Fast forward to today, when JetBlue’s new $700+ million flagship terminal, T5 at JFK International gets appraised by BusinessWeek. You’ll see that between thinking about keeping coffee no farther than 250ft from passengers waiting to fly and ensuring there’s a clear path from ticketing to security to boarding, JetBlue is still customer-focused…And their stock is up 3% on the day as of this post.  

• The Olympics - NYTimes.com created this great tool to track all your favorite events here
• Bell Canada rebrands and relaunches
• Pantry, a local gourmet-to-go kitchen, grocery and coffee shop owned and operated by my friend Greg Bolton gets some love from blogTO
• Greg Washington, the visual god behind inqmnd, joins the crew at teehan+lax and promptly launches a new blog, anotherfaceinthecrowd
• The Salvation Army of Ontario is looking for men’s shirts and pants, please help
• Three words. Scooters. Fatties. Info.
• Are you a Redesigner or a Realigner?
• Ride the Pineapple Express. You will not be disappointed.
• Meant to post this a while ago: The Sartorialist captures Kanye and his fiancee
• EA Skate is coming to the Wii

I’ll have a massive link up post that’ll cover a few things I’ve been taking note of since my time back from France, including some great new Toronto eateries, sites that have caught my eye and some photography from a few friends and myself.

Keep you posted. (har har)

• Everyone users Deezer. It’s by far the best streaming music experience I’ve come across. I used it to preview the new N*E*R*D album before buying it. Search for any artist and just press play, you don’t even need to register. If you do register however you can create custom playlists and ’smart playlists’ that are based on your listening history
• Parisians are very functionally stylish people. No one wears shades unless it’s blindingly sunny and never indoors. Ladies only wear running shoes if they’re running. Shorts are worn with style (no cargo shorts) if at all and it’s pretty much blasphemy to wear flip-flops or sandals; Summer shoes only and leave the socks at home, thank you very much.
• There’s Wi-Fi everywhere - except Starbucks oddly. Speaking of Starbucks…
• Parisians don’t understand the concept of Starbucks. The idea of getting overpriced, low-grade coffee just for the ‘experience’ of walking down the street with a mermaid-branded cup in hand is somehow lost on them
• They love Obama and are shocked that there are Americans that have the capacity to back a bi-racial candidate for the Presidency
• Metro tickets become invalid if you keep them in the same pocket as your cellphone (learned that the hard way) but other than that they have one of the most efficient Metro systems in the world
• Their bike share program is something every Metropolitan city should have. It’s easy to use, free for 30 min rides, costs $40 for an annual membership and most importantly, you can pick up and drop of your bike at any docking station, each within 300m of each other (and they are literally everywhere)
• Last time I visited I had a shaved head and all the guys had spiked hair. This time I had spiked hair and a lot of the guys went for the shaved look, what’s a guy to do?
• I saw maybe 3 iPhones the entire week I was there despite it being carried by France’s largest mobile company, Orange
• Cars are an object of utility. If you’re wealthy enough, you have a nice car and driver. Very few middle class people have a fancy car for the sake of appearance
• The best shot of the Eiffel tower is from the bridge near the end of Rue de George V, some 2km’s from the tower itself
• Despite continuous reports to the contrary, the French are NOT rude people. Everyone says ‘pardon’ if they bump into you and they will forgive your terrible, terrible French. Unless you’re American, then all bets are off

My immediate thoughts are that the full-screen interface allows for future updates through firmware only which should lengthen the product lifecycle. Alas, many people will lament the hard keyboard (iPhone groaners quiet down for a second) but the reality is touch screen interfaces are here to stay and if a nation of children are going to be using them, we should lighten up and get used to it. (Especially if they have haptic response.)

(Via Dezeen)

Wait, before I go on, I’ll backtrack a bit so you can see how I ended up there.

Two weeks ago, I found myself at work (yes we have a gaming console at work) completely amazed at Grand Theft Auto:IV, a game I’m sure you’ve heard about, for better or worse, by now. I was hooked. Seeing New York City rendered and stylized to detail in an immersive playing experience; I had to have a copy. (Note: I already own a Wii, which I still love, but doesn’t have the guts needed to run a game like GTA). So the decision was, X-Box or Playstation. This is where my paradox of choice came into play.

For those who haven’t read it, I highly recommend Barry Schwartz’s ‘The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less’. In his book, Schwartz, a professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swathmore College, carefully examines the pains and pitfalls of the perceived luxury of freedom of choice. It’s not a essay on consumption in Western society, rather it’s an empirically based examination on the hows, whys and results of having to pick between equally attractive alternatives.

Case in point, among my friends, everyone seems to have either a 360 or a PS3, so that didn’t help me decide. The PS3 has a Blu-Ray player but the 360 has a superior multiplayer framework. Would I rather watch true Hi-Def movies or enjoy chatting and playing games with out of town friends who I rarely get to connect with? Another tough choice. Two close friends who live within a few blocks of me each have one or the other, so who do I share my latest game purchases with? Lastly, are the games I want to play available for only one system? Well it turns out, Skate and GTA, the two games I’ll waste most of my scarce time with, are available for both systems.

The anxiety in making my decision and the social, personal and economic effects they have are what make ‘The Paradox of Choice’ such an important read to anyone. I know that I refered to it to help me make my decision.

In the end the best thing to do was to rip the band-aid off and make a gut choice. I’m proud to say I didn’t leave that Best Buy empty handed. So now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to play some GTA on my shiny new PS3.