If you like subway maps, diagrams, and those route maps in the back of airline magazines, searching for "Route Map" on Google's image search is dangerously distracting. Everything from Airlines to High School X-Country Courses pop up.

This is the most impressive corporate makeover I've ever seen. Phillip Morris is now something called "Altria" which means "We're harmless and we love you"... or something like that. I'm not trying to be cynical, well slightly.

In other news, I have now spent 4 minutes blogging today. Please don't fire me.

Apparantly, Oakland got sacked last night. I'm not talking about the football team. And I thought Oakland was improving.

My favorite quote: "I ain't gonna lie -- if we had won, we would have done the same thing, but milder" - some rapper

Now that's civic pride!

Most of the US state quarters that have come out recently are pretty generic and uninteresting. A few are fabulous, and a few are horrendous in their design.

This is my favorite design for the new California quarter (coming out next year). It's a giant sequoia with circular rings printed across the coin. Simple and beautiful. It doesn't appear to be the most popular design, but I like for its originality and the bold, if arrogant, tagline: "Largest living thing on earth".

Go to this website to cast your vote. There are some crap designs on the ballot, but fortunately, the current leader is not so bad, even if it as bit of a disorganized collage.

I'm going to do a review of all of them when I get around to it.

Park Guell in Barcelona is every bit as amazing as I thought it would be. I wish I had more time to write some intelligent commentary about it, but I'll just say it was extremely pleasant. Just being there was somehow uplifting. I spent about an hour sitting under one of the viaducts listening to a jazz band, whose CD I ultimately purchased, then wandered off climbing the staircases until I could look over the whole city and out to sea. A true masterpiece of landscape architecture. Some enjoyable photos - click these thumbnails for big full screen pics:
     

I should think twice before entering the raging SF vs. NY debate that has suddenly cropped up all over the place, spurned on by Nick D's Gawker, and other refugees. Anyway, much truth to either side, but I remain a San Francisco defender, despite it's faults and the fact that I am an SF refugee myself.

The latest defense of SF is Mylerdudes top 16 reasons people in SF are of better mind than NYers, whatever that means. Here is the list, with my comments in italics:

- SFers don`t have to fight like an ant to get to where they need to be
(comparatively true)
- SFers can park in front of their favorite restaurants and not arrive smelling like a cab, or a cabbie for that matter.
(um, no you can't. Though I don't see this as a problem)
- SFers can get in the water anytime of the year to surf without having to ride a train in a wetsuit
(keyword: Wetsuit. In SF you need one year-round)
- SFers don`t really give a fuck about gossip
(very true)
- SFers can always go BACK to NY and still be just as anonymous as they were when they first left
(guess so)
- SFers get twice the room for the same money
(yep)
- SFers don`t have to worry about their Beemer`s parked on the street
(well, yes you do)
- NYers diet of sidewalk bagels and over-creamed coffee is a deathwish
(absolutely)
- NYers think `time at the gym` breathing in recycled air and cheap perfume is healthy
(he he)
- NYers have to spend 1/2 the weekend in escape mode in order to "get out of the city", in SF you`re out in 8 minutes
(absolutely)
- NYers who DON`T get out of the city are just lost in their own mind
(well, same goes for SF)
- SFers can get paid to work for NY companies while living in SF, harldy ever the other way around
(probably, but are any companies still based in SF?)
- Marin lifestyle beats Westchester
(hell yes)
- Stinson Beach Chill beats the Hamptons Fashion Show
(I would imagine so)
- The 101 beats the L.I.E.
(still aint no picnic)
- NY will always be a GREAT place to visit
(indeed)

Ken Layne, who hates San Francisco, but is otherwise quite amusing sums it up slightly more eloquently.

Anyway, by far the best retort comes from my former roommate Gaby who's reply is more worth reading that anything I could come up with on an already overworked afternoon.

An evil red eye floating outside a key-hole? Either someone in the art department at the USPTO has a wickedly subversive sense of humor, or our government is really starting to frighten me! (via reason)

US Zip Codes are organized geographically into regions 0-9. (the digit the zip code starts with) I searched the internet for 30 minutes and could not find a map that showed only the 10 zones, so, in the tradition of my geographically accurate tupe map, I created a regional US zip code map myself. Click the thumbnail below to view:

Normally, these kinds of statistics are pretty meaningless, but the geographic breakdown of the "10 fatest and 10 fittest" cities in the US is quite extraordinary. It's 100% East (fat) vs West (fit), with the exception of Virginia Beach, which I explain because of the huge military presense there (keeping the recruits slim). The criteria is explained here.

FIT

2003
1. Honolulu
2. Seattle
3. San Francisco
4. Colorado Springs, Colo.
5. San Diego
6. Portland, Ore.
7. Denver
8. Virginia Beach, Va.
9. Tucson, Ariz.
10. Sacramento

FAT

1. Houston
2. Chicago
3. Detroit
4. Philadelphia
5. St Louis
6. Cleveland
7. Atlanta
8. Columbus, Ohio
9. Dallas
10. Charlotte, N.C.

After a long hiatus, Dan Trachtman has finally updated his website! As expected, the results are nothing short of extraordDANary: A swirling kaleidoscope of color and originality. And gotta love the M.U.S.C.L.E. guys. Don't click if you're epileptic.

P.S. actually, I'm the only person that refers to Dan as D*Track (with asterisk), but I like the moniker, and hopefully he doesn't mind ;-)

A prediction: In the next 6 months, there will be a "Frequent Flyer Panic", particularily affecting United Airlines. As people fear the airline's demise they will start burning through frequent flyer miles in fear they may be soon worthless. This will further hurt the airline's revenue, which will most likely lead to new restrictions on the use of miles, and possibly worse.

United is trying to avoid this by acting cool and offering double miles in hopes people will be be tempted to earn and not spend. Problem is, this is like printing more money to solve a financial crisis. Might work, might not! Too bad I don't have any vacation time at the momment, I for one am ready to spend... but dont say it too loudly.

Literally, but not exactly. Due to inclement weather in Detroit last week, I wound up delayed a day, and celebrated New Year's Eve on a plane. The actual moment of midnight was probably somewhere over Newfoundland. Could have been worse, I suppose. The guy sitting next to me was celebrating his birthday as well.

I used to joke with my former colleague Nick Denton, about turning our company into a porn site, saying it was the only way to make money on the internet.

Well, it seems Nick hasn't forgotten.

Fascinating. I've just discovered that Google search results are slightly different when you are using Netscape as opposed to IE. Why in the world would this be the case? I think that the Netscape cache is lagging behind IE in time. I will try this test in a few weeks and see if it changes.

The example I used is a search for "Peotone Airport". If you are using IE, notice that "Beyond Stupidity: The Peotone Airport Proposal" is number 3 on the list. Using Netscape 6.2, that page does not appear at all, though most of the others do, but in a different order.

In the Netscape URL bar, "&lr=" appears in the search URL, probably some kind of browser notifyer. That's the only difference. Very wierd!