1530 calories = 3 x Big Mac

This TV ad made me laugh:

• -triple thick applewood smoked bacon
• -smoked cheddar cheese
• -jalapenos
• -crunchy tortilla strips inside the burger

Is it just me or do these burgers look gross?

How much does NASA certification cost?

I guess this is how you fund a space program.

Celebrity sighting #26

Chris Cooper, a chameleon of a character actor, was shooting a scene on 6th Ave a few blocks down from our place in Greenwich Village. The set was all lit up on a dreary, rainy mid-week evening and he was waiting outside a store. I just saw him in the film "Married Life" last night, which was a kind of boring film but he, as per usual, was excellent.

The next day, ostensibly for the same movie production, a huge toilet truck for the crew parked itself outside our building. It arrived at about 5am and was there until about 1am, humming away. Ah, to have a poo-mobile parked beneath your window in the wee hours.

The view from above:

Walking on the wild side

Since the weather is so much warmer I have been walking to and from work pretty much every day. It's about 30 minutes, 25 blocks, and a nice way to wake up/wind down and squeeze in incidental exercise.

This morning I noticed daffodil and tulip flowers bursting from their buds, which made me happy. The planters around the city are going to be yellow, purple and red beacons of colour in a matter of weeks. Green buds are visible on the trees too and the air feels lighter.

Depending on my mood I have four ways to walk home. I can do the straight shot down 6th Ave, which takes me past Macy's at Herald Square and a whole bunch of cheap wholesale jewellery stores on the edge of the garment district.

Or I can take 5th Ave and pass the Empire State Building, hit the Flatiron Building (above, at dusk) at Madison Square and walk past all the chain clothing stores (BCBG, Gap, JCrew, Banana Republic, Anthropologie, Club Monaco, H&M, Intermix) and check out what's on sale.

Or I can start off down 7th Ave at Times Square, pass Penn Station mayhem and the Fashion Institute, swing by a supermarket in Chelsea to pick up dinner or breakfast things.

Finally I can go diagonal on Broadway, which takes me through ripoff handbag central and the grimier parts of the fashion district, via all the squares, and cut back at W23rd to 6th.

And when I have to cut through to 6th Ave I usually do a zig zag, so I end up on a different street each time. There are still streets I wander down and realise I've never been down it before. What, a tapas joint just two blocks away? What's this beer and chicken shop within 5 minutes walk? Three enormous stationery stores in a three block radius? Who knew?

I never know which way I'm going to go until I head out the door.

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The thing I love about the internet #5277

I have discovered 'machinima' and I think I could become obsessed with it.

Machinima (as in 'machine -ama' to rhyme with cinema) is when people make movies and music video clips using video games. They create characters and sets within the game, write scripts, create soundtracks and do voiceovers and make their own movie. There are millions of these movies online and some of them are fascinating, some are hilarious.

Check out the mock documentary below, which explains machinima using a machinima movie.




This is one creative hobby.

A weekend of contrasts

Jus and I hit a burlesque show on Friday night. It was date night so it was time to do something saucy. Got all the pasties we could handle at a dinner & show in SoHo. It was actually quite tame, which was a good thing as we were about a foot from the stage and I might have gagged on my pork roulade if I had have looked up at the wrong moment and caught sight of something over the top. They were encouraging all kinds of debauchery, which culminated in a 'dance off' among three 25 year olds to 3 Britney songs. Britney comes out looking squeaky clean after their examples of raunch culture. Ech, to be 20 something again. No thanks.

On Saturday, slightly hung over and spaced out, I joined Jennifer and Rose for a peace march to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war. There was an event on W14 St, one block away, where people were linking arms from river to river the entire width of the island, to form a human chain. The chain then folded in on itself and rallied at Union Sq, where there were speakers and singers and lots of placards and press. It was a moving moment. So much of the time you can forget this country is at war because there is so much frivolous stuff being reporrted on, but the last week has seen a lot of protests and mourning of the 4000 dead US soldiers and the 1 million dead Iraqi civilians.

So, after the rally was over, with thoughtful hearts we wandered over to the other side of Union Sq where some uni kids had organized... a mass pillow fight! For hours, we had watched thousands of teens and adults amass around the square with their pillows (and goggles and costumes) to take part in this annual event. Pals Olivia and Damien rocked up, touting our pillows, and we joined in the throng. It was a free for all wack fest. Anyone with a pillow was fair game for a thump on the head. You just wandered into the fray and went for it. It was so therapeutic. I squealed and flailed my arms around and hit strangers with abandon. In the face. In the back of the head. Sideways. The air was thick with feathers and down and I was almost choking on the fluff as pillows burst open around me. It was 30 minutes of true pandemonium. Check out the photos on Flickr and videos on Youtube. It was hilarious. Jus had to pick the last feathers out of my hair this morning before work.

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

Ok, so I have not been a very diligent poster lately but you'll see it has been worth the wait with the veritable activity-fest I'm about to update you with.

The pics above are from an art gallery opening I went to for an exhibition called RMB City by a Chinese artist whose subject matter is Second Life. (Yeah just let me nerd out for a moment here.) The exhibition included visual art, models, walkthroughs of the city she created in Second Life and a short documentary actually set within Second Life. It was fantastic: it showcased some of the most amazing locations in-world and a whole bunch of avatars that made you feel like you were watching real people.

Eerily, one of the walkthroughs was projected onto water and dry ice (the second image above) so the picture had this dreamlike quality to it. Unique. Jus loved it: look out for dry ice features in your upcoming renovation plans.

Before Bec and Nathan went on to Las Vegas, Mexico and LA we took them out for dinner in Williamsburg so they could get the contrast with Manhattan - rude waitresses but cheaper!- and we ended up in one of our local diners, Joe Jnr, for a 'bite' of dessert. Bec has a slice of pie and icecream, and Nathan is fighting with the biggest slab of NY cheesecake every quarried.

Spring has sprung

My fruit guy's stand is back outside my subway stop, Bryant Park is back being a lawn at lunchtime, it rarely dips below zero during the day and Mister Softee is doing the rounds once more. I do believe winter is over!



And I didn't have to resort to visiting a solarium for a dose of heat and Vit D! I do believe I am officially the palest I have ever been. Sun spots have emerged that until now had always been hidden. What's with pigment? I thought I was immune from that kind of skin stuff.

Bec and Nathan hit town for a trade show this week and we caught up with Bec for her birthday dinner at Public, a delicious restaurant in Nolita that must have some Antipodean's out the back because the wine list was dominated by Aussie & Kiwi drops, and the menu featured sticky toffee pudding. It seems that sticky date/toffee is only found where Australians eat.

Andy, Aussie colleague, was kind enough to deliver a packet of Tim Tams, BBQ Shapes and Twisties after a recent trip home. Onya mate! I am afraid I shall return home from work today and Jus will have mowed through the lot. I think last night's Tim Tam count was up to 4 and Jus is a major chocaholic.

I gave away some at work, expecting swooning , and was told that there might be an American Tim Tam equivalent: Keebler Elves. But I've looked through them and can't see anything that looks remotely like the King Tim Tam.

In other choc food news: Cadbury's chocolate has just arrived en masse. It is suddenly everywhere. So the American chocolate scene is very comprehensive. But you know what, with Easter two weeks away, there is barely any promotion of chocolate, bunnies, hot cross buns or anything. It's not really a retail event, which I don't understand since this is the land of retail promotion and religious people.

BTW Jus is heading home for three weeks from March 26 for work.

Scrabulous, indeed

Mum and I have been playing a friendly international game of Scrabble on the internet, and low and behold, I thrashed her! This is unheard of in our family. To put this in context:

• Mum has pretty much memorised all the 2 letter words
• she has been playing for decades
• she has been playing every week for years.

I just couldn't miss this opportunity to gloat for a bit. Next game will be an entirely different story I'm sure...

What's your world view?

In a meeting the other day I was drawing web page concepts on a whiteboard and drew a world map to show how a user could select the region they were in. My colleagues chortled , "What kind of world map is that? Why is Australia in the middle?" and I said "This is how I always draw world maps: Australia and Asia in the middle, then Europe and Africa to the left and the US to the right." They were utterly confused.






I asked them to draw their view of the map and they drew a version with the America in the left, Europe & Africa in the middle and Asia & Australia off to the right. It was a really fascinating moment understanding how we viewed the world so differently and how we used different cues to work out where the continents were situated. Perhaps they so strongly associate with being 'the Western World' that the Americas and Europe could only ever be on the left.



They thought I was nuts and my version was just an idiosyncratic preference until a few days later when we were auditing a whole range of international websites and one, from Japan, featured the world map with the continent layout exactly how I had drawn it.

It blew their minds. We decided that if this firm we're designing the site for really wanted to come off as global then perhaps we should use a different projection of the world.

How do you draw the world map?