RSS feed | Log | Archive | Personal Site | Email Contact | Links | About
At The Vac Shop in Seattle, manager Will Flannery turns discarded vacuum cleaners into robots, fish, clams, pigs, the Space Needle, UFOs. The finished sculptures sit outside the shop, making a convenient landmark for neighbors.
archive location
What time is it? The phone company won't tell you anymore. AT&T is discontinuing its time service as the equipment and usage runs down. The service has already been halted in every state except California and Nevada. Known as "POPCORN" in the areas where dialing that word would get you a recorded voice of the time, the service shuts off on September 19 in California, and when the Nevada equipment is decommissioned, it'll be entirely gone. Joanne Daniels, who provided the voice for all those hours, minutes, and seconds for Californians, is enjoying a final 15 minutes of fame as reporters get her take on the disappearing service. The equipment, aptly called the "time machine," consists of "large drums about 2 feet in diameter, with as many as 100 album-like audio tracks on the exterior. Whenever someone called time, the drums would start turning and a message would begin, with different tracks mixed together on the fly." (thanks Seth)
archive location
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Clean-cut, tip-refusing delivery guys, nectarines as big as softballs, and free "complimentary samples" of a dozen eggs and a bag of salad won over a reporter who reviewed Amazon's new grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh. Somewhere in my office I have a souvenir WebVan hockey puck given out at a San Jose Sharks game.
archive location
Wonder Bread hasn't been available in Washington state for two years? I never noticed. And it seems that many in Southern California may not either, as Interstate Bakeries Corp. is now closing down Wonder Bread production in that area. The company has been operating in Chapter 11 bankruptcy for 3 years now. The bakery closures will not affect its money-making snack lines of Hostess Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos.
archive location
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
For real this time? A new film version of Logan's Run has been going through the on-again, off-again movie studio romance for a few years now. The latest director tied to the project, Joseph Kosinski, has never made a feature film, but slashfilm gathered up some of his commercial work. From the looks of it, Logan's Run promises to be visually stunning, at the very least.
archive location
Officials in Broward County, Florida are considering adding recycled glass to eroding beaches. Sand is, after all, the main ingredient in glass. Tests have shown that organisms can live in the crushed glass just as they do in sand. But some remain concerned that there could be "unforeseen consequences." Glass Beach in Fort Bragg, California, a former dump that now has beautiful, naturally tumbled seaglass, was the inspiration for the recycled glass as sand idea.
archive location
Monday, August 27, 2007
A new design for the $5 bill will be revealed on September 20th. Counterfeiters have been bleaching $5 bills and turning them into $100 bills, retaining several security features such as the ink test that is commonly used at retail cash registers. A new $100 bill is also in the works, with a high-tech security thread that "combines micro-printing with tiny lenses — 650,000 for a single $100 bill." Crane & Co, supplier of paper for U.S. currency since 1879, has a $46 million contract to produce the new security thread. Sweden's 1,000 kroner utilizes the same thread. In 2002, Crane purchased the currency paper mill and printer AB Tumba Bruk, which was associated with the Swedish mint. Now known as Crane AB, the firm was founded in 1755, giving it a longer history in currency manufacturing than its parent company. Crane AB's website has an animation showing this security thread on the kroner. The technology is called Motion. Here is a Riksbank page illustrating it along with other Swedish currency features. The redesigned $5 will be in circulation early next year, the $100 towards the end of 2008.
archive location
Caltrans has spent over $500,000, perhaps close to $1 million, spreading the word that the Bay Bridge will be closed during the upcoming Labor Day weekend. A major connector between Oakland and San Francisco, the double-decker bridge's seismic retrofit projects began after an extensive study following the 1989 earthquake, when a section of the upper deck collapsed. This weekend the Yerba Buena viaduct, a 350-foot-long, 90-foot-wide section, will be demolished and replaced. This task, daunting enough without the 81 hour time restriction, has been planned for maximum efficiency. Concrete-saws will divide the viaduct into 63 pieces. A crane will lift the pieces onto trailers, with trucks standing by to tow them away immediately. The replacement viaduct will be pushed into place with a roller system. And with luck all will be ready for Tuesday morning's busy commute.
archive location
Friday, August 24, 2007
Two bulls escaped from their pen at the California State Fair as children were exiting the arena. Rodeo clowns and police officer Pam Irey distracted the bulls and got the remaining kids to safety. Irey was flung by a bull and is in the hospital with broken ribs.
archive location
Electronic toll collection has practically become a requirement for road toll situations. The new Benicia-Martinez bridge, northeast of San Francisco, of course uses FasTrak, California's ETC system. But the bridge is unusual in that it has open-road tolling, meaning that drivers don't have to slow down to have their FasTrak pass identified. Two FasTrack Express lanes handle cars going by at the speed limit of 55mph. The system actually works on vehicles going up to 100 mph and a license plate photo is snapped for back-up. Highways in the U.S. with open-road toll setups have been in around for a few years, but the Benicia-Martinez is only the third bridge to employ it. Speed limitations don't stem from the electronics but the road layout. Existing toll structures retrofitted for electronic collection weren't designed for cars going the speed limit. Tollbooth lanes are narrow and rebuilding costs are high. The Benicia-Martinez bridge had the advantages of space and new construction to enable speedy toll collection.
archive location
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder are not as likely to yawn when they see someone else yawn. In the study, 24 children with autism spectrum disorder and 25 normally developing children watched videos of people yawning. There was no change in yawning frequency in the autistic group.
archive location
Treehouses aren't justs for kids anymore. Adults are having treehouses built for "home" offices and cigar retreats. With electricity, Internet, insulation, and heating, these hideaways offer every amenity except plumbing. Bugs, squirrels, and strong winds are hindrances. But there's just something about being up in a house in a tree.
archive location
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
A nice follow-on to yesterday's recycled traffic signals, artist Jerry Kott takes empty wine bottles, cuts them apart, and reassembles them into hybrid bottles and hanging lamps. (via luxist)
archive location
Modern furniture lovers will ooo and ahh over MiniatureChairs.com where the designs of Eames, Mies Van Der Rohe, Noguchi, and several others are available in small scale. Faithful reproductions of the Ball Chair, Joe (the baseball glove chair), and the Marshmallow Sofa are ready for your desk, shelf, or mid-century dollhouse.
archive location
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Greenlight Concepts takes glass discarded from upgraded stoplights and turns it into lighting fixtures. Recycled Glassworks (I've mentioned them here before) turns them into plates.
archive location
Whole Foods agreed in February to buy Wild Oats for $18.50 a share, totaling $565 million. Since then the FTC antitrust wheels have been grinding away. A lawsuit filed in June resulted in a decision to allow the merger to proceed, however the FTC decided last week to appeal. The merger is on hold but additional arguments must be quickly filed by Wednesday, leading some to believe that the appeal is not expected to succeed. But if a stay is granted, the merger could be in limbo for months longer. The stores' defense claims that mainstream markets now sell plenty of organic produce, so consumers will still benefit from competition.
archive location
Monday, August 20, 2007
David Letterman may have jokingly advertised "Hot Toast on a Stick" but the Illinois State Fair has brought breakfast on a stick to life with a "Breakfast on a Stick" competition. Beverly Cutler took the blue ribbon in the adult division with her Sensational Sunrise Dippers (sausage, egg and cheese wrapped in a biscuit with a side of gravy). Anthony Karas also won for Bacon-Wrapped Savory Buttermilk Crepes. The junior division ribbon went to Rachael Eden's Wonton Eggs (eggs, curry, bean sprouts and snow peas in a wonton wrapper).
archive location
Lynn Johnston announced in 2002 that her comic strip "For Better or For Worse" would finish up in five years. Readers have observed storylines wrapping up, with the Pattersons settling down into retirement. Now Johnston has decided that instead of ceasing the strip entirely, she will be taking a "hybrid" model by mixing new material with old. Her characters, who have been aging in real-time, will go into the ageless mode typical of other comic strips. New plots will also incorporate remembrances from earlier years.
archive location
Friday, August 17, 2007
In 1986 I saw the Merchant-Ivory film "A Room with a View", immediately went to the library to borrow the E.M. Forster novel, read it, and returned to see the movie again a few days later. I remember a summer night in Cambridge, Massachusetts when some friends and I put the soundtrack on auto-repeat and played a 2,000 point all-night game of Spades. On trips to our favorite poster store I would hope to find an Italian version of the movie poster, which I had my heart set on buying (only French and English were in stock). The movie still tops my favorites list. Now, twenty years later in the U.K., ITV is making a new movie adaptation of the novel -- not a movie remake the producers would stress, but a fresh interpretation of the book. With such strong actors inhabiting the original roles, Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham-Carter, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis, it will be extremely different for fans of the first movie to accept new characterizations. But the classics are constantly reinterpreted on film, so a new approach to the details could be very welcome. Eileen Quinn, head of drama for the production company, is blogging about her experiences working on this new adapation. Casting details lie therein.
archive location
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Tiger cubs triplets at the Philadelphia zoo. They're ready to meet the public.
archive location
As much as I enjoyed Babylon 5, I considered the DVDs too expensive to own. Thanks to Steve I was alerted to a Best Buy deal: $19.99 per season this week. Amazon has a few of the seasons for the same price, but not all.
archive location
The number of cats with hyperthyroidism started increasing in the U.S. soon after the use of PBDEs became common.
archive location
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Persian leopard cubs at the Budapest zoo came out for a photo op. Cuteness abounds as the 2-month-old triplets make their public debut.
archive location
I recently mentioned Camp Blaze, a firefighter camp in Washington for young women. For the east coasters there's similar camp in New Hampshire, Camp Fully Involved, where 15 to 20-year-olds spend a week putting out Dumpster fires in gear weighing almost 100 pounds and learning search & rescue techniques. 14 women from all over New England participated last week in the camp's first year.
archive location
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
A disadvantage of skipping over commercials with Tivo is that I miss crucial reminders for new programs such as Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt Part 2. I think the Tivo did catch it for me as a suggestion but I ignored it thinking it was a repeat of his first series. Well, Part 2 started on August 4th and will surely be repeated in the future. I've got a Season Pass set up now to follow his ride up alongside the mighty Mississippi on a BMW R 1200 GS (yellow). He manages not to break any bones this time around.
archive location
Animal-rights activists have been campaigning to shut down the horse meat industry. It turns out that zoos are the largest consumers of horse meat in the U.S. Zoos feed it to carnivorous animals such as lions since it is leaner and better matches their diet in the wild. As the horse meat suppliers gradually shut down some zoos have switched to beef and deer. The Oregon Zoo orders their meat from Canada. The majority of U.S. horse meat is actually shipped abroad.
archive location
Monday, August 13, 2007
The most useless "helpful" commuter article ever: the Seattle P.I.'s unconventional ways to beat the I-5 backup. Jet packs, wormholes, and a visit to Spain. Gee, thanks for nothing.
archive location
The annual economic indicator that is Vogue's September ad count has posted a solid gain. The tally is 727 ad pages, more than 100 over last year. It still remains to be seen if the retail season will be strong through back-to-school and Christmas shopping. I may need to purchase a stronger shelf for my heavy collection of September Vogues though.
archive location
Violin teacher Elizabeth Faidley traveled to New York to find a new violin and left with an instrument she didn't want and a plan to hook the salesman, Jonathan Solars, who knew it wasn't the right violin for her. Her plan consisted of calling him once a week for a month to ostensibly discuss the violin's unsuitability. Their story makes for a musical Vows column in the N.Y. Times, which includes a video of the two playing a duet despite Mr. Solars' confession that “Elizabeth’s horrible to play music with because she has to be in charge." He eventually found a violin bold enough for her personality. And their wedding was suitably filled with music from friends and students.
archive location
Friday, August 10, 2007
Puffin photos! From Project Puffin in Rockland, Maine.
archive location
Shopping carts are so easy to roll off and so handy to cart off your shopping to the bus stop, your home, your car parked a few lots away. City officials estimate that 100 carts are abandoned in east Bellevue every day. So they are going to crack down on this "blight and a safety hazard" by creating regulations for store owners to contain their carts. "Cart-containment plans" and fines in Renton have been effective at reducing the number of carts littering the landscape.
archive location
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Was Hitler's record collection really sitting in an attic near Moscow all these years? Alex Ross (the New Yorker's classical music writer) doubts it. Stephen Moss of the Guardian is also suspicious. But sensational headlines sell, and the original reports focus in on the recordings of Jewish soloists and music from those Nazi classified "subhumans": Tchaikovsky, Borodin and Rachmaninoff.
archive location
Diners certainly differ in their waitstaff tipping philosophies and the many reader comments on a Seattle Times article about gratuities show how strong those opinions can be. A reader whose sick of tipping writes "get some training so you can get a better job!" Another anti-tip commenter says he only tips because he doesn't want servers to put anything nasty in his food. One ex-server claims that the tip jar contents at Salumi goes straight to the owner (or did when he worked there; he says he was fired for mentioning it). There's a lot of bitterness in these comments.
archive location
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
When you sell ads you need to give your customer some idea of who will see the results of their investment. That explains this rather odd partnership of two sister companies: Erudite Inc., who makes tracking and security devices for shipping containers, and GBoards Inc. who is selling advertising on those shipping containers. In a promotion related to the 2008 Olympics, the companies have created the China8 Project. In May a dragon-headed ship will sail to China carrying humanitarian aid and merchandise giveaways. The trip will test out Erudite's tracking and be, literally, an advertising vehicle. According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, offshore cell phone provider SeaMobile has signed on as the first advertiser. A 40-container advertising package is $1.2 million and the plan is to place the ad-covered containers in various locations in Shanghai and Beijing for 180 days.
archive location
In 2000 McDonald's decided to diversify and bought the Boston Market (Chicken!) chain. The same initiative spurred investments in Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., Donato’s Pizza and Fazoli’s Italian fast-food. But now the company is refocusing on its core burger business and Boston Market has just been sold to Sun Capital Partners who had also picked up the Fazoli's stake. Chipotle was taken public in 2006 and McDonald's divested its investment. Donato's was sold back to its founders in 2003. Sun Capital Partners is a private investment firm whose other food holdings include Hickory Farms.
archive location
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The Minnesota bridge tragedy prompted several Seattle locals to put fingers to keyboard and compose Letters to the Editor regarding our aging infrastructure. The list of expensive endeavors and proposals whose dollars are cited as being better spent on things like the aging 520 bridge and Alaskan Way Viaduct include: light rail, free health care to the children of illegal immigrants, "President Bush's recent gift of $250 billion of our tax money to the richest 8,000 families", the $30 million parking garage at Woodland Park Zoo, bicycle paths, a new arena for the Sonics, and, of course, the war.
archive location
In 1997 I was working for a little games company called Purple Moon, spun out of Paul Allen's Interval Research. Our target market was girls aged 8-12. Those of us on the website team who'd already been interacting online for years saw and realized the potential for the community website that we were building, though much of the company's marketing and mindshare was spent on computer games and merchandise. By the time the company went under there was a healthy community of young girls busily exchanging postcards and electronic treasures on purple-moon.com. Yesterday I got acquainted with Facebook, the community site that these same girls are likely using nowadays, and I found a delightful surprise. There's a small Purple Moon group on Facebook. These young women, now of high school and college age have remembered the site as a significant enough part of their lives to form and find a group devoted to it. I joined the company hoping to make a difference in girls' lives and never really believed I had done so, until now.
archive location
Monday, August 06, 2007
I've been a fan of the SimCity series ever since I found a copy of an original SimCity on a Macintosh I inherited at work in the 1990s. Creator Will Wright had trouble finding a publisher for SimCity back in the 1980s as the game was an oddity with no win-or-lose goals. He and Jeff Braun eventually founded Maxis to release SimCity. The Sim-franchise grew, reaching a pinnacle when The Sims became the best-selling PC game ever. The people-oriented Sims continues to grow with expansion packs and spin-offs. And now Will Wright is occupied with the ultimate life simulator, Spore. To continue SimCity, Maxis' parent company EA (who acquired them in 1997) decided to hand the reins over to Tilted Mill Entertainment, creators of Caesar IV.
Tilted Mill took to heart the criticism that the SimCity sequels had become increasingly complex. They wanted to keep fun heart of the game while adding a new twist. But advance word of their reworking, called SimCity Societies, received profoundly negative reactions from SimCity fans. The problem? SimCity Societies is a "social engineering" game, not a city simulator. Gone are the planning of zones, laying of pipes, stringing of electrical wiring. Instead of watching buildings being built, you place them yourself and pick different "social energies" that guide how the city and its inhabitants develop. SimCity traditionalists would likely prefer that the game was just called SimSocieties. I wouldn't mind if EA released the same ol' SimCity gameplay with better graphics every few years, as unexciting as that may be for the marketing staff. SimCity Societies is scheduled to release in November. Even if the city simulator fans shun it, it could still find an audience in the vast Sims fanbase.
archive location
Friday, August 03, 2007
Friday Youtube 1980's flashback fun (well, it's not exactly the 1980s this time): In 1999 BBC2 broadcast a programme (that's the British spelling) of their Songwriters Circle series featuring Graham Gouldman (of 10cc and numerous hit songs), Neil Finn (of Crowded House), and Roddy Frame (of Aztec Camera and, well, Roddy Frame!). With the help of acoustic guitars and each other, they served up a selection of their hits. And hopefully the BBC won't yank them offa the Youtube.
archive location
Martha Stewart's Turkey Hill residence, which featured prominently in her magazine and original TV series, finally sold in June after a year on the market. The four acres in Westport, Connecticut went for $6.7 million, asking price was just under $9 million. Meanwhile Stewart's partnership with builders KB Home is turning out very well. The Twin Lakes development of Martha Stewart branded houses in Raleigh, North Carolina is selling faster than other neighborhoods. 800 people put their names on the waiting list after the original announcement. KB has 11 other communities in the area which average 6-10 homes sold each month. Twin Lakes is averaging 25 a month.
archive location
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Speakers playing KING-FM, the local classical music station, are being installed at the Tacoma Mall Transit Center to reduce disorder at the covered bus stop. If drug dealers and loiterers are indeed less inclined to gather there, we may hear KING-FM piped at more bus stations in the area. The alternative would be to remove the covered stops, allowing Seattle weather to be a natural deterrent.
archive location
Seattle area residents have the Seafair airshow to look forward to this weekend, along with several I-90 bridge closings Thursday through Sunday to accomodate the Blue Angels. Following the crash and loss of Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Davis at an April airshow in South Carolina, the Blue Angels grounded themselves for 9 days and canceled a May appearance in Nebraska. They returned 3 weeks after the incident to perform in North Carolina on May 12. The solo position Davis held has been filled by a former member of the squad, one who holds a special fondness for Seafair. Lt. Cmdr. Craig Olson calls Kirkland, WA home and his local connection was always noted by the media in past appearances. The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
archive location
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Jasper Fforde's latest releases are now available: "First Among Sequels" the next Thursday Next, and the trade paperback of "The Fourth Bear" nursery crime. For Seattle folks, he will be reading and signing at Third Place Books today. Megan of Not Martha was sweet enough to mail me a teaser packet she got from Penguin Books a few months back along with a copy of "Over Easy." Fforde fills my sadly empty Douglas Adams humor gap, though they have very distinct styles.
archive location
Food Network, which has trimmed back shows featuring genuine chefs, is airing "The Next Iron Chef" in October. Eight chefs compete to be the fifth Iron Chef America. Michael Ruhlman, one of the judges, exuded enthusiasm for the concept as established chefs competing with each other is certain to result in "some of the best actual cooking ever on reality television ever." Alton Brown will host, making it must-watch TV for me.
archive location
