Googlefasting: Day 3

Continued from Day 1, Day 1.5, Day 2…

• Had to get directions to the W Hotel in downtown Seattle. Yahoo! gave me a map link for “W Hotel Seattle” as well as an “availability” link for reservations. Cool! But when I clicked on Yahoo!'s map link, I got a map of downtown and *ALL* the hotels in the area (as well as tourist spots). Overkill for this task. Also frustrating that I can't dynamically drag their maps yet (only available in a difficult-to-find beta).
• For grins, I try “W Hotel Seattle” in MSN. I can get routed to an astoundingly outdated “MSN Maps & Directions” site, or I can find “Local listings: 'w hotel' near Seattle, WA.'” Clicking on the former link, I can drill down further to specific destinations, with the first one being the W. Doesn't have the “reservations” feature, which I found rather nice (although it should be linked to a rate comparison tool).
• I try the same initial query in Snap.com. Indeed, it brings me to a page that has the proper results. Although, I'm mildy annoyed by the “click click click click click click click” sounds on the front page as I key in my query. Par for the course, the way Snap has this thing set up (here's where AJAX would come in handy).
• Moderated a panel discussion in front of a good-sized group of public radio figures, including panel member Maria Thomas, VP and GM of NPR Online. When I needed to illustrate a point, I had to ask her to drive (after explaining why) – and I think there may be a story to come out of this experience.
• Needed to find the Peet's in Seattle's Freemont district for a lunch meeting. Typed “peet's freemont seattle” and found the address (to copy and paste) into a new query from the sixth query down. “3401 Fremont ave N. Seattle, WA 98103″ gave me a direct map, and instant way to start mapping TO the location. Nice. The directions pages gives you the option to use the new Yahoo! beta mapping service, but the info I had already entered was not pre-populated if I switch from Classic to Beta (major bug).
• Forwarded a funny image to a friend, who asked where he might be able to buy one (or two) of the items pictured. A quick Yahoo! search for “boob mouse pads” gave me the site I was looking for in the #1 slot. There's something you don't see every day.
• Needed to find “Seattle Influencers” and was suprised by the #1 result on Yahoo!.
• Was on the go (meeting a friend in Fremont). Ponzi wanted me to stop by a shop that she didn't know the name of! What the hell is lettuce soap!? Anyway, I only had my 2125 with me, so I fired into lettuce-soap-fremont.gada.be – and it kicked back a list of results, including posts from Ponzi's blog about it. One article on IceRocket lead me to Burnt Sugar – where they were out of lettuce soap. Gada.be worked thanks to IceRocket.
• Not related to search necessarily, but I learned that I could drag & drop any string of text into Maxthon and have it open up. For example, I highlighted a non-hyperlinked URL in Firefox and dropped it into Maxthon and the page opened in a new tab. I love Maxthon.