
- Businessweek Bloomberg had a story a few weeks back about the completely uncool devaluation of airline miles (We’re miles people. Well, XFE is a total airline miles machine, and flew roundtrip to Alaska two days this week just to rack up miles on a cheap ticket. I’m more of a “maybe I’ll use the Miles Shopping Mall for my Sephora purchase, if I remember” miles junkie). Anyway, tip number one for getting the most out of your miles: stop hoarding them.
- Speaking of travel, MentalFloss has a charming list of “diseases” you can only catch in German. My favorite is fernweh, which means a hankering to gallivant, ie: to long to travel.
- The Lego Movie got snubbed for an Oscar nomination in the best animation category. The directors’ reactions are great.
- As if McDonald’s wasn’t having enough marketing trouble these days. Somebody’s trying to bring back the McBarge, a failed floating McDonald’s restaurant from Vancouver’s 1986 Expo. The name alone would suggest publicity nightmare.
- Somehow this week, I got a whole bunch of wine-types following me on Twitter. Which is fine, but I suspect they will be sorely disappointed by my wine expertise. However, I find their tweets delightful and learned that Thomas Jefferson spent $186,000 (in today’s currency) on wine during his eight years as president.
- And, because I am personally responsible for the freedom of one sea turtle in Bali, I am now fascinated by the entire species. This National Geographic article explains how mama loggerhead sea turtles use the earth’s magnetic field to find their way back to the beach where they were born. Meanwhile, I can’t even use the car’s GPS to get around Northern Virginia. Don’t even try to mention a compass in my presence.
I did not include enough turtle pictures in my post the other day. Here’s some additional ones, supplied by the ever patient XFE:

