A NY Times critic attempts to judge the acoustics of the new Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. The verdict: Carnegie Hall is still tops. Verizon Hall has “a tendency to favor bass tones, a brass-heavy imbalance among the instruments, a sense that that sound, though present, is diffuse.” But there is still fine tuning that can be done. The hall’s canopy and 100 acoustical closets are adjustable, not to mention the orchestra itself is adjusting to the new environment. And, the critic admits, there’s a psychological difference that can’t really be quantified. But not too many people will have the chance, as he did, to hear the same exact program with the same musicians, performed on consecutive nights in the two halls. Verizon Hall will probably do just fine. Bonus: Take a peek at the construction of their immense organ which will eventually have 6,465 pipes. It is scheduled to be completed in 2005; they had the façade installed early so it would be visually ready for the opening of the hall.

And, as they say, now for something completely different… take a peek at rehearsals for Hairspray, the musical based on the John Waters movie of the same name, through the lens of photographer Jill Krementz. Harvey Fierstein plays Tracy Turnblad’s mom, the role Divine had in the movie. Hairspray will have a run in Seattle before heading to Broadway.

The earthquake was probably the worst I’ve been in (I moved here in 1991), and it was scary for a few seconds while we waited to see if it would get worse. But it subsided soon enough. I’ve usually experienced quakes from a few floors up, so it will be interesting to feel one from a ground floor one day. Remember: if the building is swaying, that’s a good sign! They’re designed that way.

“redfox” and “snarkout” always create yummy vegetarian dishes, and now they are publishing their meal exploits in The Hungry Tiger. Who says tigers can’t be satisfied without meat?

There will be no more drive-bys of late night host David Letterman’s New Canaan abode for the present and future students of my former high school. He’s finally moved into the Westchester house he purchased in 1994. Some Connecticut columnists have pulled out their own top 10 lists to celebrate or mourn his departure. His new neighbors report that he doesn’t wave back while he’s jogging. Well, I know he did wave back a couple times in his old neighborhood, so maybe the wavers need to keep trying.

The Minneapolis – St. Paul Star Tribune printed an interesting article on how department store merchandise travels from the full-price displays down to sale and clearance racks, then on to discounters like TJ Maxx and finally charity organizations and the rag company. Retailers prefer to avoid the landfill because of the cost of dumping trash (good!). Some upscale stores don’t like to have drastically reduced merchandise sitting next to their full-priced goods so they ship items off to their outlet stores as soon as it hits a certain price point. Retailers who worry that the merchandise they have unloaded on a liquidator will find their way back to their own returns counter often sell their remainders in a different area of the country. Beyond charities like Goodwill there are thrift stores that actually buy merchandise from charities (selling it for profit), and the “rag man.” (via Bird on a Wire)

Newly launched: A Pepsi Blue Weblog.

At the end of this article about Bay Area hikers climbing nine local peaks in nine days was the tantalizing command “try a search on ‘Dinesh Desai’ to reach an amusing page on Desai’s interactions with NPR’s ‘Car Talk’ show.” I couldn’t pass up a chance to be amused by those Car Talk guys. So here is the easy-to-find page (why they didn’t just link it I don’t know) where you can hear the original phone call from Dinesh asking the guys what to expect from keeping three cars in the Death Valley for 12 days in the middle of the summer. And then you can follow along on his nice little hike through Death Valley (with photo captions provided by Click and Clack. I’m not sure they’ve figured out what his wife sees in him).

From the era of the steamship, before jet airplanes eliminated the need for steamer trunks, comes the vintage luggage label. Designed to function as routing labels for hotels and oceanliners, the labels became symbols of wealth and status. Railroads and airlines also issued their own labels. But the advent of jets and faster travel times eliminated the use of trunks and their accompanying labels. Now coveted collectibles, these labels, like any collectible, vary in price according to condition, subject, and aesthetics. Richter & Co is a well-known printer of these little bits of art. How much will my boring bar-coded airport routing tags be worth in the future? (via dollarshort.org)

“Consumers connect Pepsi to blue. That light shade of blue is a Pepsi equity,” so says their Senior VP of Marketing about Diet Pepsi’s new look. Adbusters reported back in 1998 that Pepsi intended to “trademark the particular shade of blue that coats its products around the globe.” That wasn’t the same shade as Diet Pepsi blue, but their marketing project “Project Blue” had a clear goal of distinguishing themselves with a color. Now comes the news that they will be selling an actual blue-colored soft drink with the name Pepsi Blue. The target consumer is 16 year old males. The flavor is like cola mixed with raspberry. The color is reportedly “reminiscent of Windex.” I can tell I’m not in the target market. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola debuted Vanilla Coke in a nice little Connecticut town after finding the local Vanilla Bean Cafe listed on the Internet.