Vacances - Create your Holiday Cards -

Winter is coming and we're getting in need of preparing Thanksgiving & Christmas Card.

So as not to take much time to creating holiday cards, hope this site will be benefitial to you:

shutterfly

Site web - Web Digest for Marketers -

To tell the truth, I'm now taking a Marketing Communication Writing Course at a continuing education program in NY.
And my teacher recommended us this website called Web Digest for Marketers (WDFM), which is very useful marketing site.

WDFM is a weekly email newsletter that delivers short reviews of marketing-oriented Web sites right to your In box. Topics include Direct Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, Copywriting, and CRM. Over 2,000 Web sites point to this site. This newsletter has been quoted in the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, CNN, CBS, NPR plus scores of others.

If your background is related to Direct Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, Copywriting, and CRM, you can check it out anyhow!

Paysage - Manhattan Skyscraper -

Are you aware of the opportunity to see the georgeous view of Manhattan from the Hamilton Park in Jersey City, NJ?

Location: JF Kennedy BOULEVARD EAST & ELDORADO PL
How to reach: around 10 minutes bus ride from the Port Authority (check the Trip Planner).

You can visit here around 8:00 PM (up to you) after driving to:

1. The Rockefeller Look Out
2. Harriman State Park with the view of Bear Mountain, West point
3. Alpine -- the chic, upper-class and very modern planned community of New Jersey
4. MITSUWA to purchase prestigeous Japanese Sake
5. Then Hamilton Park

La chute du feuillage #2 - The Harriman State Park -

You should go to see such a marvelous fall folliage even after Nor'easter in the end of October or otherwise -- Harriman State Park is the second largest state park, following the Adirondacks, in New York. Located in Rockland and Orange counties 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City, it is a haven for hikers with over 200 miles (320 km) of hiking trails.
- from Wikipedia

It' just 30-40 minutes drive from Manhattan and one of my friends, she lives here for 28 years, hikes the trails once a week, which is awesome!

Heureux Halloween - Halloween AFTER PARTY! -

As eveyone is excited, Halloween is coming up!

NYC PARADE AFTERPARTY will take place at Webster Hall starting 8:00PM on Tues, 31OCT as well as VILLAGE HALLOWEEN PARADE!

Le Guide De L'Initié - DAILY CANDY NEW YORK -

DailyCandy, a free daily e-mail newsletter and website, is the ultimate insider’s guide to what’s hot, new, and undiscovered — from fashion and style to gadgets and travel.
- from the Daily Candy website

Anyway, please take a look at this site.
You can find fabulous information such as fabric sales, every event in NY or else.

Daily Candy also has other are editions: Chicago, Miami, Boston, et cetera, and even London.
Hope it will provide Spanish, Sao paulo, Buenos Aires, Taipei, Seoul, and Tokyo edition also!

Meubles - Furniture rental companies -

If you need to rental furniture, some furniture rental companies I can recommend include:

1. Churchill Furniture Rental
   245 West 17th Street 3rd Floor (bet. 7th and 8th ave.)
2. CORT Furniture Rental (You can get a discount coupon online.)
   711 Third Avenue Lower Level (bet. 44th and 45th st.)

They have a pretty good selection of any type of furniture you wouldneed with varying prices according to a new yorker, who lives in Manhattan long time and recommended to me. Eventually my unit is furnished though.

Magasin - ELLE DECOR -

Most of my Chicago-friends' houses are like the scenes of ELL DECOR. I really have to make my place like them -- actually it's my excuse that the unit is too small to make elegant!

As a matter of fact, the magazine cost $4.50- each but, we can get the 10 issues for only $13- (including postage and handling per subscription) if subscribed to. It's true to other major magazines such as Vouge or so on. Consequently, you had better subscribe if you stay in the U.S. for at least three or four months!

L'odeur d'espresso - W Hotel, Roger Federer, and Jura-Capresso -

To tell the truth, I'm fan of Roger Federer - not so big fan - since I like playing tennis. OF COURSE, I went to the Ashe Arthur Stadium to see the game between Federer and Blake from Tampa, FL at the 2006 US Open.

And the reason why I pick the espresso machine Jura-Capresso is that, they chose Roger Federer as a spokesman of "The IMPRESSA Z5"! -- Unfortunately, I couldn't find the advertising on web, so please see ELLE DECOR, NOVEMBER 2006.

One of my Spanish friends, actually he's already gone back Spain though, recommended another brand's espresso machine (don't remember the brand name exactly...). But maybe I'm a typical target audience of the Jura-Capresso marketing team.. ha ha


Anyway, the night after he clinched third US Open Title on Sep. 10, apparently he enjoyed a drink at the VIP lounge of W Hotel near the Bryant Park, with his long longtime girlfriend, Miroslava 'Mirka' Vavrinec and Anna Wintour.

Telephone - the New AT&T and "NTT"-

AT&T Inc. - not "AT&T" which is abbreviation of the preceding company, "AT&T" began trading on December 1, 2005.

Headquarters: San Antonio, Texas, USA
Industry: Telecommunications
Products: Telephone, Internet, Television

AT&T Inc. is the largest provider of both local and long distance telephone services, wireless service (Cingular), and DSL internet access in the United States. The current company was formed by SBC Communications' purchase of its former parent company, AT&T Corp. As a part of the merger, SBC shed its name and took on the iconic AT&T moniker and the T stock-trading symbol (for "telephone").

1. January 31, 2005: SBC announced that it would purchase AT&T for more than $16 billion. The announcement came almost 8 years after SBC and AT&T called off their first merger talks and nearly a year after initial merger talks between AT&T and BellSouth fell apart.
2. June 30, 2005: AT&T stockholders, meeting in Denver, approved the merger
3. October 27, 2005: The U.S. Department of Justice (USDJ) cleared the merger.
4. October 31, 2005: The Federal Communications Commission approved it.
5. November 18, 2005: The merger was finalized.

SBC announced that the name of the merged company will be AT&T, Inc., and it adopted an updated logo. The merger is ironic in the fact that one of the "Baby Bells" grew to the strength to buy out "Ma Bell" AT&T. A further irony is that the government, which mandated the breakup of the original monopoly AT&T in the first place, gave the go-ahead to allow AT&T to reconstitute much of itself in this merger.
- from Wikipedia, AT&T

As you know, there are talks to merge with BellSouth from March 5, 2006. The acquisition of BellSouth has already received approval from the USDJ, and FCC is having the vote on November 3.
It'd been nine months from the announcement to receive approval from the USDJ to start the new AT&T. On the contrary, it seems the takeover of BellSouth Corp is processing considerably fast; it took seven months to the approval from the USDJ.

The reason why I trace AT&T every now and then is that I used to work at one of NTT's subsidiaries. The history of NTT is similar to AT&T's (of course we can find some difference though):

1. NTT was a goverment-owned Japanese telecommunications company.
2. It had a monopoly over IT services to Japan nationwide and was then privatized in 1985 to encourage competition in the telecom market.
3. NTT then formed the holding company and several subsidiaries in 1999 so as not to be dogmatic.

The preceding AT&T split completely in 1984, and the new combined company forms a holding company, which is the same hierarchy as current NTT. I will still check the U.S. telecom industry such as the NOV 3, 2006!