While the rest of the gaming world time-sinked into Diablo II, I started in on a $5 copy of Magic Carpet 2 which originally managed to escape my attention. The continued irony of this situation is that my computer needs some tweaking to run this old DOS game, but probably would have no problem cranking out Diablo II. Hmph.

When I watch reruns of The Simpsons, I catch jokes or references that I did not get the first time. I realized recently that a big reason for this is not that I overlooked the joke the first time, but that I didn’t know the reference at all. I saw Dr. Strangelove a few weeks ago (yes, finally) and this week I saw part of the Simpsons episode where Homer starts a vigilante crime-fighting group. He is out buying supplies and envisions himself riding a nuclear bomb with a cowboy hat on. I did not get that the first time. So what else have I been missing?

Well, it’s not as new as wrapping cars with advertisements, but Salon ran an article a little while ago on dot com advertisements appearing on shopping bags. Red Herring was the first client for Smart Bags, a company that gives stores free shopping bags with advertising. Current rate for “bagvertising” is $25,000 for 200,000 bags. If this spreads I may have a reason beyond environmental to bring my own bags with me when I shop.

If you are ever at the MicrosoftSF store in the Metreon and decide to use the postcard kiosks, pick one with an external camera, not the mini Vaios with the built-in cameras. You’ll get much higher quality photos. (Care enough to send the very best. :-)

The Microsoft store was more like a computer store than I expected (now you say “It’s Microsoft, what did you expect?”). Salon’s article, published exactly a year ago, led me to picture it as a gene-splicing experiment between a Microsoft company store and a Pottery Barn. But the experience to me was more akin to a colorful stationery store welded onto the front of a software store, with postcard kiosks taking the place of greeting card racks.

Jen (without whom I would have not graduated from college :) says I should get some 3M Imation “Neon” floppy disks. They’re intended for iMac users so they come in all those translucent colors. I still use floppies (aka “sneakernet”) once in a while. Hmmm do these come preformatted for Mac? Not a big deal. Now may be a good time to admit that I still use DOS to format disks. Some old habits die hard due to nostalgia.

Star Wars Episode 2 has started principal filming and, gosh darn it, Jar Jar Binks is back. Couldn’t they have substituted Brian Blessed instead? He’s big and cuddly. Really, he is (that’s him in “Cats”).

I always check in advance to see if anything enticing will be on display in December at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, since I’m always in Connecticut for Christmas. This past Christmas I excitedly noted that Christmas 2000 would include a Chanel retrospective at their Costume Institute. I even wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget. But, it is not to be. Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel’s longtime designer, had a difference of opinion with the Met over including paintings and other artwork alongside the clothes. The deal is off. Agh. The Met is shuffling in an exhibit of Jackie Kennedy’s White House fashions instead, but it won’t be ready until spring, and, although Jackie was a trend-setter, and I love many of Oleg Cassini’s creations for her, I just can’t get as excited about it. Too much hype was generated around the auctioning of her possessions and I fear another Jackie worshipping session. (housekeeping note: it seems the “partners” trick for NY Times links may no longer work and you may have to log in, sorry!)

Subvertise is amassing a collection of subversive “ads”. I enjoyed this blotting out of the Gap sweatshirt to spell “APATHETIC”, but the one I’d wear is “I’m not a target market“. If I ever find myself carrying an Evian bottle, I hope I can obtain some scissors and tape to get this lovely, naive effect. (via xtremely xcellent xblog and randomWalks) And now is a good time to re-mention the wonderfully subversive Billboard Liberation Front.

At the Sony Style store at the Metreon, there are CD listening kiosks with scanners, just like at the supermarket. You can pick up a CD, scan the bar code, and if it’s in the database, it will start playing. Very cool.

The effect of new media on newspapers is currently a common topic of discussion. I was amused to read in this Wired News article that Retired U.S. General Colin L. Powell was the keynote speaker for the Newspapers 2000 conference. He compared the fall of the Soviet Union to the rise of new media.

“The world I knew, the world that was comfortable for me was gone,” Powell said about his work after Gorbachev announced his adherence to perestroika and glasnost. “Just like me you will have to adjust. You will have to be shaped by the power of information technology and find your place in a world that has changed.”