Blankbaby

Memorial Day 2011, in Northampton, MA

This year we broke our tradition of escaping Philadelphia to the bucolic surrounds of Lancaster County (read about our past adventures in 2010 here and 2009 here) and instead headed to Northampton, MA to visit Becky and Eric (formerly of Philadelphia).

The trip takes about 5 hours (in our sweet new car) but we decided to break the trip up into two parts by stopping over near Beacon, NY so we could visit the Dia: Beacon.

This is the entrance to the museum, and that's the only picture I could because of copyright restrictions on the art itself (who knew?).

The building is amazing, and the art is pretty mind-bending. I think the organization of the collection could use some work. As someone who isn't an expert on modern art the first two exhibits seemed like cliches (though I am sure they were very fine art). One included a room full of canvases painted white, and the other included materials that needed to be "activated." Activated, in this case, means put them on you and look foolish.

After those galleries, though, the art got really interested. Lots of great sculpture and even some crazy pencil drawings done directly on the museum's walls. If you're ever in the area you should check this museum out (though don't bring a big bag because they won't let you in with it.. as Marisa found out the hard way. Don't worry, she put it back in the car and was allowed into the museum).

Once we were done with the Dia: Beacon we made our way to Northampton to be greeted by our generous hosts. Our first stop was the Montague Bookmill which has a great slogan, "Books you don't need in a place you can't find." I picked up some books and a bottle of root beer.

The next day found us at the Northampton Farmers Market.

Where Becky found herself some cheese and Eric tracked down a raspberry bush.

Marisa found herself a big wooden bowl because we need another bowl.

We stopped into this antique store with this rather odd phrase on the window. I still have no idea what it means.

Deals and steals is a local discount organic food store (which is like heaven to Marisa). I bought this big Kitkat from Libya.

We went to a food co-op and Marisa thrilled at the chance to fill a jar with maple syrup (shortly after this picture was taken I drank all the maple syrup with a straw).

The Bridge of Flowers was… just as you might expect: a bridge with lots of flowers on it (which someone from a nearby apartment pointed out to us as we took pictures. They shouted from their porch, "They're just flowers!!").

Marisa, Eric, and Becky look at glacial potholes.

One thing I don't like about living in our apartment is the strict no pets policy. We enjoyed having some quality time with a nice kitty (and Spaetzle enjoyed playing with my iPad).

Spaetzle, caught in a rare moment of silence (she is a chatty kitty!).

Marisa had the bright idea to grill some pizza. We all thought she was crazy, but she assured us that if we plopped some dough on the grill good things would happen. In the face of our unanimous doubt Marisa did some research and found out that one must oil the dough before placing it on the grill.

The pizza was very good.

Eric is a fine grillmaster.

Going down the steps of Bray Tower.

Eric commanded that we think about our ideal sausage the night before we went sausage shopping. Once at the sausage counter I met the sausage I had dreamt of without even knowing it: a chicken cheddar pepperoni sausage. It was mighty tasty.

And here's my final book haul. In a rare occurrence I do believe I spent more money on this Memorial Day trip than Marisa did. Who knew?

New York City - Day Three

Sunday was our last day in New York City, and since we had to check out of our hotel at noon and our bus didn't leave until 4:40 we had some time to kill.

Thanks to a suggest by Dave Caolo we checked out the Tenement Museum. No photography of any kind was allowed within the museum itself, so here is where you buy tickets:

Luckily for us, the Tenement Museum was right by another recommended NYC stop (thanks, Philafoodie), Doughnut Plant:

As you might guess this place is a fancy-pants doughnut shop (the doughnuts are fancy, the shop itself has an industrial vibe going on.. and it is tiny! Though the line moves very quickly):

Doughnut Plant sells two different categories of doughtnuts: yeast and cake. I was planning on ordering one of each type, but then I saw the creme brulee doughnut (which is a yeast doughtnut). This thing was tiny, but very very tasty:

I also got another yeast doughnut, the vanilla bean. This one was a vanilla-y glazed doughtnut that was really good (read Marisa's thoughts about her peach doughtnut to see the amazing power of Doughtnut Plant):

We then stumbled upon a little outdoors market which included, for some reason, a ping pong table. Some kids were playing each other and this boy was levitating the ball WITH HIS MIND:

That was all the fun we had time for in New York City. This is Marisa enjoying some of our last moments in the city by standing in the middle of the street like a real New Yorkers. I'm walking here!

New York City - Day Two in pictures

We woke up hungry, but we wanted to get going. We down to Union Square to check out the green market there. Before we did any serious checking, though we had breakfast at the Coffee Shop (I had pancakes, if you're wondering):

Mmmm, carrots:

It wasn't that hot out, but clearly this dog wasn't enjoying being out and about... so he sought some shade under a table:

Marisa samples some of the local flora:

Hippy teas:

I took this picture for Jason Snell (he knows why):

The Strand, one of my favorite stops in NYC:

Five days a week for four years I took the subway to this stop:

To go here:

Marisa thought my high school was 'fancy.' Well, it is on the Upper Eastside and all:

Speaking of fancy, we stopped by this little jewelry store (this is one of Tiffany's flagship stores... 6 floors of expensive, shiny things):

Some lucky girl got a present:

Then we walked back to the hotel before meeting up with my brother for some dinner. On the way we stopped in at the LEGO store in Rockefeller Center which features some LEGO renditions of some famous Art Deco pieces:

And then we played checkers on a Microsoft Surface (Marisa beat me):

Walking down 6th Avenue I snapped this picture... a great end tothe day:

New York City - Day One in pictures

This is what I saw the entire way to New York on the Megabus (when I wasn't sleeping):

Then we checked into our hotel room (the lovely person at the front desk bumped us from a room on the 14th floor to one on the 23rd floor) I looked out the window to see this:

I took this picture at 2pm (that becomes important):

We stood in line at the Shack Shake starting at 2pm:

These guys were competing against one another to see who could solve the Rubik's Cube the fastest (any of them would beat me):

2:30 and still on the Shake Shack line:

Finally, we can order (this was taken at about 3pm):

Mmm, the food. It was good, but I don't think it was worth waiting over an hour for:

After our burger and shake we decided to walk some of that fat off on the Highline:

We saw some cool looking buildings:

We enjoyed the fauna high above the streets of NYC:

Marisa enjoyed the wooden recliners:

At the candy store we found assorted bunnies:

And the we went to the top of the Empire State building (see my Empire State Building tip):

And you can't beat the view:

Even the view looking up is pretty nice:

And to round off the evening, some nice smooth jazz 86 floors above the street:

The only Empire State Building tip you'll ever need

Buy the Express Pass tickets. When you get to the building itself (or the website) you'll wonder, just as I did, whether the extra cost (over double the price) is worth it.

Speaking as someone who opted not to get the Express Pass take my word for it: the extra expense is worth it. The Express Pass allows you to skip all the lines. When you first enter the building you'll go through security and that will make you think all the lines will be quick going.  I will say that the staff at the ESB gets a lot of people moving quickly, but you're still going to be waiting for at least an hour without the Express Pass. Buy it (and don't get the map. You don't need it).

Memorial Day 2010: A Lancaster County weekend in pictures

This was our third time spending Memorial Day in Lancaster County (check out the 2009 version of this post) and it is official: it is now a tradition! Huzzah.

This time we spent the majority of the weekend in the Churchtown Inn's lovely Covered Bridge Cottage. I will admit that I was a little worried about the cottage based on some online reviews, but I don't know what cottage these people stayed at. The Covered Bridge Cottage was fantastic. Well appointed, very cozy, and fast wireless Internet? Who can ask for anything more?

This year I decided to leave my fancy-pants DSLR at home and see if I could take some nice pictures with my little point and shoot camera (I have a Canon PowerShot S90 , which is a great little camera).

All the pictures below were taken with it, and to tell you the truth I didn't miss having my DSLR at all.

We started off with a quick trip to the Lancaster Central Market where Fiesta Sunshine Mix is always in season:

Then we were off to the lovely town of Lititz, PA to meet Becky and Eric (this is a picture I took of myself waving at them through the cafe window):

I think it is a state regulation that while you're in Lititz you must visit Wilbur chocolate:

Becky and Marisa talking about lady things:

Becky grew up in Lititz, and I grew up in Yonkers, NY. Imagine my surprise to find a little bit of Yonkers in Lititz:

This was the first of many antique malls we stopped at during the weekend. This floor was a little sparse:

The first of many yard sales we stopped at. Marisa found these boxes of old jars in under 5 seconds:

One of Marisa's favorite places is this junk store in Columbia, PA. I think it is a little gross, but she loves it (and they've really cleaned it up since last year). Here are a bunch of nails using good old Bethlehem Steel:

I've taken this same picture every year for three years (2008 version and 2009 version). Here's the 2010 version:

Here's the view of the front of the store:

The happy couple in front of a bridge:

Marisa's newest obsession is Pyrex. She found lots of it:

Marisa is ready to fight that fire with a tiny spatula:

You kids can keep your iPads, the Kindle DX is my faithful companion (though I did bring my iPad along with me as well):

Baby goat:

Marisa can find the nearest Goodwill no matter where you place her in this great country of ours. This is the rather unusual Goodwill Discount Center we found in our travels. It was attached to a normal Goodwill that we spent some time in. After about 30 minutes I said to Marisa, "Don't you want to check out the discount center? It is right down this hall." She said, "No, we should go." I knew she was trying to make me happy but I couldn't conceive of stopping and NOT going to the discount center. I'm glad we did because this is what it looked like (and Marisa found a rare Pyrex bowl):

For all your Amish Stuff needs:

Wedding/Honeymoon pictures

Marisa and I got married a couple of months ago and I haven't put up any pictures! We took a bunch both at the wedding itself and during our honeymoon. I've collected some of the pics I like best in this post, but if you want to see them all they are on Flickr:

• Wedding Pictures
• Wedding Pictures by Albert Yee
• Airstream and Vanderbilt Mansion
• New York State Capitol tour
• Fort Ticonderoga
• Whiteface Lodge
• Billings Marsh Rockefeller/King Arthur
• Bennington, VT

Here are the ones that I thought I would highlight on the blog:

The Wedding

First, we'll start with the wedding pictures. Most of these were taken by our good friend, and great photographer, Albert Yee (I'll point out which ones weren't!).

This first picture was taken by yours truly. Marisa thought that perhaps she would have enough time to take her own wedding pictures.

While Marisa and I were exchanging vows I thought I saw a random dog walk past. But I knew that no one had brought a dog with them. Turns out the neighbor's dogs stopped by to wish us well (this pic was snapped by David Kirpan).

Ah, the pro pictures begin!

Marisa has a very large family.

I don't. Behind me are my brother and mother. Behind Marisa are her parents and her sister.

Raina played a song before we said our vows.

About to take the plunge.

Different people. Different shoes.

Kissing! In public! Shocking.

My good friend David Kirpan manned my camera during the ceremony and managed to get this picture. Good job, Dave!

Marisa, being Marisa, made all of our wedding cakes herself. Here you see a destroyed flourless chocolate cake (which we made on Fork You once, video and recipe here).

My relatives made the trek out to Philadelphia to attend (ain't they nice!).

My mom, her brother, and her sister.

The Honeymoon

The whole honeymoon plan was founded on visiting Bennington Potters (for Marisa), and so that was our first stop.

Marisa also loves thrift stores, so we had to go here.

All around Bennington they had these painted Moose. This one is the covered bridge moose which features a picture of the bed & breakfast we stayed at painted on its flank (I thought that was pretty cool).

My iPhone (and Blackberry and wireless data card) got no service for most of the trip, which was actually quite nice.

A nice steeple. I just like the way this picture came out.

The first place we stayed at in Vermont was the Inn On Covered Bridge Green, which was just lovely. Norman Rockwell used to own this house... though we didn't actually stay in the house proper. There is a little honeymoon cottage in the back (which used to be called the 'corn crib') that we stayed in. I'm certain that Marisa and I will be back to this place again.

This is what was painted on that moose.

We left Vermont and went to Lake Placid, New York and stayed at the White Face Lodge, which was very nice indeed. They had brownies waiting for us in our room. You can't beat that!

I thought this was a picture of Lake Placid, but I'm pretty sure it is actually Lake Mirror... either way it is pretty.

Since I booked the Honeymoon package we also received some free champagne. It was pretty good.

Of course Marisa bought some jars.

And I demanded we visit some historical sites! This is Fort Ticonderoga.

Us being cute.

A cannon.

The Kings Garden which is right next to the Fort. We actually happened to visit when some sort of farmers' market was going on so we managed to buy some vegetables.

We also hit the Billings Farm & Museum which is neat (and I only heard about it because I was listening in on someone else's conversation at the Vermont Country Store).

This was outside of some tourist trap that we ventured into (and where we bought some rare Cabot cheeses that aren't available in these parts).

The Egg in Albany, NY. Since we were driving through Albany I thought it would be fun to take the Capitol Building tour.

The Library in the New York State Capitol.

A string of lights on our Airstream trailer.

We stayed in an airstream (the one pictured above) at Kate's Lazy Meadow, which is surrounded by beauty. Marisa and I were both glad we only booked one night, however, since the trailer was tiny!

I thought this was a cool picture.

And there we are being cute again!

Memorial Day with the Amish

What's that old saying, "Once is luck, twice is a fluke, three times is a tradition?" If that's true, then our little Memorial Day trips to Lancaster are fast becoming a tradition.

This year we (and Thad/Angie) stayed at Musser's Organic B&B and a good time was had by all.

I'll let the photos do the talking (you can see the whole set on Flickr):

The back of the B&B:

The backyard:

My favorite picture of the weekend, taken in the city of Lancaster:

Marisa at Central Market:

Would you believe this is the ceiling of the Quilt Museum:

We spent many hours looking at these:

I managed to eat ice cream every day for four days straight (enjoying a Dairy Queen milkshake in this picture):

And we went to the Train Museum as well:

All in all, a good time was had by all and my Canon G10 took great pictures (I left the XTi at home).

Cherry Blossoms

I was in DC last week for the Cable Show (I had no idea there was a trade conference just for the cable industry. Shocking, but true!) and since I am a good son I spent the weekend visiting with my mom.

It just so happened that this weekend was also the high of Cherry Blossom season, and so we decided to motor on down to downtown DC and check out the blossoms for ourselves.

Saturday was a beautiful day, and so about 14 million other people had the same idea as us. Despite the crowds (which were fairly well behaved) my mom and I had a good time walking around, snapping pictures, and chatting.

Sadly, I forgot to charge the battery on my camera before we left, so I wasn't able to take many pictures. You can check out the few that I did snap over at this Flickr set.

On the train to Washington, DC

My Christmas tradition of dallying forth to Waahington to see my mom is once being observed. This time around my brother Sean is joining us.

In fact I am sitting next to him on the train right now. We haven't seen each other in over a year and yet we decided to sit in the quiet car. Such is the McNulty family way. ;)

Oh, and I included the picture in this post to see if the TypePad app still crops pics for some odd reason.

Zumanity

Twitter is a wonderful thing (though some people ascribe to it a little more importance than it warrants). I often think of it as a magical device into which I put my desires and after a certain period of time they materialize.

When I found out that I would be going to Las Vegas for a conference I wanted to figure out what I should do with my non-conference time. I don't drink, smoke, or gamble much... and those are the headline attractions in Vegas (I saw many people doing all three at the same time... at 8am). I turned to Twitter and asked my followers what I should do in Vegas. Someone suggested that I check out a Cirque du Soleil show. I checked out their offerings and figured I would, in fact, see one of their shows.

Shortly after that suggestion the Cirque du Soleil twitter account started following me, and echoed the sentiment that I should check out one of their shows (shocking, I know). In a desperate, and transparent, attempt to cash in on my very minor web celebrity I suggested to the Cirque du Soleil twitterer that they give me two free tickets to a show. Imagine my surprise when they offered to give me media tickets to any show in Vegas (other than Love, which was kind of a bummer because that is the one Marisa really wanted to see). I took them up on the offer, and let Marisa pick the one that we should see. Marisa, being Marisa, decided we should see Zumanity, which is their 'adult show.'

Fast forward a few weeks and I find myself sitting in the audience, next to Marisa, waiting for Zumanity to begin. Marisa turns to me and says, 'Is this going to make you uncomfortable? Hmm, I suppose that is something I should have asked you a couple months ago.' She had a point, but I am a grown man and I can handle a little nudity so I assured Marisa that I would be fine (and I was).

The ushers all wear dresses and T-shirts that make them appear to be naked (you know the ones) and they are pretty darn convincing in a dark theater from far away. The theater itself looks as you would expect from a theater hosting an adult cabaret (it was kind of dark, lots of red velvety fabric).

Before the show starts some of the cast mingles with the crowd, and lets you in on the vibe of the show: audience participation plays a big part. I, personally, hoped that I wouldn't have to be involved with the show and I wasn't (though one of the cast members did rub my belly and say, 'So soft!' I would have been insulted if it weren't true, especially when compared to the fellows in the show. I think they might workout a little bit).

As with all Cirque shows (I assume) there was a healthy mixture of dance, music, and acrobatics. I was particularly impressed by the two women (topless, of course) who did a number of tricks in a small water filled bowl (it was big enough to hold them both, but I wouldn't have believed it was large enough for anyone to dive into, until I saw them both dive into it. It was very cool). The most 'shocking' part of the show is the 'Fighters.' Two guys are on the stage, and they have a fight/dance that makes it clear they aren't each other's fans. It all ends with them kissing, which drew some surprised gasps from the audience (though more applause than gasps).

Would I recommend that you spend at least $69 on a ticket (see what they did there?)? If you aren't offended by topless ladies and men in g-strings dancing about, and the possibility that you might be called onto stage doesn't make you sick then by all means. Marisa and I both had fun, and the show itself is visually stunning (the cast members are talented and good looking, which helps their cause).

Las Vegas and Hoover Dam

I went to Las Vegas for the week to attend VMworld 2008 (which was a waste of my time, sadly). Marisa flew out Wednesday night and met me in Sin City, and we hung out for awhile (we even relocated to the Ritz Carlton at Lake Las Vegas for the weekend, which was very nice indeed).

Friday we visited Hoover Dam and it was a very good time. Well worth the hour or so drive from Las Vegas. Check out my pictures from my Las Vegas trip to see more.

Visiting Mount Vernon with my mom

This July I went to visit my mother for her brithday, like a good son. Since it was my mom's birthday I was just for doing anything that tickled her fancy. Turns out she wanted to go to Mount Vernon, George Washington's pad. I was delighted since I like going to crap like that (which, I am sure, means that my future children will hate going to things like that).

Off we went to Mount Vernon, and we found out a number of interesting things about Mr. Washington:

1. He was shorter than me.


2. He had lots of slaves.


3. He wasn't all that interested in being president (he was much happier at Mount Vernon, though he got to spend little time there).


4. When he died he freed his slaves, though many of them decided to stay at Mount Vernon and act as tour guides to the first wave of American tourists to visit the grounds.

I took lots of pictures, as is my way, and you can see them all here.

Wedding in a barn?

Marisa and I headed to Lancaster County in the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside to celebrate the marriage of our two friends Becky and Eric (they met via a combination of a blog post and a Google search. Blogging makes things better!).

The wedding itself was lots of fun, as one might expect from a wedding in a barn. I was worried about what the appropriate attire is for a barn wedding, so I just wore my fancy dress shirt and some nice khakis. It seemed to work.

The highlight of the evening, since the happy couple had actually married themselves with a self uniting marriage license earlier in the day, was the pig race. Seeing 4 cute little pigs run around a track is lots of fun, and I recommend it to everyone.

Check out all my pictures from the happy event here. You might notice that Becky and Eric are in very few of the photos. My only explanation is that whenever I hang out with Becky she tells me not to take her picture, so she has conditioned me not to snap her pic (though this one of Marisa and Becky is very nice indeed. Becky looked great in her blue dress, and Marisa is always pretty).

I'll have the ostrich on wheat, please

This weekend I found myself in Connecticut visiting my dear old friend Glenn (it is hard to believe that we have been friends for over 16 years now... where does all the time go?) and a good time was had by all.

Glenn, as of late, has been getting into guns. You know, going to the firing range and squeezing off a few rounds. As such, he has a new rifle that he needed to get fixed which is how I found myself in a gun shop for the first time ever. The gun shop was kind of neat, since I do think guns are interesting as artifacts (I would never own one myself, but it was an antique or something) but it wasn't anything too exciting (though I did meet a nice doggie).

The real fun began after the gun shop, as it often does. We went on a little adventure to see the Cabela's that recently opened up shop in CT. If you don't know what Cabela's is, you are not alone. I wouldn't have known what it was either, but I had attended a talk by someone who helped with the website so I was hip to the Cabela's.

It is a sort of outdoorsy apparel/accessories super store... and when I say super store I mean super store. This place is HUGE. Take a look at the pictures I took (some people thought it was odd that I was snapping so many pictures, but who cares!).

One of the coolest things, though, was the restaurant which serves all kinds of exotic meats. I was in the sandwich line, looking at the line up of elk, bison, and ostrich trying to decide what to get (I went with the ostrich) but I was shocked when the 4 people ahead of me all ordered tuna salad! I mean, come on people, live a little.

Anyway, I have to grab my Jerky Blaster and some Buck Lickers and get out of here.

Some San Francisco pictures are up

As you may recall, I am in San Francisco at the moment (yes, I got here safe and sound so worry not!). I posted earlier about how I had visited San Francisco many times and yet never managed to get to Alcatraz. This trip I made sure I had time to visit The Rock, and here are the pictures to prove it.

This isn't the first old prison I have visited, I do live pretty close to Eastern State Penitentiary (if you live near Philly and you haven't been to Eastern State you really owe it to yourself to visit. Here are the pictures I took at ESP.). Both places seem to embrace the idea of stabilizing not restoring. Alcatraz seems to be doing alright for its age, but the weather and the birds have not been kind.

Overall, I had a good couple of hours over there and I would recommend it to anyone.

Oh, and I also snapped some pics of VMWorld (which is the reason why I am here in the first place).

Blankbaby is going to San Francisco

VMWorld, which is VMware's gigantic conference (Joe tells me 10,000 nerds will be there). I'll be there for work, but I won't be overwhelmed with having to try and see everything, talk to everyone, and write about. That means I will:

• Be able to learn stuff
• Be able to actually see some of SF

I've been to San Francisco 5 or 6 times, and I have yet to set foot on Alcatraz, which is one of the things that I have always wanted to do (I would also like to meet the MythBusters, but something tells me that won't happen). I'm flying into SFO tomorrow at 10am (that's when my flight gets in) and I will be on a ferry making my way to Alcatraz at 3:20pm. Can you tell that I'm excited? I love doing crap like this, and I am going to have my super cool camera along with me (and my iPhone.. I'm sure I'll be posting some pictures to the blog from time to time).

So, Blankbaby readers, what else should I do while I am in SF? Oh, and if anyone will be out there let me know and we can meet up (though I doubt anyone in SF reads Blankbaby).

For those curious you can see some pics from my previous trips to the West Coast here, here, and here.

The Ferik wedding

Ain't they cute?
Originally uploaded by blankbaby.

This weekend was the wedding of my dear friend Owen to his lovely bride Jess. Check out all the pictures I took here.

I've known Owen for about 12 years now (has it really been that long?) and while I am pretty sucky about keeping in touch with people Owen has made the effort to say in touch with me (why, we might never know). Now that Thad is in Philly I make it out to Allentown more often for some quality Owen time, which is a good thing indeed.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed the wedding.

Jess and Owen, here's to many years of bliss.

My trip to the National Museum of the Marine Corps

What a handsome man!
Originally uploaded by blankbaby.

Since I am a good son, I went to visit my mother for Easter. Sure, I don't actually celebrate Easter myself but I love my mom and she wanted to see me... so VA bound I was.

I usually try to cajole my mother into doing something while I am there, which is met with varying degrees of success. She works hard, so when she has time off she would rather not go walking around Washington, DC (which is what I often suggest we do). This trip was no different, as I kept saying, 'Let's do something!'

Finally my mom said, 'Well, they did just open that new Marine museum that I wanted to visit.'

I'm a sucker for a museum (the topic really doesn't matter) so off we went to the Marine Museum. I took lots of pictures. As you might expect there was lots of Marine stuff in the museum (shocking, I know) and I do believe lots of the visitors were either currently enlisted Marines or retired Marines.

Now, I'm not the most manly of man at the best of times. Finding myself in a shrine to the kind of of macho man that John Wayne played (though these dudes were actually brave, they weren't play acting) made me feel a little insecure. I mean, I type behind a computer for most of my life, not that brave. However, to make matters worse my mother made me hold her purse in the lobby while she used the bathroom.

A computer geek holding his mommy's purse in the lobby of the Marine Museum... it really sums up my life, don't you think?

On the train to Mom's house

I love L.A.

This is the first time I have ever been in L.A., and I am just going to be in the airport for another 30 minutes or so. I can't say that LAX is impressing me.

Anyway, did you know that United Airlines charges $46 to sit in the emergency row? How do I know this? Because I just paid $46 to get my seat in the emergency row, though since that is all I paid for $46 ain't bad to get from L.A. to Philly.

Do I sound like Madonna?

At the moment I am still in San Francisco, sitting the hotel lobby using my computer thanks to the wonders of EVDO. I had lots of fun at Macworld this week, and did lots of work as well. One of our goals for this Macworld was to shoot lots of video, and I think we were partially successful. We shot lots of good stuff, but it is taking us a little longer than I would like to get it up on the site (though that is mostly due to a number of technical problems). Anyway, some video is up at TUAW, like this hands on with OWC's ModBook. I had fun doing this video, and I didn't think I was half bad interviewing folks. Leave it to TUAW commenters to crush my dreams:

scott, where are you from??? you've got that quasi british-madonna accent going on. passable job? stay away from cameras and stay in front of your computer. you just went down 10 steps in my book.

This marks the first time I have ever been compared to Madonna, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I don't think I have a 'quasi-british' accent at all, though I do enjoy speaking the Queen's English from time to time. At least I can console myself with the fact that this comment is from the small, but vocal, minority of people who read TUAW and think that everything we do sucks (though why they continue reading is anyone's guess).

Pip pip and all that.

The McNulty has landed

The Vienna Metro stop

Moleskine City Notebooks

I'm a card carrying member of the cult of the Moleskine notebook. Sure, they are over priced and just a tad pretenious, but then again so am I. It is a match made in heaven.

Imagine my glee when I read about the Moleskine City Notebook. It is billed as 'the first guidebook you write yourself,' and has a number of clever features. They are each city specific and feature a map of the city, zone maps, a bunch of note taking space, tabbed pages, and removable sheets (for handing out your phone number, no doubt). At the moment they are available for a number of European cities including:

• Amsterdam
• Berlin
• Dublin (I so want to go to Dublin)
• Paris

You get the idea. However, starting in the Spring of 2007 US cities will get their very own Moleskine Citybooks. The US cities are:

• Boston
• Chicago
• Los Angeles
• Miami
• New York
• San Francisco
• Washington

I have been to each of those cities (expect LA) and they have their charms, but where the heck is Philly? Come on! We have the Liberty Bell, Blankbaby Manor, Independence Hall, and cheese steaks! Surely, the Nation's first Capitol deserves a frickin' City Notebook.