It’s Elephant Polo time! Teams from Britain, India, Scotland, Sri Lanka and Nepal are competing in the 25th World Elephant Polo Tournament. The host country is Nepal. Tournaments are also typically held each year in Thailand and Sri Lanka. There are two riders on each elephant. One is the “mahout”, the trainer who directs the elephant, and the other is the player with the polo stick. The sport uses Indian elephants (African elephant ears get in the way) and their trainers claim the animals quite enjoy the sport, that in fact it can be a nice family reunion for these very social animals. But PETA is in Nepal to protest the game, particularly the use of bullhooks to train the elephants. Bullhooks are not used during the game itself.

A Seattle woman has an interesting photo of the crane that recently collapsed in Bellevue. Taken on October 10, the crane appears to be leaning. Jana Downing snapped the shot from a relative’s room at The Westin. The Department of Labor and Industries would like to see any photos or videos of the crane before the collapse.

According to Givenchy himself, three versions of Holly Golightly’s little black dress were made for the film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s“. One is now in the Museum of Costume in Madrid, another is in the Givenchy archives in Paris, and the third is in Givenchy’s private collection. Since the death of Audrey Hepburn in 1993, Givenchy has been donating pieces from his collection to further the cause that was so close to her heart, helping disadvantaged children. This dress, the most iconic of the Givenchy-Hepburn partnership, goes on the auction block at Christie’s on December 5th in London. Proceeds will benefit the City of Joy Aid, a charitable group in India. Natalie Portman modeled the dress for the November cover of Harper’s Bazaar. Also on the auction block is another black Givenchy worn by Helpburn in the film Charade.

Will it be a continued trend? We can only hope so. Jones Soda is switching its sweetener from high fructose corn syrup to cane sugar. Its 12-ounce cans will be available with cane sugar in January and they plan to have all products switched over by mid-2007. Jones CEO Peter van Stolk acknowledges that using cane sugar is difficult for the large beverage producers and that his company’s smaller scale of production made it possible.

Gary Larson has been living an anonymous, and very happy, life in Seattle since his retirement from drawing The Far Side. He doesn’t miss the weekly torturous deadlines. A favorite cause has convinced him to release his first page-a-day calendar in four years. It’s not new material, but his royalties (about $2 million according to the publisher) will go to Conservation International, a non-profit dedicated to preserving Earth’s wildlife habitats. And, just in case the calendar isn’t enough for you, all of Larson’s 23 books of collected cartoons are still in print, plus there’s the 1,272 page, two-volume collection of every single cartoon.

A Seattle typewriter repair shop is going out of business, which should come as no shock given the trend of the masses. Richards Business Machines’ owner Dennis Nachtweih has told his long time customers that he’ll still be available for repair work and supplies though he cited arthritis as a reason for closing up, in addition to a rent increase. Nachtweih has some old models for sale but he refuses to sell them to anyone who will turn the keys into jewelry.

Silicon Valley residents know well the domed theaters of the Century Cinema chain and old-timers will remember clapping along to the Syufy jingle before the main feature. The Syufy brothers recently sold the 78 theaters in the Century chain to Cinemark, the third-largest theater chain in the U.S. They’re joining the Cinemark board and so far there have been no theater name changes. The Century Theatres Wikipedia entry claims that the flagship Century 21, 22, and 23 were not sold and remain with Syufy Enterprises and as these theaters do not appear in the Cinemark site listings I’ll take that as a fact. Those are the nostalgic jewels in their crown and it’s no surprise they want to keep them in the family.

Showing movies is a tough business and local S.F. cinema competition is vicious. Witness the shuffling that occured after the opening of the new Century San Francisco Centre 9. Designed to show a mix of big studio films and artsy independent films, the new Century had, as the Chronicle put it, “the impact of a 7.8 earthquake on the long-standing habits of those who book movies in the city’s theaters.” Suddenly art films are playing at nearby big name theaters who never used to touch the stuff while blockbusters are opening at a typically artsy theater across town from the Century to avoid competition. And next year the Sundance Cinemas is re-opening the Kabuki theater purchased from AMC, further stirring up the movie mix. Century is certainly coming out the winner so far, though one could say that local moviegoers are benefiting from a larger selection of films. But that will only last if smaller venues can hang on.

The U.S. Mint’s state quarter program has been so successful that they’re going to try (and try again) to get us excited about dollar coins by issuing a series of the presidents in a new (new) redesign. A different president will appear every three months (Grover Cleveland gets to go twice for his nonconsecutive terms). A president will have to be deceased at least two years to be so honored and the schedule currently ends with Nixon in 2016, so it remains to be seen if Reagan supporters’ wish to have Reagan on currency will be fulfilled via this series. Let’s wish good health to former Presidents Ford and Carter! These coins are unique in that the edge will carry the date, mint mark, “E Pluribus Unum”, and “In God We Trust”, a technique that the mint does not often use. First spouses will be commemorated on the same release schedule with uncirculated gold $10 coins bearing their image and a reverse image symbolizing their life and work.

MIT hackers celebrated this past weekend’s launch of the Nintendo Wii and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess by placing a Triforce on the top of the Great Dome. I couldn’t find any news photos of this (yet), but all I had to do was head over to flickr and do a “mit triforce” search to turn up a few photos of the Great Dome sporting its new pointy hat. (this hack is not up at the MIT Hack Gallery as of this writing but perhaps it will be soon)

Tomorrow is the seventh anniversary of this weblog. I remember back in the early days the “recently updated” list on the Blogger homepage had vast stretches of time in between each update and it was so exciting for the Blogger team when those stretches of time disappeared and the updates were constant. Weblogging is so popular now that I often wonder why I still do it. Am I really adding any value to the overpopulated WWW? But then I remember I do this for myself. It keeps me writing which was the original goal. It’s brought me into global communities of interesting people. And it amazes me that there is always something interesting to share.

Thank you for reading, thanks for the emails, and special thanks to the secret cabal.

And I have to mention that the first product I ever linked to still exists and the website remains active, unlike many of the old links that have decayed with time. So here it is again: BitBoost’s Pawsense detects cats walking on your keyboard, makes “a sound that annoys cats” and blocks further input by putting up a dialog box that reads “CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED”. It’s a classic weblog link indeed.