We still have analog cable from Comcast in our house. So old skool, eh? We did upgrade to a nice HD TV last year and our cable service includes many local stations in HD, but our Tivo is still standard def. Comcast is itching to get people like us onto digital cable but we were never happy with the plans that always cost more and were more confusing than the expanded basic plan we’re content with. We knew we were lining up dominos when we bought the new TV: new cable plan or switch to a dish, HD Tivo, new DVD player and DVDs, various ways to download programming — and making it all work well together. But we weren’t rushing to tip that first domino over. Then in December the Seattle Times announced that Comcast was forcing the digital switchover, moving channels above 29 to digital format and requiring a converter box to receive them. Comcast was not forthcoming with details on timing, which I attributed to a phased rollout plan to minimize unified screaming from their customers and technicians. Brier Dudley updated his Times blog FAQ post from December as he learned more, and in March he announced that Comcast had begun the switch in certain areas. They plan to complete all of Washington by the end of the year. We receive a letter every month from Comcast enticing us to switch. Now we’re waiting for the one that doesn’t present it as a choice.

My orchestra stand partner mentioned that when she was in Russia she attended several concerts (as musicians tend to do in foreign countries) and noticed that much of the audience would spend intermission walking in a circle around the lobby. How odd, I thought, I am certainly going to look that one up on the Internet! Surprisingly, the only real hit popped up from my frequent haunt, Ask Metafilter. Someone had read about the observation in Fred Plotkin’s “Opera 101” that German audiences will walk in a circle in the lobby. Interesting.

We’ve been using Stone-Buhr flour since we discovered it at random at our local Safeway or QFC and noticed it made our bread extra yummy. I never researched the company, I just figured that any producer can do better than generic supermarket flour, though at some point my husband pointed out that Stone-Buhr did even better than King Arthur and Gold Medal (my mom’s “reserve for special occasion” flours — she’s frugal that way). Last week the N.Y. Times, attracted by a great P.R. gimmick, wrote about Stone-Buhr’s FindtheFarmer program. Buy their flour, go to the website, and find out what farm grew the wheat. Actually you get the actual names of the families running the farms, a photo, and a bit of history and future plans. Stone-Buhr is owned by Josh Dorf who bought the company from Unilever six years ago. Previously, Dorf worked in e-commerce.

Marianne Perlak has created sculpture out of old books by folding their pages into flowing forms. Perlak is a former art director of Harvard University Press and her career as a book designer has of course informed this endeavor. Her exhibit, “Text to Texture” is at the Wellesley Free Library in Massachusetts until the end of the month.

Tweedy & Popp Ace Hardware is the oldest hardware store in Seattle. The Wallingford store, opened in 1920, is a neighborhood institution. When the store moved across the street on Saturday almost a hundred customers and neighbors showed up to help out. They formed a bucket brigade, moving inventory to the new digs despite the cold rain (it’s Seattle after all). Flaggers helped handle the cars at the crosswalk. Volunteers passed hinges, bags of grass seed, and other hardware store staples from hand to hand. Others made good use of the wheelbarrows.

I just saw this HP Touchsmart commercial from last year on an old Tivo’d program. It has lovely special effects of a man conducting and gesturing his way through documents and other files, set to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Summer). According to Youtube comments, which are of course suspect, the conductor/actor is Philip White (the one listed on IMDB perhaps; another guy didn’t fit the bill). The music is performed by Sejong, which is, perhaps ironically, a string orchestra that does not use a conductor.

This N.Y. Times article about the government auction of 605 diamonds seized in a drug-related sting operation has some interesting facts on auctioneer Rick Levin’s recent business. “In the last few years alone, he has sold for the government smuggled horses in Arizona, stolen cab medallions in Boston, 54,000 pounds of smoked Chinese scallops, a shipping container of blue jeans, illegally marketed Freon and a million packs of untaxed cigarettes.” But most relevant to these economic times, Levin also holds a contract with the FDIC to sell the furniture, fixtures, and equipment from failed banks. I guess when the FDIC takes over, they salvage whatever assets they can.

New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff captures the appeal of Roz Chast and, well, much of Jewish humor in this description: “A classic cartoonist who represents certainly a Jewish sensibility is Roz Chast — a real inward-looking sensibility, and the world as a worrisome, neurotic, yet humorous place, a sensibility which combines anxiety with humor.” (here’s a video of Steve Martin interviewing Chast at the New Yorker Festival in 2006)

David Letterman got married. He actually went to a courthouse in Montana with Regina Lasko and their son Harry and finally got married. And he even announced it on his show. They’ve been together for over 20 years.

Car dealerships are having great difficulty nowadays, but I always expect Subaru dealerships in this area to pull through. It’s the unofficial car of the Pacific Northwest and Subaru actually made a profit in 2008. But when we drove past Eastside Subaru this weekend, both their used and new car lots were empty. What happened? Apparently the manufacturers have seized the cars from the Rainier Automotive Group (don’t click, loud music!). So Burien Nissan, Eastside Subaru, and others are operating with no cars to sell on the lot. Service departments remain open, but without cars and financing, the dealers have nothing to bring money in. On the flip side, the owner and execs of a Toyota dealership in Nebraska spirited away 81 of their new cars to sell fraudulently at auction and elsewhere. I can see how manufacturers may be spooked about getting paid for their valuable property.