Pithy Title Here

Just came upon this little nugget from Space.com (via Yahoo! News) and, I'm such a geek, I thought it outstanding. Basically, tonight, you'll be able to look into the sky all night and see the planet Venus (just below the moon all night) and - just after sunset - Mercury and Jupiter. NOW for the cool part: "Venus is so bright you can see it during daylight if you know where to look. Given Venus' proximity to the moon on New Year's Eve, this would be an excellent moment -- just before sunset -- to use the moon to help you find Venus and gain bragging rights for being one of the few people to be able to claim seeing more than one planet during the daytime (Earth being the other one)." That's pretty flipping cool if you ask me. And what better way to start ringing in the new year by contemplating just how small we all are in this universe and yet we spend our time worrying about money and war most of the time. The universe could care less.

This is either the best song ever or the worst, and, since the second time I heard it, I've thought the former. I'm guessing you are going to hate it. And then it will be stuck in your head. And then you will adore it. And hate yourself a little for doing so. As such, it might fit the definition of a perfect pop song. Thats Not My Name - The Ting Tings

My sister-in-law and I inadvertently started a holiday tradition three Christmases ago when we made a gingerbread house together. We both enjoy baking, so we have the skills, but we also seem to work well together on this sort of thing. We started simple that year: a basic house. It did have a pretzel-stick split-rail fence, mini marshmallow snowman and life-cereal thatch roof. It was an honest triumph. It went so well we spent a lot of 2007 thinking about what to do last Christmas and we made a gingerbread carousel. This was MUCH more complicated. We could have taken the easy route and just made two large gingerbread circles and gone from there, but we wanted a slanted roof. So we made to equal hexagons, made triangles to go on top as a roof and supported the whole damn thing with candy canes. It was not easy. But we pulled it off. This year, we did something technically easier, which gave us greater ability to experiment with some things. First off, Maggie read about how to

Dear readers, I hope you are enjoying the break. We've been gifting, drinking and generally carrying on all week. Life is good. Stories to relate... all soon. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Tune Day coming early this week (since it's technically still Monday here), but that beats it not being there at all like the past few weeks. With Christmas Eve upon us, I give you a song that made the mix this year... but is just hopelessly catchy and lovely. Enjoy! The Christmas Song - The Raveonettes Next week, we're done with holiday tunes

With the conclusion of my flight home from Ft. Lauderdale Friday, I qualified (in four short months) for preferred silver status on US Air. On the US Air homepage this means I get a little silver icon next to my name when I sign in. In practice it means more. Let's see: First class upgrades. Sure, this is on an as-available basis. But even once in a while would be a treat. And, if Sarah & I travel together it counts for her, too. Reserve choice seats free. US Air charges $10 to sit in the awesome coach seats at the airport. As in you check in and see an awesome seat at the window in an empty row... but you cannot get it unless you pay. Not for me anymore. No checked bag fees. Ever. For me and for Sarah. WIN. Priority security lanes in most US Airways airports. ALWAYS board in Zone 2. This is HUGE. US Airways overhead compartments fill up due to not being big enough on some planes and people being idiots on others. This means virtually never having to store my b

The scene: Gate E5 of Ft. Lauderdale -Hollywood International airport. About 12:15 p.m. today. The players: Unattractive, older married couple. The husband walks up and sits next to his wife... Wife (loudly so the entire gate area can hear): You said you were going to the bathroom and you were gone 15 minutes! Husband: (quiet speaking) Wife (again, with volume): You worry about me?! I'm worried about you! We're about to board! Where are you? And I can't have a cigarette until 6 p.m.! You think I get stressed out and today you do this when I cannot even have a cigarette! Husband: (quiet speaking) Wife (many decibels): I don't know. We haven't been communicating well this week! I'm not sure any more that you're even listening to anything I say and you go running off to the bathroom and I can't have a cigarette. What are you trying to do to me? Needless to say, I was beginning to understand why this guy's trip to the bathroom took a quarter-

I have come to love the works of Malcolm Gladwell . His first book, The Tipping Point , was of special interest to me given my interest in PR. The theory (part of the larger concept of the "diffusion" of ideas) is that there comes a moment where everything that ever "catches on" - a new product or a disease - comes to a moment where it spreads like an epidemic. I always think of the iPod . One day on the NY subway in 2002, I saw someone with one. A year later EVERYONE had one. His second book, Blink , basically examines how our snap judgments are usually right on. These are gross oversimplifications of both books, but Gladwell takes these topics and, in an extremely accessible manner, breaks them down. I finish his books in about two days. His new one, though, is the one I want to talk about. The book is called Outliers: The Story of Success . It is currently the #6 seller on Amazon. Here's the thing... we tend to think of successful people a certain wa

Sarah and I have been discussing where we should take a trip next year and we've both decided that, since the economy is bound to continue to bite, we're going wherever we get the best deal. Airfare & hotel in a European rail hub for $250/person? Sign. Me. Up. At the same time, I've got a friend wondering where she should use her frequent flyer miles to go. She's trying to base this on the 1,000 Places to See Before You Die book. At the same time, another friend of our and her husband are taking a trip to El Paso , TX to catch Pitt play in the Sun Bowl. They are extending their trip to spend quite a bit of time in New Mexico, which is awesome. This friend, however, mentioned they were going to take a day-trip to Mexican border town Ciudad Juarez . Take it away Wikipedia : "Recent murders in the city have grown not only in numbers, but also in barbarity. A man recently was found near a school hanging from a fence with a pig's mask on his face, and an

Some days, when I want to feel old, I don't think about how I just turned 30. I think how Pearl Jam is preparing for it's 20-year anniversary in 2011. (I have to admit, I am going to get that version of Ten that includes "Brother." This has to happen.) Anyhow, it's hard for me to believe that my teeny- bopper days are that far gone. And then today, I come to this story . The basics: the baby who was swimming naked on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind ? That dude is 17! And apparently making money off his album cover notoriety. What troubled me more about this particular story, though, was this atrociously-written lead, which wants, very badly, to be clever: "All apologies, but here we are now, 17 years after Nirvana's breakthrough album irreversibly changed music, and the naked baby pictured on its cover is still chasing dollars." See that? See how the writer worked not one but TWO Nirvana song references into the lead? If he had stuck wi

Just about a year ago, Charlotte opened it's first rail line, the LYNX Blue Lin e . It was a big deal for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which being that it has far-surpassed the ridership forecasts its supporters had (much to the chagrin of people who think we should just pave more highway b/c, as Los Angeles has shown us, more lanes means traffic moves. Oh, wait...). Anyhow, I just did a tally. I've kept most of my train tickets for the year just for this purpose. Give or take a few trips on top of this, I have spent $51.10 on transportation from South Charlotte to Uptown. Parking is free at the transit stops. That's about 19 trips Uptown. Usually, parking up there can run anywhere from $5-$10, depending. So let's say, conservatively, if I had driven instead of taken the train, I would have spent $133 on parking up there. That's uh... some savings over driving. Furthermore, it's about a 20-mile round trip to Uptown. I get 40 miles/gallon on the h

Chrismukkah has arrived in Charlotte. Halls are decked. Trees are decorated. Dreidels located.

I am in the midst of a fascinating book by Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us) and I highly recommend it for the non-fiction fan on your gift list. Basically, this isn't a book on how to drive better. It is an analysis of the way we drive. For instance, have you ever been frustrated on the freeway to be clipping along at 60, slam on your brakes and sit there stopped for 2 mins , slowly get back up to 60 only to have it happen again... but see no reason for this? No accident or anything? Vanderbilt, using research and sources countrywide, tells you why this happens. Some of the interesting things that this book has already pointed out: Doesn't matter where you are in the world, whether you drive to work in LA or walk to work in an African village... your total commute time is likely around 1.1 hours round trip. Just about half an hour each way. In fact, if you look at how cities have grown, they've generally grown as far out

I love that I have family and friends that could use a full time job and the government is doing nothing to bail them out, but they're considering handing over billions of dollars to American automakers. And let's be clear here... if there's one industry that has run a WORSE business than America's banks the past few years, it's our Detroit-based automakers. And these two industries are getting the bulk of the taxpayer-funded bailout? Amazing. It's like "you've done a bad job... congrats! Here's money!" When I first moved to NYC, I had a car payment. After three months of living there, I opened up the ol ' checkbook and realized that if I wanted to have cash, I needed to ditch the car. Like, less than $200 in the checking account. I called mom & dad. Their "bailout" for me, which I found RATHER generous considering I had made some poor decisions was: 1) to give me $100 to handle incidental expenses and 2) to find out w

Even my contacts in Florida are saying it's cold. So, today, I remind you to keep the holiday season, uh, "dandy" with this little ditty: Little Drummer Boy - The Dandy Warhols