The Ginger People, makers of those delightful Ginger Chews, now have a drink called Ginger Soother. In addition to ginger, it’s flavored with honey and lemon. BevNet calls it “tasty stuff”.

The Skagit Valley Tulip Festival has begun and, like last year, if you don’t go soon you’ll miss the peak blooms. The early bloom means the tulip fields will likely be topped before the end of the festival, with those gorgeous blossoms sacrificed to create better bulbs.

Within the junction of San Jose Sharks fans and West Wing viewers there’s a group of people who recognized the setting of the TV show’s Democratic convention. That was the HP Pavilion, less formally known as “the tank” (as in, the Shark tank). I thought the building looked incredibly familiar but believed it must be an arena somewhere around Los Angeles. According to the Mercury News, those shots were taken within the last couple weeks. They must’ve been editing that episode down to the wire.

Fun with Flickr and Google Maps satellite.

Fun with Flickr’s Calendar view and baby photos.

For those new to Flickr, you can mouseover the photos to see the “boxes” that contain annotations about parts of the photo. You need a Flickr account to add your own notes and comments.

The Safeway in Redmond had a little table out with free samples of Coca-Cola with Lime so I took a sip. I couldn’t really taste the lime. I took another sip. Well, maybe there was a hint of lime, but it just wasn’t enough to make me want to drink the Coke. By the third sip I realized that the drink I really wanted to be tasting already existed. It’s called Sprite. Or 7-Up if you prefer.

Baseball season is upon us, so let us celebrate by revisiting “The Curious Case of Sidd Finch” a classic article by George Plimpton. Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since the Harvard dropout and aspiring monk with the 168 MPH fastball attended NY Mets spring training wearing one work boot and carrying a French horn. The NY Times reminisces about the long ago hero who still gets recognized by fans these many years later.

I want a photo of “M-Vader” and “the giant Darth Tater” in a lightsaber duel (and I don’t mean with the help of Photoshop). Who would win? Darth Tater is more likely to go to pieces, right? But M-Vader has an easily cracked shell.

Muppet Central has more details on Disney’s plans to release complete season DVD sets of The Muppet Show. When when when?! They aren’t sure. This news prompted me to look up the title of the informative Muppet book I checked out of the library multiple times as a kid. “Of Muppets and Men: the Making of the Muppet Show” by Christopher Finch is now out of print and very good condition used copies are going for over $100. But the library (both my childhood one and current one) still has their copy!

New Parent Lesson #32
When a high chair tray is advertised as “Dishwasher Safe” that has little bearing on whether it is also “Small Enough to Fit in Your Dishwasher even though Your Dishwasher Is of a Perfectly Normal Size.”

I always enjoyed looking through the Eziba catalog. When I realized I hadn’t seen one in many months, I visited the website to see what was up. The ominous closed message of “updating and remerchandising” made me quickly line up a news search — what web retailer would cut off its lifeline unless it had serious cash problems? Turns out Eziba never recovered from a mistake of immense proportions. After carefully splitting their mailing list into those most likely and least likely to make catalog purchases, they sent off their catalog to those least likely to buy instead of most likely. That major oops sent them into bankruptcy. Overstock.com picked up their assets last week for $500,000. Unfortunately the third world artisans who supplied the handcrafted products sold by Eziba are unlikely to see any of the payout.