Brand Filler

By Mike Bardsley

http://matadornetwork.com/trips/coming-soon-fly-from-sf-to-sydney-in-2-hours-vid/

Space XC, Virgin Galatic, and KLM are getting into the market of space tourism.  That is right folks I said it, space tourism.  Currently Space XC and Virgin Atlantic project commercial flights into space to be available as soon as 2014 and 2012 respectively.   All I can say about that is, wow that is really, really soon.  These planes will reach a traveling speed of mach 3 within 3 minutes of take off and be traveling at a maximum altitude of 62 miles (for perspective, a commercial airplane traveling at 32,000 feet is at an altitude of about 6 miles).  

Now before we get ahead of ourselves with this whole space tourism bit, I have a hard time accepting this as true “Star Trek” space flight or even NASA.  But honestly who’s counting, or for that matter who wants to put the kabash on a pretty cool marketing tool.  The term space tourism is a real attention grabber (Total Recall…anyone…nope..just me then..yep) in my mind even if they are being a little liberal with their interpretation of “space.”

However, these planes with names such as WhiteKnightTwo (Virgin Galactic) and Lynx (KLM) will offer passengers the experience of weightlessness as well as a view of Earth from way up high.  While the projected costs of these flights are to range anywhere from $90K to $200K the future for the rest of us may not be too far off.  

Now here is the best part – these advances in space tourism could mean that air travel time between terrestrial destinations will be drastically reduced.  According to KLM, their ship could get halfway around the world in two hours.  It is estimated that to travel from London to Tokyo will only take 1.5 hours.  Now that is something I can get behind!  Weightlesness, cool.  View of earth, can see it on BBC or better yet Google Earth, but shortening the amount I have to sit on an airplane, SOLD!, I will take two please!!

By Mike Bardsley

Steve Jobs passed on Wednesday and I thought that I would be remiss if I failed to mention this and honor his genius with an entry on his account.  

Mac or PC is a standard question when you talk computers, while some people choose PC others choose Mac.  Typically you might think that this choice would be based upon what you use your computer for.  However, Jobs was a game changer and a visionary and instead aimed to and was able to create a brand loyalty with his users unlike anything seen in the computer/technology field before.  PC users will constantly change their product choices for example how many different brands of PC have you owned.  For me I have had a Lenovo, HP, and now am looking into buying a Toshiba.  In contrast Mac people love their Macs and would not have anything else. Mac users once converted will never stray back into the PC world. Jobs did this with his innovation, vision, and understanding of producing a quality product unlike anything else on the market. 

RIP Steve Jobs.

Sleep til 10. Starbucks. Manicure and pedicure with Leila.

I don’t often blog about food, but I think that’s a mistake.  Restaurants and bars live and die by their reputation more acutely than almost any other local business.  In San Francisco we have more than our share of great food, but there are a couple of establishments that stick out as exceptional.  Lafitte, at Pier 5, is one of them.

This weekend I went out for dinner with my significant other and our long time friend Leila.  After a little hemming and hawing we settled on Lafitte; while it wasn’t our first time at there, we are not exactly regulars.

The atmosphere is big at Lafitte; set in an old shipping warehouse on the San Francisco Embarcadero, it’s airy and light with the kitchen and bar taking up about half the room and seating and tables taking up the other half. The trick at Lafitte is to sit at the bar.  It’s not that table service is bad – it’s not, it’s fantastic.  But, sitting at the bar you get a ring side seat to watch the kitchen and the bartenders.

Lafitte’s drinks are works of art and their bartenders, especially Daniel Chase, are master craftsmen.  He’ll talk you through what he’s making – the night we went it was jalapeno paste for a new type of margarita.   They will also make wine selection a lot of fun.  I’m competent at choosing a good wine, but these guys are experts and they’ll always have a great selection of suggestions for you to try.

The food is amazing – I had the Steak Frites and it was brilliant.  The best part about the dinner though was that the chef, Russell Jackson, came over to talk to us about it.  The meat is sustainably farmed and he talked to us about the preparation and what went into cooking it.  For desert we had the most amazing Chocolate Molten cake I have ever had – bar none.  It was made from Tcho chocolate and it had a perfect crusty outside and velvety smooth inside.  It was served with vanilla ice cream and it was gone in about three minutes.  Pastry chef Carolyn Hoffman came out to talk to us about the ice cream  and how she puts her unique twist on it with a recipe that includes duck eggs and sassafras. She brought samples of two other flavors – and let me tell you, I am a big fan of anyone who brings more ice cream to the party.

Lastly, you’ve gotta try Steve’s Nuts.  It’s an appetizer of mixed almonds, cashews and walnuts in a salty-sweet coating.  It was invented by and named after one of the chefs – Steve.  It’s good food and it gets everybody laughing when you order it.

All in all – a fantastic night: great food, great atmosphere and fantastic people.  It’s a must try if you live in San Francisco or if you’re just planning to visit.

Full record streaming here

Competing in free and breast stroke! Yikes.

By RJ Bardsley

It turns out that the iPad was a long time coming - actually a lot longer time coming than we ever really thought.  This blog post on PaleoFuture (one of the coolest blogs out there for any of you post-modern historians) reviews a video from Apple on the future of computing, circa 1988.  You’ll notice a couple of clunky devices that foreshadow the iPad with some pretty remarkable accuracy.  I guess the message here is there has never been a shortage of good ideas, but at the time there would not have been a processor that could handle that sort of computing in such a small device.  Another point of interest is the lack of touch screens - notice the clunky navigation pads on some of these devices.  Who knew it would take 22 years to get from there to here.

By RJ Bardsley

Advertising Age’s Rupal Parekh had a great post on the seven stages of a modern social media blunder.  The article focuses on the Kenneth Cole Egypt tweet.  The tweet, while callus, did get KC front and center in the headlines.  It almost begs the question - was it on purpose?

Rarekh’s seven stages of blunder are:

1. Commit the gaffe
2. Audience outrage follows
3. Somebody apologizes
4. Somebody (else) parodies the whole thing
5. Everybody sees the humor of the whole thing
6. General indifference
7. Repeat.

The whole cycle takes less than a day in the social networking world. 

If you are into wines from the Burgundy region of France this is the place for you. Bar staff seems friendly, music is good and the wine (so far) is fabulous.