I’ll admit, that one of the methods I use to determine my liquor choices is packaging.  If a bottle is well-designed, be it scotch, gin or rum, then I’m more apt to plunk down $20-$30 for a bottle. 

The Dieline examines 50 such bottles that would get my business whether or not the product is any good.  Despite the overabundance of Absolut Vodka bottles, it’s nice to see to Portland spirits make the list.  That both 12 Bridges Gin and Lovejoy Vodka (both are crafted by Integrity Spirits, whose Trillium Absinthe also made the list but I haven’t partaken yet) are excellent tasting spirits in their own right is an added bonus.

If you’re wondering that’s the Hawthorne Bridge on the bottle.

When The New York Times showed Elmhurst spokesman Dario Centorcelli a photo of what two missing letters added up to, he seemed perplexed. “Oh, God, are we going to get this fixed?” he wondered.

Turns out this wasn’t a prank on the Queens, N.Y. hospital but just a rather curious coincidence.  Just as bad for the hospital would have been if the bulbs burned out to spell “Elm St.” No one wants to get fixed up by Freddy Kreuger. [via]

Why?  I don’t know why the Heroes actress would do such a thing but this is a good way to get the blood pumping early this morning.  She goes from wet to dry in this reverse video portrait of her taken by photographer Tyler Shields. [via]

You can download the free virtual appliance of Chrome OS here. The tarball is containing vmdk and vmx files, so you’ll need a free VMware Player or VirtualBox in order to run this appliance. 

Not sure if this is on the up and up but Google did hold a press conference today with details of their much bally-whooed OS and it sounds impressive. 

It won’t be officially launched until first or second quarter 2010 and it really will be a browser-based interface.

Here’s a thought: If you’re going to do an article about the changing face of sports column writing four-years late with the angle being a mini-profile of ESPN’s Bill Simmons, arguably America’s favorite columnist (and New York Times #1 best-selling non-fiction author), you should probably be much more thorough on both subjects than the New York Times cared to be.

Whilst on vacation I saw a commercial for a new Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii and it featured four players playing simultaneously.  Holy moly, I almost ran out and bought the game and a Wii on the spot.  The game is only $47 on Amazon.com.

Paul Nicklen, a contributing photographer for National Geographic, talks about his wild sea adventure with a giant leopard seal. His photographs tell a frightening story, but his memory of the events is quite different. Leopard Seals are amongst the animal kingdom’s most vicious predators. [via here/here]

Travis Pitts‘ incredibly awesome picture of a post-zombie-apocalypse Scooby Gang, well an incredibly hot Velma getting her Buffy on and ready-to-kick-ass Scooby as the only survivors of the zombie attack, is now a t-shirt from Threadless for $18.  Geeks and horny stoners rejoice!

I can promise you this one thing: during my trip to Maui this never happened.  But holy shit would I have loved to have seen a military plane crash into the ocean.  [via]

Listen up, this is real talent here.  Real, real talent.  He even nails the solo.  By the way, we’ll be back into the full swing of things on Wednesday. Honestly, Maui is too amazing to even think about getting on the internet, but the vacation is winding down so I figured I’d share this little treat with you. So, everyone else on this planet but Gerry Phillips just won the life contest. [via]

Pac-Man recreated in real life using hacked Roombas linked wirelessly to homebrewed guidance software. And the story makes it seem waaay more complicated than that. [via]

Water droplets interacting with water at 2,000 frames per second.  They can bounce!  Incredible. [via]