Fun holiday mini-website from an advertising agency.

Periodic Updates From North Pole, Inc. Chairman & CEO Santa Claus
Santa's 2006 Holiday Blog

Yet another story that makes The Soprano's portrayal of New Jersey politicians seem not so far afield.

Double & Triple Dipping in New Jersey

Sacco is a state senator from North Bergen. He is also the local mayor. And the assistant superintendent of schools.

He earns just over $250,000 a year when all three salaries are bundled, and he'll get a mega-pension to match when his day comes.

What's remarkable is that Sacco genuinely seems to believe the good people of North Bergen are lucky to have him in these jobs, even if each job gets only a piece of him. He's that good.

"A lot of my work can be done on the phone," he says. "I can call in to see what's going on, and make decisions. I'm fine."

Talk about phoning it in!

"Hello, this is Senator, Mayor, Assistant Superintendant Sacco, I'd like to speak to my job."

Follow up to my post about "Wife Swap" trolling for a Lego family to volunteer for the show.

Turns out they've been hitting a lot of different subcultures looking for contestants to be on their show.

Some more photos from my European trip over the week of Thanksgiving.

These all have to do with the London Eye, which for the time being is the largest observation wheel in the world.

The British Airways London Eye, also known as the Millennium Wheel, opened in 1999 and is the largest observation wheel in the world. It stands 135 metres (443 feet) high on the western end of Jubilee Gardens, on the South Bank of the River Thames in Lambeth, London, England, between Westminster and Hungerford Bridges. The wheel is adjacent to London's County Hall, and stands opposite the offices of the Ministry of Defence. The Eye is officially the world's most popular tourist attraction.

A capsule at the top of the London Eye.
(Click any picture to see a bigger version of that picture.)



The drive system seems to make use of tractor-trailer tires, tread and all, as the friction wheel to drive the Eye.



A view of Parliament from the Eye.



A view of the Eye itself.

I did a little research for a not-very-technical friend on GPS units, and from that I wrote up the following primer on picking between the two most basic Garmin driving GPS units.

The primary difference between the two:

The c320 comes with software on CD (for installation on a computer, which you then use to load up a SD flash memory card , like the kind that you put in some digital cameras. Then, you put the memory card in the c320, allowing you to download a particular region of the country for GPS mapping as you drive.

The c330, on the other hand, comes pre-loaded with highly detailed street data of the entire United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico so you don't need to download any region to get started, and it is ready to go anywhere in the country.

Basic Garmin:
Garmin c320 -- $290 including shipping.

The next step up:
Garmin c330 - $310 including shipping

UPDATE:
There is one more model that is part of the c3xx series, the line topping c340. So far as I can tell this model's primary additional features above the lower models are:

• Turn by Turn directions with Text to Speech - It talks to you more than the lower models, and it doesn't simply tell you to "turn" when your turn comes up.
• Available real time traffic information with optional GMT-10 traffic receiver. (Limited coverage at this time, and reports are that the traffic info is not of the highest quality.)

Garmin c340 - $350 including shipping