The old Emporium building in San Francisco is crowned once again with its signature dome and although Emporium has been long lost to Macys-proliferation, Bloomingdale’s is ready to anchor a new shopping center in its place. The dome and old facade were effectively tacked onto an entirely new mall that took three years to create. The Chronicle has a gallery of vertigo-inducing construction photos.
The removal of the “drop-down search history” feature from the Google Toolbar v4, which was automatically pushed to all my computers (gee thanks), has ruined my ability to effectively search and research. I had to uninstall the toolbar and luckly v3 was still available online. Suggested alternatives for the feature from the help groups are not the same. My memory’s not what it used to be and my search history was my brain’s LIFO queue. And I’m not even 40 yet… who will think of the baby boomers?
This year’s USPS holiday stamps will feature the snowflake photography of Caltech physicist Kenneth Libbrecht. I linked to his online snowflake gallery two years ago. It includes the results of his experiments growing synthetic snowflakes. Here’s a nice close-up view of the stamps which will be available in October.
We’ve been considering putting in rain barrels to store our roof runoff for future use such as watering (for the very ambitious, that’s not us, toilet flushing). The irony is that in the season when our barrels are filled and overflowing, nothing will need the extra water. But this seems to be a noble cause and there are many resources to help. Rain barrels come in the full range of fancy to just plain practical models. You can even get real whisky barrels. And there’s the do-it-yourself approach. Locally, King County’s AtWork! non-profit which helps people with disabilities sells rain barrels as one of its projects. And Seattle Public Utilities customers can purchase a discounted rain barrel from the Seattle Conservation Corps. As with all home improvement projects you can get embroiled in endless details and decisions if you so choose. Do we add an overflow bucket or a fancier downspout attachment that can divert to the downspout? And wouldn’t a rain chain be pretty (pretty expensive)?
In six years of marriage to billionaire Ronald O. Perelman, actress Ellen Barkin amassed a treasure trove of jewelry. Gossip rags and even more respectable media provided details and speculation around the failed relationship. Neither party would reveal much directly, citing a confidentiality agreement, but The NY Times caught Barkin in a self analytical mood during an interview to publicize an upcoming auction of the aforementioned jewelry. Yes, instead of keeping the sparkly souvenirs of her up and down marriage, Barkin has chosen to sell them at Christie’s to the highest bidders. She plans to use the proceeds to finance her own film production company. There are 103 lots in the auction which works out to about 17 pieces each year of marriage. That’s more than one major jewelry purchase a month. Small change perhaps for Perelman.
Ben & Jerry’s have announced the finalists in their “Do Us a Flavor” contest. They received over 40,000 entries after putting out the call in March for design-your-own-flavor submissions. I’m rooting for “Wackie Chan” a sweet cream and ginger ice cream, with chocolate-covered fortune cookie bits and fudge swirl, but I want to taste the “Mojito.”
MIT hackers (who will of course remain anonymous) placed a 25 foot red fire engine on top of the Great Dome on September 11, 2006. Considered a tribute to the men and women who died five years earlier on 9/11, the truck’s modified MIT logo bore the word “Meminimus” or “We Remember.”
There’s a contrast in pear crops this year. California growers are short on workers to deal with a bumper crop. In Washington State, pear trees are suffering the effects of July hailstorms. Farmers had to hire workers to shake pears off of trees to protect the trees from breakage. I’m not sure what this means for pear consumers but it certainly doesn’t bode well for the farmers.
When you freeze at your first rock paper scissors tournament you’re stuck playing rock. And as luck would have it, your opponent covers your anxious fist with paper and you’ve lost the round. Players in the Seattle rock paper scissors scene have different theories for the popularity of the sport. One says “People are looking for sort of strange things to do just because they’re entertaining.” Another, “rock paper scissors is so silly that it’s hard to look cool doing it, so people just relax and have a good time.” There may not have been much relaxation in the 2005 Sotheby’s versus Christie’s rock paper scissors match that decided which auction house would handle an art collection worth over $20 million. The game was proposed by the president of the company who owned the art collection and instead of using their hands the opponents wrote their selection on paper. Christie’s did research and consulted 11-year-old twins to formulate their scissors strategy. Sotheby’s depended on chance and went with paper. Nice try, but Christie’s wasn’t about to freeze up and go with rock.
The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation