Airline gripes

Attention all airlines: if you're not going to give us room in the economy/cattlecar part of the plane, please just do away with reclining seats. Who has the right of way, the person in front who wants to recline, or the person in back who doesn't want his (precious laptop) space to be invaded? As you can guess, I was the person in back.

And while we're asking United's Santa Claus for favors, how about (1) bigger windows, and (2) actually matching up windows to the seat rows? I mean, isn't it a wasted window if it's halfway between two rows?

On a positive note, I've arrived in Chicago, and although I just heard a wail from upstairs, I suppose I can't go play with my niece until tomorrow morning.

Thrifty's Ice Cream - a proxy for age

Jenny and I stopped by Rite Aid, or the drugstore formerly known as Thrifty's. One of the things they are locally known for is a mini ice cream bar that serves what is still called Thrifty Ice Cream. I remember stopping by after school when I was in junior high for 35 cent cones of rainbow sherbet. The server would use a unique scoop to place a cylindrically shaped block of ice cream on top of the cone, and you had to remember to push down with your tongue while eating, so as to save some ice cream for when you got down to the cone part.

When Jenny moved out here, I got to introduce her to Thrifty Ice Cream. By then, the price had gone up to $0.99. In fact, you can almost date people by their earliest recollections of how much a single scoop cone cost at Thrifty's. For me, that's 35 cents, possibly a quarter, in the early '80s. But I've heard from others prices as low as a nickel or dime.

Well, today, my apricot mango sherbet single scoop cone cost me $1.19, a twenty cent increase from the previous price. And today, I feel just a bit older as another Thrifty Ice Cream price is no more.

Jeep

Found a creative banner ad today that I liked. It's notable because:
1. I normally hate ads with moving things.
2. There's a phenomenon called banner ad blindness, where people have become desensitized to banner ads and block them out while reading the content. As a result, click thru rates are deplorably low on these ads.

Anyway, the centerpiece of the ad is: o|||||||o
With the right font, this totally captures the distinctive look of the front grille of a Jeep. The banner ad takes advantage of this by emulating an IM window, with the o|||||||o being used as an emoticon.

Not sure how to pull this directly into the blog, so here's a link.

WSJ - A New Taste

Great article from the WSJ about what is essentially monosodium glutamate, or MSG. For years, the tongue was thought to only identify four tastes, sweet, salty, sour and bitter. More recently, there's been more acceptance of a fifth taste, something on the order of savory or meaty. I'd recently been talking about this with family members, and it's neat to see this so well presented by the WSJ.

I especially like the teamwork approach of adding recipes and wine pairings to a well written article. It's nice to see the WSJ innovate. (Hopefully that trend will continue under the new ownership, once Rupert Murdoch takes the helm today or tomorrow.)

Anyway, here's the article.

Stuck on the 210 Freeway

Last night, Jenny and I were stuck on the 210 freeway for an hour and a half. We went from being so thankful about carpooling, since we were zipping by traffic, to being at a complete standstill (with fifty of our closest friends) as Sheriff negotiators kept a suicide jumper from making his leap.

From the SGV Tribune:

DUARTE - A man was in custody late Tuesday night after threatening to jump from a pedestrian overpass, officials said.

Francisco Sanchez, in his late 30s, surrendered to sheriff's deputies and fire officials and was taken into custody just before 8 p.m.

The incident was reported about 6:20 p.m. on the 210 Freeway at Buena Vista Street, according to California Highway Patrol Lt. Merritt Mielke.

Sanchez cut through chain link fencing on the Broadland Avenue overpass, and pulled himself through, according to CHP Sgt. Kevin Porter.

Sanchez has done this numerous times over recent years, sheriff's and CHP officials said.

Sanchez has two prosthetic legs from when he broke both ankles jumping from an overpass on the 605 Freeway in 2003, according to a 2006 article in this newspaper.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department crisis negotiator was summoned to the scene, officials said.

Local fire departments also arrived at the scene and deployed air bags on the freeway beneath the pedestrian overpass in case the man decided to jump, Mielke said.

A Sig Alert had been issued and traffic in both directions of the 210 freeway was held up for almost two hours.

Sheriff's Temple station Lt. Mike O'Shea said he did not know exactly where Sanchez was taken Tuesday, but he said it was almost certainly a mental health facility of some kind.

"There's nothing criminal about trying to kill yourself," he said.

- Brian Day

My random musings:
- Earlier that evening, I had called the Denver shooter a coward, not only for killing others, but also for taking his own life. What a selfish act from a pathetic coward, lashing out like a little baby.
- If a person has tried numerous times to commit suicide, is it morally wrong to just pull the airbags and let him succeed? Don't get me wrong, we prayed for the man, and were content to hear that he survived.
- The freeway is really dark at night when everyone turns off their headlights.
- Why weren't we allowed to exit the freeway? We were at least 3 exits and more than 2 miles west of the incident.
- I didn't understand people who would honk out of frustration. Of course, I had the pleasant company of my wife next to me.
- We each read through our entire Google Reader lists on my Blackberry while waiting, plus we made it through the Marketplace evening report podcast.

Blogs I read

I'm curious to know what blogs you all read. I thought I'd open up this discussion with a list of some of my personal favorites.

Xanga blogs - baw5t0n for his photos, jibae and suejeanne for being thought-provoking, jammasterjake for making me laugh/shake my head.

Bottleneck Blog - in LA, traffic's a way of life
Irvine Housing Blog - great analysis of the current real estate implosion (along with lots of pictures of nice gourmet kitchens)

Fake Steve Jobs - always hilarious

A VC - musings of a New York venture capitalist
Silicon Alley Insider - news on the tech world in general, and New York's Silicon Alley in particular (bonus - written by the once-famous Henry Blodget)
WSJ's Walt Mossberg - gadgets blog

NYT's David Pogue - more gadgets blog

The three latest blogs I've begun to read:

Born Again Birdwatcher - if I ever learn to recognize birds before I die, I will die a happy man.
The Sartorialist - not sure how I came across this, but I've been feeling a desire to acquire some sense of style.
Forum Blue and Gold - Really good Lakers blog (you New Yorkers may prefer the Knickerblogger).

I'm always open to new reading suggestions. Anyone got any great blogs to share?

Why the Wii is revolutionary

The Wii is revolutionary in that it is made for non-gamers. Does it have the best graphics? No. Does it have the fastest processor? No. Does it have the most realistic looking and acting driving simulator? No. The most intense and hair-raising World War II game? Nope.

Does a 70-year old grandma care about any of the above? Nope. But can this grandma instinctively learn to Wii bowl? Yup. And that's why retirement communities are buying the game systems, even to the degree of a company called Erickson setting up multi-state tournaments across their communities.

Inducing more physical exercise would be enough reason to encourage these folks to bowl away. And any laughter and emotional uplifting would also be beneficial to their spirits.

The Symptoms

Hmm, symptoms....that's a lot of scrabulous points.

Err, I digress.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being most severe:

Thursday (late night at work):
sore throat: 2

Friday:
sore throat: 4
sinus mucus: 4
fever: 7

Saturday:
sore throat: 7
sinus mucus: 7
cough: 1
fever: 8

Sunday:
sore throat: 10
sinus mucus: 8
cough: 1
fever: 4

Monday:
sore throat: 10
sinus mucus: 8
cough: 2
fever: 3
aches: 2

Tuesday:
sore throat: 4
sinus mucus: 4
aches: 2
blocked ear: 7 (one and a half ears)

What will tomorrow bring? (Hopefully not a return of that ear blocking stuff - it's really disconcerting to be speaking to someone without knowing your personal volume level.)