Category Archives: Commentary

See thru

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Or pick their noses or walk around naked…or watch Swamp People on the History Channel.

No one should watch that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This ‘transparent house’ is located in Tokyo.  Designed by Sou Fujimoto architects, the multi-level structure occupies 914 square feet and features lots of ramps and cool built-ins.

And glass walls.

Now, your first concern might be the lack of privacy.  And sure, there aren’t that many solid walls in the place.  But I think you would get used to the constant exposure.

The Internet has prepared us for that, right?

Personally, I would be more concerned about the light.  Unless the photos are hiding retractable awnings or shades, the sun would be your almost constant companion.

So. Much. Light.

The vampire in me says no.

A cool grand

This is my 1,000th post on The Sticky Egg.

That’s 1,000 blog entries in 1,000 consecutive days.  No sick days.  No holidays.   No weekends.

As the Dowager Countess would say, “What is a weekend?”

I started the blog 1,000 days ago to give myself the opportunity to write for fun.  I added the daily deadline to make sure I actually did it…and that was very motivating.

At first.

Now it’s the folks who share their comments — and the readers brave enough to actually subscribe — who inspire me to come up with my brand of foolishness every day.

So, thanks for sticking with The Egg.  Hope to see you here for at least a thousand more!

Closing the deal

I am self-employed. I’m my own boss.

So do I complain to me that my company doesn’t offer outrageous perks to keep me on the payroll?

Even in these tough times, employers are getting more and more creative in the perks they offer to attract — and keep — top talent.

Remember when we used to get excited about free soda in the break room?  Child’s play.

Take a look at some of the fun stuff that CNN & Forbes report is out there now:

  • Abercrombie & Fitch offers employees electric scooters to travel around the corporate campus.
  • Google offers employees free breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks at 16 gourmet cafes on its campus.
  • American Century Investments covers employee adoption expenses and fertility treatments up to $10,000 per year.
  • Cliff Bar has a 40-foot bouldering wall, fitness center, dance studio, two massage rooms and a staff of certified trainers and nutritionists.
  • S.C. Johnson gives retired employees lifetime memberships in its fitness center.
  • Smucker grants employees a 100 percent college tuition reimbursement, with no ceiling.
  • Genentech sends ergonomics specialists to examine employees’ work desk and gear.

Wow.

Well…there’s always Diet Snapple in my frig!

Get the message

I love watching movies on the big screen. Many of my friends prefer to stay at home.

Price is only one factor.

They hate having their movie ruined by chattering, texting, rude people in the theatre.

Let’s face it — it happens more often than not.

And it might be getting a lot worse.

At a recent CinemaCon panel in Las Vegas, movie executives from Regal and IMAX chains said they both had discussed allowing texting during movie screenings to make the experience more interactive for younger viewers.

NO.

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.

It’s bad enough already, with cellphones randomly lighting up the theatre and distracting your eye from the screen.  Imagine what it would look like if they were on throughout the film.  The incessant clicking.  The chatter as people shared text messages.

If movie executives want to lose customers, it’s the perfect business model.

Text them that.

Face it

Is there such a thing as a perfect face?

Scientists in Britain say yes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meet Florence Colgate.

She won Lorraine Cosmetics ‘most beautiful woman in Britain’ contest, and researchers say it’s because her face is almost perfectly symmetrical.  Using The Golden Ratio*, researchers determined the 18-year-old girl’s face has the strongest chance of attracting the most people.

Guess she didn’t need cosmetics after all.

Wondering if your mug is symmetrical?  SymFace allows you to upload a photo and calculate your own ratios.

* The Golden Ratio is roughly 1.6, which means a beautiful person’s face is about 1 1/2 times longer than it is wide.

Let’s make a deal

I finished reading a great book today on the plane — a non-fiction, history book even.

I know, right?

To Marry an English Lord” is the book that inspired Julian Fellowes to create the award-winning series Downton Abbey on PBS.

It tells the true story of the more than 100 American heiresses who traded money for marriage –  and a nifty title in Britain — around the turn of the century.

Sound just like Lady Grantham, doesn’t it?

The real life stories, as told by Gail MacColl and Carol Wallace, are no less entertaining and compelling.  Perhaps that’s why it doesn’t feel one bit like a high school history class.

I was even inspired to order The Glitter and the Gold, a first-hand account of American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married the ninth Duke of Marlborough in 1895.  It’s considered to be one of the best accounts of the ‘aristocratic life.’

Sign me up.

Play big!

Over the weekend, students at MIT hacked the Green Building on campus and made it play Tetris.

It’s not the first time a college building’s lights have been hijacked.  Students at Brown University and Delft University in the Netherlands pulled off similar stunts years earlier.

But it’s still pretty darn fun.

And I think New York City should consider itself challenged — not the colleges per se, but all the wonderfully tall buildings that occupy downtown and bring in millions of tourists each year.

Sure, we have dancing snowflakes on the side of the Sax Fifth Avenue Building each Christmas, but I’m talking bigger.  Taller.  Faster.

I’m looking at you, Empire State Building.

We know you can vary the lights at the very tip-top to reflect the seasons.  How about using the lights on the side of the building to create the biggest video game in the world?

If you don’t do it, I’ll bet there’s a hacker out there who will.

Game on.

Bird brain

If you’re looking for the first robins of spring where you live…

They’re all in Central Park.

I noticed a large gathering of robins on the Great Lawn when I was walking Rory this morning.  They were spaced out in an almost geometric pattern, standing very still.

It looked much like the start of some sci-fi films, just before the aliens land…or creatures burst through the earth after being buried in pods for centuries.

Perhaps they were exhibiting the bird behavior that mathematician John Nash studied as a student at Princeton, which was dramatized in the movie A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe.

Of course, there is one other reason the birds could have been standing there on the Great Lawn in the early morning –

Breakfast.

 

 

Double time

 

 

Looney tunes

We all know that B-list celebrities do reality shows to boast their sagging careers.  But to reveal their mental instabilities?

That’s just a viewer bonus.

I decided to watch this season of Celebrity Apprentice because Adam Corolla was in the cast.  I had seen him on Dancing with the Stars , and he was one of my favorites — self-effacing, witty, and yet really trying to win.

I like that.

Tragically, Adam was fired quite early on Apprentice. But Lisa Lampanelli, a comedienne I’ve never heard of until now, has provided more than ample entertainment.

It’s not that she’s that funny.  She’s mean.  Really mean.  And she has a tremendous ego.  (She is the smartest and most important person in the room and in every challenge, don’t you know.)

In the boardroom, where Donald Trump fires folks each week, she hurls verbal and mental abuse and F-bombs…and cries as a last resort.

She’s a fricking looney.

I don’t know if Lisa will win Celebrity Apprentice, but I doubt she is winning over any new fans in this endeavor.

Except perhaps a long line of psychiatrists, just chomping at the bit for her business.