Building the Web, Lego style

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), May 10, 2002

NEW YORK (NYT) -- Building your own Web page may be old hat, unless you're building it with Lego bricks. In June, Lego Direct, Lego's direct marketing and catalog division, plans to introduce a new tool that allows members of the Lego Club (club.lego.com) to construct their own personalized Web page using virtual Lego bricks.

The new site was designed by C404, a New York-based design firm. Jason Mohr, the lead designer on the project, drew thousands of virtual Lego bricks based on computer scans of real Lego bricks. "Users get to control the look of the page by choosing from and combining different brick themes and color schemes," he said. The themes include traditional bricks, castles and, eventually, Star Wars. Once club members pick a theme, they can design their own avatar with the head, torso and legs of their choice. The avatar will appear in games and chat areas on the Web site.

Membership in the Lego Club, which has 3 million members so far, is free. The personalized Web sites will let users display photos of their own real-life Lego creations, post links to their favorite Lego.com games and link to fellow club members' home pages.

It's dangerous beyond the front door

NEW YORK (AP) -- Home may be where the heart is, and it's one of the most likely places for car crashes to occur, too. A survey by Progressive Insurance, one of the largest auto insurance companies in the country, found that 52 percent of reported crashes occurred five miles or less from home and 77 percent occurred 15 miles or less from home.

The information isn't typically gathered by law enforcement or insurance companies, but Progressive asked more than 11,000 people who reported a crash in 2001, how far from home they were when their accident occurred. The company said it found that:

* Twenty-three percent of reported accidents occurred within one mile of home.

* Accidents were more than twice as likely to take place a mile from home compared to 20 miles from home.

* Only 1 percent of reported accidents took place 50 miles from home.

* The region with the highest percentage of reported accidents occurring less than five miles from home was the Northeast, followed by the Midwest, West, Great Plains, Gulf, and Mid-Atlantic.

* The region with the highest percentage (21 percent) of reported accidents that occurred 21 miles or more from home was the Great Plains; the Northeast had the lowest percentage (14 percent).

Relief to rumpled laps

NEW YORK (NYT) -- Traveling laptop users may note that the lap doesn't always work well as a desk. A long session can leave it hot and sweaty. The Table Tote, a lightweight, portable desk from PC Tables, offers the lap a breather. When folded up and stowed away, the Table Tote could be mistaken for a second laptop. A bottom panel slides off to reveal four telescoping aluminum legs stored in the underbelly. Once the legs are attached to the fiber-filled plastic tabletop, they can be adjusted from 13 to 29 inches in height.

The Table Tote may revise the way you think about your office. With its modular document clip and side panel for a mouse pad, the table ensures that wherever you go, you're never far from a functional workstation. Although the table weighs 2.6 pounds, it can support up to 18 pounds. Business users can set up camp while delayed at the airport, and college students can save some dorm-room space by using it rather than a conventional computer desk. The Table Tote could also easily accommodate a printer or projector.

The Table Top costs $49.99 and is available at www.pctabletote.com. Setting up the desk takes less than a minute, hardly enough time to work up a sweat.

Lyrical trials and tribulations

BOSTON (NYT) -- The year 2001 was as bad as a year can be for Jump, Little Children. In a string of business troubles and personal tragedies, the band was jettisoned from Atlantic Records when the company downsized its list of boutique labels; the group's financial manager drained the bank account and left the country; and drummer Evan Blivins and his brother, accordionist and harmonica player Matt Blivins, lost their father to cancer.

"It got to a point where we had to make a conscious decision to keep going," says lead singer and guitarist Jay Clifford. "Bands usually grow on momentum and die when it's gone, so the hard thing is to stick together and make it work when the odds are against you. Even though we know what we do is what we love. Not a lot of bands do it. I guess we like to fight the good fight."

Lucky thing, because JLC -- which is based in Charleston, S.C. -- makes sublime pop music. On Vertigo, recently released on the band's newly formed independent label, E-Z Chief Records, ornate acoustic landscapes swell with melancholy melodies, dense strings, and twisting chord changes. Clifford's honeyed, soaring voice is, truly, the icing -- thick and sweet, and rich as the ideas that distinguish Vertigo (which Clifford co-produced with Liz Phair/Smashing Pumpkins producer Brad Wood) from the indie-rock throngs.