The redesigned five dollar bill has a big purple 5 on the back. So very modern.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. has bought the rights to Emeril Lagasse’s cookbooks, television shows and kitchen products. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter with $45 million in cash and $5 million in stock handed over for Lagasse’s cookbooks, web site, licensed cookware, cutlery, tableware, electrical appliances, and food products. It does not include his restaurants.

The SweetPea3 mp3 player for preschoolers is now shipping, long after its previously announced launch as the PeaPod. It’s on the expensive side at $89.95. I’ve heard some good things about the Sansa Shaker which also has a speaker and is more affordable.

Plastic surgery may get a lot of questionable publicity in the vanity realm, but it’s not just for people trying to match some cultural ideal. The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence has a Cosmetic and Reconstructive Support Program which works with plastic surgeons to provide aesthetic procedures for free to victims of domestic violence. These surgeries are often not considered medically necessary but their value for emotional healing cannot be underestimated.

A wonderful part of the news about a kitten that was found after being lost in the New York Subway for 25 (!!) days is the report that “track workers Mark Dalessio and Efrain LaPorte went through the area making ‘meow’ sounds” in order to get her to respond. And she did.

My childhood ice skating memories take place in the outdoors on local ponds, swamps, and, for one amazingly icy week, the frozen front yard. In another nostalgic winter pasttime article, the N.Y. Times looks at the disappearing custom of outside skating, with warmer winters reducing the amount of skatable ice. The accompanying slideshow of this year’s good skating conditions recalls the hockey games, cold fingers tying skates, beginner slips, and friends with ponds, albeit with a few more helmets than were worn in my youth.

The world auction record for a musical instrument has been broken, but only Sotheby’s and the buyer know exactly by how much. The price for the violin, a Guarneri, was “well in excess” of the $3.54 million paid for a Stradivarius in 2006. New owner Maxim Viktorov loans his instrument collection out regularly and this new acquisition will be played by Pinchas Zukerman next month in Moscow.

When we were planning our wedding a few years back I’m pretty sure that Target didn’t have this set of Double Happiness Wedding accessories. The items themselves aren’t very Chinese (we used a signing cloth instead of a guest book) which makes me wonder if many non-Chinese couples decide to have Chinese-themed weddings.

I ordered a Thinkpad laptop recently and received free shipping, which I assumed was going to be of the usual “stick it on a UPS truck for a couple weeks” variety. Once I received the tracking number I settled in for a leisurely, days-long observation of my laptop’s journey. However, the trip was over almost before I knew about it. The laptop left Hong Kong on the evening of Feb 11 (their local time) and arrived on my doorstep in Washington State the morning of Feb 12. In between it went from Alaska to Ontario (so it wasn’t a straight shot over, it had to backtrack) before it arrived in Seattle. It was roughly a 28 hour travel time. That’s an amazingly short span, especially considering customs clearance (it was held up for a few hours for “REASONS BEYOND UPS’ CONTROL”), loading and unloading. I recommend John McPhee’s New Yorker article about UPS in the April 18, 2005 issue (blurb), also in his book “Uncommon Carriers,” (hardback is only $6.67 at Amazon right now) for those of you as fascinated as I am by these logistics.

While researching the ins and outs of international shipping I ran across a Logistics Magazine article (bottom of the page) about how Lush (Canadian retailer of handmade soaps and other nice smelling things that get you clean) worked with UPS to improve their shipping process to the U.S. Their Internet sales were primarily from customers in the United States and each order was handled separately and manually, including dealing with customs. As their sales grew, the process became too burdensome. UPS provided a system that consolidates their U.S. orders into one large shipment that clears customs once, and is then separated for individual delivery after arrival in the states.

A recent study found that coral exposed to chemical sunscreens died after four days. The four ingredients the tested sunscreens had in common were paraben, cinnamate, benzophenone, and a camphor derivative. The conditions used for the test did not duplicate natural reef conditions, but the study author explained that even a small dose of sunscreen caused viruses in the corol’s symbiotic algae to replicate rapidly, eventually killing off the algae and coral.