I'm oddly fascinated by this Norma Kamali dress decorated with The New York Times logo. (Christie's listing)
archive location

Thirty years ago, Connecticut passed the Farm Winery Act allowing wineries to sell wine and hold tastings. The Hopkins family in the town of Warren liquidated their dairy equipment and 250 cows and started planting grapes. Their ancestor Stephen Hopkins came over on the Mayflower and the farmland has been in the family since 1787. Other nearby farmland has also turned to vineyards. Connecticut has a tally of at least 19 wineries in the state.
archive location

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

My go-to chocolate dessert recipes from Epicurious: Deep Dark Chocolate Cheesecake and Flourless Chocolate Cake (I haven't made the caramel sauce yet, just serve with whipped cream or ice cream -- or both). Both work well with the Trader Joe's 72% Dark Chocolate bars (with math or a scale to calculate the amounts). No complicated techniques involved, just melting and mixing, and both give me an excuse to take out my handy springform pan.
archive location

Bellevue police chasing a suspect were aided by construction workers and a crane operator who radioed down instructions. With numerous cranes still up (I stopped trying to count), no fugitive is safe downtown during building hours. Perhaps the real estate slowdown will help.
archive location

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I'm very late to the a-ha moments here, but I finally looked up all 3 Mad Men actors who have been bugging me with their familiarity. Elisabeth Moss (Peggy) I figured out early on as being Bartlet's daughter, Zoey, from West Wing. The other two I kicked myself for not remembering. Vincent Kartheiser (Pete) was Connor, Angel's son. Christina Hendricks (Joan) was on Firefly as the elusive and oft-married con-artist "Saffron."
archive location

Researchers at the Carnegie Institution have been successfully creating large diamonds using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for a few years now. Now they've announced a new technique for improving the color and clarity of their diamonds. A special annealing process turns the yellow-brown created stones colorless and pink. The large size and transparency resulting from these methods will enable the creation of diamonds for high-pressure situation and optical applications. They also mention the possibility of using these diamonds in the future as storage devices for quantum computing.
archive location

Monday, October 27, 2008

Last month in Lancaster, California, a road was grooved for a Honda commercial. A Civic driving over the road at 55mph would hear the iconic part of the William Tell Overture (known to many as the Lone Ranger theme). After noise complaints from residents, the city paved over the road. But they decided to groove a different street in an industrial area with the tune. They're hoping it will be a tourist attraction. Here's Honda's playlist of videos with a look behind the scenes and the actual commercial. (There are also several homemade YouTube videos demonstrating the original road, but only a few with a Honda Civic which produces the best pitch. Here's the best one of the lot.)
archive location

In days long past my family would drive up to Danbury, Connecticut for the big Danbury State Fair. In days more recent, though not as recent as I'd like to think, we would drive up to the Danbury Fair Mall that took its place. Sometimes, if it was a Sunday, I'd see a large gathering of motorcycles, parked under the towering white silo of Marcus Dairy. This informal meeting of motorcyclists has been going on at the Marcus' Dairy Bar restaurant for as long as anyone there can remember. Hundreds of them stop by before their Sunday rides, most getting a bite at the Dairy Bar (Jane & Michael Stern love the turkey sandwiches). But an era has passed for Marcus Dairy and their distribution business is moving elsewhere. The land will be turned into, no gasps of disbelief here, a strip mall called "The Shops at Marcus Dairy." The Dairy Bar will re-open there and the 75' silo will remain, but the motorcycles will be "homeless" during the construction. And the replacement will never be quite like the quaint Marcus Dairy. (sources: NY Times, a participant's photos, Danbury Planning Commission minutes)
archive location

Friday, October 24, 2008

"Systematic Landscapes" at the de Young in San Francisco is an exhibit of new sculptures, drawings, and installations by Maya Lin. It includes an indoor hill called "2 x 4 Landscape" made out of 40,000 board feet of sustainably harvested hemlock.
archive location

Seattle's Historic Restaurants is chock full of photos of places both long gone and still in business, like Ivar's, Canlis, and El Gaucho.
archive location

For hard core Bowie fans only: on YouTube, David Bowie Reality Tour behind the scenes clips: Part One (10 in all, varying lengths).
archive location

Thursday, October 23, 2008

In the Bay Area (CA) there are U-pick chestnuts at Skyline Chestnuts off Skyline Boulevard in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Johsens family has 119 trees on 20 acres. They'll provide gloves to protect your hands from the burrs.
archive location

This very clever stand umbrella has a tripod at the tip so it can stand on its own. It was harder to engineer than it looks, consider the curved handle adding weight one side.
archive location

Three package design blogs: The Dieline, Lovely Package (thx matt), Design Better Packaging (this one has more exposition).
archive location

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

ZooBorns is too much cute all together. It's almost better than a baby pandacam. (Such websites should really have been banned years ago, thus preventing the eventual proliferation of lolcats.)
archive location

In a box somewhere I have a copy of the first-ever Apple Developer CD, titled Phil and Dave's Excellent CD (other movie-inspired titles followed). I'd been meaning to pull the special bonus "Apple ][ Forever" audio track off the CD to post on the Internet for posterity, but I recently realized that Apple fanatics had certainly shared this 1980's power ballad with the world already. And, indeed, not just the audio, but the video is up on YouTube, in all its 1984 glory. It was shown at the Apple IIc rollout.
archive location

Monday, October 20, 2008

Cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2 sailed away from New York for the final time last week, followed by its younger sister the Queen Mary 2. A traditional 39-foot-long paying-off pennant flowed from the mast, a foot for every year of the QE2's service. After this final transatlantic crossing, the QE2 will cruise Europe one more time and in November come to rest in Dubai where investors have acquired the ship for $100 million and will transform her into a hotel at the Palm Jemeirah. Cunard plans to launch the next Queen Elizabeth in 2010.
archive location

As the debate continues over the fate of Moffett Field's Hangar One, which was built for the Navy's dirigibles, a relic from its past is en route to the former naval air station. Well, it's not a relic so much as a modern version. A 246-foot-long Airship Ventures Zeppelin will be calling Moffett Field home and offering a rare opportunity for riders to experience what its like to cruise in an airship. $500 buys you a one-hour ride around the Bay Area at 1,200 feet. The company's blog details the logistics involved with transporting a zeppelin from Germany to Texas, and then flying it to California. They say it's the first zeppelin in the U.S. skies in 70 years and there's a blog for sightings. (Bonus link: Jack Clemens spent five years building a remote-controlled scale model of the USS Macon, the dirigible that called Hangar One home in the 1930s, only to lose it in a gust of wind. Anyone who spots the 22-foot long airship should contact the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office. It's the second one he's built. The first was ruined when his cat jumped on it.)
archive location

Friday, October 17, 2008

A couple links for modern kitty cats: the Unbelievable Cat-friendly House Design from Japan (thanks Seth) and some nicely designed kitty lounges from likekittysville on Etsy.
archive location

I was staring at a burnt out light bulb today and suddenly wondered what is the physical difference between bulbs of different wattages? Internet to the rescue. The longer the filament, the brighter the light. In a typical 60 watt incandescent bulb 22.8 inches of tungsten wire filament is formed into a coiled coil (Wikipedia cites General Electric Technical Publication TP 110 "Incandescent Lamps" as the source of that measurement). The bulbs that have 3 brightness settings have two filaments and the switching turns on one filament or both.
archive location

Thursday, October 16, 2008

In the fall, up on Vancouver Island, the Aerie Resort and Spa runs guided mushroom hunts with Brother Michael, a mushroom expert who is also a Benedictine monk. Brother Michael spends several hours a day collecting mushrooms for Victoria B.C.'s fancy restaurants. The guided hunt is followed by a gourmet lunch at the Aerie and the mushroom pickers get to bring home some of their finds for their own use. The Aerie features a specialty drink called the mushroom martini which features vodka soaked chanterelles in place of olives.
archive location

As the final teams standing enter World Series season, the N.Y. Times looks at the unglamorous prep and cleanup around the victory champagne dousing tradition. The team clubhouse manager protects the room for revelry typically by rigging up plastic sheets. The Tampa Bay Rays' clubhouse manager carefully prepared for their eventual playoff win by ordering special carpet, vinyl curtains, and even swim goggles (sent over by Nike) for the Tropicana Field clubhouse, but it was on the Chicago White Sox visiting clubhouse manager's watch that 200 bottles of Champagne and 35 cases of beer were emptied onto the carpet by the Rays. Accustomed, alas, to visiting team champagne celebrations, the White Sox knew to hide the milk this time.
archive location

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

With the release of the Hawaii quarter this year, the U.S. Mint's State Quarters program comes to an end after a decade. But there's more quarters to come with releases in 2009 for Washington D.C. and the 5 territories: Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
archive location

Mother's Cookies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week. Founded in Oakland, California 92 years ago, the company went through several changes of ownership starting in 1991. The Oakland plant was shut down in 2006. If there a cookie you'll miss, check the grocery store and stock up. They have stopped cookie production and laid everyone off.
archive location

Now we know "officially" that Berke Breathed is retiring Opus (again) and holding a contest for readers to guess the final location of Opus. The prize is a $10,000 donation to a dog and cat shelter chosen by the winner.
archive location

Monday, October 13, 2008

At the General Electric Global Research laboratory in Niskayuna, N.Y. they are printing lights. OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) are still very expensive to manufacture. The few OLED products available now are produced by a costly process called vacuum deposition. Sony sells an 11-inch OLED TV for $2,500. GE has visions of printing sheets of OLEDs to light rooms with new, diffuse light sources. Pull down your blinds and have them light up the room. In a few years sheets of OLEDs may show up in luxury settings, but there are challenges to overcome in longevity and manufacturing before you can pick up a roll of light at the store.
archive location

The Board of Directors of the Golden Gate Bridge has voted to add a suicide net below the bridge deck. The addition of some sort of suicide barrier has been discussed for many years, but the directors had been reluctant for various reasons. About 500 people gathered at Crissy Field on September 27th to remember those who have jumped off the bridge to their deaths, a number officially at 1,300 but likely higher. Financing for the $40 million to $50 million it will take to add the metal netting and an environmental study to ensure bird safety now needs to be lined up.
archive location

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Seattle's EMP exhibit "American Letterpress: The Art of Hatch Show Print" is opening this weekend. The touring exhibit features 126 historic and current posters for concerts, fairs, vaudeville shows and 29 hand-carved woodblocks. Hatch Show Print has been in business for 129 years and is experiencing a recent boom in business as clients clamor for that vintage look of letterpress. CNN hired them to create all the promotional materials for the presidential election. There are several YouTube videos of work at Hatch Show Print, including of course various presses running. This one goes through much of the printing process.
archive location

It's October so it's Christmas time for Neiman Marcus. Their annual, over-the-top Christmas book has all the "wow" gifts conveniently gathered on consecutive pages this year. You can get a life-sized replica of yourself made out of Lego ($60,000), a 3-hole golf course designed for your backyard by Jack Nicklaus (over a million and that's without construction costs), a fully functional, traditional Irish pub built in your home, Guinness Stout included ($250,000), and 35 years worth of Top 100 hits on 18,400 45 RPM vinyl singles ($275,000 and I think you need your own turntable). If you don't have all that dough, perhaps you can afford the $24 box of infamous Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies, and if not, you can make them yourself.
archive location

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Jonas Samson's light emitting wallpaper would illuminate a room from the flat surface of the wall. An intriguing idea made possible by new technologies. (via several blogs, most recently reminded by Shiny Shiny)
archive location

These heavy cut-glass Harman Kardon speakers supposedly offer better sound as they have no resonance or movement. I would've made them look less menacing.
archive location

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Blog photos of two new places to eat: Top Pot Doughnuts in Bellevue, Jerry Traunfeld's Poppy in Seattle. And a high end cinema is opening in Redmond Town Center (where the previous movie theater used to be) featuring $22-$35 tickets (!!!!), drinks, and gourmet cuisine. I'd like to see their consumer research results; there must be people out there I don't know who like to eat good food, drink, and not talk about it during a movie. Maybe the food won't be good enough to talk about or perhaps silence will not be golden.
archive location

A co-worker who was invited onstage for the sound check at a Police concert in July told us the story of the woman in his group (all associated with Unitus) who so impressed Sting that he invited her to sing during the concert as well. Three months later, the Seattle Times has printed the story of Jessica Ketola's moment in the spotlight. It also happened to be her 17th wedding anniversary and her husband trudged all the way to a far away parking lot in 90 degree heat to get her a change of clothes for her duet with Sting.
archive location

Monday, October 06, 2008

The availability of cell phone art tours has increased over the past couple years in museums and outdoor displays. The logistics are simple: call a phone number, enter a code, and hear about the art you are presumably standing in front of. There's no charge except for your phone minutes. 4 Culture has launched a cellphone tour of Seattle's public art installations. Guide By Cell is a company that has provided cellphone audio tour services for several museums. Another, Museum411 created phone audio commentary for Dale Chihuly installations in Tacoma, WA. The traditional recorded audio tours costs museums in both staffing and equipment.
archive location

What's going on with Berkeley Breathed and Opus? The Sunday strip is on a "life flashing before my eyes" nostalgia trip (with a few quick digs at the Governor of Alaska thrown in). A recent Lio strip with a freshly dug Opus grave made me really take notice (graveyards are common on Lio, but not headstones for comic strips). In a brief Texas Monthly interview in April 2007, Breathed, doing publicity for his book Mars Needs Moms, mentioned Opus's death as one of his upcoming projects. And he said he meant it "literally" and perhaps in conjunction with the end of the Bush presidency, though his wife threatened to leave him if he did kill off the penguin. The Daily Cartoonist's Alan Gardner has called Amy Lago, Breathed's editor, several times and each time she has said there is "no official word" from him on the demise of Opus or the strip. But, as Gardner points out, there may be an unofficial story that they aren't going to put out until they are good and ready. Officially, on Breathed's website, he has a new book out Pete & Pickles (which he stole from his daughter) and a tease for "The Opus Paradise Contest" coming on October 12.
archive location

Friday, October 03, 2008

The Westport Country Playhouse flew their flags at half mast in honor of Paul Newman. Newman and Joanne Woodward are big supporters of the Playhouse. I saw my first play there in the 1970s at their children's theater program. They have a great historical Flickr photo album. Broadway theaters will dim their marquee lights for one minute at 8pm today.
archive location

An economic downturn has a mixed effect on used booksellers. Doris Moskowitz of Moe's Books in Berkeley says business is better when people need to save money. But Diane Goodman of Ocean Avenue Books in San Francisco says "this is the worst we've seen." Goodman has to turn away many people coming in to sell books as Ocean Avenue only gives store credit and what people want nowadays is cash.
archive location

Thursday, October 02, 2008

There's a park at Ohio University with an art installation designed by Maya Lin to resemble a computer punch card. Lin took programming classes at the university and the work, titled "Input," is a personal reflection of her time there. There were complaints after the unveiling in 2004 about the cost of the art and that it was a waste of green space.
archive location

Amy Winfrey's Traffic Cone Preservation Society will always make my favorite list of websites, and it is surprising how much nostalgia is wrapped into that feeling as the web has gone so far beyond simple static expressions of random humor. Winfrey's career has gone beyond as well, as she put her own animations on the web (muffins, a pink bunny, fiends) and worked on South Park. Her Making Fiends series has now become a television cartoon on the Nicktoons Network. It premieres on October 4th in the U.S.
archive location

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Stephanie Stoughton, A.P. reporter, writes first-hand about her fear of bridges and how she has and has not coped with driving over them. She's stared into volcanoes, looked down from mountain tops, survived a prop plane ride that took off with the door open, but a bridge crossing takes special coping strategies. Like with most phobias, the cure is to face the fear, over and over. "You want to do it to the point that you're bored."
archive location

A visit to a factory that makes Red Vines (y'know, the red licorice people buy in a huge tub at Costco?) is encapsulated in an article about whether Bay Area manufacturers will survive the current financial situation. Although other candy manufacturers were moving production to Mexico, the American Licorice Company instead invested in new machinery and cut their workforce from 450 to 240. While some may have criticized the layoffs, the alternative was moving the plant entirely. Plant manager John Nelson says licorice is a comfort food that will hold its own during the downtimes. Red licorice outsells black by 10 to 1. (somewhat unrelated bonus YouTube link: Aimee Mann performing "Red Vines")
archive location