One of the dresses in designer Hussein Chalayan’s fall collection features Swarovski crystals and LEDs. It glows and sparkles.

Bob Barker has filmed his final episode of The Price Is Right. He signed off as he’s always done, nothing special. So get those pets spayed or neutered folks!

The Martin guitar company, C. F. Martin & Company to be precise, is still run by the family. Christian F. Martin IV is the sixth generation of guitar makers and, the N.Y. Times points out, “the first to worry about the availability of the distinctive woods needed to build Martin guitars.” The company banded with other guitar makers to raise awareness after Greenpeace brought them the news that, at current logging rates, the Sitka spruces they depend on for their soundboards would be gone in 6-7 years. Instrument makers are a minor consumer of wood compared to the building industry, but they are in a position to rally support and publicity from their celebrity customers. When the time comes, the current C.F. Martin wants to be able to hand off a viable business to his 2-year-old daughter, Claire Frances, the next C.F.

It’s one thing to get a “behind the scenes” look at a show or concert, but this almost-stream of consciousness recap of a concert from the perspective of Stewart Copeland, drummer for The Police, offers particularly unique insight. Was it really a disaster show? Only the musicians know what was really supposed to happen. (via Now This)

DeBeers, the diamond company, in partnership with LVMH, the world’s largest purveyor of luxury goods, has launched an ecommerce site on debeers.com. A carefully selected range of diamond jewelry, from $500 and up, way up, is ready for your mouse-click. The priciest items are not for sale online, but you can arrange an appointment to see them in person. I’ll venture a guess that Blue Nile isn’t too worried yet about this entry into online diamond retailing, but it depends on how aggressively DeBeers pushes it as a way to buy engagement rings. The company doesn’t do much retail directly to the consumer, but LVMH is managing to keep up eLuxury.com (you can buy a $40 Dior baby bottle and $45 pacifier online!) (via Luxist)

I was reading about the London Olympics logo debacle and had a silly idea so I registered a domain for it at 11:45pm. By 1:15am I had a site live on Tumblr including RSS and stats from Feedburner. That’s an insane turnaround time. I suppose that’s why the Internet is full of ridiculous sites like what I just coughed up: LOL LOGOS. It began with this one and I know you all can do better, so send ’em in to the address on the site (or don’t and let it die the peaceful death a good meme deserves).

Hey Buffy fans! Is the sing-along “Once More with Feeling” Tour coming to a town near you? It will be in Seattle at the Egyptian on June 29th and 30th. Get your evil bunny costumes dusted off and ready. (thanks Jonah!)

Today I learned about apple butter and red-eye gravy. I’m not from the South. I’d heard of apple butter before but I assumed it was a regional term for apple sauce. How wrong I was. Apple butter is apple sauce cooked down until the sugar in it caramelizes. So it’s spreadable like a butter and, I can imagine, pretty sweet! My red-eye gravy education began with Kathryn’s photo of some lovely ham at Momofuku Ssäm Bar. I asked what the condiment was in the photo and her response was “Red Eye Coffee gravy.” So I immediately turned to Wikipedia for the lowdown on red-eye gravy. It is made from the drippings of the pan-fried ham, mixed with water or coffee, sometimes thickened with flour. And it reportedly “packs a punch.”

Violins need to be played. I hate to see a superb instrument get snapped up by a collector who merely displays it instead of lending it to musicians. In Cremona, Italy, where the legendary violinmakers worked their magic, the city hall’s violin museum is home to a small group of instruments that would be the envy of any collector. And Andrea Mosconi, the city’s musical conservationist, has a job would be the envy of any violinist. He is paid to play the museum’s three Amati violins, two Guarneris and three Stradivarii. There’s also a Stradivarius cello, but Mosconi contracts that job out to some lucky young cellist. Every day except Sunday and August vacation, Mosconi exercises each of the eight violins with equal care — he claims to have no favorite. (NY Times article)

Are you gamer enough to make Tetris ice cubes? How about a Tetris bookshelf? (via DS Fanboy)