Living on Japan's vending machines

Not ashamed to say it, Japan's vending machines were one of the top reasons I wanted to go there.

I was not disappointed.

Your state's weirdest unexplained phenomenon

Awesome idea for a slideshow, because everyone must scroll to their current state, home state, or any other states that play an important part in their lives.

Most of them sound pretty loopy--ghost soldiers from WW II? Astronauts haunting the launch pad where they died? Real raptors? Flying dragons? A Kansas gateway to Hell? Dead Elvis taking cabs in Vegas? A POOP MONSTER?

Minnesota's is supposedly a ghost train, Washington's a haunted elevator, Wisconsin's a bunch of UFO sightings at a place called (heh) BONG Park. That might explain the sightings, actually.

Infinity pools

If I had Mark Zuckerberg money, I would stay at all of these hotels and swim in their infinity pools. And, of course, I'd have one at my exotic estate. Sigh.

Pop-Tarts World

There's now a store called Pop-Tarts World in New York's Times Square. Pop-Tart sushi, build your own Pop Tarts, etc.

Personally, I think they're going a little nuts with the light show: "The show will put on a brief light show every hour. First, visitors will 'get frosted,' Mr. Schoessel said, with a red light and a white light. That will be followed by brief pulses of light, 'all different colors to mimic the sprinkles,' he said, 'then another really bright light' to evoke wrapping the tarts in foil.

Oh, that's not reaching AT ALL.

Update: Here's a funny review of their eats. That photo makes it look like the Pop-Tarts sushi contains ground pork.

Is 'Mad Men' mowing you down?

Oh, "Mad Men," I kid you and your lawnmower-in-the-office gag!

But Travel & Leisure has a fun slideshow of places to go to get your "Mad Men" fix the next time you're in NYC.

Book 'em, Danno...but not at this hotel

Hotel seen in "Hawaii 5-O" is shutting down.

Now I have that totally addictive theme song stuck in my head. Dah dah dah dah dah DAH...dah dah dah dah DAH!

Trippin'

The L.A. Times has a great photo slideshow of bizarre destinations around the world.

I would really like to eat at this restaurant 16 feet below sea level. As long as the walls held, that is ...

Imagine going to swim laps in the world's longest swimming pool.

When we were in California once, friends raved about Glass Beach, and we talked about going there, but ended up not stopping. When Kelly's a little older, I bet she'd love it.

My friend Chiara is living in New Zealand these days. Maybe she can dine at this treehouse restaurant.

Window into a vanished world

I've written before about how I re-read Agatha Christie's autobiography at least once a year, fascinated by the courtly charm of her life in turn-of-the-century England.

Now people can actually tour her country home, Greenway. Christie did not write in the home, although several of her books are based there. And in "Agatha," the autobiography, she also talks about how the house was requisitioned for use by the army during World War II. She kept the mural they painted, but not the 14 latrines they added.

For me, the story about the tours was equally interesting for how it updated me on her family. Her grandson, Mathew Prichard, is still alive and involved in the tours. (He's memorably recounted in the book talking to himself as he learns to walk down stairs, saying "Here is Mathew. Here is Mathew going down stairs.") Sadly, her daughter Rosalind died a few years ago, as did Rosalind's second husband (the first, Mathew's father, died in World War II). It was good to know that Rosalind had remarried, and had a pretty long life, as did her mother.

Scouting NY

Fascinating blog of the little treasures New Yorkers walk past every day, as spotted by a film-location scout who certainly must be good at his or her job. (Via Metafilter.)

Simple gifts

I've always been fascinated by The Shakers.

From their furniture and crafts -- so elegant and simple -- to their beliefs --they were early feminists, their whole order founded by a woman -- to the completely strange devotion to celibacy which naturally doomed them, they are a truly unique group.

I Netflixed Ken Burns' show about them, and it's really interesting. Some of the surviving Shakers are interviewed in it -- according to Wikipedia there are only four left, in Sabbathday Lake, Maine.

I would like to tour either that museum or Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts someday, when Kelly is old enough to appreciate it a little.

Round and round

This old photo of a round motel just fascinated me. I always love peeking into people's lives, and in this one, you can peek into a batch of different people's lives, circa...1960-something.

The photo is from an old LIFE magazine and is now online with their archives, but it didn't identify the name and city of the motel. I posted the question to Ask Metafilter and wham, within an hour, the readers there had nailed it down. It was the Villa Roma Motor Hotel on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, built by 1962, torn down in 1982.

A sad loss for the world of coolness. The hotel was like a tip of the hat to "The Jetsons" or something. Like Seattle's Space Needle, it reminds me of the future we never got to have.

Sometimes progress sucks.

Hilton Hanoi

You've got to wonder what kind of meetings they had over at Hilton Corp. when they decided to open a hotel in Hanoi. "Why, we'll just call it the...oh. Yeah. Wait. Never mind."

It does look like a beautiful place, though, and apparently it's several miles from the infamous prison. Which has John McCain's flight suit on display. Kinda creepy.