hegemony rules

As you may have noticed by my distinct lack of postings during the last two weeks, I've been away. In Thailand. And, yes, it was a fantastic vacation. How can relaxing on the beach with a fabulous traveling companion be anything other than great?

I did take some pictures and learned a few things:

1. Globalization means that there is a Starbucks in Chiang Mai, one on the island of Koh Samui (which until the 1990s only had power a few hours a day), and one in the MBK mall in Bangkok (actually, there are 36 stores in all of Bangkok). And yes, I did purchase coffee at all three, even though it pained my snobbish Seattle heart to do so - but I was desperate!

2. In other big-companies-taking-over-the-world news, statues of Ronald McDonald in Thailand are altered so as to greet Thais and farangs properly. (And, no, I didn't eat there, I swear.)
   
   Ronald McDonald wais; Adults and children cower in fear

3. Green tea potato chips do not taste that good. But orange soda is better.
   
   Interesting idea whose time has not yet come
   Cutesy characters on soft drinks get me every time

4. Apparently, Laura Bush is a huge reggae fan. Don't believe me? Check out this blurry but slightly readable article from one of Bangkok's newspapers.
   
   I still can't believe this staggeringly-bad headline...

5. As my friends M and L told me during after their trip to Singapore, there really are hotel signs warning guests to not eat durian.
   
   Look, mom...no durian!

6. Thai food is amazing. I loved everything I ate, and I'm worried now that I won't be able to go to a Thai restaurant here in the States without pining for the real deal.

7. Comment spam sucks, especially when it happens on vacation. I came back to a blog filled with 4300 comments, and even I know that I'm just not that popular. I'm still deleting them, so please bear with me.

(I just realized that this posting makes it sound like all I did was buy stuff and take stupid pictures of American storefronts while I was away. Am I really that shallow?)

Posted by Adrienne at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

You may have noticed a dearth of postings to my weblog recently. This is mostly because I've been quite busy preparing for my trip to Thailand. I'm not expecting to blog much while I'm there, unless there's some intensely interesting news or a remarkably pithy link I must share.

A few travel links seem to be in order, don't you think?

• London Blog - Rants from a Prisoner of Mother England
  
• The world clock - find out what time it is in Abu Dhabi
  
• Top 10 freaky hangover cures - some from around the world
  
• Tales of Asia
  
• I go, you go - travel journals and pictures
  
• Manual of traffic signs (US)
  
• Electricity around the world - includes pictures of all of the plug adapters you might need

Posted by Adrienne at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I have a confession to make. I've broken down and created a folder in my bookmark list called "toblog" into which I save a bunch of URLs for anything and everything that I may write about on my weblog in the future (nerd alert!). It's a little bloated, so this posting is an attempt to finally clean it out.

From toblog:

• Cass Sculpture Foundation - information about contemporary British sculpture
  
• Eurobad '74 - a bunch of absolutely awful European interiors from the 1970s
  
• GPS drawing gallery - and you, too, can be a geography geek
  
• Build a paper version of Gauntlet or any of your other favorite arcade games
  
• While you're cutting and pasting, why not play Duck Hunt?
  
• Read the funny, sordid, ridiculous and often profound entries from teens at The Diary Project
  
• A couple of news items: Television watching may hasten puberty and China is starting to censor text messages
  
• Two exhibits I'd like to see - Body Worlds at the California Science Center, and Massive Change, opening in October at the Vancouver Art Gallery
  
• The Branding of Polaroid discusses how the photography company successfully marketed its product during the 60s and 70s (much to the chagrin of Eastman Kodak)
  
• Not to jump completely on the Kottke bandwagon, but the infographic of the Bush dynasty he dug is up is pretty cool

Posted by Adrienne at 05:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)