A SFGate columnist laments the demise of the stick shift. He goes a bit too far into the sexual parallels for my taste, but perhaps I’m too prudish to enjoy driving in a visceral manner. I must admit that although two people have tried to teach me how to deal with a clutch, I haven’t truly made the effort to learn how to drive a manual transmission. I’m surprised, though, that manual transmission sales are down. More of my friends own stick shifts than not, so I’ve always felt in the minority.

When your fiance buys three copies of the Diablo Expansion Pack and drops one off for a friend who lives half a mile away from you but doesn’t bother to stop by and drop off your copy, is that grounds for calling off the wedding? No, I guess not. After all, he did buy me one too. I’ll pretend it’s because he really wanted to wait to play it with me.

Some parents go to great lengths to provide a memorable wedding day for their children. And heaven help the vendors if something goes wrong. A man in Cleveland is picketing a restaurant because of the awful job they did catering his son’s wedding. The restaurant has offered to reimburse half of the cost, but he refused to settle. Now the restaurant has filed suit to keep him away from their property. Seems he’s bad for business. (via Obscure Store)

A few clicks away from Medley, I found RootBeerWorld.com, aka Root-Beer.org) wherein they chronicle all things about that wonderfully yummy beverage. A state-by-state and alphabetical guide of root beer brands includes vintage models like this one from Canada Dry. My easy to find (for me) favorites are Henry Weinhard’s which has honey added (so it’s sweeter than most) and IBC. But my most favorite was a cranky, earthy tasting variety brewed and only on tap at a San Mateo brewpub that has gone out of business. Ah well.

It appears that educational software is stagnating with little innovation and mainly tried and true sequels being released. But how many copies of the same game in different disguises will parents buy? Sales have dropped and publishers are scaling back and trying to get creative again. There’s always a new crop of fast-growing kids, though, so perhaps they won’t have to reinvent the wheel. (via LTSeek)

I grew up reading The New York Times. Like many other advantages I had, I didn’t truly appreciate it until I was away from it. I figured most newspapers were of that caliber. That’s not to say that they get it right or unbiased all the time. But the Times offers something on a different level from most dailies. This L.A. Times article discusses what that is. A brand researcher found that “the most loyal readers of the New York Times are interested in abstract theorizing, in getting underneath, in being surprised. . . . They had what we came to call a ‘vigilant curiosity’ about the world.” What that means to me in plain English is “we like to know the real how and why, not just the hyped what.” The article is mostly about the Times’ stepping into the role of being a national paper. But I crave the New York centered news too. The national edition isn’t the same for me. There’s just something about that mix of humanity in New York that makes for fascinating local news.

Appetize is “a patented blend of tallow and non-hydrogenated corn oil created by Brandeis University that contains no cholesterol and is naturally trans-fat free.” Most restaurants use (unhealthy) partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for deep frying. No fast-food restaurants have switched to Appetize yet, though its makers claim that it restores that yummy fried in beef fat taste to french fries. Some say consumers are too confused about what is healthy and what isn’t. I figured it can’t be as cheap as veggie oils, so consumers are going to have to demand it in order for food companies to take any notice. Their FAQ claims it can actually be cost effective since the fried food absorbs less of it and it has a longer frying life. I really hope this catches on and doesn’t have any Olestra-like issues.

I don’t remember who mentioned this to me, but it really made a lot of sense. We were discussing the memory it takes to load dictionaries on PDAs, and this person said that instead of the smaller dictionaries having fewer of the less-known words, they should filter out all the easy words. You will most likely be looking up a word you haven’t heard a lot, not something like “cat”, and a lot of space could be saved. I just discovered that the Palm dictionary I use, Noah from ArsLexis, does have an “advanced” dictionary database, suitable for native speakers who don’t need the simple words. Nifty!

I had left the sliding glass door open a bit one day when I went out. My cat likes to go out on the balcony and recharge her solar cells. When I came home, there was a dead bird on the carpet a few feet from the door to the balcony. There was no sign of struggle and the cat seemed to be meowing more than usual, but was still nonchalant. One stray feather sat mournfully closer to the door. I was torn between motherly pride (“good hunter kitty!”) and extreme guilt that a poor bird had died. But maybe it had keeled over on its own and the cat dragged it inside? I’ll never know. I bet the cat does, but she just ain’t telling. In memorium, though, I will now always try to buy sustainably grown coffee as promoted by the Songbird Foundation.

My dad would drive miles away just to get cheaper gas. He knew it defeated the purpose, but it was the principle of the thing. He supported cheaper stations, and was amongst the early adopters of self serve along with its lower prices. GasPriceWatch.com tracks the prices at gas stations, and of heating oil (and marinas, coming soon) in the U.S. and Canada through the help of volunteer spotters. You can search on zip/postal code and find stations near you and compare prices. Prices are color coded so you know how old they are. And maybe you’d like to sign up to be a spotter yourself. I always try to buy gas at the cheapest place I can find, but I don’t go overboard about it. My dad has also loosened up. Time is money, or, more importantly when you’re older, time is, well, time.