A Seattle woman has an interesting photo of the crane that recently collapsed in Bellevue. Taken on October 10, the crane appears to be leaning. Jana Downing snapped the shot from a relative's room at The Westin. The Department of Labor and Industries would like to see any photos or videos of the crane before the collapse.
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According to Givenchy himself, three versions of Holly Golightly's little black dress were made for the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's". One is now in the Museum of Costume in Madrid, another is in the Givenchy archives in Paris, and the third is in Givenchy's private collection. Since the death of Audrey Hepburn in 1993, Givenchy has been donating pieces from his collection to further the cause that was so close to her heart, helping disadvantaged children. This dress, the most iconic of the Givenchy-Hepburn partnership, goes on the auction block at Christie's on December 5th in London. Proceeds will benefit the City of Joy Aid, a charitable group in India. Natalie Portman modeled the dress for the November cover of Harper's Bazaar. Also on the auction block is another black Givenchy worn by Helpburn in the film Charade.
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Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Will it be a continued trend? We can only hope so. Jones Soda is switching its sweetener from high fructose corn syrup to cane sugar. Its 12-ounce cans will be available with cane sugar in January and they plan to have all products switched over by mid-2007. Jones CEO Peter van Stolk acknowledges that using cane sugar is difficult for the large beverage producers and that his company's smaller scale of production made it possible.
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Gary Larson has been living an anonymous, and very happy, life in Seattle since his retirement from drawing The Far Side. He doesn't miss the weekly torturous deadlines. A favorite cause has convinced him to release his first page-a-day calendar in four years. It's not new material, but his royalties (about $2 million according to the publisher) will go to Conservation International, a non-profit dedicated to preserving Earth's wildlife habitats. And, just in case the calendar isn't enough for you, all of Larson's 23 books of collected cartoons are still in print, plus there's the 1,272 page, two-volume collection of every single cartoon.
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Monday, November 27, 2006

A Seattle typewriter repair shop is going out of business, which should come as no shock given the trend of the masses. Richards Business Machines' owner Dennis Nachtweih has told his long time customers that he'll still be available for repair work and supplies though he cited arthritis as a reason for closing up, in addition to a rent increase. Nachtweih has some old models for sale but he refuses to sell them to anyone who will turn the keys into jewelry.
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Silicon Valley residents know well the domed theaters of the Century Cinema chain and old-timers will remember clapping along to the Syufy jingle before the main feature. The Syufy brothers recently sold the 78 theaters in the Century chain to Cinemark, the third-largest theater chain in the U.S. They're joining the Cinemark board and so far there have been no theater name changes. The Century Theatres Wikipedia entry claims that the flagship Century 21, 22, and 23 were not sold and remain with Syufy Enterprises and as these theaters do not appear in the Cinemark site listings I'll take that as a fact. Those are the nostalgic jewels in their crown and it's no surprise they want to keep them in the family.

Showing movies is a tough business and local S.F. cinema competition is vicious. Witness the shuffling that occured after the opening of the new Century San Francisco Centre 9. Designed to show a mix of big studio films and artsy independent films, the new Century had, as the Chronicle put it, "the impact of a 7.8 earthquake on the long-standing habits of those who book movies in the city's theaters." Suddenly art films are playing at nearby big name theaters who never used to touch the stuff while blockbusters are opening at a typically artsy theater across town from the Century to avoid competition. And next year the Sundance Cinemas is re-opening the Kabuki theater purchased from AMC, further stirring up the movie mix. Century is certainly coming out the winner so far, though one could say that local moviegoers are benefiting from a larger selection of films. But that will only last if smaller venues can hang on.
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Monday, November 20, 2006

The U.S. Mint's state quarter program has been so successful that they're going to try (and try again) to get us excited about dollar coins by issuing a series of the presidents in a new (new) redesign. A different president will appear every three months (Grover Cleveland gets to go twice for his nonconsecutive terms). A president will have to be deceased at least two years to be so honored and the schedule currently ends with Nixon in 2016, so it remains to be seen if Reagan supporters' wish to have Reagan on currency will be fulfilled via this series. Let's wish good health to former Presidents Ford and Carter! These coins are unique in that the edge will carry the date, mint mark, "E Pluribus Unum", and "In God We Trust", a technique that the mint does not often use. First spouses will be commemorated on the same release schedule with uncirculated gold $10 coins bearing their image and a reverse image symbolizing their life and work.
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MIT hackers celebrated this past weekend's launch of the Nintendo Wii and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess by placing a Triforce on the top of the Great Dome. I couldn't find any news photos of this (yet), but all I had to do was head over to flickr and do a "mit triforce" search to turn up a few photos of the Great Dome sporting its new pointy hat. (this hack is not up at the MIT Hack Gallery as of this writing but perhaps it will be soon)
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Friday, November 17, 2006

Tomorrow is the seventh anniversary of this weblog. I remember back in the early days the "recently updated" list on the Blogger homepage had vast stretches of time in between each update and it was so exciting for the Blogger team when those stretches of time disappeared and the updates were constant. Weblogging is so popular now that I often wonder why I still do it. Am I really adding any value to the overpopulated WWW? But then I remember I do this for myself. It keeps me writing which was the original goal. It's brought me into global communities of interesting people. And it amazes me that there is always something interesting to share.

Thank you for reading, thanks for the emails, and special thanks to the secret cabal.

And I have to mention that the first product I ever linked to still exists and the website remains active, unlike many of the old links that have decayed with time. So here it is again: BitBoost's Pawsense detects cats walking on your keyboard, makes "a sound that annoys cats" and blocks further input by putting up a dialog box that reads "CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED". It's a classic weblog link indeed.
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Awful local news... one of the many construction cranes in downtown Bellevue collapsed on Thursday evening. It fell into an apartment building killing one resident. At least three buildings were severely damaged and have been "red tagged" as unsafe for occupancy. The crane was at the Tower 333 project and there have been rumors of Google's interest in occupying most of the 20 story building.
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Thursday, November 16, 2006

The Seattle Times looks forward to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver with a rundown on construction plans at the popular Whistler Blackcomb ski resort. The $240 million of construction doesn't affect current visitors much (the article uses a "Visitor Hassle Factor" rating system which never goes above "minimal"). The organizers of the Vancouver games plan to have all the sporting venues ready by 2008, giving Canadian athletes a head start "home field" training advantage. And of course the general public can try out the existing Whistler ski runs. Bring your own cowbell-ringing contingent.
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"About 40 of the 90 farmers that sell at Seattle's Pike Place Market suffered losses in the recent floods. To help them, the Pike Place Market Foundation is collecting donations to its Farmer Relief Fund."
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Those truly obsessed with Broadway musicals will want to take a peek at the NY Social Diary photos from the 10th Anniversary benefit performance of "Chicago." You've never seen so many different short black dresses in one lineup. And in sort of related news, Sacha Baron Cohen (yes, that Borat guy) has signed on to appear in Tim Burton's "Sweeney Todd" film as rival barber Pirelli.
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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The former Esprit building in San Francisco is being gutted but its massive Douglas fir timbers are being preserved for resale. These beams and joists were cut about 100 years ago; the Esprit building is actually their second home as they were salvaged previously in the 1970s. Old wood like this isn't available anymore and one piece of the lumber could go for as much as $6,400. TerraMai is buying most of it. The wood reclamation company recently purchased the ties from Thailand's railroad tracks, which are being replaced with concrete. They're taking that rainforest wood and making flooring, selling it for upwards of $15.50 a square foot.
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Surprisingly, I've never written a weblog entry about bookplates. I ran across Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie, a weblog about bookplates, which led to a small treasure trove of bookplate sites. The American Society of Bookplate Collectors & Designers features the first known bookplate on their home page. The Bookplate Society boasts a direct lineage from the world's first bookplate collector group, the Ex Libris Society. Yale's Arts of the Book Collection has one of the largest bookplate collections in the world, including that of Irene Dwen Andrews Pace which numbers 250,000 items. Stanford has their own library bookplates scanned in for online viewing. Not surprisingly many public collections are housed in universities. There are of course websites where you can order your own custom bookplates. And Wikipedia reveals that before bookplates were used, book owners would write a short poem or rhyme inside a book to discourage theft. I suppose just writing your name inside wasn't enough.
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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

With cute tulle tutus and little pink slippers the girls in Miss Tilly's ballet classes twirl and plie as thousands of girls have before them. Miss Tilly has been teaching ballet to the preschool and kindergarten girls (and a few boys too) of San Francisco for forty years. She doesn't need to advertise, the school is a city institution passed along by word of mouth. Her classes are age appropriate, starting off with a pencil puppet show. And every year she books the Herbst Theatre for her students to show off what they've learned.
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With "Get Smart: The Complete Collection" now available on DVD, the opportunity arises to ask Barbara Feldon (Agent 99) Very Important questions such as: "In the 1965 pilot, Max's shoe phone goes off in a theater. How did you people know?!" and "You're quite tall and he (Don Adams) was not. How did that work?" and whether the Cones of Silence could be employed in the war on terror (her answer to that is quite good).
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Friday, November 10, 2006

I always thought ladybugs were such wonderful insects but now I find out that they infest homes and can cause allergies. In fact, research with skin prick tests has shown ladybug allergies to be as common as cat allergies. The imported Asian ladybugs are the main source of the problem as their population is rising and replacing native species.
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Williams-Sonoma has a bunch of kid friendly cooking items but my favorite, no surprise, is the little pink silicone rolling pin and mat. Very cute. My son would want something baked in the Railway Cake Pan. (thx not martha!)
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It's been a long time since I've seen a car with an "overdrive" transmission setting, but I never did understand what it meant. Now, years later, the Car Talk guys have cleared up the mystery. It's pretty simple: use overdrive and get four possible gears instead of three. And don't yell at your spouse.
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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Designing Interactions, a book and DVD by IDEO co-founder Bill Moggridge, has a companion website with excerpts of video interviews from the DVD. My favorites of course are Jeff Hawkins who hired me out of college to work at GRiD and Brenda Laurel who talks about the features of the website we created at Purple Moon.
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Interesting Nova coming up next week: Family That Walks on All Fours is about a family in rural Turkey in which five of the siblings walk using their hands and feet.
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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

AMC Theatres has discontinued their Reel Moms program, a Tuesday morning movie showing for parents of infants. I've read mixed reviews of this program from various baby blogs, but one real SF mom was disappointed enough to post a plea to Craigslist.
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Mercury passes in front of the sun today. You'll need a telescope with a solar filter or other appropriate equipment to view the transit but you may just want to stick with the "near real-time" images from Hawaii. Here's a global visibility map. Or check out the Exploratorium site which also has a webcast and viewing instructions.
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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

It survived five kamikaze attacks in WWII but the USS Intrepid couldn't get free of the Hudson River mud it's been sitting in for 24 years on Manhattan's West Side. The move downriver to a dry dock for an overhaul was planned to coincide with an "unusually high tide" on Monday but six tugboats, led by the Christine McAllister, only made 15 feet of headway. 600 tons of water had been removed from Intrepid's ballast tanks and 15,000 cubic yards of mud had been dredged to help clear the way (at a cost of $1.2 million). Former NYC Mayors Edward Koch and David Dinkins cast off the mooring lines. It appears Intrepid is comfortable right where she is at the moment. The renovation of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum will have to wait. (NY Times, NY Times, AP)
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Geeky cute little things: Woodpixel, 6 tones on a 2cm wood cube and a 10x10 cube tray allow you to create your favorite bit o' pixel art. And show off your geek gamer nostalgia with silver Pac-Man jewelry.
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Monday, November 06, 2006

It was the 23rd year for Seattle Goodwill's "glitter sale" and customers weren't disappointed. Some arrived in the wee hours of the morning to wait in line for a first crack at the luxury gowns and sparkly jewelry that Goodwill sets aside all year for the occasion. In 2005 the sale raised over $50,000 for Goodwill's job-training and education programs. This year the sale was extended to two days and had two rooms: the vintage boutique and the glitter room. An animal lover picked up four mink furs ($39 each) saying "I figure the critters are already dead, so it's OK."
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Almost ten years after the company's founding, E Ink's electronic paper technology has made its way into a number of consumer products including a watch, cell phone, and (most appropriately) the Sony Reader. E Ink's technology came out of MIT's Media Lab and is expected to be used in the next generation of MIT's $100 laptop. Gyricon LLC, Xerox PARC's venture into the electronic paper space, closed down in 2005 after delivering its SmartPaper innovations into the electronic signage market. Xerox retains ownership of the intellectual property.
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Thursday, November 02, 2006

I always assumed the Dum Dum lollipops "Mystery Flavor" was an existing flavor chosen at random to receive the mystery flavor wrapper, but it's actually the result of the switchover to a new flavor batch, thus combining the old flavor with the new.
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A cure for my fear of heights may be to get a job running the elevator at the Space Needle. Elevator operator Jenny Dibley is celebrating 30 years of taking tourists up and down the Seattle landmark. After three decades the fear of heights she had at the start of the job is gone. Dibley has heard every elevator joke and made many herself as she entertains the visitors waiting to see the view. She credits her passengers with keeping the job from being monotonous.
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