Oh, this old piece of geometry? Yeah, I own it.

Granted, I am not an intellectual property attorney, I'd rather see than be one, and I have never played one on TV.

Nonetheless, allow me to weigh in on the new patent Apple was just awarded — for the shape of the Macbook Air. That's right, Apple patented the wedge (known in some circles as... the triangle).

It appears that, for right now anyway, Apple's patent is limited to "ultrabooks," but with the ferocity that company's been showing recently in its pursuit of patent primacy, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that infringement warnings are to be served imminently on Renee Pascal, Bermuda, Pythagoras, traffic warning signs, and hapless first graders banging away in music classes everywhere.

You know, I seem to recall Smucker's attempt to patent the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Granted it was some horrible frozen round version (called an "uncrustable" of all names) of the classic, but at the end of the day, it was just a ravioli version of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich — so sayeth the Grand Poohbah Patent Examiner and so affirmed the all-mighty appeals court. Patent denied.

Because you can't patent PB&J, and I bet you can't patent ye olde right triangle either. But what do I know? I'm just a writer.

Ah, yes, I remember it well

• Him: We met at nine
• Her: We met at eight
• Him: I was on time
• Her: No, you were late
• Him: Ah, yes, I remember it well

(If you’ve never seen the movie, you can watch the clip here).

Has this ever happened to you?

You know you were with the Johnsons when you got food poisoning.

Your spouse knows you were with the Macintyres, and in fact you’ve never even had Chinese food with the Johnsons.

Fear not. According to Dr. Steve Dewhurst from Lancaster University, memories, it turns out, are not faithfully recorded in our minds as we like to think, but are “updated each time we bring them to mind to fit our current knowledge and beliefs.” Yep, that's right. Memory is mutable.

The book The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us — the title comes from the famous, and infamous, Gorilla Experiment (I won't tell you any more, you can try it for yourself here... it only takes a minute) — explores these “everyday illusions of perception and thought, including the beliefs that:

• we pay attention more than we do,
  
• our memories are more detailed than they are,
  
• confident people are competent people,
  
• we know more than we actually do,
  
• and our brains have reserves of power that are easy to unlock.”

One of the authors puts it this way:

“we assume that when we recall a personal experience vividly; that the richness of our memory means it must be accurate. The idea that we can remember our experiences as if our brain were a camcorder is fundamentally wrong.”

So the next time you remember a different when, what, where or who than your husband, wife, father, sister, or son — try remembering this: you could both be wrong!

Don't you have to write it to own it?

In a seeming triumph of culture over commerce... of high art over pop art... of the little guy over the big, bad mogul... author Chinua Achebe has succeeded in forcing rapper 50 Cent to change the title of his upcoming movie.

As reported last week in the culture blog, Vulture (and HuffPo and EW, etc.) the facts lay out as follows:

In 1958, Achebe wrote what is widely acknowledged as the most read African novel of all time, titled "Things Fall Apart."

In 2010, 50 Cent wrote, produced and financed a film directed by Mario Van Peebles, about a football player diagnosed with cancer, also titled "Things Fall Apart."

In 2011, Achebe's lawyers contacted 50 Cent to rename his movie prior to its release. In response, 50 Cent offered Achebe $1 million to be allowed to use the title. Mr. Achebe's legal team refused 50 Cent's offer, saying "the novel with the said title was initially produced in 1958 (that is 17 years before [50] was born). [It is] listed as the most-read book in modern African literature, and won't be sold for even £1bn."

This is the point at which 50 Cent agreed to rename his movie “All Things Fall Apart.”

Were I 50 Cent, rather than acquiesce, I might instead have replied to Achebe's representatives, "tread softly, because you tread on my dreams," and then gently reminded them that Chinua Achebe took his title from a William Butler Yeats poem, "The Second Coming":

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...

I might have gone on to note that 50-some years ago, when Mr. Achebe's novel was about to be released, Yeats' legal team evidently declined to ask Mr. Achebe to re-title it, nor did they point out that "the poem with the said phrase was initially published in 1920 (that is 10 years before [Achebe] was born). It was written by one of the most venerable poets of the 20th century, and won't be sold for even £1tn."

"The worst are full of passionate intensity." Indeed.

(This post is dedicated to my big sister, who introduced me to Yeats, and to Achebe and Didion, and to a whole assortment of great authors — and who can recite this poem from memory.)

Brilliant, spelled "i-d-i-o-t-i-c"

To: Whoever is in Charge at Gap
Date: A day after too late
Re: Your new logo

Please refer to page 41 in David D'Alessandro's book Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand wherein he describes the pitfalls of brand boredom. Note the fate of the senior executive at John Hancock who insisted they "drop the famous John Hancock signature from our logo and replace it with personality-free block letters. Never mind that we'd been using the signature since 1862, and it was one of Americas oldest logos and spoke volumes about our trust-worthiness and stability. Never mind that we had a trademark recognized by anyone who'd ever sat through a fifth-grade history class, and by removing it, he almost cost us our right to use it. He was apparently tired of it."

Hmmm... "personality-free block letters." Sort of like this inspired transformation?


I see that it has taken The Gap's new President, Marka Hansen, three years to fall prey to the "I'm new and important and I'm going to make my mark on this brand" syndrome - as evidenced by her post on HuffPo last week:

The natural step for us on this journey is to see how our logo — one that we’ve had for more than 20 years — should evolve. Our brand and our clothes are changing and rethinking our logo is part of aligning with that.

We want our customers to take notice of Gap and see what it stands for today.

We chose this design as it’s more contemporary and current. It honors our heritage through the blue box while still taking it forward.

Please pay particular attention to the section where Ms. Hansen expresses surprise that Gap still connects with its customer base:

Now, given the passionate outpouring from customers... we've decided to engage in the dialogue, take their feedback on board and work together as we move ahead and evolve to the next phase of Gap.

From this online dialogue, it's clear that Gap still has a close connection to our customers, so tapping into this energy is right. We've posted a message on the Gap Facebook Page that says we plan to ask people to share their designs with us as well. We welcome the participation we've seen so far.

So, now that she sees that the Gap brand, as it stands, resonates ("still") with its customers, she plans to enlist that customer base to redesign the brand image? Evidently the lesson she took away from this is that the Gap's customer-base are branding and marketing experts. This was all just a test?

What part of that presumably expert consumer-base's message, "leave the logo alone," did she not understand?

If you're wondering about the fate of the John Hancock executive? He (and his inspired branding ideas) soon found themselves somewhere other than John Hancock. Food for thought, people at Gap. Food for thought.

A mule by any other name...

...is a landmark law suit.

Betcha didn't see that coming.

I was going to talk about Bundaberg and Barritt's Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer, Australian and Bermudan (?) brewed respectively.

I was going to go on about the coolness factor of the form factor of the Bundaberg beer. That bottle! That cap! From there, I was going to transition smoothly into a discussion of the authenticity of Barritt's, to which I was introduced at a sadly missed Jamaican/Southern restaurant, Maroon's, in a drink they called the "Manchester" (which the rest of us would probably call a "Light and Stormy," if there were such a thing).

But instead I'm going to discuss a law suit. It's simple, really. As I was trolling about, searching for the perfect ginger beer image, not to mention the origin of the name "Moscow Mule," a cocktail of lime juice, vodka and ginger beer (if you're interested — Moscow because vodka is mostly ascribed to Russian origin and Mule for the kick of ginger beer), I stumbled onto something far more fascinating: the role of ginger beer in what seems to be considered one of the most famous common law cases in Great Britain. No kidding.

Evidently, in 1928, in a town called Paisley (and I'm pretty sure it's that paisley, but don't let me get off-track), near Glasgow in Scotland, two friends entered a cafe. Friend One ordered and paid for both of them, including an ice cream drink with ginger beer for Friend Two. The cafe owner brought their order and poured some of the soda out of its opaque bottle over ice cream in a glass and left the pair to their own devices. A few sips later, and Friend One considerately poured more soda out of the bottle for Friend Two. Lo and behold, along with the frothy liquid, out tumbled a snail. Actually, the decomposed remains of a snail.

A diagnosed case of gastroenteritis later for Friend Two (a Ms. Donoghue) and voila, law suit. Now that doesn't sound so interesting in our day and age, where we have customers suing restaurants because the coffee is hot. But, evidently, this was a landmark case for a several reasons. One, Ms. Donoghue brought suit against, not the abjectly apologetic cafe owner, but one Mssr. David Stevenson, an aerated water (I'm guessing that's soda by any other name) manufacturer in Paisley, and the source of the, ahem, enhanced ginger beer. Two, the grounds of the suit were the manufacturer's "duty of care" to the ultimate customer, the consumer of his product. Prior to this, although the concept of duty of care existed, it was closely proscribed, and this situation was far removed from precedent.

But justice, at least in this case, prevailed, and new case law was written and manufacturers everywhere (at least in the United Kingdom) became legally accountable to their ultimate customer, regardless of the layers of distribution behind which they tried to hide.

Okay, so it's no Inherit the Wind. But the next time you find something gross in your crunchy cheetos and you want to sue, you know who you have to thank for your odds of winning. The Paisley Snail. (You don't really want me to get into the earlier case, referenced by the judges, in the US — McPherson v. Buick — do you? It's not nearly as interesting as the snail.)

That's a word?

Chapter 1: Tess, a 15 year old from Queens, is grounded for five weeks by her parents for drinking and missing curfew.
Chapter 2: Tess starts a Facebook group, 1000 to get tess ungrounded, to rally support against the punishment.
Chapter 3: No go. Parents remain unmoved and Tess remains grounded.
Shocker.

So I know a lot of people are interested in this "unground Tess" story and movement because of what it represents technologically, socially and maybe even psychographically in today's world.

Sure, I can see that. Sort of. Though I have to wonder, what 15 year old really thinks getting a petition from her peers is going to sway her parents? But anyway, there it is, a human interest story about the intersection of adolescence, social networking, the generation gap, autonomy, blah, blah, blah.

Here's what I'm interested in. When did "groundation" become a word? The 15 year old used it to refer to her punishment... and the intrepid reporter promptly adopted it, sans quotes. This is how bad things start, folks. One person doesn't stand up for what's right, and the next thing you know, an entire generation of people are convinced that "groundation" is a real word. Like, that's so not right.

Promises, promises

Baby Einstein, the mesmerizing visual babysitter that parents have been relying on and feeling good about since 1997, is now offering refunds. Refunds you ask? Are the disks disintegrating? Evincing built-in obsolescence? No, not at all.

Baby Einstein is offering refunds to all those parents whose children did not become geniuses after gazing hour after hour wide-eyed and slack-jawed at animation and jingles set to the melodies of Beethoven and Mozart.

Shockingly, it turns out you can't plop your child in a swing in front of the TV and expect that the child you take out of the swing will be, for lack of a better metaphor, Einstein. Indeed, not only are the videos not flowers for Algernon, they are closer to poison in the well. Far from beneficial, "studies show that television exposure at ages 1 through 3 is associated with attention problems at age 7," not to mention "the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screen time at all for children under 2."

The Walt Disney Company acquired the business in 2001 and are now on the hook to refund up to $15.99 to each household who purchased their DVDs between 2004 and 2009. Even that doesn't seem to be enough to motivate a change in the labeling, which not only still claims developmental benefits (all without using the forbidden word, "educational"), it also states that the videos are intended for babies 9 months and up. Hey, what do those pediatricians know anyway?

Now, my 5 year old niece is a veritable Einstein — if you don't believe me, ask her to quote any part of The Princess Bride. Spooky. Or to name like 100 extinct species of animals. Seriously. — and I don't know when she started watching TV or how much. But I'm pretty sure she could see right through Baby Einstein's new “enhanced consumer satisfaction guarantee.”

Define irony

Of all the books in all the world, Amazon chooses George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" to peremptorily delete from people's Kindle devices? You're kidding me, right?

This is the kind of thing that if I put it in my screenplay some reader would comment in the margin, and rightfully so, "Too spot on. Choose another book."

Yet, it did so happen that on the 17th of July, in the year of the Omnipotent and Everpresent, 2009, Amazon.com did in fact reach its eerie electronic tentacles out into the ether and remove every instance of "1984" and "Animal Farm" from every Kindle owner who had purchased the books. Just like that. Gone in an instant. Poof.

Big Brother comes to life and its name is Jeff Bezos. This is not a drill.

The irony of this situation is so incredible that you can't help but feel that some poor misguided PR peon is sitting in an office somewhere, cowering under his desk, muttering to himself over and over, "it wasn't supposed to happen like this."

To be scrupulously honest, I don't why, but why not, let's let Amazon 'splain. Or at least, sum up.

First, the books' publisher changed its mind about offering electronic versions of the books. Let me be clear, the publisher decided it wanted to rescind previously granted permission. Post-facto.
Next, Amazon crumpled under publisher pressure. Again, let me be absolutely clear. Amazon crumpled, surrendered, folded, caved like Kirstie Alley saying yes to a cupcake.
Finally, like the fog on little cat feet, Amazon snuck in like a thief in the night and absconded with its customers' books.

Well, that does clear everything up.

I hear that Amazon is promising never to do anything like this again. Promises, promises.

They decide this is the year to do this?

You may have picked up on this. You may already know this. I'm a movie fan. Some might say a movie buff. However you want to slice it, I do love the movies. (And, by the way, that is a perfect example of the only time you should ever start a sentence with the word "however," otherwise, when you are using the word to mean nevertheless, "the word usually serves better when not in first position" — thank you, Mssrs. Strunk and White.)

And when it comes to the movies, I may not exactly be a gourmand, but I am definitely not a snob either. I am happy to be entertained by a movie. There are plenty of "cotton candy movies" — movies that are entertaining, even absorbing, for 120 minutes before they dissolve into nothing, leaving behind only the faintest memory of something slightly sickeningly sweet as you exit the theater — that make me happy, when they do what they set out to do. And I'm a firm believer that excellent stick-to-your-ribs movies, to stay with my movies-as-food metaphor, come in all genres, including comedies (It Happened One Night, RT-97, The Princess Bride, RT-96) and action movies (Die Hard, RT-94), as well as dramas (if I need to give you an example of an excellent drama, move on, you're probably bored silly by this column anyway).

But, 'tis true, bad movies also come in all genres. And this year, more than most, it seems to me, we have seen way more than our fair share of bad and disappointing movies. Movies that should've been good, or at the very least entertaining, were boring, or illogical, or too long, and just plain wrong. It's July and the best movie I've seen all year is a documentary. (Not that there's anything wrong with documentaries, but I'm a movie-girl. As in fiction. As in tell me a story, spin me a fantasy, show me the pretty people. I live to escape, what can I say?)

And because Hollywood doesn't do anything half-assed, except, evidently these days, make movies, the powers that be have decided that this year, this year, is the year they are going to expand the Best Picture Academy Award category from five nominees to ten. Yep, that's right, in a year when so far I have yet to see one picture I thought was fair, they're going to have to come up with ten (10!) to compete for best picture of the year. Now, granted, best is a comparative term, so sure, in that sense, it could work. Like Letterman's Top Ten movies not to see list.

Honestly, who is running Tinsel Town these days anyway? Somebody, stop them!

Because I don't have enough ways to waste time

You know the expression "herding cats?" Well go ahead, give it a try.

Not as easy as it looks, ay?

Oh look, there went 3 hours.

Pica the magpie

By the way, the word "pica" comes from the Latin word for magpie, a bird known for eating just about anything. And also for being attracted to glittery items for its nest.

I just thought that was a little more irony for the mental shleptichnach-ists out there.

You know.

No, really?

This just in: "Health care costs too expensive, Americans say."

This latest newsflash is courtesy of a poll conducted by CNN. Tune in tomorrow to see the results of their next groundbreaking survey: "are you worried about the economy?"

The Case of the Mysterious Maple Smell

It could have been worse.

It could have been really bad. Foul. Putrid. Noxious.

Instead, New York City smelled like breakfast. A tasty pancakes and waffles breakfast. Which evidently was enough for concerned citizens to take to the phones and dial 311. And this was in 2005.

Three years and some months later, scientists from two states, NJ and NY, cooperated on the investigation along with the Department of Environmental Protection. Is it just me, or does it seem ironic that when it comes to tracking suspicious pleasant odors, our agencies have no problems playing nice, but when we have to share information on, oh, I don't know—possible terrorist activity—that spirit of cooperation is itself a mystery?

So, playing nicely together, the scientists plowed through chemical registries, air samples, weather reports and 311 call logs, and found the culprit—a factory in NJ that, among other things, processes fenugreek seeds. Oddly, according to Newsday, the factory, Frutarom, "slammed down the phone on a reporter who called for comment." Now that is suspicious.

Oh, you want to know what fenugreek seeds are?

Wikifact has it that fenugreek is both an herb and a spice (a blog for another day), and is often used in the US to mimic maple flavor, as in artificial maple syrup products. Well, duh.

Special schmecial

You all probably know by now, I'm a big fan of fat red wines. Plummy, juicy, raisiny, pruny, a little spicy and all around yummy — whatever it takes to make that nice big pow in your mouth, count me in.

But that's not to say I'm not a fan of other types of wine. And lately I've found that often as not, a cold glass of a sparkling rose — be it champagne, cava, spumante, frizzante or prosecco — tastes just right. (And that's with or without the three bears.)

This current fizzy predilection has sent me on a quest for affordable sparklers, because although I'd like to indulge in Billecart Salmon and Nicholas Feuillat on a daily basis, that's just not possible at the moment. There is joy in the hunt, however, and I have found a handful of bubblies under $15 that fall into that "all around yummy" category. What more could you ask for? I mean, really?

So who needs a special occasion? or Valentine's Day? or even company? (Okay, maybe company.)

Cristalino makes a cava rose that is my fave, though many reviewers actually prefer the blanc de noir. Presto makes a rose prosecco that is so easy to drink I went through half a bottle and practically didn't notice (practically, I said "practically").

As a side note — I did have a fat red wine the other night, from a winery I'd never heard of, CG Di Arie. It was a 2006 Syrah, it was about $25, and it was very, very tasty. And — because would I be me if I didn't share this piece of data with you? — the winemaker and owner of this winery is the very same gentleman who developed the technology for the breakfast cereal Cap'n Crunch. That's right. The technology. And you thought cereal was just cereal.

I don't think that word is pronounced the way you think it's pronounced...

Yep, it's a video. Can't see it? Click here.

Because they don't allow pets in dorm rooms

I have a friend, who shall remain nameless (but she knows who she is), who's a professor at a, shall we say, highly esteemed institute of higher learning.

Graduate degree... $200,000
Tie on the doorknob... $25
Saying the following to your professor with a straight face... priceless

"Sorry my paper is late, I was sexiled yesterday - my roommate was using the room to have sex. So I had to spend the night on the couch in the dorm lounge."

Brings a whole new meaning to sexile dysfunction.

Glug, glug, glug

There's nothing like a little data mapping to make your day.

Gasbuddy Gas Prices

Or not.

For severe love problems

It takes all kinds, I know that. Sometimes, though, I have to wonder just how many kinds there are? So many, friends, there are so many.

On their site, the Angel Sisters of Love proclaim:

When I was a small child, I did not understand why people adored me so much.

It gets better from there...

I made people's lifes better by my touch or prayer, as I grew my energy grew with me and now I understand my place here on earth... Many hearths are broken and many people suffer, don't be one of them. Let me help you with your problems, don't be confused to reach out for help. I can help anyone no matter how difficult your problems is as long as you are true with me about your feelings.

Well, as long as your problem isn't poor grammar. Then, evidently, you're on your own.

Strike that. Reverse it.

So, not only is Target (that Target), previewing one of its new lines at Barney's (yep, that Barney's) - but every article I read about it reads the same way:

Julie Gilhart, [Barney's] fashion director, has worked her magic by persuading Target to launch the Rogan for Target collection at her Manhattan and Beverly Hills flagships in advance of their launch at the superstore. full article

Did you catch that? Barney's worked their magic to persuade Target to preview their clothes in their stores. Bet she had to really beg and plead to make that happen.

Don't tell me, tomorrow, Domino's will be premiering its new All Cookie Crust-All Creme Center dessert pizza at Mario Batali's restaurants. When did I leave earth as I know it?

When it's so wrong, it's right

This is the kind of thing you can't make up.

The House Republicans' new slogan to promote their party agenda is "the change you deserve."

Sound familiar? Maybe you've seen it in a magazine or heard it on TV? Because it's trademarked. By a pharmaceutical company. For an antidepressant.

Don't believe me? Read all about it on the Wyeth sponsored website about depression and their patented anti-depressant, Effexor (by the way - I read about this on HuffPost, who found it on Bluestem - gotta love the net!):

The Change You Deserve™

Are these symptoms of depression interfering with your life?

• Not involved with family and friends the way you used to be?
• Low energy, fatigue?
• Not motivated to do the things you once looked forward to doing?
• Not feeling as good as you used to?

There you have it, straight from the pharma's mouth.

So, if eight years of the Bush administration has left you feeling... Oh, I can't, it's just too easy.