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How to eat sushi (like a CEO)

Too bad the Matt Dillion sketch on SNL didn't live up to its potential, IMHO. Thanks for WFMU for providing a link to a 31 MB video introduction to "the Japanese Tradition: Sushi."

Book a private jet seat, Priceline style

From the Boston Globe:

BEDFORD -- Private aviation, once an option only for the rich and famous, now has a company that's the equivalent of Priceline.com, the ''name your price" online flight-booking service.

OneSky Network serves as the Web link between passengers and companies that operate more than 1,500 private jets. And starting this morning, OneSky will be the focus of a big new promotional campaign at -- where else? -- Priceline.com.

The company, which has been ramping up operations and now has about 200 regular customers who fly out of Hanscom Field and other private airports, lets business and vacation travelers shop for prices up to 50 percent off market rates for seats on private flights that would otherwise be operating empty.

In what it calls an ''ultimate upgrade" sweepstakes, Priceline will award five people who book regular commercial airline tickets or hotel rooms through the website between now and May 8 free travel, worth up to $30,000, on private planes flown by OneSky affiliates.

How to make flying even more like ground transport- ads on the overhead bins

First, ads on trays. Now, via adrants, Ironic Sans muses about the idea of advertising on overhead bins: "I’m not even sure I should file this under 'Ideas.' Maybe I need a category called 'Predictions.' This seems sort of inevitable to me."

Note Dr. Zizmor in the upper left! 

Super size me, Prague style: follow-up

Not only were the folks at Jaunted nice enough to pick up my link in the first place, but they're nice enough to do what I'm too busy/lazy to do- actually follow-up  on things!

Slav Sheds Spare Tire Super Sizing

I see beer cheese in my future...

 

Newcomers to Japan appear on TV to say what they find 'cool'

From Japan Today:

What's cool about Japan? The premise of the new NHK-BS program called “Cool Japan” is that first impressions offer the best clues. It’s a reasonable assumption. The Japanese themselves, like natives anywhere, take their environment too much for granted to know. Long-term foreigners — like long-term foreigners everywhere — are probably too jaded to think anything’s cool.

Enter the wide-eyed newcomer. His or hers are the eyes that see what others miss. The program format confronts moderator Shoji Kokami with 10 greenhorn gaijin — anyone in the country longer than six months need not apply. Naturally, there’s a language barrier, and so Kokami is assisted by simultaneous interpreters. Budgetary constraints making it impossible for NHK to hire qualified interpreters versed in all the native languages of all the short-term foreigners in Japan, the choice of guests is restricted to those speaking English.

The program debuts in April. Writing in Spa! (April 4), Kokami tells us how things are going so far. The first program will deal with the Japanese home. What is cool about the Japanese home? Four things above all: tatami, sliding fusuma doors, high-tech toilets, and — slippers.

It's not just americans getting fatter: "Heftier Australia may give boost to toilets"

From the AP/Houston Chronicle: 

Heftier Australia may give boost to toilets

SYDNEY, Australia  — Toilets may need to get sturdier as a result of the country's increasingly obese population.

Standards Australia, a nongovernment group that establishes safety and design standards, is considering recommending stronger loos for larger users, a spokeswoman said Tuesday

The current industry standard for toilet seats is 100 pounds, and Standards Australia is looking to increase it to 330 pounds, spokeswoman Kate Evans said.

           

Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos meets "donuteatin' cops" in Greenpoint

A few years ago, Franz Ferdinand was supposed to play in Greenpoint (Warsaw was the alternate venue for a show at Volume, but I think Volume reopened in time for the show). Looks like Alex Kapranos still made it to Greenpoint. From his food column in the Guardian, he visits the Peter Pan bakery cafe, a 1/2 block from my apartment:

Soundbites

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Donut delights    

Alex Kapranos
Friday, March 17, 2006

   "You dumb donuteatin' cop!" Officer Constantine cuffs Officer Kuchner playfully on the back of the head. Kuchner is flirting in Polish with the girl behind the counter of the Peter Pan Donut and Pastry Shop on Manhattan Boulevard, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She wears a green A-line dress with pastel-pink cuffs and collar. Heavy lashes flicker over her eyes. Constantine is tall. Cheekbones strike boldly from a proud handsome African- American face. He takes his cap off. A photo of his mother is under the cracked plastic label inside. It is shift change at the 94th precinct on Messerole around the corner.

I order an Old Fashioned and a coffee: $1.70. Officers Sanchez and Suarez show each other pictures of their kids. Heavy flashlights and dull metal pistols hang from their belts. The lashy waitress fills my cup. It is identical to eight million others in delis across the city: blue with a Grecian urn on the side and "We Are Happy To Serve You" written in Hellenic script. That's not always true. She likes my accent. I like hers more - Polish/Brooklyn vowels singing the unknown. Green plastic letters punctuated by shamrocks announce St Patrick's Day. To Insure [sic] Freshness All Our Products Are Baked On The Premises. Suffocating the ventilation grill, stringy dust hangs like a sheepskin rug from the lowered ceiling. A guy with a white moustache is complaining that he wanted a jelly donut, not a ring. Lashy points to the purple injection hole. A stunned jaw drops from a white moustache. "Hey ... Something new! Jelly in a ring!" He bites. "That's good. That is good!" He gives his wife a sugar-dusted moustache kiss. She grimaces, but her eyes are happy as she squeezes his arm.

Fifties cookbook Technicolors pulsate from the stacked glazes. Greens, yellows, pinks, hundreds and thousands like interference in the cathode rays. I bite off a chunk of Old Fashioned, suck coffee into my stuffed mouth. The dough is fluffy and sweet. The surface is crisp, crinkly and undusted. These cops aren't dumb. These are the best donuts in New York.

· The writer is the lead singer in Franz Ferdinand.