I'm going on a business trip to Beijing on Friday and will be returning the following Friday. Updates here will be sparse. I'll try to put in an update or two on how things are going. Right now I'm just reading through the TSA lists (I haven't flown in a couple years) and wondering how many people try to bring snow globes (the last item they list) onto a plane every year.
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Etsy, craft shopper paradise, will be featured on the Martha Stewart show this Friday. Not surprisingly considering the crafty focus of their magazines and programming, Martha's producers are big fans of the site.
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It's a dying culture but a tightly knit one. Bike messengers, less of a necessity nowadays with electronic documents, hang onto their chosen way of life. Seattle has about 50-75 today, down from 150 ten years ago. Hard-working and loyal to their peers, veteran bike messengers spend their days navigating through traffic, riding elevators, and being yelled for both being on the sidewalk and off the sidewalk. And if you see one of them with wet clothing on, please don't ask if it's raining outside.
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

After a lot of digging, seven men appeared in Damiani's Milan showroom and made off with several million euros worth of jewelry. It probably took several weeks for them to dig a tunnel into the cellar of the store, starting at the building under construction next door. Some of the most valuable pieces had been lent to celebrities at the Oscars, but there was still plenty left for the grabbing.
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Beijing is bringing in panda reinforcements for the Olympics. The panda exhibit at the Beijing Zoo will be expanded to house about 10 more of the popular animals for the numerous visitors this summer.
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Monday, February 25, 2008

Coca-cola is test marketing aluminum bottles. That's right, bottle shaped aluminum, ~8.5 oz of fizzy stuff inside. It worked well for beer and Coke did a collectible set back in 2005.
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Selecting four alternating concertmasters was such a groundbreaking concept for the Seattle Symphony that the logistics actually break the terms of the musicians' contract. Maria Larionoff, the only local among the four holding the top chair, sits second chair (associate concertmaster) when another concertmaster is in town. However, according to the contract, one person cannot hold both the associate job and the concertmaster job. So Larionoff's arrangement is a in violation. Music director Gerard Schwarz seems to think it will all be worked out smoothly. Larionoff could possibly take associate job fulltime (it's a tenured position unlike the concertmaster) or keep the concertmaster position. As with the original odd arrangement, the solution is probably all up to Maestro Schwarz.
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Friday, February 22, 2008

With the Academy Awards coming up on Sunday, it's time again to figure out what the presenters and performers on the Oscars will be receiving as their token of gratitude from "the Academy." Last year, after the IRS made those expensive gift baskets (the contents of which I used to extensively research) less appealing, the Academy purchased a year of carbon offsets for each participant. What will it be this year? I'll keep searching for a press release from some lucky company. To satisfy your Oscar trivia needs in the meantime, here is The Nielsen Company's Guide to the Academy Awards which "showcases a wide range of consumer and media information illustrating the enormous impact the Academy Awards has in the U.S." At the very end are their demographics of an Academy Award viewer: "predominantly in upper to upper- middle income brackets." A 30 second commercial last year cost $1,665,800.
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Thursday, February 21, 2008

I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea of Penn Jillette as a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" and apparently he is too, saying: "I'm as speechless as Teller that America wants to see a magical sasquatch dance."
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Seattle's WaMu Center began window messaging from its place in the skyline last year after a call from the Seattle Seahawks. Office blinds and lights were coordinated to form the number 12 in support of the playoffs and a new tradition was born. Since then, the building's windows have formed a heart, jack o' lantern, and the world "LOVE". The logistics are challenging, with last minute tweaks to the designs and reminders to staff to leave the blinds and light switches alone, but the employees are excited each time a new one goes up.
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

The redesigned five dollar bill has a big purple 5 on the back. So very modern.
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Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. has bought the rights to Emeril Lagasse's cookbooks, television shows and kitchen products. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter with $45 million in cash and $5 million in stock handed over for Lagasse's cookbooks, web site, licensed cookware, cutlery, tableware, electrical appliances, and food products. It does not include his restaurants.
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Tuesday, February 19, 2008

The SweetPea3 mp3 player for preschoolers is now shipping, long after its previously announced launch as the PeaPod. It's on the expensive side at $89.95. I've heard some good things about the Sansa Shaker which also has a speaker and is more affordable.
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Plastic surgery may get a lot of questionable publicity in the vanity realm, but it's not just for people trying to match some cultural ideal. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence has a Cosmetic and Reconstructive Support Program which works with plastic surgeons to provide aesthetic procedures for free to victims of domestic violence. These surgeries are often not considered medically necessary but their value for emotional healing cannot be underestimated.
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Monday, February 18, 2008

A wonderful part of the news about a kitten that was found after being lost in the New York Subway for 25 (!!) days is the report that "track workers Mark Dalessio and Efrain LaPorte went through the area making 'meow' sounds" in order to get her to respond. And she did.
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My childhood ice skating memories take place in the outdoors on local ponds, swamps, and, for one amazingly icy week, the frozen front yard. In another nostalgic winter pasttime article, the N.Y. Times looks at the disappearing custom of outside skating, with warmer winters reducing the amount of skatable ice. The accompanying slideshow of this year's good skating conditions recalls the hockey games, cold fingers tying skates, beginner slips, and friends with ponds, albeit with a few more helmets than were worn in my youth.
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Thursday, February 14, 2008

The world auction record for a musical instrument has been broken, but only Sotheby's and the buyer know exactly by how much. The price for the violin, a Guarneri, was “well in excess” of the $3.54 million paid for a Stradivarius in 2006. New owner Maxim Viktorov loans his instrument collection out regularly and this new acquisition will be played by Pinchas Zukerman next month in Moscow.
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When we were planning our wedding a few years back I'm pretty sure that Target didn't have this set of Double Happiness Wedding accessories. The items themselves aren't very Chinese (we used a signing cloth instead of a guest book) which makes me wonder if many non-Chinese couples decide to have Chinese-themed weddings.
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

I ordered a Thinkpad laptop recently and received free shipping, which I assumed was going to be of the usual "stick it on a UPS truck for a couple weeks" variety. Once I received the tracking number I settled in for a leisurely, days-long observation of my laptop's journey. However, the trip was over almost before I knew about it. The laptop left Hong Kong on the evening of Feb 11 (their local time) and arrived on my doorstep in Washington State the morning of Feb 12. In between it went from Alaska to Ontario (so it wasn't a straight shot over, it had to backtrack) before it arrived in Seattle. It was roughly a 28 hour travel time. That's an amazingly short span, especially considering customs clearance (it was held up for a few hours for "REASONS BEYOND UPS' CONTROL"), loading and unloading. I recommend John McPhee's New Yorker article about UPS in the April 18, 2005 issue (blurb), also in his book "Uncommon Carriers," (hardback is only $6.67 at Amazon right now) for those of you as fascinated as I am by these logistics.

While researching the ins and outs of international shipping I ran across a Logistics Magazine article (bottom of the page) about how Lush (Canadian retailer of handmade soaps and other nice smelling things that get you clean) worked with UPS to improve their shipping process to the U.S. Their Internet sales were primarily from customers in the United States and each order was handled separately and manually, including dealing with customs. As their sales grew, the process became too burdensome. UPS provided a system that consolidates their U.S. orders into one large shipment that clears customs once, and is then separated for individual delivery after arrival in the states.
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Tuesday, February 12, 2008

A recent study found that coral exposed to chemical sunscreens died after four days. The four ingredients the tested sunscreens had in common were paraben, cinnamate, benzophenone, and a camphor derivative. The conditions used for the test did not duplicate natural reef conditions, but the study author explained that even a small dose of sunscreen caused viruses in the corol's symbiotic algae to replicate rapidly, eventually killing off the algae and coral.
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Spotted at Target this weekend: FLOR carpet tiles for kids in Pooh, Cars, and Disney Princesses (pink of course). They've had FLOR for about a year now, but I don't know if the kiddie patterns are new.
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Monday, February 11, 2008

650 pounds of sunflower seeds are on their way to the USA Network, courtesy of fans disappointed in the cancellation of "The 4400." Giants Seeds in North Dakota is handling the orders. (Who knew sunflower seeds came in dill pickle flavor?)
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Are the faithful every-3,000-miles oil changers being unkind to the environment? The California Integrated Waste Management Board is launching a campaign to call the 3,000 mile oil change a myth. Many manufacturers recommend more mileage between oil changes for cars these days. The Automotive Oil Change Association, an organization that represents fast lube companies, is not surprisingly calling the campaign "misleading." The bottom line is: read your owner's manual, and dispose of used oil properly.
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Friday, February 08, 2008

Two fun new exhibits in the Seattle area: on Saturday the Museum of Flight opens "Style in the Aisle: The History of Fashion in Flight," a display of flight attendant uniforms from their extensive uniform collection. And yes they have the infamous Pucci+Braniff space bubble headgear. At the Pacific Science Center, kids can learn all about trees from the inside out, sit in a giant bird's nest, crawl through a log, and go inside a huge acorn.
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"Last year, clients of China's two state-owned mobile-phone companies sent each other a staggering 15.1 billion text messages, via short-message-service technology, during the weeklong holiday, according to the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications." Wow. And that number is expected to jump this week. Happy Year of the Rat.
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Thursday, February 07, 2008

It hadn't occured to me yet to think about organic flowers when purchasing bouquets, but it makes perfect sense if you're being "green." Organic Bouquet was recommended on a discussion list I'm on. And of course if you can buy something grown locally that's even better.
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Thirteen years ago Nike entered the hockey market with its purchase of Canstar Sports, the parent company of Bauer. Seeking to splash their swoosh across all things hockey, something they've done so well with other sports that the Nike name is not needed alongside the logo, the company used some tried and true formulas. They sponsored hockey players and NHL logos, designed some fashionably stylish skates, and moved manufacturing to Asia. But things didn't boom as they had hoped. The stylish skates were white, like women's figure skates, not a great idea for a sport that probably has more fight clips than actual gameplay highlights uploaded to YouTube. And worse, their high-end skates were painful, unusually sized, and expensive. Nike improved on the problems but things never took off as they had hoped. Now they've put the Bauer unit up for sale. Perhaps it will go back to Canada where all things hockey can always find a good home.
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Wednesday, February 06, 2008

The Anne Frank Fund was sent up by Anne's father, Otto Frank, to hold the copyright of her diary and the proceeds. He also set up the Anne Frank Foundation to turn their hiding place into a museum and run education projects. The two organizations have been at odds in the past over ownership of the name Anne Frank, with the Fund presumably well off from book and rights sales, and the Foundation claiming it was short on funds. When Rafael Alvero decided to create a musical based on Anne Frank's life, he approached the Foundation for approval and received their go ahead. But with the musical set to open at the end of February, the Anne Frank Fund has threatened to take legal action to stop the production, saying they did not grant any rights for the musical.
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A love of carving led to a need for a better knife which led to a family business that has lasted four generations. At the Warther Carving Museum and Knife Factory in Dover, Ohio they still make knives by hand, tempering the steel hard and grinding it very thin. Ernest “Mooney” Warther, a talented carver who wanted a better tool, founded the knife company in 1902 and 106 years later the operation remains small and family run. (via Serious Eats)
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Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Apparently True Love will soon be obtainable by downloading the Princess Bride Game, coming in the spring for Mac, Windows and Linux. Get your ambidextrous mouse/trackpad practice in now.
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The campaign to use compact fluorescent lightbulbs has somewhat neglected the issue of disposal. Fluorescent bulbs contain mercury and can't be tossed in the regular trash. Seattle area consumers have found the take-back programs lacking, a few stores will take them but charge a fee and locations for free programs are inconvenient. Local utility Puget Sound Energy announced a disposal plan on Friday that allows bulbs to be dropped off for free at select offices. City Light is trying to work out a program with drugstore chain Bartell's. But it's likely people will keep grumbling until that day far in the future when they can simply stick the bulbs into their recycle bin.
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Monday, February 04, 2008

I've raved about Toscanini's Ice Cream before. The shop recently made it into the New York Times under unfortunate and fortunate circumstances. The Massachusett's Revenue Department shut down Toscanini's a few weeks ago for nonpayment of taxes. Owner Gus Rancatore explained that he had stopped paying taxes for a time when he was undergoing a failed expansion effort. But that has added up to $167,810. Patrons and employees started a fundraising drive to save the store that has netted over $34,000 (like I've said, it is amazing ice cream) and allowed Rancatore to set up a workable repayment plan. Critics point out that the money should have gone to charities instead of a for-profit company that had a big lapse in judgement. But Toscanini's doesn't just make yummy ice cream. It's also built a strong community.
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I would have guessed that Super Bowl rings were paid for by each individual wearer, but in actuality the NFL pays for 150 rings, up to a $5,000 limit per ring. Jostens and Balfour, well known for their high school and college rings, have both supplied official Super Bowl rings. It is very likely that they charge less than the actual cost to design and customize one, considering the marketing opportunity. ESPN has a nice online gallery of the ring designs throughout the years, illustrating the variation in styles, with a player or coach's personal ring story for each year. Interestingly, the NFL also buys the losing team jewelry "that can't exceed the cost of one-half the price set for the winner's ring."
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Friday, February 01, 2008

The History of Visual Communication. From rocks and caves to the computer. (via xblog)
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Local place of yumminess, Top Pot Doughnuts, is going nationwide by expanding their agreement with Starbucks. A selection of their doughnuts, apple fritter and vanilla cake, glazed old-fashioned and chocolate old-fashioned, will be in all company-owned Starbucks (7,087 minus the recently announced closures).
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