Really counting down now… 1 hour and 50 mins and counting down. B- and I are at her friend’s 8th floor apt which over looks 101. We can hear the festivities outside and watch from the TV. Invited a few friends, Malaysians, Singaporeans, Taiwanese and myself. Good simple celebration …. pizza, TGIF chicken wings, lots of wine and the obligatory mahjong table 🙂
I’m of course… on-line !
Hoping you guys have a great New Year’s Eve and a safe one…
The thing I never quite liked about Year In Review (particularly those that come out, say, before Christmas) is that they may wind up missing what happens the last six days of the year (like this year, when Pakistan’s serious business in the news, or say the year of the Indonesian tsunami).
My personal Year In Review? Notable stuff –
January 2007 – got on the Alternate List for Strange New Worlds 10 – so close to getting published for one of my stories!
The California vacation in September 2007.
My National Novel Writing Month novel, in November 2007, “Bread and Circuses” – done!
Joined Facebook. (yeah, it’s notable, since it’s kind of one of those 21st Century habits now).
Stretched myself somewhat with my reading – actually trying to read more poetry; plus visiting more museums.
There are probably lots of other stuff that happened this year that I’m not thinking about, but it’s somewhere around triscribe.
Well, okay – one item of thought about 2007 – campaigns came out way too early. I felt bad that the Iowans must have had Christmas a little messed up with the non-stop campaign commercials and the fact that the states went nuts with going for Super Duper Duper Tuesday for 2008. Real Clear Politics blog on Time.com, in its post on “Why Not Biden?” asked a question that kind of made a point to me:
One name conspicuously missing from the discussion is Joe Biden, who probably has more real experience in the foreign policy workings of the United States government than all the other Democrats running for president combined.
Indeed, Clinton’s “closing argument” in Iowa – we live in serious times that demand a person with enough experience to step into the White House and lead from day one – is in many ways an effective argument in favor of Joe Biden. [….]
Yet, Biden’s not going to be taken seriously, as the post notes. Bill Richardson – much experience, too. In the end, are the voters really thinking about “experience” or about who has the strength, power, and money to pull off the election? Well, who knows? 2008 may be interesting; I just wish it’d be more peaceful than 2007.
NY Times profiling a NYC electrician who heads the team that takes care of the lighting on the Brooklyn Bridge; wow. Jake Mooney writes:
BECAUSE Ben Cipriano is a wisecracking kind of guy, maybe it’s best to begin his story in the form of a joke: How many electricians does it take to screw in all the light bulbs on the Brooklyn Bridge? The answer is six. Not much of a punch line, but it has the advantage of being factually correct. [….]
We check in with Mr. Cipriano just now because of the mayor’s announcement this month that a host of city landmarks, including the Brooklyn Bridge, will soon be outfitted with new, energy-efficient bulbs. The bulbs — light-emitting diodes, actually — should last much longer than the existing bulbs, which themselves last for years. One wonders what this means for the future of bridge-top bulb-changing.
Do not worry, though, about Ben Cipriano. There is plenty of other work up there, and no one is sure how the new lights will respond to the extreme weather conditions. He will be watching closely, as he already does, whenever he drives past when the lights are on, or sees one of his bridges while watching television with his family.
“Maybe I should get a hobby,” he said. But getting the lights right is important to him, and the problem with the current lights, 100-watt mercury vapor bulbs, is that they turn green as they start to burn out. “Even if you have a couple of them out — 160 bulbs are up there — people are going to notice,” Mr. Cipriano said. “They don’t look so hot if you have some bright ones and some green ones and so on and so forth.” [….]
Up on top of the bridge, Mr. Cipriano still marvels at it all, this time from a place with an unobstructed 360-degree view. “People would pay to go up there,” he said, “and we’re getting paid to go up there.”
He has never been scared of heights, climbing up to work with two wires tethering him to the bridge cables. He wears brown shoes with rubber soles that squeak on the floor but are good for traction on the bridges — “no high heels, no fancy shoes with leather bottoms” — and he ties his screwdriver to his belt.
He also has, in his pocket, a little camera: 35-
millimeter before, digital now. He has spent enough time looking at New York to know what he likes. “No clouds is no good,” he said. “Overcast is no good, obviously. But if you have clouds in the background with the buildings, it’s just a great picture.”
NY Times on the New Year’s Eve falling ball of 1907 (i.e., New Year’s Day, 1908) – 100 years ago; Jim Rasenberger writes:
IF we could ride a great glimmering ball back to Times Square a century ago, we might see ourselves in the men and women who gathered there on New Year’s Eve of 1907.
Notwithstanding how they dressed or wore their hair, their lives were superficially similar to ours. They took the subway to work and lived in homes lighted by electricity. They talked on telephones, went to the movies and listened to music on their new Victrolas. They worried about their weight and wondered whether Christmas was becoming commercialized.
And on Dec. 31, 1907, for the first time, they did something that hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will do on Monday night: They celebrated the passing of ’07 into ’08 by watching an illuminated sphere falling from the sky.
Of course, not everything is quite the same. The ball that will descend in Times Square in the final seconds of 2007 is a far more sophisticated vessel than the one that made its debut at the end of 1907. This year’s incarnation, which is brand-new, will weigh 1,200 pounds and sparkle with 9,576 light-emitting diodes gleaming through Waterford crystal; a hundred years ago, the ball weighed 700 pounds and was illuminated by 216 incandescent bulbs.
But that first “electric ball,” as The New York Times referred to it, was dazzling enough to the people who poured into Times Square to see it. After 10 p.m., when the theaters let out, men in silk hats and women in furs swelled the crowd further. “An acrobat could hardly have managed to fall down for a wager, so tightly did the people hold each other up,” The New York Evening Sun reported the next day. [….]
Have a Happy New Year! See you in 2008!
Inter-disciplinary approach on environmentalism – now, more than ever, can different academicians work together?
“Literature for Soldiers” – interesting article in Newsweek on how the cadets at West Point read literature and the professor who teaches them lit. I’m not that surprised by the depth of their reading – these are bright young people; their education includes some humanities (not just military stuff); and sometimes, literature makes the military stuff no less raw anyway.
From this Christmas, interesting Daily News profile on June Mei, Mayor Bloomberg’s interpreter on his recent trip to China, by Kirsten Danis:
On Mayor Bloomberg’s recent China trip, one woman rarely strayed from his side: a Brooklyn-born interpreter with a knack for languages and a taste for Fox’s U-bet chocolate syrup.
June Mei grew up in Prospect Heights and spoke barely a word of her family’s native Cantonese until she was 8.
“I’m such a New Yorker that I never learned to drive,” she said in her Tribeca apartment after returning from Asia.
Yet she effortlessly spun Bloomberg’s English into Mandarin over the three-day trip – and she owes her skill to childhood asthma.
Mei, the daughter of an ethnic Chinese doctor and his wife who emigrated from Singapore, was gripped by such bad attacks that her mother moved her to a Florida apartment to wait out winters.
She didn’t attend classes in the South, and her mom worried she’d never get through Public School 9 at home.
So at age 8, Mei was sent to live with relatives in Hong Kong and suddenly had to learn Cantonese.
“The Chinese literature class was like I had dropped into a foreign planet,” said Mei, 60.
Mei graduated from high school in Hong Kong and returned home to study history in college and graduate school.
Along the way, she picked up Mandarin – while playing cards with Taiwanese grad students. [….]
And, an item on NJ – with Gov. Corzine away (holiday vacation, it seems; he does remind me a bit of Mayor Bloomberg…), St. Senator Richard Codey is (again) acting governor. Considering how often he has filled the role, as this NY Times article notes, he “really acts like like a governor.” The article amused me, since the very same thought occurred to me too, when Codey signed the bill requiring HIV testing of pregnant women in NJ. Nothing against Corzine (then again, I don’t live in Jersey, even if I’m admitted to their bar), but kind of weird to think that Codey does so much. Eventually, NJ is going to have to have a lieutenant governor, like other states, and not have to make things so… weird.
The concept of Good Riddance Day, wherein people gathered at Times Square to shred crap for the sake of good karma, seems lovely; but on the news, it looked a little… weird.
As the year ends, I may very do a year in review type of thing. We’ll see!
[Catch up posts for Christmas, I Am Legend, and the Stage Crew reunion to follow.]
For some reason this year, much has been made of the traditional Jewish American affinity for Chinese restaurants, especially at Christmas. (See YouTube, Jennifer 8. Lee, and NPR). No one has talked about how much Chinese people like Jewish food.
My dad got me hooked at an early age, as he was good friends with Freddy the bagel guy, and spent many a weekend in the back of the store kicking back Nedicks orange sodas and watching the bagels boil into nice dumplings before being baked to chewy perfection. I probably know more about appetizing than any Chinese person ought to know. The day my sister was born, Freddy came and picked us up from school and took us home. P-‘s neighbors were all Jewish growing up; she can get mean cravings for latkes.
OK, it’s usually nowhere as cheap as Chinese food, and it’s certainly in the same league health-wise,with their wide variety of fatty, high carb and fried foods. However, also coming from a culture of survival, you can count on Jewish food to be prepared with meticulous precision, creatively using ingredients, with nothing wasted that is edible (at least permitted under kashrut laws). Also, having no dairy works out for us lactose intolerant folks.
First stop this past week was at the newly reopened 2nd Avenue Deli (now at 33 St. between 3 Avenue and Lexington, around the corner from Koreatown). Warning: 30-45 minute waits for a table are usual, even at the time I went at 3 PM. I hear the line was 100 deep at lunch time. Good thing that they are now open 24 hours. Our waitress (as well as about a quarter of the staff) was Chinese. My usual – matzo ball soup (lighter in color than Katz’s, but fluffier), and a hot pastrami sandwich. They are exactly the same as before. A meal will set you back $20 or so, but what are you waiting for? The 2nd Avenue Deli is kosher certified by a Conservative rabbi, so while no dairy is served, it is not strictly kosher as Orthodox standards goes, and then there is the issue of being open on Saturday. But hey, we’re Chinese, so that’s something somebody else has to deal with, while we eat. Way Recommended if you don’t need to ask too many questions.
The day after Christmas, P and 4 of her high school friends (all Asian and female) went out with one of their old teachers (who is Jewish) to Grille de Paris, a French restaurant located on Kings Highway in Brooklyn. They are under strict glatt Kosher supervision, and the other patrons were obviously very observant. We sure made an appearance there, although I guess it’s not any weirder than Jewish people in a Chinese restaurant.
Bowls of garlic bread were put out to begin. P had the pre fixe of fatush salad (traditional), eggplant napoleon (tasty breaded eggplant slices somewhat like that for eggplant parm), beef shish kabobs with vegatables, and a chocolate mousse (I shared it – it was a bit sweet, but I liked it – P thought there was too much of the non-dairy creamer in it). I wanted an all mushroom all the time meal, so I had the tri mushroom salad, which was large, tasty and fantastic, french onion soup (was really wishing for the melted cheese) and fillet Wellington (pretty good and full of red wine and mushroom flavor, but under Kosher rules, the meat cannot be bloody, so it has to be cooked to at least what we would normally call medium-well, so be forewarned). A piped stack of mashed potatoes (using obviously real hand-mashed potatoes, not reconstituted potato flakes) was accompanied by a trio of snow peas, peppers and onions which would be familiar in a stir-fry, all well-sauteed. We asked one of the servers to take our picture at the table at the end of the meal. He cracks a joke: “say ‘meat’, not cheese -we’re a meat restaurant”.
While it isn’t Le Cirque, there were plenty of delicious food, and they put a lot of effort in service and presentation (see the photos in the flickr strip). Even though it’s perhaps the only Kosher French restaurant in the city, it’s not a take it or leave it situation – it’s actually not bad. Recommended if you’re avoiding dairy.
On Christmas: watched “Sweeney Todd” with the siblings at the Cobble Hill movie theater. Sondheim musical; the music was excellent; movie was otherwise eerie and creepy. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter turned out to be talented. Alan Rickman – thumbs up as the villain/victim. Timothy Spall, as eerie as ever as Rickman’s kind of sidekick (Spall – who plays Peter Pettigrew in the Harry Potter movies, and Rickman who’s Prof. Snape, plus Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange of the Potter movies)? — honestly, British actors get around). Sasha Baron Cohen (the ex-Borat/ex-Ali G) was quite good too. But, as the movie critics noted (including NY Times’ A.O. Scott), it is a bit bloody; beware to the squeamish…
Stuff I noticed in the Times from Christmas day:
NY Times’ Jennifer 8. Lee on NYC Chinatown’s Church of the Transfiguration.
In the op-ed of the NY Times, Prof. John Anthony McGuckin, of religious history at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia U., writes on St. Nicholas.
A Christmas poem by Patrick Muldoon: “Myrrh.”
A New York Times’ story on Christmas in Iraq, as observed by Christian Iraqis. I thought it was a poignant story, as Damien Cave writes:
The service began with traditional hymns. Some songs were sung in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. It was a reminder of the 2,000-year-old history of Iraq’s largest Christian group, the Chaldeans, an Eastern Rite church affiliated with Roman Catholicism.
Initially the sermon seemed equally traditional, beginning as many do with phrases like “This day is not like other days.”
Yet the priest, the Rev. Thaer al-Sheik, soon turned to more local themes. He talked about the psychological impact of violence, kidnapping and a lack of work. He condemned hate. He denounced revenge.
“We must practice being humane to each other,” he said. “Living as a Christian today is difficult.”
A few moments later he asked, “If the angel Gabriel comes today and says Jesus Christ is reborn, what do we do? Do we clap or sing?”
His parish, quiet and somber — with the drab faces of a funeral, not a Mass on Christmas Eve — took the question seriously. And responded.
“We ask him for forgiveness,” said a woman, her head covered by a black scarf. Her voice was just loud enough for everyone to hear.
Then another woman raised her voice. “We ask for peace,” she said.
Father Sheik looked disappointed. “We are always like beggars, asking God for this or that,” he said. “We shouldn’t be this way. First, we should thank God for giving us Jesus Christ. He would say, ‘I came to live among you. I want to teach you how to be compassionate. I want to teach you how to be more humane.’” [….]
But even Father Sheik could not resist asking God for a little help. He ended his sermon with a request that all Iraqis would love to see fulfilled.
“We call on God for equality, freedom — an end to war and an end to hunger,” he said. “We only demand from God peace for all of you.”
2 days, 2 nights so far in Hong Kong and it’s been a nice relaxing time. Visited a couple of new friends of Bridget’s and ate dimsum at famous Maxim’s City Hall. Great view into Kowloon side. Then walked around IFC did some shopping – found that Ecco shoes much cheaper than Taipei. Couple of walking shoes and off and running (hah hah).
We were given the OSIM Executive Suite, apparently a cool branding thing. We got all the OSIM toys they have in the suite. The saddle, the chiropractor, the full massage chair and the iSqueeze along with some others which we had no idea how to use. The full massage chair just rocks. We have to take turns…. It’s got like 7 different types of massages and the chair can recline up to 180 degrees. Facing the wall mounted flat screen is pretty awesome.
It’s quite the treat we figure and so we might do this hotel getaway thinggy more often be it in HK or TPE in the future. Having our time together and away from the hassle of work is the best gift to each other 🙂
Today we went up to The Peak via blue line bus 15 and it was nice. We lucked out the weather was sunny/mostly clear and we got walk around the trail. Cold and windy but still good stuff. Ate at the Simpatico Italian eatery and was high quality stuff, not as touristy as one might imagine given it’s The Peak.
We’ll probably forego the Christmas Eve dinner crunch at the hotels/restaurants for some room service with our OSIM massage chair and flat screen TV! 🙂
For a plug, I’d highly recommend HotelTravel.com for your HK booking. Each time I’ve done it, the hotel gave me great rooms.
Hope you all get your wishes this holiday season!
This Sunday – watched Alvin and the Chipmunks the movie with the siblings, at the Cobble Hill theater. Aww. I did say that I thought it seemed cute, and, although I felt a little silly seeing it, it was cute. I mean, if you’re going to do a live-action movie, you might as well make the Chipmunks as chipmunk-looking as you can go with the CGI (as opposed to how it was done for a long time – a little cartoony and kind of scary to think that they were more kid-like than chipmunk; nonetheless, the official Chipmunk website looks cute). The movie came off well enough.
Jason Lee as Dave Seville, the Chipmunks’ dad/manager, pulled it off decently as the struggling songwriter and reluctant dad; nothing groundbreaking (clearly he did the movie to at least take his own kids to see something of his work; but oh well). “The Christmas Song” as entertaining as ever, and the meaning of Christmas… it is about family, isn’t it? Actor/Comedian David Cross as the vile Ian, music producer, was entertaining in that villain kind of way. Kind of eerie seeing actress Cameron Richardson as Dave Seville’s love interest, because she was the actress who played the scary patient on “House” last season (the pissed-off adrogynous model). But, altogether nice relaxing fun, and the Chipmunk music is as good as ever (ok, actually, I’m still dubious about “The Witch Doctor” song as hip-hop, but so it goes). The Chipmunks are still their amusing selves (Alvin as egotistical as ever; Theodore as sweet as ever; and Simon as the smart one). But, as Dave says, they’re just kids… (kids since 1958, but so it goes).
Sweet movie to take your kids or your inner kid. Just don’t come in expecting too much, or else you’ll start thinking “Why am I not watching the soon-to-be-Oscar-nominated movie in the next theater?”
A look at a Brooklyn landmark: NY Times on Fulton Mall.
City Council approved the plans for Alma Mater. Here’s hoping things will get better. Maybe.
Read one of Joseph J. Ellis’ books on the Founding Fathers in the past; interesting article here he wrote (in the Washington Post) about what would George Washington do about Iraq:
What would George Washington do about Iraq? An op-ed editor (not at The Washington Post, I should add) recently asked me to write an article answering that question, presumably because I had once written a biography of Washington and have just published another book on the founding generation. But, as I tried to explain, Washington would not be able to find Iraq on a map. Nor would he know about weapons of mass destruction, Islamic fundamentalism, Humvees, cellphones, CNN or Saddam Hussein.
The historically correct answer, then, is that Washington would not have a clue. It’s tempting to believe that the political wisdom of our Founding Fathers can travel across the centuries in a time capsule, land among us intact, then release its insights into our atmosphere — and as we breathed in that enriched air, our perspective on Iraq, global warming, immigration and the other hot-button issues of the day would be informed by what we might call “founders’ genius.” (Come to think of it, at least two Supreme Court justices who embrace the literal version of “original intent” believe that this is possible.) But there are no time capsules, except in science fiction. The gap between the founders’ time and ours is non-negotiable, and any direct linkage between them and now is intellectually problematic.
This conclusion is not just irrefutable; it’s also unacceptable to many of us, because it suggests that the past is an eternally lost world that has nothing to teach us. And if history has nothing to teach us, why in heaven’s name should we study it?
One answer, I suppose, is for the sheer satisfaction of understanding those who have preceded us on this earthly trail. In that sense, history, like virtue, really is its own reward. But that answer doesn’t really work for me. [….]
Suppose, then, that we rephrase the question. It is not “What would George Washington do about Iraq?” Rather, it is “How are your own views of Iraq affected by your study of Washington’s experience leading a rebellion against a British military occupation?” The answer on this score is pretty clear. Washington eventually realized — and it took him three years to have this epiphany — that the only way he could lose the Revolutionary War was to try to win it. The British army and navy could win all the major battles, and with a few exceptions they did; but they faced the intractable problem of trying to establish control over a vast continent whose population resented and resisted military occupation. As the old counterinsurgency mantra goes, Washington won by not losing, and the British lost by not winning. Our dilemma in Iraq is analogous to the British dilemma in North America — and is likely to yield the same outcome. [….]
What would Washington do? Well, he did speak of a prospective American empire, though he was thinking primarily of our eventual domination of the North American continent, not the globe. On a few occasions, he seemed to suggest that if we played our cards right in the 19th century, the United States might replace Britain as the dominant power in the 20th. That indeed happened. But would he have endorsed a hegemonic U.S. foreign policy based on military power? Probably not. But that’s my opinion, not necessarily Washington’s.
Queen Elizabeth II is going to go on YouTube to do her annual Christmas speech. I heard that she e-mails; should I be surprised that she’ll go on YouTube?
B- and I are headed to HK to celebrate Christmas HK style. Not exactly the same as NYC but pretty good alternative. We used Hotel Travel.com to book our accomodations at Cosmopolitan Hotel @ Wan Chai. Sitting in Taoyuan International Airport now typing this, using my CHT HSPDA modem to get online.
Been quite a month/week/day. Pooped out is more like it. I got hooked onto facebook despite my best efforts to resist. But then B- got into it with the cities thing and it was over. I spent way too much time jazzing up my facebook page despite the fact that putting bad stuff on there could ruin your career (as posted in various newspapers recently). This past week was so full of meetings. I facilitated on Thursday a workshop on strategy and then Friday immediately flew to Seoul (on CI) for another meeting. Just came back to TPE in the afternoon and waited in the airport for B- so we can then fly to HK this evening via CX.
Looking forward to some QT with B- in HK… she’s been great through this whole few months with the changes in BAT which has made me uncommonly busy. Looking forward to the challenges in 2008 but it’s quite daunting so hopefully the days off from now until Jan 2nd will help me recover, re-energize, and renew myself toward the projects ahead.
I’m reminded again what blessings B- and I have had during 2007, both personally and professionally. The good friends, church, and colleagues who have helped make Taiwan much more like home.
So wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas!
What minimal tv I’ve been watching; but can I really attribute it to the writers’ strike?
Good Deal with Dave Lieberman – I’ve been watching much of this show. Such a cutie, this Dave Lieberman! 😉
Learn so much from Alton Brown’s show Good Eats. I’m get glued to the tube when it’s on.
Now, if only I were to actually cook, after watching all these cooking shows.
So glad to know that I’m not the only one who re-uses shopping bags – and that some department stores design their bags with that intention.
Can the SUNY system be anything like, say the UC system (with Berkeley) or UMichigan (with the Ann Arbor campus)? Well, that depends on the state, doesn’t it? The fact that our elementary and secondary education systems leave much to be desired, I’m not certain how would the state transform the higher education in the public realm.
Hmm, interesting op-ed in the NY Times’ Week in Review by Adam Freedman on the commas in the Second Amendment, and what kind of trouble this may lead in trying to predict what will happen to the whole right to guns thing.
NY Times’ Holland Cotter, on the eve of leaving the neighborhood, talking about the Cloisters. I really liked it when I went up there this summer, so I’m linking to the article.
NY Times’ Mark “The Minimalist” Bittman on how to be even more minimal in making holiday party hors d’oevres, if that’s possible. If I could cook (or would bother), this might actually be fun to do.
NY Times’ Roberta Smith on the Matisse exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
And, on politics (since I didn’t resist linking to the NY Times on Joe Biden) – an interesting NY Times article on Bill Richardson by Jodi Kantor. I do admire him (putting aside the Wen Ho Lee debacle back when Richardson was Dept. of Energy Secretary) for having so much experience in politics; whether that’ll lead to much in the primaries remain to be seen.
And, last but not least, an unusual but fitting slide show on guys in Santa suits and other winter scenes to Christmas music on Slate.
Some friends from law school are really into an alternate legal career – Vermont folk singers called Hungrytown. I saw them on Saturday in the city braving the hints of the overhyped Nor’easter. Their 1 hour set celebrated their new CD that they just released – they’re really good. Listen to them yourselves.
Made a pilgrimage to Katz’s – matzo ball soup and a salami sandwich. Awesome as usual, also pricey, but it is what it is. The 2nd Ave. Deli returns!!! It’s now at 162 E. 33rd St between Lex and 3rd, and starting Monday will be open 24 hors. They are a bit pricey, but they give so much food that you can feed 6, so it’s value for money.
Check out some of the new things I’ve added on my del.icio.us that actually solve problems:
Foodbytes: ever had a craving for something, but didn’t know which restaurant carried the dish? This is the solution. You type in the name of the dish and your zip code, and this thing tells you which restaurants have it on their menu. Hot!
LibraryThing: I’ve got a gazillion books, but I don’t really have an inventory of what I got or where anything is. This thing let you type or scan the ISBN numbers, and it does the cataloging, and even assigns LC or Dewey numbers if you’re into that. Free for the first 200 books, $25 lifetime afterwards for unlimited books. Now if it only did CDs…
Google Reader: This thing makes reading a dozen blogs of various frequencies possible – it aggregates them into one screen, and let’s you know when updates are made without having to check each one. It also lets you read blogs offline using their Google Gears caching technology.
Podnova: Takes care of checking the 20 or 30 podcasts that I listen to. Has a local client that takes care of the downloading to the computer. Sweet!
MyRegistry.com: Ever wanted a gift list, but you have eclectic tastes? Now you can aggregate them into one list that can let people shop on multiple sites. Occasional contributor AS from school is working for this company now.