All you can eat at the dot-com buffet

Venture Frogs Restaurant in San Francisco, home of the Priceline Pot-stickers, appears undaunted by the collapse of the dot-coms.

The restaurant started by a couple of cashed out Net-heads launched last year like a "hot" IPO in a fading market. The concept: The names of the dishes pay homage to tech "greats" like Softbank, Cisco and Yahoo.

Now that technology isn't looking so glam, the restaurant is still sticking with the technology Disney concept. But they have apparently made some adjustments to new market realities -- their patrons are feeling cash-poor.

Hence, two-for-one entrees with this coupon. Naturally, it's a digital coupon in the form of an Evite.

What's next? The Vegas-style $3.99 eToys Egg Salad Sandwich? Why not embrace the new market reality and restyle the restaurant with a defunct dot-com theme, decorating it entirely with the paraphernalia of fallen and faltering ventures. All the drinks could be served in those Amazon.com giveaway coffee tumblers. The grand reopening could be a free-sushi and cosmos launch party complete with shopping bags filled with giveaway T-shirts, marketing stickers and useless branded doohickeys.

Long live the dead dot-coms! -- Katharine Mieszkowski [4:01 p.m., PDT, Aug. 29, 2001]

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Stop the webcams, we want to get off!

That's the message of the Surveillance Camera Players, a group that protests the video surveillance of public places. The New York group has declared Sept. 7, 2001, the first International Day of Action Against Video Surveillance.

You're already performing for the man behind the curtain, so why not look straight at the camera and thumb your nose? Or, hold up a sign that says, "I know you're in there." So far, groups in Paris, London and Minneapolis, among others, have pledged to take part in the "autonomous actions" to protest video surveillance of public places by the government and businesses. The public awareness about the proliferation of cameras has been growing since Tampa, Fla., implimented a program to scan the streets with face-recognition technology in search of criminals.

The Surveillance Camera Players, started in 1996, see such cameras as a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which guarantees protection from unreasonable search and seizures. They've performed skits and plays in front of video cameras as a form of protest, including summarizing Wilhelm Reich's "Mass Psychology of Fascism" in 15 posters. Players in Arizona recently held post-board signs with mottos like "We're watching you watch us" in front of cameras on the street and in bars, and they singled out the infamous jail webcam in the Maricopa County Jail.

"Gekked," an anarchist in the San Francisco Bay Area who will participate in the day of action, is compiling a list of local surveillance cameras, which he plans to photograph and distribute through Indymedia.

"I'm concerned about the concept of 'function creep.' You install a webcam that's supposed to capture people running through a red light, but it captures more -- people walking down the street. All these different cameras have the potential to be tied into one central database."

One victory for the anti-surveillance camp: Borders announced that it would not proceed with plans to use face-recognition technology combined with cameras to search for shoplifters in its London stores. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [3:30 pm, PDT, Aug. 28, 2001]

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Cameron Diaz says "Boo"?

If you're going to fail, do it really, really big and then have Cameron Diaz play you in the movie version.

That's the lesson of Boo.com, the British fashion "e-tailer" -- remember that clunky turn of phrase? -- that burned through $120 million in just 18 months on its way to a very trendy bankruptcy. The Guardian reported Monday that Cameron Diaz may play the role of Kajsa Leander, the Swedish model who co-founded the company, in a movie based on the Boo story. The co-founder's book, "Boohoo.com," will be released this November.

No word yet if an eye-popping Web site will be accompanying this cross-media play. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [1:45 pm, PDT, Aug. 27, 2001]

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A cyborg speaks

"I'm still getting used to not having a heartbeat."

-- Robert Tools, 59, the first patient to receive a fully contained artificial heart. The device produces a whirring sound instead of a heartbeat. "That makes me realize I'm alive because I can hear it without a stethoscope," Tools added. -- Katharine Mieszkowski [12:15 p.m., PDT, Aug. 22, 2001]

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