say, cautiously optimistic about this holiday shopping season. BlueNile.com is selling items on the high end of its jewelry line, where one bauble goes for five or six figures. Amazon launched its luxury foods and jewelry stores (no news yet on how well they are doing). Makers of luxury goods with a reputation to uphold are still exerting control over their online retailers. Nambe and Waterford won't allow merchants to sell their goods online unless they have a physical store where customers can see the merchandise. As the online luxury market grows, the posh brands may want to consider how they can offer superior customer service and retain their cachet in a completely virtual environment.
archive location

Is a Babylon 5 follow-up on the way? J. Michael Straczynski has hinted that something is in the works, "something of rather substantial proportion that's finally gone from talk to money." That sounds very promising, especially the money part.
archive location

Thursday, December 04, 2003

Package designs from the early 20th century are displayed online at The American Package Museum. Some include 3-D views. There's pimento Velveeta ("full of health from milk!"), Tootsie Rolls, the classic Ovaltine, and a McDonald's coffee cup. (via Yahoo Picks)
archive location

New York's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, lit with over 30,000 lights yesterday, came from Connecticut this year. Spotted from a helicopter by the Center manager, the 79-foot tree was planted 50 years ago by Manchester resident Frances Katkauskas and her late husband Adolph on their front lawn. Despite fears that the tree had grown too large and could fall and crush their house, they allowed the Norway spruce to continue to grow and tower over the neighborhood. It was cut down on November 11 and shipped on a barge to Manhattan. Last year's 76-foot tree grew up in New Jersey and was recycled into toys shaped as zoo animals.
archive location

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Initialed accessories have been showing up on trendy items in stores, and in support of that fashion (and the fact that I finally finished reading Word Freak), the Seattle Times pointed out the availability of Scrabble tile jewelry. In a similar vein, vintage typewriter key jewelry is also available. Of course the typewriter keys include punctuation and symbols, whereas the Scrabble just has letters (and I don't see any blanks!). Perhaps it's time to put together some computer keyboard jewelry.
archive location

The SizeUSA project has scanned 10,800 men and women and their report on American body sizes is now complete. You can buy the full results for $20,000. Whether or not the clothing industry adjusts its sizing based on this new data remains to be seen. One point of information that the project director was willing to disclose is that although size 8 is considered a baseline size for American women, less than 10% of the women scanned for the survey met the definition for that size. Overall, Americans are getting taller and heavier, but the weight is increasing faster than the height, so the size proportions are no longer a good fit. Size of the machine, cost, and sheer practicality are keeping clothing stores from using the sizing scanner for creating customized clothing. I think we'll have to cope with squashing or swimming our nonstandard physiques in the standard sizes for a while longer yet. (source: NY Times article)
archive location

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Leaving California meant leaving the home of "It's the Cheese" and "Happy Cows" promotions (though I never saw a talking cow and I never hope to see one). The commercials have followed me up north, but I am far away from my favorite places to buy cheese. But cheese is everywhere, and now Beecher's Handmade Cheese, an artisan cheesemaker, has opened up shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market. Their milk comes from Cherry Valley Dairy, in Duvall.
archive location

The N.Y. Times Magazine published their excellent Design issue this past weekend and I'll try to refrain from linking to every article. There's a profile of Amy Smith of MIT who invents gadgets that improve life in developing countries, a slide show on the making of a $5,500 Hermès Kelly bag, examples of designs for political campaigns, a piece on Auldbrass, the Frank Lloyd Wright house in Yemassee, S.C., and an update (for me anyway) on the work designers Andy and Kate Spade are doing for Delta's low budget Song Airlines. And best of all, there's a revealing look at how undergarment maker Warnaco hired design firm IDEO to examine how women shop for bras and suggest improvements for the lingerie department. The revealing part is that Warnaco execs don't seem to think there is anything wrong with the design and selection of their bras; it's just that they are hard to find. I say give IDEO a crack at getting rid of underwires.
archive location

Monday, December 01, 2003

World Aids Day
The first time I participated in Link & Think, I linked to AEGiS, the AIDS Education Global Information System. It's still my favorite link to mark World Aids Day. AEGIS was a grassroots effort, born out of BBS systems, way back before the Web hit it big. Sister Mary Elizabeth has made it her life's work, nurturing it into the largest HIV knowledgebase in the world. The Daily Briefing gathers AIDS related news from around the world and the news archives contain articles going back to 1983. The site has links to drug information, conference proceedings, court decisions, and publications for all audiences. AEGIS provides information and education, the best tools against the stigma and discrimination blocking awareness, prevention, and care.
archive location