It must be 20 minutes into the future again. Max Headroom is back, shilling for the UK’s Channel 4, his original home.

Will the Nordstrom piano player soon be as rare as spats and handkerchiefs? Five years ago, years ago, three quarters of the Nordstrom stores had a live pianist providing shopping accompaniment. Today it’s half. The decision to drop the pianist in favor of recorded music is up to the individual store. It’s a great gig for a pianist and adds such a unique, classy touch. Although the Bellevue Square Nordstrom has dropped their piano player, the mall itself has a pianist playing in the center stairway, so all is not yet lost.

The Peapod MP3 player for infants and preschoolers made the newsrounds early this year, and now it appears to be ready for purchase, renamed the SweetPea 3.

Don’t drink and shop. S.U.I. is hazardous to the wallet, even when online shopping. But at least you can usually return your purchases.

Have you seen the Cal Band’s video game halftime show? It’s nifty. Pong, Tetris, Mortal Kombat, Pokemon, Zelda, Mario. (Stanford & USC folks, you may want to skip this… unless you can ignore the vanquishing of your mascots.)

The wonderful thing about this photo gallery of Snoqualmie Pass’ first snow of the season is a couple shots of people experiencing snow for the very first time in their lives.

Ann Vileisis’ “Kitchen Literacy” takes a look at the history of food in America, what people ate at home and how the ingredients got to the kitchens. She examines how the problem of transporting live cattle to cities resulted in mass-produced dressed beef, the acceptance of canned foods, the rise of brand names, and how much closer cooks were to the source of food in earlier times.

Ovation TV is showing four versions of The Nutcracker ballet during the month of December, culminating in a Christmas Eve viewer’s choice and a marathon of all four back-to-back on Christmas Day. The different performances, in order from traditional to “out there” are: a 1989 performance by the Bolshoi Ballet, Peter Martins’ 1993 film of George Balanchine’s version(little Macaulay Culkin is the Nutcracker Prince), Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker! from 2003, and, my favorite as it’s the only one I’ve seen live, Mark Morris’ The Hard Nut.

As is the case with many parents-to-be, the Baby Bargains book was our shopping bible when we were expecting and for a year or so afterwards. We received ours from a friend who felt it was a new parent imperative. This in-depth account of Alan and Denise Fields, the couple behind Baby Bargains, tags along with them on a research trip to Babies’r’Us (which refuses to carry Baby Bargains) and tells of the genesis of their first book, Wedding Bargains, and the distaste most manufacturers and retailers have for their advice. Their practical approach is what made my copy so well-thumbed. We’re the type of parents who keep the diapers out in plain sight in the super-economy box they came in. We never bought Toddler Bargains though, and apparently no one else did either since it’s being discontinued, and as the article says “when children reach that age, their parents ‘run out of time to read.'” (via Pop Culture Junkmail)

Animals live longer in the zoo than in the wild, and that means zoos need to provide extra care and attention for their elderly population. Several senior occupants of Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo get special heating pads and perches, glucosamine and other medications to make life easier. The older animals also get crankier, just like us.