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(This guest post originally appeared at the author’s blog)

As we all know by now government spending and the Fed’s liquidity programs have provided a substantial boost to the economy.  Some would argue that these government programs are simply delaying the inevitable and masking over the real problems in the system.  According to Annaly Capital Management, these programs are having an especially profound impact on the housing market.  As we’ve often argued, many of these programs are nothing more than grandiose wastes of taxpayer dollars and do nothing more than kick the can down the road while adding substantially to the debt burden of the future.  After all, this short-term painkiller does nothing to actually attack the long-term cancer that is plaguing the economy (it’s the debt, stupid!).  Evidence of this false recovery is found perfectly in last months housing data as the government nearly let the homebuyers tax credit expire:

We love the daily “event” of data releases.  On most mornings, you can look around our trading desk and gaze upon a sea of Bloomberg terminals all pointed to the ECO screen, the economic release calendar showing the estimates and actual of each data point to be released that day.  On 11/19/09, a data point showed up on the screen that we hadn’t really paid attention to before:  RPX Composite 28dy Index.  It came in at 193.96 for September 17, versus 200.29 in the prior period.  We didn’t know what any of that meant, but we are always in search of new data to track, so we went digging.  As it turns out, it’s pretty interesting.

The data comes from Radar Logic, so we’ll let them explain in their own words what the numbers are: 

Radar Logic is a technology-driven data and analytics business that produces a daily “spot” price for residential real estate in major U.S. metropolitan areas.

Data are captured from public sources and translated into the Radar Logic Daily^TM Prices for 25 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), the Manhattan condo market, and a 25-MSA composite.  The prices reflect the actual prices paid for residential real estate on any given day and are computed using proprietary and transparent algorithms.

The 28 day index that we are looking at represents prices over the 28 day period ending September 17.  The index measures price per square foot.  There’s obviously a bit of a lag since we are just now getting September prices, but that’s fine because this particular time period is an interesting one.  The National Association of Realtors (NAR) had been on a campaign to keep potential users of the new homebuyer tax credit from missing the cutoff date.  All of the following quotes from NAR press releases are from NAR President Charles McMillan:

• 8/21/09 – potential homebuyers “should try to make contract offers by the end of September”

• 9/24/09 – “buyers have little time to act”

• 10/1/09 – buyers “must make a contract offer very soon to have a reasonable chance of qualifying” for the credit

Based on the urgency of the message (Mr. McMillan is a practicing realtor himself in Texas), we’re guessing that the vast majority of buyers planning to use the credit had already made their offers by the end of September at the urging of their realtor.  Below, we take a look at the new housing recovery by graphing the Radar Logic price-per-square foot with another recent data point that disappointed, new single family housing starts.

Interestingly enough, prices have already begun to fall by mid-September after a sharp rise following the initiation of the $8,000 first-time credit.  This is starting to remind us of another chart showing what happens when the government steps away.  The extension and expansion of the tax credit wasn’t approved by Congress until 11/5/09, so there was at least 1 month (October) of housing activity that we would call “normal”, unmolested by incentives.  It should be instructive to watch data releases for this month.  But alas, September data are still trickling in.  Our ECO screen tells us that this week we get  S&P/Case-Shiller and FHFA housing data for September.  Don’t worry, the housing market stimulus is back in effect until April 2010, so we won’t have to worry about the housing market until then.

Source: Annaly Capital Management

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See Also:

• Watch Rates Soar If The Fed Stops Buying Up Mortgages
• The Housing Double Dip Has Arrived
• The Most Important Housing Chart Shows Things Are Still Getting Worse

The new Acrobat.com is now live. Having been revealed last week, Adobe’s office and online collaboration suite gets a major refresh with a couple of products leaving the beta tag behind and also a significantly improved file management system, courtesy of a completely new back-end. For the users it means that things should go smoother and finding and organizing their files should be a lot easier.

“Acrobat.com, up until now, has been a collection of different applications running on different architectures, and file organizers. So, we retooled and created a new back-end that is the collaboration engine that will power everything we do going forward. It’s been a tremendous amount of work, but it’s work that we believe will pay off well for the future of Adobe’s online applications,” Adobe wrote.

The biggest new feature, from the users’ perspective, is the new unified file organizer. Previously, file management was left to the individual products available on Acrobat.com each with their own methods of uploading and handling the files. This wasn’t exactly ideal and the problem was made worse by the increasing number of files users had to manage.

So, Adobe got to work and came up with a brand new file management system on the back-end which translates to a single file organizer for the users. All t… (read more)

The New York Times — not usually the first publication you’d think of when it comes to calling for fiscal prudence — sounds the alarm over the government’s massive debt load.

The premise is that, although we’re fine now, borrowing money cheaply, we’ve got a huge refi coming up, and there’s an excellent chance it will be way more expensive.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A really astounding fact, noted in the article, is that due to uber-low interest rates, our annual debt-service requirements are lower this year than they were last.

Says one advocate of lower deficitse: “the government is living on teaser rates.”

Anyway, this is possible, but again, remember Japan, and the way its debt position rocketed higher, while interest rates stayed wildly low. This state can last for quite a while.

For what it’s worth, fixed-income specialist John Jansen of Across the Curve gives a thumbs up to the Times piece.

I do not think that the Treasury has thought through the arduous task that it will confront when the exigencies of circumstances force it to sell piles of debt into a bear market. I have oft stated here that a Federal Reserve rate hike is something well off in the distant future.

However, that view does not preclude me from contemplating the debacle which shall ensue when my new friends at the Treasury realize that they need to issue trillions and investors have no compelling reason to buy because the FOMC has instituted a program to normalize rates.

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See Also:

• Ben Bernanke’s 1938 Parallel
• Niall Ferguson: It’s Time To Kill The Chinese-American Monster
• Saturday Night Live Rips Obama Over China Trip, Spending, And The Deficit

These beautiful cat paintings are from UK-based artist Cheng Yan. Having studied art in China, Yan’s artwork is influenced by traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy combined with his own unique contemporary style. These images would ad a perfect touch to the home of a Moderncat lover.

9″ x 12″ prints available from AllPosters.comfor just $5.99 unframed and $39.99 framed.

Economic historian Niall Ferguson is calling for the death of a monster he helped create. Well, create is probably too strong. He just named the monster.

That monster was the dual-poled, Chinese-American partnership that he dubbed “Chimerica.”

Chimerica was, of course, a double-layered portmanteau, combining the names of the two contries, with Chimera — a hybrid animal or a ghastly monster.

Writing in The Australian, he says it’s time to go, and that the relationship — characterized by cheap money from China and wreckless spending from America — is over, and it’s never coming back.

The Chimerican era is drawing to a close. Given the bursting of the debt and housing bubbles, US household savings will have to rise, and Americans will have to kick their addiction to cheap money and easy credit.

The Chinese authorities understand heavily indebted US consumers cannot be relied on to return as buyers of Chinese goods on the scale of the period up to 2007. And they dislike their exposure to US currency via close to two trillions of dollar-denominated reserve assets. The Chinese authorities are “long” the dollar like no foreign power in history, and it makes them very nervous.

Yet there is a strong temptation for both halves of Chimerica to keep this lopsided partnership going. Despite much talk of the need to reduce global imbalances, the biggest imbalance of all persists. This year, America’s trade deficit with China will be about $US200bn, the same as last year. And China has again intervened in the currency markets, buying $US300bn to keep its currency and hence its exports cheap.

…..

During this week’s visit in China, Mr Obama had to resist the temptation to respond to these overtures with rhetoric of his own. This is not the time for big speeches, but for subtle diplomacy. Right now, Chimerica clearly serves China better than America. Call it the 10:10 deal: the Chinese get 10 per cent growth; Americans gets 10 per cent unemployment. The deal is even worse for the rest of the world – and that includes some of the US’s biggest export markets and most loyal allies. The question is: what can the US offer to make the Chinese abandon the dollar peg that has served them so well?

The authorities in Beijing must be made to see that any book losses on its reserve assets resulting from changes in the exchange rate will be a modest price to pay for the advantages it reaped from the Chimerica model: the transformation from third-world poverty to superpower status in less than 15 years. In any case, these losses would be more than compensated for by the increase in the dollar value of China’s huge stock of renminbi assets.

Read the whole thing >

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See Also:

• The Entire Chinese Market Has Become A Big Bet On Yuan Repricing
• Andy Xie: Obama Is Wrong, A Yuan Repricing Won’t Do Squat
• A Radical Solution: Obama Should Peg The Dollar To The Yuan

The bears put together a little win streak last week, but it looks set to come crashing down, as they obviously failed to deliver any kind of real blow.

Asia had a big night:

WSJ: Chinese banks in Hong Kong jumped after a researcher under China’s State Council reportedly said the Chinese economy was likely to expand more than 10% in the fourth quarter. Gains in Reliance Industries boosted Indian shares after the market heavyweight announced a bid for Dutch firm LyondellBasell Industries.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 1.4% to 22771.39 for its first advance in five sessions, while China’s Shanghai Composite rose 0.9% to 3338.66. Japanese markets were closed for a holiday.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7%, Taiwan’s Taiex climbed 0.1%, South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.1%, New Zealand’s NZX 50 ended flat and the Philippines’ main index fell 0.7%. Singapore’s Straits Times Index ended up 1.3% and in afternoon trading, India’s Sensex rose 0.8%.

Europe was up too, and US futures are pointing solidly higher.

Gold, meanwhile, is above $1165, a brand-new record.

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See Also:

• Gold Starts The Week With An Instant Blast Higher (GLD)
• Goldman Super Bullish On China
• Saturday Night Live Rips Obama Over China Trip, Spending, And The Deficit

Bloomberg offers up an interesting historical parallel to our current situation, in which stocks are soaring, but government debt yields practically nil.

For the first time in seven decades, Treasury bills are paying no interest while stocks continue to appreciate — a divergence in U.S. financial markets that might be perilous if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke didn’t know all about 1938.

That’s when the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed 25 percent even as bill rates tumbled to 0.05 percent from 0.45 percent. As 1939 began, stocks began a three-year, 34 percent decline after the Fed increased borrowing costs prematurely to stymie inflation that never materialized.

The apparent contradiction between stocks and Treasuries has been debated hotly, but the smart money see it as a liquidity issue:

“The question is what are you going to do with all the money that has been created?” said James Hamilton, a former visiting scholar at the Fed who teaches at the University of California, San Diego. “It’s not a contradiction at all to see very low short-term yields and at the same time have people trying to buy stocks. They are both reflecting that same force.”

The currency argument is bolstered by the fact that not only are both Treasuries and stocks rallying, but they’re rallying in a symmetrical manner. This chart came from David P. Goldman, who has long argued that everything is being driven by currency expansion right now.

Anyway, the premise of the above article is that in light of the similarities with 1938, there’s no way Bernanke willl raise rates. So, uh, party on!

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Proof That Everyone Is Obsessed With The Dollar Carry Trade
• A Radical Solution: Obama Should Peg The Dollar To The Yuan
• Brazil Is Reeling From Weakness In The Dollar (EWZ)

Google is getting ready for a big push with a full voice communications service in the works, but in the mean time it has to do a little housekeeping. Google Voice, one of Google’s hottest products on the mobile front at the moment, came to be after the company acquired GrandCentral, a startup offering pretty much what Voice is offering today. This was back in 2007 and now that Google Voice is getting ready for its big public debut, the GrandCentral website and service is living its final days.

Google sent an email to GrandCentral users, informing them that the service is shutting down and to move completely to Google Voice if they haven’t done so already. “We’re writing to let you know that we will be closing down the GrandCentral website as of December 31, 2009,” the email read.

All GrandCentral accounts were upgraded to Google Voice earlier this year, but since that time, you’ve still been able to log-in to your GrandCentral account and listen to old messages there. You will no longer be able to log-in to your GrandCentral account after December 31. Because of this, we strongly suggest downloading any messages or contacts that you want to keep in the next 43 days,” Google also wrote.

This isn’t much of a hassle for GrandCentral users, they… (read more)

The winner of the cat portrait pendant from The Illustrated Cat is Fran (comment #191)! Fran will get to choose one of Johnnie’s six beautiful cat portraits for her new stylish accessory.

DISCOUNT CODE!

Don’t worry, if you still want to get a cat art pendant for you or for a friend (excluding custom pendants), The Illustrated Cat is offering a special discount just for Moderncat readers. Enter coupon code moderncat09 at checkout and receive 15% off now through the end of December. Let the holiday shopping begin!

HP just informed us about their HP Home Store Thanksgiving and Black Friday savings event. Starting tomorrow November 22nd through November 28th HP will have lots of deals across their product portfolio.

You will be able to save up to $595 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv4t Series Customizable Notebook PC or save up to $515 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Edition Series Customizable Notebook PC.
We have listed all HP Black Friday and Thanksgiving deals below.

HP Black Friday and Thanksgiving deals:
(Valide 11/22-11/28)

• Save up to $515 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Edition Series Customizable Notebook PC
• Save up to $615 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv7t Quad Edition Series Customizable Notebook PC
• Save up to $515 instantly on the HP Pavilion Elite e9280t Series Customizable Desktop PC
• Save up to $465 instantly on the HP Pavilion e9270t Series Customizable Desktop PC
• Save up to $595 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv4t Series Customizable Notebook PC
• Save up to $425 instantly on the HP Pavilion Slimline s5280t Series Customizable Desktop PC
• Save up to $355 instantly on the HP Pavilion p6280t Series Customizable Desktop PC
• Save up to $495 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv6t Series Customizable Notebook PC
• Save up to $325 instantly on the HP TouchSmart 600xt Series Customizable Desktop PC
• Save $60 instantly on the pre-configured, ready to ship HP Pavilion Slimline s5220f
• Save up to $445 instantly on the HP Pavilion dv7t Series Customizable Notebook PC
• Save 10% when you buy HP ink multipacks vs. single HP inks, plus FREE shipping delivered next business day
• Free Shipping on the NEW HP ENVY 15 Series Customizable Notebook PC
• Save $15-$45 when you buy HP toner dual packs vs. single HP toners, plus FREE shipping delivered next business day
• Save up to $130 instantly on HP pre-configured, ready to ship Laptop PC’s + Get 50% off an extra 12-cell Extended-life battery when purchased with compatible Laptop
• Save $150 instantly on the HP Photosmart B8550 Photo Printer

You can also take advantage of the coupon code SVMY478761 that saves you $20 on online order of $100 or greater (restrictions apply).

Source

PopeHilarius writes in to alert us to an unfortunate situation. Apparently the private school Adelphi in Bay Ridge, New York, couldn’t handle the fact that there was a Bay Ridge messageboard that had a critical thread about the school, including links to some news articles that were highly critical of the school.

Rather than respond to those claims, the school sent the messageboard owner a cease and desist letter, demanding the entire thread be removed. Tragically, the message board owner apparently was unfamiliar with Section 230 of the CDA and the rights of a service provider to resist such efforts, and just took down the whole thread. This is unfortunate, though, commenters on the thread appear to be reposting the same articles (and explaining section 230 to the board operator).

But, really, this is why lawyers still send bogus cease-and-desist letters: all too often they work. Having been on the receiving end of a few such letters, it’s pretty damn scary to know you might get sued, and even if you know you’re right, the whole concept of having to fight it can be scary (and expensive) unless you can find a good lawyer to represent you pro bono — which isn’t easy for many to do. It’s legal bullying at its finest, but it works way too often. This is one reason, by the way, that we really could use a strong, federal, anti-SLAPP law, that would help sites understand that they can’t be silenced just because someone doesn’t like what they say, and gives those sites an easy, clear and inexpensive way to get any such cases dismissed quickly.

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Social media has gotten people in trouble more than once, sometimes even in serious trouble with the law. Every time it had something to do with the way they used social media, like revealing incriminatory information. Now a new barrier has been broken, someone got arrested for not using social media. James Roppo, a senior exec at Island Def Jam Records was arrested by the New York police though the reason for his arrest isn’t exactly clear at this point.

YouTube sensation turned R&B singer Justin Bieber was supposed to make an appearance at the Roosevelt Field mall in Long Island, New York promoting his new album. Unfortunately, it looks like the people organizing the event and the authorities handling it were unprepared for the huge number of teenagers that showed up and waited in line for hours for a chance to meet their idol.

Things got out of hand and the police asked the label exec to tweet to the fans that the show is canceled and to go home. This is where things get murky. Some reports claim that he was detained for failing to tweet these messages when asked by the police. “We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message,” Nassau County Police Det. Lt. Kevin Smith told Newsday. “By not cooperating with us we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk.”read more)

Last year I blogged about several free enterprise search solutions, and it looks Coveo is now bringing coffee to the free beer party I described back then. A couple of weeks ago the vendor announced "Expresso," "your free entry to enterprise search."

As always, "free" sounds too good to be true, as anyone who has reached the 25,000 document limit of the free version of Ultraseek (now owned by Autonomy) can attest ("Reached your 25K document limit? Call Sales at 1-888-3287-EEK!"). In the case of Expresso, the limits are much more hip to the times: 50 users, 1 million emails and attachments, and 100,000 documents. The product won’t suddenly stop functioning at those limits, just nag you about it, and what’s more, the licenses for more users or documents are in the thousands of dollars (not tens or hundreds of thousands, as with Ultraseek.)

Of course, I had to try this out. Coveo claims you can get Expresso up and running in under 45 minutes; and I must admit that the hardest part was to get a new Windows Server VM running on my Mac. The actual install, and a first index run of some documents on my own server was completed in about 15 minutes. Just enough time for me to brew a Moka. And after that, it performs exactly as I’m used to with Coveo: a straightforward search interface, which immediately, out-of-the-box, facets on document metadata (like document type, date, author).

Still too good to be true? Well, yes. If there’s one qualm I have with Expresso, it’s that it’s relatively limited. It’s easy to get going, sure, but so is the full Coveo solution. If you want a trial run before comitting to the full CES, you’re better off requesting a download for that, instead of trying to extrapolate from Expresso. (Actually, I find the full Coveo product is easier to use than Expresso — CES already is one of the most straightforward solutions to implement of all that we evaluate in our Search & Information Access Report, and if you need to, you can dig into all the detailed controls — Expresso has hidden all that.)

Expresso really is Coveo Enterprise Search — light. If this really were coffee, it’d be black, no sugar, hold the milk. It’s good espresso, no doubt — it indexes file shares, Exchange, and SharePoint, and even offers a mobile interface. So if you’re a small-to-medium business that runs all things Microsoft, you should certainly give Expresso a go. However, it doesn’t, currently, index websites or other mailservers (let alone other sources). If your intranet isn’t on SharePoint, and your email isn’t on Exchange, you’re not going to get a lot of value out of the software. Free or not.

dataMorphose [christianekeller.de] is a series of amazingly beautiful and sophisticated physical data sculptures which represent information by the shape and motion of sail-like tensile structures.

Each triangular canvas represents a separate data object. Its data values are conveyed by the tension of the canvas, which in turn determines its size, movement and position in space. One vertex of each canvas is attached to the ground floor of a transparent cube, so that each canvas can receive its meaning through the projection of words and numbers onto that area. In all, this means the user is required to learn the visual language in order to understand the visualization, which is claimed to be intuitive to learn.

One sculpture visualizes the current time. The hours, minutes and seconds are assigned to one sail respectively. To represent the hours, the central canvas changes its position in space. The other two sails visualize the values from 0 – 59 by changing their shape: one vertex moves along the vertical edge of the cube: the downward movement shows the values from 0 – 29, the upward movement the values from 30 – 59. The second sculpture conveys web traffic data through the motion of 4 sails: the faster a canvas moves the higher the activity of the website or the search term. The last sculpture shows statistical information by a succession of 5 sails.

Technically, nylon threads are attached on the vertices of the canvas, which lead down into the base and are moved by servo motors according to the data values. You can watch them move in the documentation video below.

Reminded me of Level Green and Pulsating Emotion Visualization Organism.

AOL is going through some rather painful changes, but changes that it has to make if it wants to survive. The biggest change, of course, will be spinning off from Time Warner to become a separate, publicly traded company, something that will happen in a couple of weeks or so. At the same time, it’s trying to re-emerge as a nimbler, smaller company focused on content. So, what better way to mark all of these changes than with a rebranding starting with its iconic, for Americans at least, logo.

“Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people – employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade,” says Tim Armstrong, the man who is leading AOL in this brave new world of less dial-up and more Engadget.

So, what’s the big change that the giant Internet company undoubtedly paid Wolff Olins, “a global brand and innovation consultancy,” a handsome sum to come up with? Well, if you don’t look closely enough you might just miss it. Where there was once “AOL” there is now “Aol.” – period incl… (read more)

Goldman’s latest weekly update highlights the firm’s still-bullish view on Chinese markets. Their base case forecast for Shanghai’s CSI 300 provides for 18.4% upside.

They also tempt investors with a ‘Liquidity Overshoot’ scenario that forecasts a potential 46% upside. This essentially gives institutional investors intellectual cover for a further China punt.

Still, note that a CSI300 rally in July/August came collapsing down, and this recent second rally has thus far failed to break the last rally’s early-August high. These liquidity-driven ‘investment’ arguments might be starting to wear thin.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Major Goldman Shareholders Set To Screw Mom & Pop
• 300 Goldman Sachs Employees Will Volunteer As Trash Haulers (GS)
• Come On, Is There Really A Devry Grad At Goldman Sachs? (DV, GS)

Christmas is a time for children and all children love presents. So to help you beat the queues and avoid missing out on what your child must must must must must MUST have this Christmas, here are the toys that are likely to make your kid go absolutely blooming mental on Christmas morning.

Bakugan Battle Pack

Boys are going mad for Bakugan right now. Based on an animated series, the strategy card game comes complete with action figures which pop out of magnetic marbles when thrown. Fight!

Bakugan Battle Pack – $25.00

Battle Strikers Starter Pack

First there were spinning tops, then there were battling tops, now there are Battle Strikers spinning top type things. And they’re spinning out of stores fast! Power-up your top with a Turbo Launcher or a handheld spinning stick which looks very much like what I used to accelerate scalextric cars with, let it go and attack attack attack your opponent by remote control.

Battle Strikers Starter Pack – $15

Bendaroos

Perhaps more for the female market, although I certainly don’t want to start stereotyping, these colourful Bendaroos are great for art, jewellery and creating accessories for dolls. Best of all there’s no need for any glue.

Bendaroos – $20

Ben 10 Alien Force Kevin’s DX Action Cruiser

I have to confess I haven’t got a clue who Ben or Kevin are but apparently a lot of kids love them. It’s all to do with television, early mornings and aliens, three of my top three least favourite things in the world. The car flips open into battle mode, shoots DNA alien capsules filled with planetary powder and comes complete with Kevin. Which all sound like quite good things. The car does look pretty cool.

Ben 10 Alien Force Kevin’s DX Action Cruiser – $40

Go Go Pets Hamsters

Without doubt the best toy on the list. All my friends are getting one. Go Go Hamsters are the new iPod. They come in different colours, you can carry them in a little bag, and if you watch the advert you’ll see they even drive cars and talk. Go Go Hamsters are very funny and about 94% more fun than a real hamster.

Go Go Pets Hamsters – prices vary a lot so be careful!

Kidizoom Multimedia Digital Camera

Kids grow up fast. They get born. They get teeth. They walk. They talk. They eat food. Now they’re all speaking on mobile phones and taking photos. When did all this happen? The Kidizoom camera is a real digital camera. That’s right. A real digital camera. I don’t even have a real digital camera. It’s quite expensive as a toy but then, in case I didn’t mention this enough, it is a real digital camera. For a kid. What is the point of that?!

Kidizoom Multimedia Digital Camera – $60

Lego Games Minotaurus

Christmas is a great time for family games which makes Lego the perfect present. Nothing electronic just a lot of different coloured bricks. The strategy is simple – do a Theseus, avoid the Minotaur and get to the temple. The game will keep two to four people happy for at least 30 minutes. Which leaves about twelve and a half hours to come up with something else!

Lego Minotaurus – $35

Monopoly City

It seems the world’s love affair with Monopoly goes on, which, for someone who has never finished and rarely started a game of Monopoly, is a rather confusing phenomenon. Now the old board game has rebranded itself as Monopoly City (although surely Monopoly, as a game based on the streets of London, was always Monopoly City) and allows players to build up a 3D landscape. Didn’t it always do that as well? Actually the new features are to do with schools, skyscrapers, industrial estates and football stadiums. And presumably empty banks and boarded up shops. How very modern and exciting.

Monopoly City – $25

Princess Peppa’s Palace

Peppa is a pig who lives in a palace, much like the Queen of England. Peppa’s palace folds out to reveal a banqueting hall and seven regal rooms including bedrooms, bathroom, a kitchen with a cauldron oven, thrones and two guardsmen.  And you won’t find thousands of tourists stalking the grounds with cameras.

Princess Peppa’s Palace – $40

Sylvanian Families Caravan

The Sylvanian Families are a quiet little bunch of rabbits who like nothing better than to travel together on their holidays in a caravan. The set comes with beds, seating, tables, toilet, shower, sink and ironing board. It’s really all quite adorable.

Sylvanian Families Caravan – $45

Tightrope Terror

Madness. Absolute madness. Not only do these racing cars zip round a track at electrifying speeds, they now scale over a tightrope that can extend to a staggering 10 feet. GO GO GO!

Tightrope Terror – $25

Transformers Revenge of The Fallen Voyager

When I was young there was an amazing TV show where robots turned into trucks and trucks turned into robots and good and bad robots had big fights for twenty minutes until good won and children could have their breakfast. There were films, toys, lunch boxes. You wouldn’t get that now. Except you would. And actually it’s probably even better.

Transformers Revenge Figures – Prices vary

Google has spread its interests so wide that it’s hard to keep track of all of them. It’s also looks like the company may be jumping from one big project to the other while lacking a very focused goal. At the same time though, several services have always been central to the company. Gmail gets most of the credit and it fully deserves it, Docs has also seen a lot of attention lately, but there’s an app which has been around for longer and is just as important though it’s often overlooked, Google Calendar. It may not look like it, but it’s evolving along with the rest of the apps and has recently introduced a new feature which should make it easier to plan an event that doesn’t clash with someone else’s plans.

It’s called “Sneak Preview” and it allows users to see if the people they’re adding to an event have other plans at that time. Google is apparently just testing the feature, so not too many get access to it for the moment. These tests are a regular occurrence at Google and, unless something goes horribly wrong, the feature should be rolled out to everyone soon enough, more or less in its current form.

If you get included in the test, you will have to activate the new feature, it’s not enabled by default. Sneak Preview is a pretty big overhaul of the event creation menu, mostly i… (read more)

Friday afternoon, a heavy box brimming with satsuma mandarins courtesy of Chaffin Family Orchards greeted me at the post office.   I’d anticipated their arrival all week – eager for something fresh and vibrant after a month when no other fresh fruit was available from our CSA but for apples.  These beautiful mandarins – like a palm full of sunshine – enlivened our kitchen, offering that slightly intense, perfect coupling of sweet and sour.  The moment I pierced the skin of the first mandarin pulled from the box, I brought it to my nose to inhale its aroma – a vibrant combination of piercing citrus and subtle floral notes.  Fresh.  Decidedly fresh.

There’s beauty in the seasonality of any food, but citrus fruit is remarkably well-suited to its season.  Indeed, it’s one of nature’s best gifts that these bright fruits come into season just when the days become dark and we miss the sun the most. For this reason, mandarins make for a charming gift during the holiday season – a way to offer a little sunshine to someone during the deep dark days of winter.

Of course, 15 lbs of mandarins seemed daunting at first.  How would I make use of this bounty without letting any of the orchard’s work go to waste?  While they make a perfect snack, peeled and eaten fresh, I wanted more.  Shall I make citrus mead? Mandarins poached in a star anise syrup? Candied mandarin peel? Mandarin rooibos tea?  Mandarin pudding?  With the upcoming holiday, I settled on my first dish: a mandarin cranberry relish.

Both mandarins and cranberries are a potent source of vitamin C – although each offer a different combination of nutrients in addition to that vitamin C.  Mandarins provide folate and fresh cranberries offer vitamins E and K in addition to manganese.

Mandarin Cranberry Relish

This recipe makes approximately 1 quart of relish. The cranberries and mandarins remain raw in this dish, and the mandarins are used whole.  The dish is fresh, lively and raw – with faint bitter undertones courtesy of the mandarin’s peel.  The peel, incidentally, is where much of the fruit’s ascorbic acid content is concentrated.

Ingredients for Mandarin Cranberry Relish

• 6 Cups Fresh, Organic Cranberries
• 4 Organic Satsuma Mandarins (see sources)
• ½ Cup Fresh, Organic Apple Juice
• 2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
• ¼ Cup Whole, Unrefined Cane Sugar or to taste

Instructions for Mandarin Cranberry Relish

1. Rinse and pick over the cranberries, discarding any bruised or mushy fruit.
2. Chop the mandarins coarsely – including the rind.
3. Combine all ingredients in your food processor and process until it forms the desired texture which should be slightly coarse.
4. Chill and serve.