Woo hoo! You guys are really great! The entire country took the time and forethought to organize a collective birthday present for me today — a brand new 2009 model of American President (love the color! I didn’t think you’d be so daring as to break from the traditional, more conservative white). I promise to [...]

The other day on NPR there was a spot about “Smell Club,” a Japan-based web site where you can geotag smells from around the world. It’s an interesting notion to describe place and space via smells rather than the usual sights. The idea, as I understand it, is that once you come across a scent [...]

Wii finally broke down and bought a Wii for the household at Christmas, and that was only after I played Guitar Hero at a friend’s house. Wii justified the purchase by noting all of the exercise one can get from swinging remote Wii controllers while playing tennis or boxing, but secretly I simply wanted to [...]

Last night it got around zero degrees Fahrenheit and, despite prevention efforts, one branch of our water pipes froze. Unfortunately, it was the line that feeds the water heater — the wonderful new Japanese tankless water heater we just had installed last month. This means we have had no hot water all day and probably [...]