Need a shot of coffee in your Coke? Coca-Cola BlaK, “a sophisticated, premium blend of Coca-Cola, natural flavors and coffee essence,” hits U.S. stores on April 3rd. It’s stylishly contained in a sophisticated 8 ounce bottle with the Coca-Cola trademark curves (and apparently Coca-Cola’s font designers are running short on Cs). One bottle has slightly more caffeine than a can of Coke, which is about half the amount in 8 oz of coffee. Along with the usual high fructose corn syrup, the new beverage contains both aspartame and ace-k sweeteners, totaling 45 calories. BevNET reminds us that the mid-1990s already brought us Pepsi Kona, Java Cola, and Cafe Cola. And Pepsi Cappucino is sold in Europe.

Renee Zellweger is portraying Beatrix Potter in a movie currently filming in England (I have to wonder if Kate Winslet was their first choice). The Independent has taken the opportunity to write up a small biography of the children’s author, with a little emphasis on what the film may gloss over for the sake of Hollywood. Potter kept a coded diary until she was 30; it was deciphered many years after her death. She was brought up by governesses in a wealthy family and took comfort in pets and art. A foray into botany was cut short because she wasn’t male. Peter Rabbit was born in a letter to a former governess’ son. Self published at first, Potter achieved financial independence and invested in property. The Independent says “it was Beatrix Potter who invented merchandising” as she suggested that her publisher market Peter Rabbit dolls, wallpaper, and games. When her eyesight worsened she took up sheep farming. She willed most of her property to England’s National Trust and you can visit her home where certain surroundings may feel familiar, as if they’d come out of the watercolors of a tiny book.

If you haven’t seen the panda kindergarten video yet you are missing out on incredible cuteness. My favorite part is when they attack one of my son’s favorite playground toys, a plastic rocker. There are at least three weblogs devoted to panda news: pandafix, pandafans, The Panda Blog.

With a proliferation of unofficial Oscar swag polluting the newswires and gifting lounges galore will yours truly be able to weed out the contents of the One True Oscar presenter bag this year? We’re revving up those search engines. Stay tuned.

Think ice art is limited to sculpted logos and swans for weddings? Canadian artist Gordon Halloran was invited to exhibit his unique ice paintings at the recently completed Winter Olympics in Turin. The cathedral setting of La Fortezza di Fenestrelle housed the stained-glass-like sheets of colored ice, kept, of course, below freezing, hence the title of the exhibit “Paintings Below Zero.” Halloran and his crew arrived in Italy, according to their project’s blog, late last year to begin installation of the refrigeration system that allowed them to create ice and then art. Large colored shards and slabs shot through with crystallized pigments decorated the walls and floor of the Fortezza.

Alas, classical music site Andante.com shut down in early February. Its owners pulled the plug. The site gathered up music news from sources around the world. NY Times critic Anne Midgette makes a compelling case that Andante’s demise is not a sign of trouble for classical music. In fact, online classical music sales are flourishing, accounting for 12% of iTunes sales, compared to 3-4% of the entire recording industry sales.

Random Winter Olympics TV musings…
Having CBC, Canadian TV, as an alternative for watching the Olympics is great. I even like the ads better, especially Frank and Gordon, the Bell Canada spokesbeavers. And who better to cover winter sports but the Canadians? I taped the opening ceremonies on both NBC and CBC and though I didn’t watch the entire CBC version (which was broadcast live), I’m pretty sure NBC cut out significant portions of sections that dragged on (some of the Renaissance and Baroque scenes) and, unfortunately, some nice transitions that brought the storyline together. And, just as NBC is interrupting their Olympics coverage with the Daytona 500 this coming Sunday, CBC kept their 54 year old institution “Hockey Night in Canada” on the schedule last Saturday. And speaking of hockey, it was great to see ex-San Jose Sharks goaltender Arturs “I want to be like wall” Irbe carrying the Latvian flag in the parade of nations.

When you visit the powder room of parents of toddlers don’t assume that the toilet paper roll isn’t actually hung on the spindle because they were too lazy or too busy to get around to it. It may be because their small child has learned the concept of spinning. Or it could be because they were too busy to get around to it. You may never learn the truth.

Four Things
Only because I miss her a LOT (and I want to be like all the cool kids) do I take the baton from Kathryn.

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Selling jewelry (“pearls go beautifully with everything from denim to silk”)
2. Singing the GE theme song in pseudo-Chinese garb for an in-house GE commercial (“we bring good things to life”)
3. Driving the shuttle van around Wellesley College (textbooks are expensive!)
4. Programmer, software developer, software engineer (it’s all the same thing)

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. A Room with a View
2. The Matrix
3. The Shawshank Redemption
4. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (almost anything with Audrey Hepburn)

Four places I’ve lived:
1. Wilton, CT
2. Wellesley, MA
3. Sunnyvale, CA
4. Mountain View, CA
(3 & 4 are the same in the grand scheme of things, but I haven’t lived in very many places)

Four TV shows I love:
1. Moonlighting
2. Sports Night (Sorkin is The Best)
3. Good Eats
4. Gilmore Girls

Four places I’ve vacationed:
1. Olomouc, Czech Republic
2. Verona, Italy
3. Cannon Beach, OR
4. Block Island, RI

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. My mom’s scallion pancakes
2. Pretty much any kind of pizza
3. Panzanella salad with top notch ingredients
4. Cheesecake

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Blogging Baby
2. flickr.com
3. AlterSlash (the unofficial SlashDot digest)
4. The New York Times

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. The Met’s Costume Institute
2. Playing with my son in the living room
3. Powell’s Bookstore
4. Watching a Broadway musical

Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. Skot (cuz if he does it, I can watch milk come out of my nose)
2. frykitty (mwah mwah!)
3. Medley (her tagline does include the word “Personal”
4. Pavel (because I promised him an IngenuiTEA)

I thought perhaps the stamp rate change had somehow hindered the USPS in creating a Chinese New Year stamp this year, but apparently there was none issued because they are done with all the animals. They finished off with the monkey in 2004, issued a commemorative sheet of all twelve animals in 2005 and … that’s it. If they don’t want to bother with new art, I hope they will at least reissue the appropriate animal with updated postage every year.