>> Wonder wine gadgets. Why haven’t geeks invented a Temporal Acceleration Device to age wine faster?

>> Gallery of Geek-o-lanterns. My fave’s Pacman –

>> Happy job as happy perspective. Most, says Tal Ben-Shahar, “fail to appreciate the potential for a sense of well-being that exists right in front of them.” I may be one of these people. You?

>> A Roundtable on the legalization of marijuana at Freakonomics. I noticed the pro side used lots of facts and figures, and that the anti relied on generalized statements. Historian and author Richard Lawrence Miller’s take made a lot of sense: “opponents of reform are no more interested in the mainline scientific consensus than are persons who oppose taking protective steps to reduce risk of climate change. There is no debate, merely theater.”

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A twice-weekly sharing of eco-shwag.

Be the next Al Gore! Today’s giveaway’s a copy of Bill McKibben’s new book, Fight Global Warming Now: The Handbook for Taking Action in Your Community.

This is a snappy DIY guide to putting together your own grassroots eco-action. Written to prep people for Step It Up — which happens Nov. 3, BTW — this book gives you all the deets for running a democratically-organized, effective, and fun event to save the environment.

Comment or email by Friday, Nov. 2, to get into the drawing, which happens Sat. US addresses only.

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Carved my farmers’ market pumpkin at my friend’s Desdemona’s pumpkin carving party last night –

I found all the two buck chuck we drank very inspiring –

Happy Halloween, everyone! Put links to pics of your pumpkins in the comments — I wanna see!

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>> Discontinued Ben & Jerry’s flavor vs. Myspace band. Guess which is which. I scored a sad 50%. (via Rolling Stone)

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Latest email exchange with the kind copyeditor at LA Times who reads over my posts at Emerald City once they go up:

Hi Siel,

I’m not sure what you mean by “big up” in this post. Or is that a typo?

“Actually, I have a third kind who big up green travel but pretty much just drive everywhere. Hi Hannah!”

My response:

I hope this helps.

He then emailed back — He wanted to change big up to support, “for the non-hipsters.” No, I said.

In some ways I really feel from my copyeditor. Once upon a time I worked briefly as a copyeditor, but I think I’d go batty if I had to spend my day going into every blog post to change all the pms into p.m.s, all the 2s into twos….

If you’ve noticed a strange level of consistency — as well as a sudden decrease in the number of odd contractions I tend to use — that’s the reason.

But changing big up to support actually changes the tone of the writing — s’where I draw the line. Isn’t big up a pretty common phrase?

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>> Insomnia vs. mental illness. Lack of sleep is a lot like mental illness. “It is thought that psychiatric conditions create sleep problems,” says one researcher. “We should entertain the possibility that it is a sleep disorder that is creating the condition.”

>> Racism vs. rose-colored outlook. A study finds “nonracists share a unique emotional style: They rarely form any negative associations, whether they’re thinking about meaningless symbols or real human beings.” (via 3qd)

>> Fucking vs. participial adjectives. “The Clean Airwaves Act assumed that fucking is a participial adjective. But this is not correct. With a true adjective like lazy, you can alternate between Drown the lazy cat and Drown the cat which is lazy. But Drown the fucking cat is certainly not interchangeable with Drown the cat which is fucking.”

Photo by Nina Hiironniemi via Flickr

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A twice-weekly sharing of eco-shwag.

A new tote from CertainTees, some of the greenest T-shirts you can get on the market at this time. Also, they’re cute and comfy :)

In fact, each T-shirt purchase from CertainTees comes with one of these totes, which’re transitional organic cotton (it takes 3 years for a farm to get certified organic; “transitional” means the farm’s in this 3-year period) made under fair labor conditions by women in the villages of Jaipur.

Comment or email by Sunday to get into the drawing, which’ll happen Monday. US addresses only.

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>> Farhad of The Machinist misses the paper paper. Sometimes, I kind of do too — I’m thinking of subscribing to the Sunday NY Times again.

>> Donate rice via the UN while improving your vocabulary. 10 grains of rice get donated for each vocab word you define correctly, thanks to advertisers. I can’t get past vocab level 42 — and I don’t know if the rice is genetically modified. My guess is probably. (via Treehugger)

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A twice-weekly sharing of eco-shwag.

Today’s giveaway’s a CertainTees “Octopus: Love” T-shirt — a large-sized black tee with a loving octopus waving its arms.

As with all CertainTees, this T-shirt’s 70% bamboo and 30% organic cotton, free of sweatshop-labor from harvest to finish, woven and sewn in the US, and printed with nontoxic inks.

Comment or email by Friday to get in the drawing, which happens Monday. US addresses only.

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Latest from Emerald City, my enviro-blog at LAtimes.com

Activists staged a demonstration in front of Toyota Santa Monica:

>> Activists call Toyota to embrace Cali’s fuel efficiency standards. Priuses have made a name for Toyota as a green car company, but Toyota’s joined the major auto companies to sue the state of California, lobbying against tougher emissions standards.

>> Demonstration at Toyota Santa Monica. Many of the cars going by honked in support — which made me wonder whether a lot of people actually are aware of Toyota’s role in this lawsuit against California, or if they just generally support higher fuel efficiency standards overall –

A couple Q&As with readers:

>> Q&A: The quest for a solar-heated, salt water pool. Question: I own a house in Eagle Rock, a house on a hill, with a pool. It has a killer view and a killer heating bill….

>> Q&A: Green gift baskets. My office is looking to put together an eco-friendly gift basket as our holiday gift to clients. Any suggestions on what should go in the basket?

And other stuff:

>> Planet in Peril and scary eco-docus. I wonder why I keep seeing — more and more docus about the environment that lead with the doom and gloom message. Whose idea was it, for example, to call CNN’s new 2-part docu “Planet in Peril”?

Plus — a couple linky posts:
>> Daily Downers: Disasters, unrest, economic collapse

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