Here’s a cool article I found summing up this chaotic year of 2008 with photography. I was pretty much speechless after many of these photographs, so I’ll just let them speak for themselves. WARNING: There are some graphic images. And you can find captions for the images here at the original article.

For those of you that’ve been reading my blog for a while, I wrote a review a long time ago on the Tesla. It’s a plug in electric car that was developed out here in California. Now that it’s come out, I found a good video from Top Gear where Jeremy Clarkeson compares it against the Lotus Elise. I think the chassis is based on the Elise, making it a good comparison of electric versus gasoline.

Heres a good article on the 5 most popular internet deal sites. I know its pretty last minute….but as long as you order it by sometime this week, you can probably get those gifts before Christmas. I’ve used 2 out of the 5, Slickdeals and Fatwallet. Slickdeals is one of the easier ones by just scanning the front page. Fatwallet is good as well, but it can take a bit more digging around to find deals that you’re looking for. One of the keys to using these sites is reading all the feedback that comments give you. It’s an easy way to do some online research with a bargain hunters mindset.

Wow…this just a weird product. A British company has decided to launch a some pre-chewed pencils. Their reasoning behind the product is that children are getting distracted in school by chewing their own pencils. Thus, children will be less likely to chew these pre-chewed pencils, and concentrate more on school. I don’t know if this actually makes sense to me. I almost think it may encourage children to chew their pencils more. Sure, it may stop children that find a pre-chewed pencil from chewing on it more. But if they know they bought the pencil new….why not add to its character…and chew it up some more.

I was looking for something to write about, and I saw this article about the craziest intersections. Given, I do enjoy the cheaper gas prices, but it seems like the traffic around LA is directly related to the gas prices. Yesterday was nonsense for a Tuesday in LA. But after seeing this article, I guess I can’t complain too much.

There are definitely some worse places to be driving than LA. I don’t know if I’d ever be able to make a left turn in this intersection….

even after reading this diagram. Then the second part of the article shows some of the worse traffic jams that happen in these complex intersections.

I just saw this article predicting that gasoline prices will drop to a dollar a gallon sometime early next year. Six months ago, this is something that we all would have killed for. But now that its possible, its sort of brings up mixed feelings. I mean, it’s great and all for the final consumers. But at the same time, it just goes to show how bad our economy really is.
Here’s the original article that I found this in. I won’t list all the numbers regarding our economy because they’re kind of depressing if you ask me. But feel free to read the original article if you’d like. For now, I guess we can take the gas prices as a victory..and maybe a little jump start to getting our economy back on track.

First I just wanted to thank everyone that came out to Bloomingdale’s on Saturday. Especially those of you that bought some Sneaker Deluxe’s.

And to conclude the Jump Campaign, here’s the last one of the series, Easy Rider.

Rob Spence, a Canadian filmmaker is planning on installing a wireless camera inside his eye. I don’t know about you guys, but that just seems a little too weird for me. Honestly, I don’t really see what all the hype is with these web camera shows that follow people around 24/7 (justin.tv, etc.). Is it really that entertaining to follow people around 24/7? I guess it’s sort of like a second life for some people. Regardless, Rob seems to be taking it to a whole other level. Given he already lost his vision in one eye, but it seems like it would have a weird effect on everyone around him as well. Now they’ll all know that they’re being recorded whenever they’re in the presence of Rob.

On another positive note, I just wanted to remind everyone that I’ll be at Bloomingdales at the Beverly Center tomorrow (Saturday) from 2-4 pm. So come stop by if you’re in the area.

Here’s a cool article that goes through the origins of something we all see, yet we probably never really think about the origins of. It goes through six of the most common Hollywood Studio Logos. Even though it’s not nearly as iconic as the rest of them, I’d have to say that the Dreamworks intro is my favorite.

It just stirs some excitement that you’re either going to see some crazy animation or a wild adventure from Mr. Spielberg. For the MGM, I bet you guys didn’t know that they’re on the fifth lion, and that his name is Leo.

Checkout the article for more in depth descriptions on the origins of each logo.

        Being in the restaurant business, my perspective on a dining establishment is two fold. Two questions are explored- Is the food good? And how does the overall business work? If the food is good, people will basically come back. Even if people get bad service, as long as its not outrageous, people will come back if the food is good. For example, how many times have you gone back to that Chinese Restaurant that just had ludicrous service, but the food was delicious? I know I’m guilty. But if the food is just slightly bad, then why ever go back? And then there’s the business…how profitable a restaurant is, is due to many factors, but mainly product, service, and overall efficiency of the preparation of the food equals X. Boiling Crab in Alhambra seems to have built on these two factors very well in my opinion. There is usually an hour wait during the week to eat at this place and even longer on the weekends. It is a Southern styled Vietnamese steamed seafood joint that has taken a simple concept to complete success. You basically order a bag of various weights (depending on your party) of shrimp, crab, lobster, corn, sausages, and or crayfish in its respective southern seasoning and you eat it. Yes, they literally give you a plastic bag of boiled food in the sauce you choose and you eat. So simple, so delicious, so efficient.