The Beijing Olympics games has attracted its share of controversy because of the fact that the games are being held in China where human rights issues are considered to largely ignored. This has led to a lot of creative logo parodies. This to me has been the best I have come across. I am not sure who to credit for the creation

This new facility opened up close to where I live and their logo intrigued me.  More and more people are being diagnosed with Diabetes these days and Diabetes America offers a one-stop shop for all all diabetes needs of patients. DiabetesAmerica™ health centers are the first ever facilities built expressly to fulfill the following needs

• Unique needs of diabetes patients, all under one roof.
• On-site physicians 
• On-site diabetes educators 
• On-site lab and diagnostic testing 
• Complete, personalized diabetes care, under one roof

The logo comprises of 4 major areas that patients need to focus on to control their diabetes

1. Diabetes Medical Care
2. Personalized Diabetes Education
3. Nutrition Counseling
4. Lifestyle and Exercise Coaching 

Everyone has probably heard of IT and Call Center  operations being outsourced to India, but did you know that a large number of manhole covers in the United States actually get manufactured in India. A few weeks ago, I was walking in Los Angeles and saw a drain cover manufactured in India.

Apparently over 600,000 manhole covers in the city of New York are manufactured in India, specially from West Bengal. This practice is not new but has been in existence for over 4 decades. Also, it looks like India is the world leader in manhole cover manufacturing, a little known fact. So the next time you walk over a drain cover in the US, it may have come from India.

With the UEFA Euro 2008 football tournament in full swing, I thought I would explore the Euro 2008 logo. The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2008, is the 13th UEFA European Football Championship, a quadrennial football tournament for European nations. The tournament, which is being hosted by Austria and Switzerland, began on 7 June 2008 and is scheduled to conclude with the final at Ernst Happel Stadion in Vienna on 29 June 2008.

The logo has the following distinct components

Mountains - Both Austria and Switzerland are famous for their beautiful mountains. The mountains surround the soccer ball and form a large part of the logo. The mountains are in ed which is one of the primary colors in the flags of both countries. The mountains also have a nice delicate shadow as well.

Football - The football has various shades of green in it and is representative of the green mountains of the Alps.

Typography - The text on the logo has representation for the two host countries Austria and Switzerland. The red color also represents the colors of the two countries. The name of the competition Euro 2008 and the name of association that controls all football in Europe, UEFA. UEFA's logo is on the top of a circle, similar to the actual UEFA logo.

The city of Bangalore (Bengaluru) has undergone rapid expansion in the last two decades and desperately needed a brand new airport. The new Bengaluru International Airport will go live this weekend on the 23rd of May, 2008. The new airport  has been redesigned to handle 11 million passengers. The redesign will see an increase in the size of the terminal, number of aircraft stands, new taxiway layouts and supporting infrastructure.

I was intriguiged by the logo of the airport and wanted to figure out what the logo represented. In my opinion, the logo represents a flower with three petals in teal, red and yellow. The flower obviously is used to represent Bangalore as a "Garden City". The words Bengaluru International Airport are in clear text with Bengaluru prominent in teal. Also the branding is using "Bengaluru" instead of "Bangalore".  The shapes of the petals and the convergence of the petal tips also gives me a feeling of Indian-ness to the logo. Why those colors were chosen, I am still not clear. Looking at the branding information and images of the airport interiors, it does seem like all aspects of the branding use these colors, which is excellent. You can see this in the images below.

Swoosh - Nike Corporate Logo

There must be very few people who do not recognize the Nike Swoosh logo. With a big arsenal of superstars such as Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Andre Agassi, Shane Warne, Maria Sharapova, Venus and Serena Williams. This list is pretty long. The company takes its name from the Greek goddess of victory, Nike.

The Nike "Swoosh" is a design created in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University. She met Phil Knight while he was teaching accounting classes and she started doing some freelance work for his company, Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS).

BRS needed a new brand for a new line of athletic footwear it was preparing to introduce in 1972. Knight approached Davidson for design ideas, and she agreed to provide them, charging a rate of $2 per hour.

In June 1971, Davidson presented a number of design options to Knight and other BRS executives, and they ultimately selected the mark now known globally as the Swoosh. Davidson submitted a bill for $35 for her work. (In 1983, Knight gave Davidson a gold Swoosh ring and an envelope filled with Nike stock to express his gratitude.)

The 2008 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involves 65 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 18, 2008, and will conclude with the championship game on April 7 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. The entire event is also known as "March Madness" and is probably one of the most watched TV events in the US. The host institution this year will be the University of Texas at San Antonio.

The Final Four logo represents the aspects of the city of San Antonio where the event is being held. The city, also known as the Alamo city, is famous for its cowboy culture and the 2008 Final Four logo represents that part of the event. The logo comprises of a big cowboy hat and a matching cowboy belt, that is wrapped around the name of the event "2008 NCAA Final Four".  The belt has the name of the host city. The logo was unveiled in San Antonio in September 2006.

I have been a fairly early adopter of VOIP offerings in the marketplace having signed up with Vonage back in 2002. Most of my experience with them has been good with the occaisional echo problems. I recently moved to a new location and was very surprised with the International calling plan that Time Warner cable offered me if I signed up for their Digital phone service. I was spending over $50 making calls to India and with Reliance, I would get about 500 minutes of talk time. Time Warner was offering 3000, yes THREE THOUSAND minutes of calling time to India for only $20. Of course I had to pay a higher cost for the unlimited long distance calling ($40/month) but overall it works out cheaper.

This was not a promotional offer or anything of that nature. So far the experience has been very good. I get through to Indian on the very first try. I have not head issues with echo or packet loss.  There are no separate rates for land lines vs cell phones. At this point, I have nothing to complain. The cable modem/VOIP adapter has a built inbattery backup whichis great should you lose power or want to move things around.

Cancelling my service with Vonage was another challenge. They threw all kinds of freebies at my, 1 month free, 2 months free, 3 months free, 1 year unlimited at 14.95 a month.

Does anyone have any experiences with this?