Traffic calming

A list of traffic calming measures. Seattle employs a lot of traffic circles, a measure I've found to be very effective in reducing automotive speed.
In fact, Seattle is one of the nation's leading cities for traffic calming. As Derek noted during a recent road trip we took to Wisconsin, America excels at building roads--owned by automobiles--instead of streets--owned by the community, including pedestrians. As highways and large roads have gotten clogged with traffic, more and more automotive traffic has diverted into neighborhood streets, causing a rise in accidents in which neighborhood residents, especially children, are hit by cars.
Of course, not everyone is in favor of traffic calming. Among other things, emergency workers argue that traffic calming measures reduce response time to emergencies. It's certainly a more credible argument against traffic calming than this one.

Seattle Essentials: Vancouver restaurants

One of my favorite things about Seattle is not even in Seattle. Vancouver is just a two hour drive north, across the border to Canada. Even though the U.S. dollar is not as strong versus the Canadian dollar as it was just a few years back, the ratio is still such that Vancouver is a better city for foodies than Seattle itself.

That's not to discount the restaurants in Vancouver. For Asian dining, Vancouver is both literally and figuratively north of Seattle. This weekend I took a last minute getaway up to Vancouver with Eric and Christina and feasted at every meal as if it was my last. Our first dinner was at Bin 941, cousin to Bin 942, both tapas parlours.
We sat at the bar in front of the kitchen to watch the chefs at work. The food was heavenly, especially the cinnamon chili rub Texas Flank Steak, maple syrup chipotle sauce, charred baby bok choy, cucumber salsa, tobiko, served with Yukon Gold pepper pommes frites. It was so delicious we ordered it twice.
Other gems...
...duck confit, warm nugget potato, pancetta, goat cheese and truffled sping bean salad, cinzano fresh cherry vinaigrette
...Fresh Charlotte Island Halibut filet, lemon fleur de sel crust, smoked halibut croquettes, spiked tomato "cocktail sauce", watercress garnish.
...white chocolate cheesecake (I can't remember the full name anymore, but the flavor lives on)
We ate until we could barely walk anymore, and it still came out to under $30 a person with a full bottle of wine, dessert, and post-meal libations.
Today, our eyes and appetites were so greedy we ate two lunches, one at Kintaro Ramen (why no gourmet ramen bars in Seattle?) and another at the Malaysian gem Banana Leaf (like Seattle's Malay Satay, but superior). If we had had time to stay until dinner, we would have hit one of the local izakaya like one of the three Guu locations (izakaya are Japanese pubs that serve pub food/tapas; sadly, I know of none in Seattle), and if we had another morning, we would have grabbed dim sum in nearby Richmond, the dim sum epicenter of North America. If we'd had a hankering for Thai, you would have found us at Montri, no question. Korean? Jang Mo Jib. Chinese? Green Village. Prix Fixe? Cru.
We did rent mopeds and ride around town on Saturday, but in hindsight, I must confess that I think we drove all the way up there just to eat. For Seattle foodies with a hankering for new culinary frontiers, there are few better ways to spend a weekend.

Seattle Essentials: Salumi

Salumi is my favorite sandwich shop in Seattle, though in truth it takes its inspiration from Italian Salumerias. The cured meats there are incomparable, and the hot and cold sandwiches showcase the Salumi (Italian cured meat) beautifully. When I worked down in the International District it was my favorite lunchtime indulgence, an affordable one at that (sandwiches from $5 to $9).
The pedigree of the ownership is unquestionable. Owner Armandino Batali is the father of celeb chef and restaranteur Mario Batali. That family knows good food. One of my great regrets in leaving Seattle will be never having attended one of Salumi's once-a-month invite-only dinners.

The only downside to Salumi? The limited hours. The shop is only open Tues-Fri from 11am to 4pm. But once in a while, it's worth the drive over to Salumi in Pioneer Square pick up a sandwich to eat at the nearby Waterfall Garden Park.

Dial 4811

The 4811, the $15 starter thong of choice. Ah, the miracle that is the thong, occupying that fine line between G-string and panty.
StubHub, an alternative to eBay for swapping tickets to shows, sporting events, etc. Somewhere along the line, though, Ticketmaster will rob someone.
Butch Harmon, Tiger Woods' ex-coach, supposedly told Sky Sports: "Tiger Woods is not playing well, he is not working on the right things in his golf swing although obviously Tiger thinks he is. He should have felt 'I could win this tournament by six, seven, eight shots.' That was the old Tiger Woods. But for him to stand there at every one of his interviews and say 'I am close, I feel really good about what I am doing', I think it might be a bit of denial." Ouch. I was hoping they'd reunite, but knowing Tiger, statements like that make that a long shot.

The problem with antibacterial soap...

...is that most of it is antimicrobial, fostering growth of bacterial resistance.

F***ing Austria

Really.

In memoriam

The next best thing to being at Reagan's funeral is this slide show of photos by Pete Souza, set to music. Powerful stuff, even if you weren't a Ronnie fan.
The military and the government--they sure know how to throw a funeral. The contrast between the very real human emotions of the loved ones left behind and the military precision of the formal ceremonies (like the soldiers standing at attention or the jets flying in formation) pulls everything into stark relief.

Dude, where are my wheels?

Ouch. Poor Dave.

et al

Mozilla Firefox 0.9 - my current browser of choice gets an upgrade.
BugMeNot - bypass compulsory online newspaper registrations.
New iPod adapter for BMWs? Reminds me of this Tiger Woods joke.
What your favorite book or movie says about you.
Bill James on the best fastballs in baseball history. His current top five: Billy Wagner, Armando Benitez, Bartolo Colon, Kerry Wood, and Randy Johnson. It all seems fairly subjective to me.
Men are better off single (well, at least financially)
Could stretching be bad for you? - Please, let it be true. I hate stretching.
China is selling cheap knockoffs of foreign cars - instead of a Chevy Spark, they offer the Chery QQ for $1,500 cheaper. Instead of BMW, they offer BYD, whose logo seems like a simple pixel rearrangement of the BMW logo (see below). This reminds of clothing knockoffs you can purchase in China. Instead of Polo, the brand will be Bolo or something like that, with a logo of a guy on a horse, sans polo stick. Buy a red shirt, and after one wash, it's pink. Lovely.

In Philip Roth's next novel The Plot Against America, closet fascist Charles Lindbergh defeats FDR in the 1940 election and proceeds to make a pact with Hitler.
Both Bone and Cerebus are coming to an end, Cerebus after 27(!!) years and 300 issues and Bone after 55 issues over some 13 years.

NY Marathon

Damn, I got into the NY Marathon today. I guess that means I have to run. I hate running.
On the other hand, perhaps it will be a good way to learn the layout of Manhattan.

One more thing about the Pistons

Another thing about the Pistons triumph in the NBA Finals: to me, the Pistons represent the epitome of successful basketball under the new rules that allow zone defenses. Back when they still called illegal defense, NBA basketball was notoriously dull because you had so many isolation plays where 8 players stood around the court with their hands down their shorts.
The Pistons took advantage of the new rules to run a rotating swarm of players against Kobe and Shaq, and notably, the only game the Lakers won, they tied it on a 3-pointer when Kobe was isolated against Rip Hamilton. The Pistons have a center who essentially acts as a roaming rebounder and shot blocker because his offensive skills are so limited (similar to Rodman was for the Bulls in the late 90's, though Wallace is a superior shot blocker).
It's one good omen for the NBA as team play is more interesting and offers more hope to more teams that depth and teamwork can overcome superior individual talent (i.e., Kobe and Shaq).

Daigoro!

My nephew Ryan is the next to last samurai. Here he is on his recent visit to Japan, surveying his empire.

G.I. Wei

Congrats to my little sis Karen on finishing 28th in her age group in the 2004 Camp Pendleton Mud Run.
She claims she had fun. Sure looks like it, huh?

Ding dong, the *itch is dead

The Lakers rolled over against the Pistons 4 games to 1 in a series in which they should have been swept. I never thought I'd root for the Pistons, but thankfully all the most dislikable idiots that used to be with them (Isaiah, Laimbeer, Mahorn) are history. I'll always hate those guys for trying to beat up on Jordan and then walking off the court and refusing to shake hands before the last game ended in the 1991 Eastern Conference Championships. But as distasteful as that memory is, that's how much I dislike the Lakers.
Lots of people have said they want the Lakers to win because they'd like to see Payton and Malone get a ring, but neither is all that likable despite their greatness in their primes. In his prime, Payton was a great on-the-ball defender, but this year he's just been defensive as people have blamed him, justifiably, for his poor play. Malone, despite his generosity in charity, throws some vicious elbows and turned me off by refusing to play against Magic after Johnson's HIV diagnosis.
Shaq was interesting his rookie year, but somewhere along the line he grew disenchanted with the press and switched to a robotic, disaffected, emotionless voice. He's dominant and dull as a butter knife.
Rick Reilly once wrote an article in Sports Illustrated claiming Kobe was better than Jordan. Rick Reilly is an idiot so it doesn't mean much, but some people, including perhaps Kobe, seem to believe it. As a longtime Chicagoan, that drives me nuts.
Kobe is extremely good, probably the most talented player in the NBA right now, but to call him Jordan's equal, let alone his superior, is silly. The one area where Kobe is better than Jordan is 3-point shooting, and it's possible over his career that he'll remain an athletic slasher for longer than Jordan, but beyond that Jordan is his daddy.
Anyway, it's just a long-winded way to say that the Pistons rout made my day.
Kobe's shot selection is often terrible. Jordan was a much smarter, more efficient offensive player. It's reflected in their career field goal percentages (.454 for Kobe, .497 for Jordan, dragged down by those two years with the Bullets in which his legs weren't what they once were). Watching the playoffs this year, it's understandable why some of Kobe exasperates many of his teammates. He takes some ludicrous, foolish forays to the basket, leaving his teammates standing around with their hands down their shorts.
That's also reflected in career assist totals. Many claim Kobe has to be more of a playmaker than Jordan, but Kobe has averaged 4.3 assists per game during his career, and Jordan averaged 5.3. When Jordan temporarily played point guard near the end of the 1988-89 season, he rattled off ten triple doubles in eleven games. Rebounding? Jordan averaged 6.3 over his career, Kobe has averaged 5.1.
Defensively, Jordan was a better one-on-one and team defender. They don't track enough stats to corroborate it, but Jordan did average 2.3 steals a game for his career (winning 3 steals titles in the process) to Kobe's 1.5, and my sense is that Jordan took his defense more seroiusly than Kobe does on a regular basis. Kobe's not a bad defender. In fact, when he focuses on it, he's the very tough individual defender. It's just that in his prime, Jordan was thought of as the Ron Artest of his team. Jordan won Defensive Player of the Year in 1988 and was named All-Defensive First Team more than any other player.
True, Jordan wasn't always the easiest teammate to play with, but he never inspired the type of soap opera that Kobe has in his rivalry with Shaq and his detachment from his other teammates.
Finally, we have this year's Finals, in which Kobe shot 42-113 and got shut down by Tayshaun Prince and an aggressive help defense that double or triple teamed him. No offense to Tayshaun Prince, but even the Pistons Bad Boys swarm defense couldn't stop Jordan, and I can't imagine a Jordan led team rolling over so badly in a Finals series. Jordan was too competitive to let something like that happen.
If Bryant would just acknowledge his debt to Jordan, pay his due respects to the player whose footsteps he walks in everyday, I'd warm to him. He's as close too Jordan as any player in the NBA in physique, style, talent, ambition, marketing strategy, and personality, but he's not Jordan.
All this is just a long-winded explanation for why the Pistons victory pleased me more than the usual schadenfreude.

Seeing double

While at the airport on the way to San Diego last week, I was surprised to see the same photo of Ronald Reagan (by official Reagan photographer Michael Evans) on the covers of both Time and Newsweek.

Time applied some digital blush.

US Postal will have a sponsor in 2005: The Discovery Channel

Today the Discovery Channel announced that it will take over sponsorship of what is currently the US Postal Cycling Team. The team will be renamed the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team.
That's good news for cycling fans and Lance Armstrong. I'm excited because Discovery HD is one of the sweetest high definition channels in DirecTV's HD lineup.

What does Ventoux time trial mean?

In Stage 4 of the Dauphin

Seattle Essentials: Koolhaas' Seattle Public Library

I have a lot on my mind, but present things first: I write this from the new Central Library branch of the Seattle Public Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas. The entire glass and steel structure is a giant free wi-fi hotspot.
It struck me this morning that the end of my stay in Seattle is just around the corner, and all morning I've felt a bit nostalgic and sad. It was all prompted by a visit to the dentist. I realized at the end of my visit that it would be my last time at that office, and all the dentists and assistants (all 15 of them) came by to give me huge and to shake my hand (yes, I found it unusually sentimental). These were the first people I was wishing farewell, but it has started a clock ticking in my head. I wish I could shake this feeling of losing time, of imminent partings; it's so difficult to think straight under such pressure. Perhaps I can slow things down, and so for the next month that remains of my Seattle days, I want to document some of my favorite Seattle places, features, and people.
I'm both thrilled and heavyhearted to be finally visit this library. Thrilled because after just an hour or two here, I'm certain it's the coolest library I've ever visited. Heavyhearted because I'll only be able to use it for such a short period of time.
The architecture, a collaboration between Koolhaas and local firm LMN (responsible for Benaroya Hall and McCaw Hall) and Rem Koolhaas's OMA, is spectacular and overshadows the books themselves (see pages from OMA/LMN's original concept book). The glass and steel exterior lends a spectacular openness to the space and offers wonderful views of the surrounding buildings. Though it's the newest building on its block, it plays better with its neighboring structures than those structures play with it. 994,000 pieces of glass and 3,000 tons of steel died in the making of this facility. Each diamond-shaped piece of glass contains metallic mesh that filters the amount of sunlight entering the building so it doesn't overheat, and much of the building is made of recyclable materials. The library is already in line to receive the LEED (Leadrship in Energy and Environmental Design) award given by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
The library is the talk of the architectural world, and it's already a huge hit with Seattelites. A line was waiting outside both entrances this morning before it opened at 10am. I've already seen dozens of tours of adults and school children pass through. The youngsters scamper about the place as if it were a museum, and if it does nothing else but prompt people to visit this place of reading and research, it will have been a success. Certainly I never felt the urge to pay for parking just to visit the previous Central Library.
My only criticism is that most of the books I came to check out were already gone or put on hold by dozens of other people. I wrote down over twenty books I wanted to find but only located two of them. Amazon.com remains a beautiful thing. The books here don't seem as central to the space as they are in your average Barnes and Noble or Borders superstore, but the Koolhaas is far more interesting space. It seems like a space that wouldn't seem outdated fifty years into the future.
Since I moved to Seattle, the city has added Benaroya Hall (finest acoustic performance space I've ever experienced), the Experience Music Project by Gehry, McCaw Hall, Pacific Place Mall (a terrible layout for a mall, but contains the most affordable and city-friendly parking garage), a renovated Cinerama (an awesome movie theater with terrible seats but sweet bathrooms in which nearly everything is automated), and Safeco Field. It was an architectural renaissance. The city skyline still lacks a defined character, but each of those facilities was a memorable and worthwhile addition.
For once, I'm wishing for rain on a gorgeous, sunny day. I'd love to listen to the rain tickling this library's skin.

POP for Gmail

POP goes the Gmail is a program that allows you to read your Gmail in your favorite e-mail editor (e.g. Outlook).
SeatGuru helps you choose the best seat depending on airline and aircraft. My advice? Get rich and fly first or business class, or don't fly at all.
How Houdini pulled off his Metamorphosis escape trick - As with most magic tricks, the beauty is not in the answer but in the execution.
A rare public chat with Bill James (and Rob Neyer)

Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Of the three Harry Potter movies thus far, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban possesses the strongest John Williams' soundtrack, the most expansive and spectacular visuals (that new castle is breathtaking), the darkest and most captivating cinematography (the grain of the film is beautiful), and the hottest Hermione yet. Wait, how old is she? Oops. Strike that last comment.
The adults are still mostly incompetent (perhaps that's part of the appeal of these stories to children?) and the child acting is occasionally terrible. If you were contemplating pulling a Jack Grubman by trading a favorable rating on AT&T to have Sanford Dumbledore put in a good word for your child at Hogwart's, I'd think twice. It's a wonder more kids aren't seriously injured or killed, the supervision at that school is so loose.
Those quibbles aside, Rowling processed through Filter > Alfonso Cuaron > 75% is a beautiful effect. Save that adjustment layer (I'm not nearly as certain about the Newell filter). Cuaron's building an another impressive oeuvre of movies about two guys and a girl.
I haven't read the book, but living in a Harry Potter world, it was simple enough to get an exhaustive debrief on every Potterthology reference I missed. Apparently, this is the least faithful of the three movies to date in transferring plot from page to screen. But then, that's what kids do when they reach their teens. They stop taking everything so literally, and the real fun begins.