I listened to many wonderful hours of live, acoustic music at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, CA and am happy to see they are ready to move into their new building. It’s still on Addison Street, but much closer to public transportation and parking, across the street from the Berkeley Rep. Advance tickets for the first two shows next week are sold out, but there’s plenty more to come, plus workshops and classes. Meyer Sound Laboratories donated the sound system (you may remember them from Mythbusters’ quacking duck and other audio episodes).

Ice is no simple matter at the Olympic games. There are five ice specialists for Vancouver’s Winter Olympics in charge of five very different slick surfaces. Figure skaters and short-track speedskaters share a 1.75 inch layer of ice at 24 degrees F. Long-track speedskaters get a harder track averaging 1.13 inches at 19.4 degrees. Curling takes place on a pebbled surface over 1.75 inches of ice at 20 degrees. And in the uncontrollable outdoors, the bobsled, luge, and skeleton track is kept at an average of 1.2 inches, 24 degrees. The athletes who are the least picky about the condition of their ice? The hockey players who get 1.1 inches at 20.3 degrees F, and whose medal chances don’t depend on a hundredths of a second time difference or a missed jump.

Update from yesterday: here’s some Candy Land on Lombard Street coverage. They used interlocking rubber mats to cover the street. Plus they had Princess Lolly, Princess Frostine and King Kandy!

The Hope Diamond has been at the Smithsonian for over 50 years and Harry Winston, who donated the gem, is going to put it in a new setting to commemorate the anniversary. The diamond will be on display without a setting starting in September, then reset for display in May. It goes back to the original diamond necklace setting later in 2010.

According to several blogs, the twisty part of Lombard Street in San Francisco is being turned into a giant Candyland board game today for the board game’s 60th anniversary. I can’t find anything on the Hasbro site about this event, but maybe they’re depending on this new-fangled social networking media publicity. I’ll wait for photos.

Turns out I have mono which likes to settle in for a while and really get to know your insides. Forced rest is a strange concept, but I’m trying. Having fun, easy things to do is helpful. John Richards’ KEXP morning show ran a John Hughes tribute this morning and I grabbed the playlist and made a table for posterity (the producer’s list will be on their blog). And thank you John Hughes for the celluloid and soundtrack of my adolescence.

Dear faithful readers, do not panic, I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m recovering from a slow-moving virus (no, it doesn’t go oink and, try as I might, I can’t seem to infect anyone else with it) and am giving myself extra time to sleep and take things easy. I’ll be back soon.

The highly anticipated Scribblenauts game has a great ESRB rating description: “If multiple words are entered in a sequence, different whimsical scenarios can be triggered: a bicycle can be used to jump over a baby; a bulldozer can clear away a shark; and cabbage can be fed to dinosaurs. Players can elect to summon “cartoony” versions of bats, bombs, guns, and flamethrowers. These types of items can be used to destroy objects or even other summoned items (e.g., a club can be used to hit an animal; steak can be attached to a baby to attract lions; rockets can be lobbed at a man). These triggered animations are minimally depicted and are usually accompanied by popping, musical sound effects; bright, star-shaped flashes; or small puffs of smoke. If players wish to, they may type in the word vomit, which causes a beige-colored lump to appear on the screen.” (They got an “Everyone 10+” rating. I guess attaching a steak to a baby is OK.) (via joystiq)

There’s still a shoe company making shoes in Maine, and if this Huffington Post interview is to be believed, they’re getting a holiday shoe order from J. Crew. Quoddy still hand sews their shoes in Perry, Maine. They produce several shoes in the moccasin style. I remember their classic boat shoe being the elite preppy brand of choice back in my hometown (Sperry Topsiders being the mainstream choice — yes, preppy was mainstream where I grew up). Perhaps with all the J. Crew love in the First Family we’ll see a pair in the White House soon. As the N.Y. Times has put on the record, preppy is back, via Japan.

During our recent trip back to the S.F. Bay Area, we rode on the old carousel at Los Gatos’ Oak Meadow Park. The Chronicle takes a look at the six old wooden carousels around the Bay Area, including brief reviews from a 4-year-old boy (not ours). All are from the golden age of carousels, the late 1890s-1920s, when these merry-go-rounds featured intricate wooden carvings and detailed scenery panels. The one at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk actually has a working brass ring dispenser. The Bay Area is also home to one of a pair of the world’s largest carousels, the Carousel Columbia, built in 1976 at Santa Clara’s Great America.