American Madness

Hillary Clinton is once again hurt by a high-profile sex scandal.

Thanks to Eliot Spitzer’s (aka Client 9) rendezvous with a petite, brunette, American woman-of-the-night named “Kristen,” in a Washington D.C. hotel room, his resignation from office is eminent. Sources tell the Associated Press an official resignation announcement will come today (March 12) at 11:30 am EST.

Once Spitzer steps down, he will be replaced by his Lieutenant Governor David Paterson. David Paterson’s post will then be filled by the president of the New York State Senate Joseph Bruno. Bruno is a Republican and is not a fan of Spitzer (to say the least) (Bruno was to be steamrolled by our philandering governor).

So what does all of this have to do with Hillary? (more…)

First we have the noodle bar trend that we mentioned the other week, this has been going on for a bit and seems to be hitting its stride, what we have cropping up now is a trend in food on the move:

Of course we have the original Mister Softie, a NYC classic, not much needs to be said about it, but clearly that isn’t up to snuff for the foodies of New York.

Following a similar model we had Treats Truck, serving up really nice cookies, and definitely a step-up from Mister Softee with great desserts. I am a huge fan of them. I have no complaints about the Treats Truck. I even have them on speed dial so I can find out where they are on any given day. They even had set up a little “Customer of the Month” section.

Now, of course, since the model for high-end mobile desserts has proven successful, here come the imitators:

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Reflecting upon Cook. Eat. Drink. Live., I noticed a bit of a trend developing amongst mixed drinks.

Herb’s Vodka flavors their vodkas with rosemary, dill, coriander and fennel.

DH Krahn Gin was serving a Basil Martini.

U’Luvka Vodka had a drink that called for fresh rosemary and another on their website that calls for sage leaf

And of course there is always the mojito with fresh mint.

I think this is going to be the summer of the herbed drinks. To get you started on mixing the perfect summer cocktail, here are a few recipes that you can work on to get you through the winter and look forward to what awaits: (more…)

I know you all thought my ranting about the Green Movement (1, 2, 3 to name a few) and lack of sincerity behind it was just that, ranting. But look around now. After all the fuss that was made back in May and June about how important it is in this day and age to “go Green,” notice how much follow up there has been.

Every now and then you will see a poster up on a bus stop or in the subway urging you to switch to Compact Fluorescent Lights (which, by the way, I have no complaints about after 4 months of usage) and you hear about a run on canvas bags at Whole Foods (though, that was more because of the designer’s name than the idea behind the bag), but the steam behind the movement seems to have exhausted itself.

You may recall that I said this was going to happen, that the reason I ranted over all of these half-assed rushed articles is because they were pushing a movement that wasn’t strong enough to be pushed yet. Now, Green has become the buzz word of Summer ‘07. People can rest assured knowing that it will in no way influence elections in ‘08 and feel like they are doing their part for the environment by shutting off their lights when they leave their apartment (which, Green or not, people should do anyway; it cuts down on your electric bill and prolongs the life of your light bulbs).

Now, when the next group picks up the torch for the Green Movement people will be less receptive, it will be a reiteration of everything from this past summer and folks will just tune out. Kudos to sites like Tree Hugger that existed before the summer fad of going Green and will keep on keeping on.

Oh, and let me leave you with this tip–Just because a car company claims that they are doing their part by producing a plethora of Hybrid cars that are 40% better (for the environment) than their regularly produced cars, people still need to buy the hybrids for this to make a difference. It might help if the company stopped producing the gas-only version of the car or, think what this could lead to, stopped producing gas-only cars altogether.

I’d heard rumors about some delicious Indian Mangoes and how much better they were then what we usually get here in the U.S.. Sweeter tasting and more flavorful then the mangoes we’ve been getting. Indian Mangoes proved to be a forbidden fruit in the U.S. due to a beetle that hides out in the mangoes and could be dangerous to crops. This has been the case for the last 20 years at least.

This past year the ban was lifted and starting last spring the Indian Mangoes have been making their way into the U.S. (as long as they are irradiated to kill the weevil within). Apparently though I am getting this information at just the wrong time.

Indian Mango season lasts from May to July. The last harvested crops are making their way here now, so if you like mangoes, while these might be slightly pricier (selling at up to 5 times as much as Mexican and Caribbean mangoes), go out hunting and see if you can’t find one before the season ends and they are gone until next may.

Was, from what I heard, a pretty awful movie. So bad in fact it only had two sequels (I believe they were both straight to DVD, kind of like the Darkman sequels).

Skull-a-Day is a blog that features just that, anew skull image every day. Some of the images are user submitted, some are quite original (like the ASCII skull, super creative and detailed).

If you’re into skulls, check it out, some fun and creative images (and, of course, some you have seen before).

So, yesterday I posted about MyFrienemies. Today’s social network is for colour enthusiasts.

ColourLovers is a place to go to to talk about colors, your favorite palette, recent trends and fads in colors and the influence colours have. they are “a resource that monitors and influences color trends… a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news, and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.” I guess ideally it is a place for people who deal with color on a daily basis, designers, artists, etc.

But it is also cool to check out different color palettes, see what is new and hot in the world of color, and if you are a color lover, chat with folks with similar interests and debate the merits of Forest Green over Pine Green. If you love colors and are looking for folks to talk to, or are just repainting a room this could be an interesting resource to check out.

Everything these days is going to the designer route- Designer shoes, clothes, makeup, cellphones, even dogs. So, really, it was only a matter of time before the designer cat market really sprung up.

Lifestyle Pets is where to go when you want the most exclusive in pets. They currently sell Ashera cats billed as “the world’s rarest and most exotic breed of domestic cat” they can weigh upwards of 30lbs and, unlike most cats don’t mind being walked on a leash. Lifestyle Pets has come up with a proprietary cross breeding process to produce the cats and watch the genetic markers as they develop to ensure that the cats all have the spots and stripes. Although there is a 9-12 month wait to get your paws* on one of these babies, that will really give you the time to pull together the $22,000 you will need to drop to own one, though for an additional $6,000 they will have one to you in 4-6 months.

Currently Lifestyle Pets is working on “developing a new breed of very small dog.” We’ll keep you posted on that one

*sorry, couldn’t resist

In the beginning there was Archie. The there was Veronica and Jughead. No, we aren’t talking about the Senior Class at Riverdale High, those are the names of what are considered to be the first 3 search engines. Since those days, Search Engines have come a long way.

Most people when searching on the web today go for the biggies- Google.com, MSN.com, Yahoo.com, these are your typicalsearch engines, pulling up a long list of entries to search form.

But now there is a new group of search engines hitting the block. Visual search engines are becoming all the rage these days, engines like KartOO and Quintura present us with a whole new way to search for information. Instead of listing out entries and possible suggestions, it visually lumps thing together, showing you related search terms you might want to consider or further research. While old folks like myself might not be totally about these new fangled searches, we all might want to just take a moment to familiarize ourselves with them, you know so we don’t look totally lost when chatting with those Millenials.

(Archie picture courtesy of Robby Reed’s www.dialbforblog.com.)

Ever fly?
Ever get panicked that the air blowing on you from that overhead nozzle is filled with germs? No? Well me either…

But for those germaphobes out there that have felt that way there is now a product to filter the air blowing on you. The Plane Clean Air Filter is just what you have been waiting for. It conveniently fits over the nozzle and filters out something like 99% of the germs and bacteria blowing on you.

I’ll refrain from pointing out that just because you filter your own air doesn’t mean that you aren’t being exposed to, well everyone else’s air on the plane. What the Plane Clean Air Filter is really missing is a hose that runs from the nozzle to a regulator, plus a nose clip, thus ensuring that the air you breath is only the purified air. Oh, they also have info from a site called Travel Germs, a site clearly meant for the germaphobes out there afraid to travel and just looking for an excuse not to leave their homes. Unfortunately, for the time being it only comes in blue.