A followup to my Seattle earthquake comment about a glass studio: The SJ Mercury News printed an article on the many valuable glassworks that were destroyed by the quake. “Chihuly lost 10 pieces from his private collection” and a few of his pieces on public display are probably sitting in a trash heap now (though, I think someone should really do something else artsy with the shards). Josi Callan, who used to run the San Jose Museum of Art, carries “quake hold” wax in her purse, and often sticks pieces down when she sees unsecured art. Callan is opening a Museum of Glass and International Center for Contemporary Art in Tacoma next year. Gotta get to that one.

My alumnae magazine had an article on ZipCar (founded by an alum, of course). Car sharing is a proven concept in Europe, but is not widely used on this side of the pond. Zipcar lets you reserve a car for pickup at various parking lots in the Boston/Cambridge area. You pay a yearly membership fee, security deposit, an hourly rate and mileage rate. They give you a gas card to pay for gas, which is nice (and a good way for them to make sure the cars are kept fed). You also do not need your own insurance. They have a fleet of VW cars (new Beetles, Passats, Golfs, Jettas). Other cities have similar programs, both for profit and not (co-ops). San Francisco has City CarShare and Seattle has Flexcar.

A Celebration of Women Writers came to me via a mailing list I’m on (which also noted that its creator, Mary Mark specializes in AI). The site has complete books (some even with scans of illustrations) including classics such as Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men. I found The Enchanted April, which was made into a gorgeous film and Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life. I’m sure there are plenty of treasures unknown to me hidden in these links.

Time to stock up on video tapes. Nickelodeon (more accurately, Nick-at-Nite) is going to show a bunch of Square Pegs episodes on March 9th. Square Pegs, with a theme song by the Waitresses, was my favorite eighties show. OK, it doesn’t beat Moonlighting, so we’ll call it my favorite early 80’s show. It concentrated on the “out” crowd who tried to figure out the “in” crowd. Sarah Jessica Parker looks suitably geeky (hard to believe), Amy Linker wore some padding to fit into her character’s “I’m too fat” role, “most popular” Tracy Nelson looks nothing like the nun she later played in Father Dowling, and Merritt Butrick is just too cool as the “new wave, not punk” guy whose vision is going bad because he wears sunglasses all the time. Butrick was Captain Kirk’s son in the Star Trek movies, and guest starred in a Next Generation episode a year or so before he died of AIDS in 1989. RIP Johnny Slash, my pre-teen hero.

The most vivid image for me from the Seattle area earthquake coverage today was video of an art glass studio in the aftermath. Beautiful, colorful pieces of glass were scattered, shattered across the floor. Some pieces were still on the shelves, but the floor was completely covered with destroyed works of art. (I found the URL of the store when I saw the newsfeed: Avalon Glassworks.)

Radio Shack is planning to open stores inside Blockbuster locations. Their “highly trained sales associates will manage the stores within Blockbuster”. I’ve been really spoiled by Silicon Valley. Granted, I still think of going to “the shack” when I need sundry things, like a stereo connector or an endless loop tape cassette. But usually some engineer friend will have a box full of whatever I need (or a box with whatever I need hidden in the mess of wires and old modem cards), and they will certainly know more about the electronics than the poor guy at the store. Come to think of it, this area must be a terrible place to work as a Radio Shack associate. In a backwards ‘burb, you can be king of the electronics world, but here, a lot of your customers are not going to say anything to you except “no, you can not have my address for your database.” Anyway, it will be interesting to see if they put kiosks in the local Blockbusters. They’ll be selling consumer electronics, though, not soldering equipment and wire cutters.

MuppetWorld seems a little silly, but I guess the Muppets are supposed to be silly. (via Yahoo’s Daily Picks, Flash probably req’d)

Buffy last night was excellent. On par with the “Hush” episode. (nb. I’ve got to be vague here since I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.) Since it was a serious, emotional subject, it was more unrelentingly intense than “Hush”, but the camera angles and scene placements were quite effective. The acting also showed that the cast has range beyond their usual witty quips and fight scenes.

Besides giving us something new in TV entertainment, the deluge of reality shows was also intended to take us through a possible upcoming writer’s and actor’s strike. I’m wondering if, in our fast-paced world where memes come and go in days, the reality TV fad will tank out before the strikes arrive. Maybe they should’ve timed the reality hype to peak much later than it did (it has peaked, I hope, hasn’t it?).

For the bride & groom who have everything except time to cook and do dishes, the Chinese Takeout Holder. “Crafted of eyecatching aluminum alloy, the holder keeps soggy cartons from giving way and tidily holds chopsticks in a triangular side pocket.” It isn’t dishwasher safe, though. (Uh, thank you, but no. We don’t have everything and we do sometimes have time to cook and do dishes. No time to actually empty the dishwasher, but you can’t do everything.) (In case theknot link gives out, here’s a local jpg of it)