The owners of Le Passage French Bistro have expanded the restaurant on the North side and are now in the process of launching a completely new business on the south at 2963 State Street. It’s called Carlsbad Chocolate Bar and owner Laura Reyer’s says it is an “opportunity to provide chocolate and wine to the residents of Carlsbad and beyond.”
Reyer hopes to have the new store open before Christmas, but that’s about all she’ll say. “For now I would prefer to stay quiet and keep the suspense level abundant!”
It’s working. We can hardly wait to sample some of The Carlsbad Chocolate Bar’s goodies.
Looks like even Santa Claus has been hit by the recent economy woes as he’s spending a lot of time loitering at the Carlsbad Premium Outlets this holiday season. Apparently, he’s been picking up a little extra cash by charging kids to have their pictures taken with him in the Santa House in Center Court.
Here is the schedule:
Nov 26: 10am – 4pm
Nov 27: Closed
Nov 28 – Dec 23: Mon – Sat: 10am – 9pm; Sun: Noon – 6pm
Think the economy has killed the advertising business? Not yet. The Carlsbad Tourism Business Improvement District is getting ready to sign off on a $350,000 ad campaign for the city of Carlsbad, according to a Barbara Henry story in the North County Times.
These are challenging times for the hotel industry and we do need to get going on a program,” said Bill Canepa, board member of the Carlsbad Tourism Business Improvement District, as he discussed the proposed publicity campaign at a board meeting Monday.
Apparently, a consulting company called Mindgruve, is going to create a “brand” identity for the city including a “new logo” and “some advertising, with a heavy emphasis on Internet Web site ad placement.”
We’ve got some ideas: what about changing the name of Carlsbad to Carlsbadistan and using the power station and seawall as the logo? How rad would that be? Oh, wait. . .
Yesterday, the host of Project RunwayHeidi Klum spent the day with her mother and kids: Leni, 4, Henry, 3, Johan, 2 at Carlsbadistan’sLegoland, according to the blog Just Jared.
Heidi was seen taking to the skies and playing on the helicopter ride with her kids. Henry was seen polishing off a bag of cheetos. Johan sucked on his pacifier and was pushed in his stroller by grandma Erna.
Hopefully, they didn’t spend too much time in little Las Vegas. . .
A couple weeks ago when LA Times writer Christopher Reynolds visited Legoland with his wife and daughter they noticed something odd while cruising through miniature Las Vegas.
Among the wonders of this scaled-down Vegas is a quickie-wedding chapel (below). Now, thousands of visitors have probably strolled right past it, since it’s not as tall as the fake Eiffel Tower, as familiar as the fake New York, New York skyline, or as splashy as the faux hotel fountains. But it’s clever. . . . If you wait and watch, an aged groom (in tuxedo with cane) and young, blond bride come striding out of the chapel, headed for a waiting bus. The bride is wearing red boots and either a red miniskirt or hot pants, it’s hard to say. But what startled the three of us was the bride’s top. . . . There didn’t seem to be one.
While Legoland’s Julie Estrada later assured Christopher that the woman is indeed wearing a white blouse, we’re not so sure. It kind of makes us think our old April Fools story may not have been as over the top as we thought.
Major video game developers who want to know how well one of their proposed games might sell are turning to Carlsbadistan’sElectronic Entertainment Design and Research for help.
With its database of 6,000 games, EEDAR analysts can use historical and competitive data sets to project sales for upcoming releases. It can also determine how certain developers and publishers, marketing budgets and release dates align to affect game sales. . . . “Every game I have ever worked on, we’ve gone in blind as to which features would sell the game better,” says President Geoffrey Zatkin, who designed games for 11 years before co-founding EEDAR. Not knowing whether it would be worth an extra $500,000 to design a multiplayer mode “would scare the crap out of me,” he says.
One more reminder that Carlsbadistan is littered with some really smart, talented people.
It’s not like the robot battles out of the Steven Spielberg movie AI, but a kinder, gentler, smarter kind of robot competition as kids like Cameron Di Robertis from Team Evil Genius Too (pictured above) flock to Legoland to put their “autonomous robots” up against others in The First Lego League Tournament December 6-7, 2008..
On Dec. 6, 2008, LEGOLAND hosts the FLL Southern California Championship Tournament and as well as the FLL Los Angeles Region Championship Tournament on Dec. 7. Competition is expected to be fierce as 102 teams of children ages 9 to 14 compete in using robots to understand and create solutions for one of today’s most critical environmental issues: climate conditions. Winners from these tournaments advance to the FIRST World Festival. . . .The tournament challenges teams to use science and technology as they build, program and test an autonomous robot to compete with other teams’ robots in an obstacle course.
And yes, these events are more fun than they sound. All the info after the jump. [click to continue…]
We are knocking on the door,” Pfankuch said. “But we have to conquer the Baja 1000 before we can take a breath and enjoy what we’ve done this season in SCORE,” said Pfankuch, who earlier this year won his class in the Baja 500 over parts of the Baja 1000 course.
Carlsbadistan resident Alex Kajitani, the Rappin’ Mathematician was named California Teacher of the Year yesterday, and while he actually teaches at Mission Middle School in Escondido, we’re still proud of him.
As the state Teacher of the Year, Kajitani will join other teachers in March in representing their states in a White House visit with the president. . . . “It’s such an honor and something I’m really looking forward to,” Kajitani said. “I think this country is on the verge of potentially great change, and I think the same is true for education as well.”
Carlsbadistan’s fuel efficient car company Aptera is one of 22 automaker teams who have registered for the Progressive Automotive X Prize, according to a story on Xconomy San Diego.
. . .the teams wlll compete in two dramatic, long-distance stage races scheduled for next year, X Prize spokeswoman Carrie Fox said. The $10 million purse is split between the alternative class and a mainstream class that requires entrants to operate cars with four-doors, 4-wheels and other basic features.”
Not a bad way to add $5 million to the bottom line while getting a little press along the way.
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