flights

Just in time for Halloween, the scariest costumes for 2004. So wrong it hurts. Thanks Rebecca!

Ralph Nader
Put the fear of God in John Kerry and his Democratic supporters with this easy approximation of Green Party leader/Democratic ticket spoiler Ralph Nader. With just hand-me-down Sunday-best clothes and Grandma’s old cocktail wig, you’ve got yourself a real live Ralph Nader.

Total cost: Free!
Total time: Under 15 minutes.

Singapore, of course, is notorious for being being a boringly sterile land of laws. I’ll have to get back to you on that, but in such a harsh legal climate, one would expect smoking to be outlawed. It’s not, but you could say it’s strongly discouraged:

The cigarette packs themselves convey a pretty strong anti-smoking message. Rather than a wordy Surgeon General’s warning (USA) or a direct declaration like “SMOKING KILLS” (UK and Canada), the packs here devote half their surface area to actual pictures of mouth cancer… ew.

My first impression of Singapore, actually, is that it’s a boringly sterile land of malls. Last night, for example, we asked our concierge to recommend a nice restaurant that wasn’t inside a mall, and he said, “all of our restaurants are in malls. It’s the Singapore way.” I suppose it’s not such a bad thing, considering the good stuff you can get in the food courts here… yum:

So, everything they say about Singapore Airlines is true. The level of in-flight service was far beyond anything I’ve experienced. The food was excellent, the entertainment selection was massive, and the flight attendendants seemed to be able to read minds – bringing green tea and fresh fruit, for example, just when it was most needed. I was too embarassed to take pictures, but I promise to try to get over that on the return flight.

Continuing the trend, this hotel, the Conrad Centennial Hilton, is defintely one of the nicest I’ve stayed in. Some of the amenities…

nice view	pillow menu	rubber ducky

mmmmm… buckwheat pillows.

For some reason we can’t remember, we decided to fly Singapore Airlines out of LAX instead of SFO, which meant we had to create our own connecting flight on the front end. It meant we could fly from the US to Singapore nonstop, but it also added a few hours to the overall journey.

A quick poll of the team suggests this route was the client’s recommendation. We followed it without questioning it, and Tracy and I vowed to take this as a lesson learned. We want to bring imagination and brave new thinking to this project, and we won’t do that if we just blindly follow the recommendations of others.

Tracy: Before (looking fabulous)	Tracy: After (looking only slightly less fabulous)

Yahoo! has made available a “beta” version of a proposed new home page. The main improvement I see is their reorganization of their various web properties (News, Sports, People Search, Personals, etc.) into a simple alphabetical list:

Previously, these were grouped into blurry categories like “Connect, Organize, Fun…” Other changes include a general visual design refresh of the icons and module wrappers, and a demotion of the Directory.

Monday. That means all-you-can-eat dim sum style pizza tonight at Goat Hill Pizza! Basically, that means they serve all their regular pizza varieties, but they walk around like dim sum servers, offering little slices to the salivating throng.

And pizza, of course, means… beer!

Beer lovers, check out RateBeer.com, the creation and pet project of one Joseph Tucker. I interviewed him once, for a job at Vodafone. He was tremendously qualified – far too qualified to work for the likes of me – and he seemed like a super nice guy. He told me he created the site simply as a place where he and a few friends could talk about their favorite beers, and now…

“RateBeer is widely recognized as the most accurate and most-visited source for beer information. RateBeer is an independent world site for craft beer enthusiasts and is dedicated to serving the entire craft beer community through beer education, promotion and outreach.”
Continue reading ‘dim sum pizza’ »

Hey, photo-loving friends…

In the last few days, the xBlog has pointed to three very nice photography resources:

The New York Times Store > Photographs :: “The New York Times Photo Archives contains historic images carefully preserved over the past 100 years — one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of photographs in the world. Search from more than 1,100 images online, or contact us to find images not yet posted. These classic photographs are sold as exhibition-quality archival prints, and are also available in custom print options that offer exciting design possibilities.”

file magazine : a collection of unexpected photography :: “The purpose of FILE is to collect and display photographs that treat subjects in unexpected ways. Alternate takes, odd angles, unconventional observations — these are some of the ways photographs collected in FILE reinterpret traditional genres. We leave the Kodak Moments to the family album, the glossy fashion spreads to Vogue, and the photo finishes to ESPN. Rather than taking the well-trod paths, we veer to left and get a different perspective.”

morgueFile : where photo reference lives :: “The morguefile contains photographs freely contributed by many artists to be used in creative projects by visitors to the site. To acknowledge the artist’s accomplishments, we ask that you credit the photographer when possible. Any questions regarding liabilities should be directed to the specific photographer.”

It’s been his show all night
the man who can talk as long as you want
about any subject you choose:

Driving. He laughs inappropriately
telling you about the woman killed in her car
by a single falling rock.
Continue reading ‘we laugh’ »

A group calling themselves gravity monkey has gone mobile with FundRace‘s geo-coded FEC data. They’ve created a Java app called red | blue (pronounced “red or blue”) that can tell you whether or not you’re standing in enemy territory.

This week at TheFeature.com, Howard Rheingold writes about Microsoft’s A.U.R.A. research project:

“Smith pointed me toward another example in his kitchen that he had discovered himself when he first started clicking around – Kellogg’s Cracklin’ Oat Bran. One of the top links for that breakfast cereal revealed that a mislabeled early batch had failed to disclose dairy and egg content, which could have been fatal to anyone with severe allergies.”