Tugboats have a certain romantic appeal. They pull ships out of trouble, stabilize crafts in storms, take barges to distant destinations and guide giant vessels in and out of port. Powerful little tugs are dwarfed by their much larger charges. The 170 year old tugboat industry has been “sleepy” since a tax-sheltered building boom in the 1970s. Now the N.Y. Times reports that demand for new tugboats is booming. Shipyards are at capacity with a two-year wait for a new tug, and towing companies are building their own boats to keep up. Smaller, more powerful tugboats are needed for larger container ships and the new mandate for double-hulled petroleum barges. And “Moran Towing is trying to lure young crew members by equipping its new tugs with DVD players, flat-screen televisions, high-speed Internet connections and more comfortable beds.”

There is now actual data to back up the known fact that moms have been purchasing digital SLR cameras in order to effectively capture their speedy toddlers. Yup, we’ve realized that “point and shoot” is actually “point…wait…oh SHOOT I missed it.”

Muppets, Music & Magic is now at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Running until July 1st, the program originated at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and has been hosted at various venues around the U.S. It consists of the Muppet films you know and love along with behind-the-scenes footage and other rare programs from the Henson archives. In August it travels to Long Island (Huntington, NY) as part of Cinema Arts Centre’s Puppets on the Sound, an international puppet festival.

Who wants edible gold messages floating in their coffee? Certainly not the millions of Starbucks commuters who never see what they’re drinking out of that spill-proof cover. But perhaps a trendy restaurant would consider adding the Tsukioka Company’s pure gold words into customers’ after dinner drinks.

At Shorewood High School, just north of Seattle, Bev Anderson runs a Culinary Arts program which can boast of alumni in several of the area’s fine dining establishments. Besides teaching her students the basics of cooking, Anderson brings in local chefs and local produce, and brings the kids out to local restaurants. She also connects her students with jobs, giving them the opportunity to discover what life is like in the kitchen. Two students are currently interning at Seattle’s legendary Canlis.

More proof that laughter is good for you: “Breastfed babies with eczema experienced milder symptoms if their mothers laughed hours before feeding them.” I would’ve watched a lot more TV while I was nursing if I had known that!

Wow, the Redwood Symphony, where many of my Silicon Valley musician friends play or played, was briefly mentioned in The New Yorker! “Who would have guessed that the Redwood Symphony, a volunteer orchestra in the Silicon Valley area, has played all of Mahler’s symphonies?” Yup, that’s them all right.

Officials at Milan’s Linate airport captured 57 hares and 4 rabbits in a daytime raid meant to reduce the bunny population. The event happens twice a year, usually at night, but the large numbers of hares this time necessitated a more productive daylight capture, though the airport did need to be closed for a few hours. (Bugs Bunny fans note the filename in the URL.)

Their numbers may be dwindling but the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose lead upbeat lives. An observer who seeks to join their ranks observed: “the sisters… were the freest women she knew. They weren’t preoccupied with makeup or clothes, with how they measured up against other women.” The women pursue their eclectic hobbies, one plays the electric guitar and has both a myspace page and a blog, another does yo-yo tricks. There are seven women preparing to take their final vows at the convent. And the sisters trust that “if sisters disappear, God must be making way for a different kind of religious life for women, something reconfigured and updated for modern times.”

A Pepsi flavor we’ll never see in the U.S.: Pepsi Ice Cucumber. It’s a limited edition on sale in Japan. Pale green cucumber cola… will Coca-Cola even bother considering a competing flavor?