Learn about the elegant and expensive ($950,000) set for Joss Whedon's new TV series "Dollhouse." At its center is a Japanese reflecting pool with a deck over it. The show premieres on February 13th on Fox. Yup that's a Friday. A Friday the 13th.
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Bill Graham was the rock concert promoter in the San Francisco area from the 1960s until his death in 1991, and his company, Bill Graham Presents carried on until it was acquired ultimately by Clear Channel. The company's archives, including thousands of concert recordings, were acquired by Bill Sagan who digitized and catalogued them to open "Wolfgang's Vault" (a reference to Graham's family nickname). Wikipedia calls it "one of the largest collections of live concert recordings available to the public" and there are several legendary performances online, and certainly numerous legendary performers. You do have to sign in and provide an email address to listen, but it is free. The vault also contains reproductions of vintage t-shirts, posters, and photographs. It's a rock memorabilia treasure trove.
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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Did you see the photos of the baby giraffe at the San Francisco Zoo? 'Cuz she's super cute (and I'm not even fond of giraffes since my earliest memory is of being scared by one at the Bronx Zoo).
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With people forgoing expensive vacations, the Seattle papers have been giving us travel ideas closer to home. And it turns out the Seattle P.I.'s restaurant reviewer, Leslie Kelly, now has a yearlong Space Needle pass. A yearlong pass? I suppose perhaps if you had frequent visitors to show around town it'd be a savings, but Kelly just enjoys the view. So she bought the $59 "sunset" pass (good only in the evenings) and intends to take the 41-second-long elevator trip every single day in 2009. You can tell she's serious about that because she's started a blog to chronicle her vertical travels. She was up on the observation deck when her husband called with the news that Hearst was going to sell (or effectively close) the P.I. She's gathered so much Space Needle trivia already, I'm not sure she'll have much more to say in the remaining 11 months, but it's certainly a personal journey.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Airbus A380 dwarfs the planes at LAX; its double-decker design even makes the 747 look less jumbo. When Qantas' flight from Melbourne and Sydney lands in L.A., special procedures are put into place and the airport grinds to a halt as roads and runways are closed so the huge aircraft can safely make its way to one of two gates that together cost $50 million to put in. Airport and Airbus officials disagree on whether larger delays will occur when more A380s are put into service.
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Leonards New England specializes in restoring and selling pre-1900s antique beds. As described in their video, beds from that time did not come in standard sizes and ropes were strung across the frame to hold the mattress (tick). Those who wanted to "sleep tight" used a special wooden key tighten up the ropes. Leonards resizes the beds to fit modern mattresses and adds new hardware. The company recently delivered a circa 1820 tiger’s eye maple four-poster bed, king size, to a Maryland warehouse. It was ordered by Michael Smith, hired by the new First Family to redecorate their private rooms, and may already be in the White House.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I've been a die-hard Kensington trackball fan for almost 15 years. I owe my lack of RSI to trackball usage. Other than tripping up visitors to my office who can't figure out which button to click, the only drawback for me has been the lack of a scroll wheel. Kensington has ably attempted to incorporate a scroll wheel or equivalent in several models. They've placed an actual scrollwheel at the top of the device, which doesn't work for me because I have to move my hand to use it (I don't know if people with bigger hands have the same problem). They then had the brilliant idea of a "Scroll Ring" which encircles the ball, so you can spin the ring and leave your hand in position. I tried the first version of the ring but didn't like how clicky it was so I bought a different model. I haven't tried the latest version to see if it's improved because these darn Kensingtons refuse to wear out and I won't toss my trusty one aside. But now Kensington has come up with an even cleverer concept: use the ball itself as the scroller. Just turn the ball. Their SlimBlade Trackball launches soon with this innovation plus a sleeker design. I can't wait to try it.
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If I had known there wasn't already a Guinness World Record set for world's biggest cheesecake, I would've submitted my own a long time ago. But it wouldn't have been as large as the 2-ton record holder sponsored by Kraft Foods. That's a lot of cream cheese.
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Monday, January 26, 2009

There's certainly some weird stuff in "classical news of the weird", a round-up of odd classical music news items of 2008. Composer Richard Thomas is working on an opera about Anna Nicole Smith, saying her story is "very operatic and sad." Violinist Nicholas Eanet was named the newest member of the Julliard String Quartet and then broke his left wrist while inline skating. And the 639-year-long performance of John Cage's organ composition "As Slow As Possible" that began in 2001 reached its 6th chord.
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Mycologist David Arora used to live in Santa Cruz and travel to Mendocino County for rainy season mushroom hunting, but now he lives where the action is. The Chronicle shares his eclectic and fireplace-filled (he has 5) house with us. Of course there are baskets for collecting mushrooms, a mushroom sculpture, stashes of dried mushrooms, but he also has a wall full of Pu-erh tea cakes he's collected from his visits to Yunnan, China ("the world's largest exporter of wild mushrooms"). Arora uses one of his fireplaces to grill his wild mushroom finds.
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Thursday, January 22, 2009

A scale model of the Hudson River plane crash in Playmobil and Lego. The Seattle Times printed a photo of a similar one on display at the PlayMobil table at the Model Railroad Show in Seattle this past weekend, but they don't have it online.
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There are 75 newspapers from around the world in this gallery of day-after inauguration editions. So colorful in many ways. Newspapers used to be just black and white.
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Thomas Groppel, director of ceremonies of the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee, was in charge of coordinating 5,000 military ceremonial troops at the Presidential Inauguration. But he also made sure the Steinway played by Gabriela Montero for John William's Air and Simple Gifts had a heater on it. "A grand piano in 25- to 30-degree weather doesn’t sound like Steinway would like it to sound. That’s not acceptable for us."
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The Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ at Seattle's Paramount Theatre is in its 80s and, while still going strong, in need of some repairs. The Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society has been gathering donations for the past few years to pay for the refurbishing the Wurlitzer. The organ is one of the largest of its kind and original to the Paramount from the days of silent films. House organist Dennis James plays original scores, when available, for Silent Movie Mondays.
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Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I, and many newspaper editors, loved this nighttime view of the U.S. Capitol, hung in bunting, lit up, and ready for the big day. There are five American flags hanging above the proceedings, two celebrate the new President's home state of Illinois with the 21 stars that were on the flag when it entered the Union.
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Seattle Food Geek publishes a review of Lark the same night we ate there. We had three of the dishes pictured, plus cheese, foie gras terrine, and a lot of pig. Oh and desserts. We don't eat out very often these days so it was a nice treat. I agree with Scott's assessment of "dischord between my stomach and wallet" though I admit I always feel that way at small plate places. The Seattle Times has just reviewed Jerry Traunfeld's Poppy and at $32 for 10 little dishes in a thali, plus the Herbfarm pedigree, I'm hoping I'll enjoy that too one day soon, perhaps with less dischord.
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Nifty historic football posters for sale. A nice history of vintage poster styles. (via Uni Watch)
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Monday, January 19, 2009

Snopes says it's true: starting on Tuesday, department stores will be giving away free cosmetics to settle a price-fixing class action lawsuit. Anyone who bought cosmetics from the defendant manufacturers between 1994 and 2003 can claim one product from one manufacturer, but it's a short list of products that may not be that exciting (the list is probably a good indicator of what products are the cheapest to produce -- shower gel anyone?). As there's no way to track a) who is owed a product and b) who already got one, I predict everything will be gone in a jiffy.
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As the "Obama Express" pulled into Baltimore on Saturday, I was looking up what kind of train he was riding on. The Obama and Biden family rode in the Georgia 300, a rail car built by Pullman in the 1930s. Built for railroad executives on the Southern Railway, Jack Heard purchased it in 1986 and refurbished it into a plush, shiny blue car suited for the ultimate chief executive. Several presidents and presidential candidates have leased it previously for campaign trips, Obama included. Ahead of the Georgia 300 on Saturday were (less cushy) passenger cars for staff and guests, Secret Service, press, and food service. Two Amtrak diesel engines pulled the 10 cars. The train was outfiited by Waav with wireless Internet.
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Friday, January 16, 2009

There are various bits and pieces of opinion out there now on Joss Whedon's upcoming premiere of "Dollhouse" (Feb 13 on Fox). This one on a Wired blog seems the most straightforward. The show is not gonna be funny at first, which is throwing Whedon's fans off. So not so much with the "not so much."
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It is long past time for me to teach our son (4) how to use chopsticks. After an unproductive first lesson (short attention span + too much giggling), I decided to educate myself on how others teach this important skill. Several YouTube videos and "how to" articles later, I determined that my chopsticks technique is different from everyone else who has decided to share theirs on the Internet. And I was reminded of the revelation I had at a family dinner a few years ago where I discovered that in my family of five, only my dad and I use chopsticks the same way. No one remembers if my dad was the one who taught me to use chopsticks or if this is a coincidence, but we both only use the pointer finger and thumb to move the top stick. The middle finger stays on the bottom stick. I'm sure there must be others out there like us and I intend to pass this apparently recessive trait down to the next generation.
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Thursday, January 15, 2009

It shouldn't come as a huge surprise that Charles Schultz used real and relevant snippets of musical scores in his Peanuts comic strips. The Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, CA is running a special exhibit "Schulz's Beethoven: Schroeder's Muse" which allows visitors to hear the music printed in the strips. Beethoven scholar William Meredith analyzed the strips to identify the music, most often played by Schroeder on his baby grand, and to find the extra layer of meaning added by the composition.
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While employees of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer coped with the news of an impending sale or shutdown, on the roof above them the P-I globe, a Seattle icon since 1948, was undergoing repair. Recent snowstorms damaged the neon and caretaker Dave DeFrank was called out of retirement to fix it up. The globe is in as bad shape as the newspaper business below it, rusted and faded. From the photos you can see that it is much larger than you may suspect from far away.
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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Here's a fascinating work of art in laser-cut paper, Olafur Eliasson created a negative space rendering of his house with 454 slices in paper, bound together in a book. (thanks Seth!)
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Seattle P.I. movie critic William Arnold revisits the legacy of Audrey Hepburn on the occasion of the DVD release today of "Funny Face" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's" from Paramount's Centennial Collection series.
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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

The Color blind gamer (via Waxy) posted here for my red-green colorblind husband. Sometimes regular board games are a problem too. I believe if the original selection of red for "stop" and green for "go" (theorized in wikipedia to have originated from nautical right-of-way starboard/port lights) had been vetted by just 10-20 males and changed, we'd be much better off today with the indicators on most electronic devices.
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Kathy Lesinski is probably the only long-distance competitive sled dog racer in Connecticut. She trains her 20 Siberian huskies in the wee hours when the weather is too warm during the day, packs them up for trips to colder climates when necessary, and has worked her team up to 100-mile long races. Most mushers live farther north, with 40% of U.S. racers hailing from Alaska.
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Monday, January 12, 2009

It's been ten years since the PowerPuff Girls first graced the Cartoon Network with their unique brand of girl-power whoop ass and cuteness. To commemorate Blossom, Buttercup and Bubbles' tenth birthday, Cartoon Network will be running a 14-hour marathon of episodes plus a brand-new episode with the original cast on January 19th. The following day a 6-DVD boxed set of all 79 episodes will be in stores. It will include the original concept cartoon: The Whoop Ass Girls: A Sticky Situation (which you can find on YouTube).
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The news stories about the U.S. State Department's "reply to all" emails bogging down their servers say that a cable was sent to all employees asking them to not use "reply to all" on large distribution lists. Being too familiar with the actual problem (see how it affected Microsoft in 1997 on the Exchange team blog and the resulting t-shirt), I focused instead on the word "cable." How does the State Department send a cable to all employees? Not Western Union of course (which sent its last telegram in 2006). I found mentions of a five-year overhaul of State's internal messaging system "based on Western Union-like telegrams which you thought were only in museums" to the State Messaging and Archive Retrieval Toolset (SMART). So at the start of the new millenium they were still on WWII era Telex-like devices. The new SMART system is web-based according to this 2003 article and transmits both formal and informal cables, classified and not, and also email. "After delays and a management shake-up," SMART should be fully rolled out by the end of fiscal year 2009. My question remains: was this cable about email received via old-style cable or SMART? Perhaps it was both.
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Friday, January 09, 2009

Workers in China have begun their annual trips home for the Lunar New Year, some leaving earlier than usual because of manufacturing slowdowns and also because last year's ice storms left so many stranded. With 2 billion trips by road and 24 million by air, the A.P. calls it "one of the world's biggest annual migrations of humans."
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Subaru actually posted an increase in sales for 2008, and will likely be the only large automaker to do so. I noticed the local dealers had several visitors after the recent snow and ice conditions.
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Thursday, January 08, 2009

The record for the longest sentence in published literature is reportedly now a 150,000 word novel of one sentence. The other books in the top four are also listed.
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Pop culture columnist Peter Hartlaub opines on movie taglines, starting with the best (or is it worst?) of Tom Cruise and ending with his top picks including classics like "In space, no one can hear you scream" and "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water..." And the fun continues in the article's reader comments section.
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Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Alas, Stacey's Bookstore is shutting its flagship (and last remaining) San Francisco store in March. Stacey's has been in business for 85 years.
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It's been over a year since Keith Luce took over as Executive Chef at The Herbfarm. Seattle P.I. food writer Rebekah Denn spent several days in the kitchen observing the staff as they prepared "The Holly & The Ivy" themed dinner. It's a spectacular holiday high note in a long string of themes throughout the year, all designed to dazzle diners who spend $189 and up to enjoy 9 courses. Denn's visit resulted in five blog postings that reveal the inner workings of a kitchen that has the luxury of serving a set menu, but the stress of meeting sky high expectations. She saw the menu evolve as produce from the farm arrived and an oyster delivery didn't materialize, watched the chefs learn new techniques from Luce, and took photos of their crib sheets. Recent additions to The Herbfarm's local ingredients include housemade cheese and butter, bread from a wood-fired oven, eggs from their own chickens, and, soon to come, the inevitable but tasty end to their acorn and hazelnut fed Mangalitsas pigs. (Part I; Part II; Part III; Part IV; Part V)
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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Webcams are proving the success of special deer underpasses installed by the Wyoming Department of Transportation along U.S. Highway 30. Approximately 14,000 mule deer cross the highway each year in their migration from winter to summer ranges. The number of deer-vehicle collisions had gone down after the underpasses were created, but visual proof came from new webcams which captured on "film" 800 deer, a few antelope and a bull elk using the underpasses in a one-week period.
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The shipping industry, like most motor-driven transportation, is far from green. Ships "burn a thick, dirty sludge called bunker fuel while at sea and slurp diesel to keep the lights and air conditioning running while in port." Seattle's Foss Maritime is launching "the Prius of tugboats" this month, calling it the world's first hybrid tug as it uses batteries in addition to a diesel engine. Tugs run at full power only 7% of the time, and Foss' engineers looked to similar situations for inspiration, including switching locomotives and underwater drilling rigs. Their new system also uses a smaller diesel engine than usual. Foss was founded in 1889 with one used rowboat, repainted and sold by Thea Foss. She became the inspiration for Tugboat Annie.
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Monday, January 05, 2009

It's still possible to talk to a butcher at certain grocery stores, and Whole Foods has comprehensive training for their meat department staff. Their butchers need to complete 1,920-hours of training, over about two years. Apprentices do clean-up and counter work before they get to cut poultry first, then pork, and lastly beef. Of course there are still local butchers shops to be found if you live in the right area, and there you'll probably find the true dying breed of old-style butchers (in Bellevue, WA there's Golden Steer Choice Meats).
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In a patch of woods in Stanwood, Washington, mass-produced pianos from China are being upgraded into premium instruments with still reasonable price tags. Darrell Fandrich, a former piano technician for musicians, has built a business for the niche of amateur pianists and students who want a quality instrument but don't want to pay $60,000. He and his sons replace the hammers, felt, and bass strings, reweight the keys, and voice the hammers. It's a labor of love for Fanrich & Sons who've found a way to provide something lovely for less with what is already available in the market.
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