Where did they get those clothes?

At the risk of sounding horribly immature, this post is about Gossip Girl (my favorite guilty pleasure).

At the end of each Gossip Girl episode, a few seconds are spent telling viewers what songs were featured on the show, and how they can buy those songs. What I don't understand is, why don't they do the same for the fabulous clothes featured on the show???

For months I've been scouring Gossip Girl Fashion to discover the latest garb worn by my favorite characters, only to discover that the item is sold out as soon as I've found it. There is a huge demand for anything worn by the fashionable Upper East Side characters. Even Target has recognized it, and has launched their own Gossip Girl fashion line.

Identifying these clothes, and then finding where to buy them, is still a very manual process. With such high demand, why aren't the networks partnering with designers to streamline this? The opportunity doesn't only apply to Gossip Girl, from Mad Men to iCarly, design lovers and young girls alike would be clamoring for clothes worn by their idols. (Actually, Banana Republic did partner with Mad Men - good for them!)

Fashion seems like one product placement opportunity that I actually want as a viewer. I am sure others are thinking about this opportunity too. Meanwhile, a lot of wallets are waiting. :)

Note: Seen On is another site links viewers to clothing featured on popular shows. But they are only able to list a small subset of the fashions worn.

"We Feel Fine": The Book!

We Feel Fine is "an exploration of human emotion on a global scale". And now it's also a book.

Built by friend Sep Kamvar, and Jonathan Harris, We Feel Fine continuously crawls recent blog posts for expressions of human emotion, looking for phrases like "I feel" and "I am feeling". The project then groups and slices these emotions along different demographics, giving us a picture of what people are feeling around the country and the world.

These real time emotions are now captured in static copy.

Congrats to Sep and Jonathan, can't wait to see what you two do next.

Cole Valley Halloween

Halloween on Belvedere Street in Cole Valley - best Halloween ever.

Dogs on TV

Love this comercial

Happy Men

Thanks Mina for sharing this!

Traveling is Funny

• Last night I emailed Hotel X in Seoul, asking for 4 rooms, over email, providing no payment info.
• Today, Hotel X's website says they have no rooms, so we book rooms elsewhere
• This evening I got an email from Hotel X, saying "no! we already booked your rooms!"
• Immediately after get 4 confirmation emails
• I say "sorry but we thought you were booked and booked elsewhere"
• Get an email saying "We already have your rooms! and we will add 1 sock and 2 underwear and complimentary breakfast"
• I say "sorry, we will stay with you next time"
• I receive email saying "Did you see we are offering breakfast complimentary???" (yes, they made it red)
  
• I apologize again saying we've already paid for other rooms.

Mad Men Season 3 Teaser!

Can't wait to watch!

Great Wall (Half) Marathon

This looks amazing. I've been to Beijing before, but only for a few days. This would be a great chance to see more of the country. Couldn't do the full marathon, but I could handle the Half. Anyone else in?

10k over the bridge

Just finished the Presidio 10K. Weather couldn't be better.

Back on the Water

I've been working a bit too much lately, so am making an effort to get away from the laptop and go outside... and it doesn't hurt that the weather has been so gorgeous in San Francisco. :)

I decided to get back into an old sport - crew. I used to row in high school, but have not been in a boat for 10 years. Here's a pic of a few of us at the Greenlake Regatta back in '97 (I think...). Heidi Hurn (at the top of the pyramid) went on to row for University of Washington, following in the footsteps of her brother - Hans (bottom, second from left). I am middle row, on the right. I went to UW too.... but wasn't quite tough enough for UW's championship crew team.


After some looking around, I found that Pacific Rowing Club is building up a small masters program and rows near me, on Lake Merced.

My first day was Friday. It was awesome. Practice started at 6:00am, before the sun rose. The people were great and very patient as I fumbled with oars, the boat, just about everything.

What is pathetic is that I could barely lift the boat! I guess running doesn't do much for my arms :\ I am pretty weak right now but hopefully that will change soon.

Anyways, very excited to see how this goes!

Trying out Drafty.com

While in SXSW I ran into friend and one of the original Blogger guys, Jason Shellen. When we first met up at the conference, he was in the middle of launching a new service, drafty.com - a super simple way to post and share to multiple blogging platforms. Sending this post from Drafty now. Pretty cool so far Shellen!

Going to be in Austin? Come to the Blogger Party @ SXSW

iTunes 8 - Trying Hard to Earn a Buck

iTunes 8 is really reacting to the economic climate. Today I tried to purchase a song that I forgot I had already purchased via iTunes a while back. After clicking "buy", iTunes offered me two choices:

1. Upgrade to iTunes Plus (later discovered was $119 to enable)
2. Buy the song again

There is no "close" button. I could not close the dialog... at ALL. I couldn't even "Quit" iTunes via the menu, I had to FORCE QUIT to get out of this state.

What the heck?

Loving Cup - A Rice Pudding Shop

Across NY and LA the hot thing is Pinkberry (or similar frozen yogurt shops). For San Franciscans though, an ice cold frozen yogurt doesn't exactly hit the spot on a cool foggy day. Luckily we now have our own place to stop for a quick, sweet snack: Loving Cup Rice Pudding Shop on Polk Street.

The bright little cafe was started by a friend of mine - Liz Hawrylo - along with her mother and sister from the East Coast. She set up shop several months ago and have been buzzing with business ever since.

Loving Cup serves a variety of all natural rice puddings. Chai is my favorite flavor. Cardamom, cinamon, nutmeg ... I am drooling just thinking about it! Rice pudding is also a unique dish to pick up and bring to a potluck. No one expects a rice pudding dessert but they always love it.

Also on the menu are pastries, sweet snacks, espresso and yep - frozen yogurt. (Even in SF, we can't escape the pinkberry madness)

Check out the shop at 2356 Polk between Union and Green, and say hi to Liz!

Mecca Closed!?

I've heard rumors of this happening for a while, but was hoping I'd get into Mecca before it shuttered it's doors. It's been famous for it's Thursday Ladies Nights :)

Well, I just got an email from OpenTable that my reservation for Mecca on Tuesday cannot be honored because Mecca is closing it's doors! Here it is: 

"Hi OpenTable Diner, I apologize for the late notice and for any inconvenience this may cause, but OpenTable just heard via the media that Mecca may have unexpectedly closed its doors for business.  We have not been able to reach anyone at the restaurant to verify the closure (voicemail still makes it sound like they are open) nor has anyone contact us to inform us of the closure.  A link to the article on SF.eater.com is below.  Therefore, your upcoming reservation will not be able to be accommodated at this restaurant.  However, we hope that you will book at one of the other restaurants in the area that has availability (we have canceled your reservation so you may book another one)."

A disappointment, but maybe a wonderful new restaurant will take it's place. One thing I love about San Francisco is it's evolving restaurant scene. 

South By Southwest

Just got my plans straight for SXSW Interactive in Austin. Can't wait to connect with bloggers and Blogger.com emeritus :)

Resaurant Opening: Heaven's Dog

Charles Phan, owner of the Slanted Door, opened a new restaurant in the SOMA Grand last week. I was lucky to go to the opening party and Friends and Family dinner.

Heaven's Dog serves small plates of Chinese dishes and noodles - but I think the best addition to the menu is it's old fashioned cocktail menu.

In the same vein as Bourbon and Branch and The Alembic, Heaven's Dog cocktail list focuses on quality. With all the great drinks it's hard to decide, so also offered is a "Freedom from Choice" option where you simply tell the bartener either "gin or vodka", and "citrusy or boozey". Boozey wasn't exacty the word they used - but I forget what it was and it basically meant boozey. ;)

If you stay for dinner, definitely try the pork belly and the string beans - my favorites! Also say hi to the friendly staff including Colleen Quinn - the floor manager and a friend of mine.

Heaven's Dog - 1148 Mission St.

Barrack Hussein Obama - President of the United States

I want to be in Washington

(Left:my friend Devin Hampton working for the Obama campaign)

My friend Devin from college has really risen in the politcal ranks. From the looks of this University of Washington news article, he's planning some portion of the Neighborhood Ball during the inauguration. Good for him!

But how annoying is it that my friend - Bart - gets to go as well. Bart just moved to San Francisco from Atlanta (where he went to Emory Law School) just before the election. At the time he was pretty apolitical with McCain leanings. I made many attempts to get him on the Obama bandwagon - he is a San Franciscan after all. All of these attempts he dismissed - though he did attend our election watching get together.

Well he gets to go. I am so jealous.

Dems are Back in the White House!

Yep.... that looks about right!

Long Live the King and Queen!

(photo from nytimes.com)

Great book: "Panic! The Story of Modern Financial Insanity"

Just finished reading this book - which is really a series of news stories and essays leading up to, during, and after 4 modern market crashes.

I was too young to remember what the crash of '87 was about. And as a freshman in college didn't really pay attention to the Asian market crash in '98 (too much studying.... yeah right). It was interesting to see the common threads: lots of leverage, poor rick assessments, swarming investors, and the belief that "this time it's different" and that no bubble exists. It was also really fun to remember the silly dotcom madness - when some companies spent over half their cash on superbowl commercials!

To reminisce, here's a few of them:

OurBeginning.com


Computer.com


EDS

Video of Airplane Crash and Rescue in the Hudson

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/01/17/multimedia/1231545530718/coast-guard-video-of-plane-crash.html

Water Landing!

There's been a lot of high profile crashes lately. Today, 155 lucky people survived a crash into the Hudson thanks to a heroic pilot named "Sully". Crazy. Then of course DJ AM and Travis Barker were in one... and I know there was another recently, I just can't remember.

I think I've become more afraid of flying, and I've been doing a lot of it lately. The odds are not that slim that I'll be in some kind of emergency landing.

A few weeks ago on NPR I heard a discussion about installing emergency exit doors in the airport so that passengers can practice opening the door. That's a great idea and I am not sure why airports don't do it. Maybe they don't want to remind passengers of the possibility of a crash.

Anyways - I'll be reading the emergency exit material more closely now. And thanks to the wonderful pilot that saved all those people today!