Archive for July, 2008

Lunch is one of my three favorite meals of the day. Taking a break from the usual grind of burritopalooza or wolf-at-your-desk, I sought out that Davis Square oasis of calm, Snappy Sushi. While some people are off in Japan nom-nomming their way across the island, I still find Snappy to be above average in the lunch sushi game. Turns out they have at least one interesting surprise on the menu, the mamemaki roll. While the $1 a piece nigiri feel a little stingy, this $9 roll had a lot going on: brown rice, tuna, salmon, avocado, cucumber and lettuce, all wrapped in a white soy sheet studded with black and white sesame seeds and drizzled with a nice edamame-yuzu sauce.

The whole effect is very summery, with crunchy cucumber and mushy avocado adding a salad-like vibe to the sweet and melty salmon. The sharp citrusy sauce (I can taste the yuzu, not so sure about the edamame) and bland, slightly chewy soy wrapper really made this roll stand out.

Not quite ready to return to work, I wondered, what next? Ordering another roll was tempting. Picking up another couple of shots of caffeine also seemed sensible. But who needs sensible when you can get ice cream? I made a bee-line for JP Licks. In the interest of keeping it light – and simple – I looked only at the soft-serve frozen yogurt selections. Lo and behold, they had both coffee and oreo flavors in one machine, allowing me to order the rare fro-yo swirl version of one of my favorite ice cream varieties, coffee oreo.

I opted for the kiddie size – smaller than small – which apparently comes in an espresso to go cup (take that, Murky Coffee!) for $3.14. I like that it says “HOT” all along the bottom of the cup. Honestly, it didn’t hold a candle to the ice cream version which has actual chunks of oreo cookie, but it was cool and most definitely hit the spot.

If you’re a big frozen yogurt fan and a bit obsessive, you will get a big kick out of JP Licks’ frozen yogurt schedule, where you can learn which flavors will be on offer at which stores during which weeks, no doubt avoiding much calamitous disappointment.

I write a lot for work and some for pleasure, and I enjoy a good game of Scrabble (more on the death of scrabulous another time) so I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I like a good anagram. One of my favorite sites is the Internet Anagram Server at Wordsmith.org, although I don’t always like the output.

Anyway, imagine my delight when J brought back to my attention, the Anagram Subway Map, an odd mashup genre where people take transit maps and anagram the stops. I can now add to my two favorite Boston subway map variants, a third, anagrammed, version, apparently from this site, where you can buy CafePress items featuring it.

Maybe its just luck, or a cosmic joke, or something, but it seems that the quality and in some cases the appropriateness of the anagramming is very very high on this map. There are links to several others on BoingBoing and elsewhere, I’m sure.

Gotta wonder about taking a daily commute between Carnal Request and Divas and back. I hope the good folks at Strange Maps take note of this phenomenon.

Finally, I’ll reproduce a droll bit wherein a wag anagrams the stops on New York City’s 1 train, starting, oddly enough, at my home stop of 72nd street and heading North:

27
97
68
69
130
101
611
521
371
451
751
861
811
911
Damn Tyck Trees

If you haven’t been following Tangyslice’s inane quest for social media greatness, I don’t know what social media rock you haven’t been living under. I’ve been following along with morbid fascination as an otherwise reasonable guy tries to join 100 social media or social networking sites in just 30 days. At first I rode along as a training buddy, but as the month draws to a close and Tangy looks like he’s just going to make it, I’m happy to take second place and retain just a bit more social media dignity. So here, for the last time, are a baker’s baker’s dozen more social media sites in the limeduck library, bringing the total to sixty-something.

1. All Consuming – Twitter asks, “what are you doing right now?”, All Consuming asks, “what are you consuming right now?” Bonus points for a top-level navigation item called “gestalt.”
2. Beautiful Society – A site where you can tell the world about your favorite stuff. Wow.
3. Blinklist – Sort of social bookmarking. You can make lists. Online. W00t.
4. Book Crossing – Prof. P turned me on to this years ago and I still check it once in a while. You leave your unwanted books around and use this site to alert people to their location. Watch as your books wander the world.
5. Dopplr – Tell people where you’re going and when. So you can meet up with them. So other people can rob your house. At least they use openID for login.
6. Free Government – An experiment in democracy. They want to elect a representative who will vote according to the polls taken on this site. A politician who follows polls, that’s new.
7. Friendster – The original social stalking site.
8. Kirtsy – “the place to find and/or link to anything and everything on the Web that you’d like to share.” See blinklist.
9. Lijit – “What if your readers could search you and everything you’ve created for answers they’d trust?” Maybe they’d use goojle.
10. Lime.com – “Healthy living with a twist.” Maybe I should have joined as just “duck.” I look forward to picking up this domain name at the bankruptcy auction.
11. limewire – I have absolutely no idea what this site is all about. See comment from Cintatdo
12. Ma.gnolia – “Discover, share and discuss the best of the web.” Pretty, but bo.ring.
13. Mashable – If you believe you are more than the sum of your microdrivel, this site could prove you wrong. YAA(wn)
14. Meetup – See also going.com and getafirstlife. Go out and meet some actual people. Could actually be useful if you’re willing to leave the house.
15. Mixx – “your link to the web content that really matters.” Funny, if you just move your hands a bit over on the keyboard, it spells, Digg.
16. Skyrock – “Free people network.” Might be French.
17. Zeer – Since you are what you eat, Zeer tells you what other people on Zeer think you are. Personal message from site hostess is a bonus. A far cry from All Consuming, and not just in the alphabet.

Congratulations to Tangyslice, I concede this winner’s curse.

Recent tropical weather – by which I mean steamy torrents of rain, not sunny skies – always puts me in the mood to go spelunking in the photo back catalog.

I found this in the “meh” bin from a trip to Hong Kong a couple of years ago. It’s Victoria Harbor reflecting the skyline that everybody else was shooting. You can get a better idea of the total scene from this shot. I could get lost in these negatives for days.

Neon towers write
shimmering calligraphy
on Hong Kong harbor.

Don’t you love it when over-caffeinated people get into screaming matches over how they think coffee should be served? As long as its not happening in front of me in line, I consider it a form of reality TV – it just serves to reaffirm that whatever my faults, at least I’m not those people.

Maybe you heard how a week or two ago, a guy tried to order espresso over ice at a coffee shop where such a drink was “really not ok” and this turned into a minor media flurry (I saw it when it first hit boingboing) and eventually degenerated into bilateral threats of arson and assault. See the original rant here, and a rantbuttal from the coffeeshop guy here.

Anyway, this got me thinking. The fancy coffee shop here thinks they’re enforcing their brand, a “coffee without compromise” brand, rather than a “have it your way” brand, which is what the customer thought was in force. (I’m at a Starbucks now, I wonder if there’s any permutation of the stuff behind they counter they won’t serve?) A basic failure to communicate, perhaps? Hardly an excuse for the level of verbal violence on both sides.

Elite, even prickly or hostile brands do exist and can succeed. Hardly anything is truly for everyone, and smart brands have to find ways to appeal to the people they want and to ignore or even drive away the people they don’t want. “Everybody” is just not an actionable target market. High prices and high pricing signals (like no price tags) are the most obvious way that brands drive off undesirable customers, but sometimes you want to segment on something other than price.

I met up with an old friend and colleague at podcamp last weekend, and he expressed some concern that he had developed a negative brand as “not for everybody” for being aggressive and opinionated. I agree. He’s not for everybody. Neither am I and neither are you. But if you’ve got a particular kind of problem, you need a particular kind of solution. This guy shouldn’t try to broaden his appeal, he should accentuate his specialization. Look at Listerine, Altoids and Moxie – they are strong and aggressive and not for everybody, and proud of it.

I think there’s room (maybe even a need) for a Murky Coffee in every industry – a strong and bitter dose of exactly what you need, whether you’re man enough to admit it or not, served up the right way, no substitutions – and that comes with the need to clearly communicate how and why your brand is so tough. And finally, there’s an obligation to be respectful of people as you steer them away to other, less demanding vendors.