Saturday, September 15, 2007

Levende East

If you haven't been to Levende East in Old Oakland, it is worth a visit.

A hip upscale dining area complemented by fun and fanciful food. Everyone in my group was pleased with their entres, from fish to ribs. The smaller starters while tasty weren't worth their caloric to dollar ratio and there was consensus to avoid them on future visits.

As the evening wore on the loud chatter from the bar filled the restaurant and made conversation a little difficult. If you want to go for the food - go early. If you want to go for the scene and the people watching - go late.

In my book Levende East gets 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Stumbling

Of all the Internet tools I've discovered in the past ten years Stumbleupon has to be my favorite.
It's a tool that you can use to 'channel surf' the Internet when you are bored. I've discovered hundreds of cool websites that I never would have found with it. It's interface is easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to manipulate. I have a small but growing group of friends who use it to send each other interesting sites without having to paste URLs into emails. When someone sends me a site a number pops up on my stumble toolbar and when I want a break from real work I click on it to see what it is.

I've never used any of the blogging or networking capability that stumble has built into its website. I'm not a web 2.0 person. I might some day. But for now stumble is by far the best way to discover great photos, interesting sites, and cool games on the Internet without having to do the legwork yourself.

Like google it is the only other computer application/website that I've begun to use as a verb. And that is saying something.