Has it been 5 years? Don't know. Sometimes it feels like it happened last year, sometimes - many years ago, and sometimes - like it never happened at all. My mind often fills the horrible void in the skyline with two ghostly towers and that brings me some comfort. I really can't believe that the towers, and along with them somewhat simpler times are gone. To some images of the Twins might be unsettling, but I treasure them.

A few days ago I was leafing through my old issues of Silicon Alley Reporter, Jason McCabe Calacanis' failed dot com rah-rah magazine. Almost every single issue carried this ad by the Alliance for Downtown New York.

The alliance changed it's logo, like so many other companies.

I think that a logo redesign is the same thing as being ashamed of the past. I salute every company that kept the original logo. It does not really matter what happened. The World Trade Center will keep standing, even if only in our minds.

This, of course, is only my opinion. Let me know what you would have done by voting in my latest poll.

I picked up for a few bucks this Univac security guard's shield. Like many security badges it's based on a New York State Great Seal. The proportions are changed and the figures of Liberty - woman holding a Phrygian cap on a stick (well, actually Liberty pole if you want to get technical) and Justice - woman with a sword and scale. There's sunrise over Hudson inside the shield, but without the two boats. New York State's motto Excelsior (which is Latin for "Up Your's").

The plastic laminated id is kind of cool, because it's a miniature punchcard.

I guess the manufacturers of rent-a-cop badges are trying to make them subtly similar to NYPD logo, yet different enough not to get in trouble. NYPD badge is based on a similar, yet very distinct New York City Seal. Instead of Liberty and Justice it features American Indian with a bow. The other figure is enigmatic - for the longest time I thought that it was another American Indian holding a dead animal or a tomahawk. In fact, it turns out to be a Dutch sailor holding a "sounding line" - a nautical depth measuring rope. Another useless bit of trivia: Mark Twain chose his pen name from the expression "mark twain", meaning only two fathoms reading on the sounding line.

The five stars on the chevron are for the five boroughs, the windmill is for the Dutch origins of New York City. The most unsettling part, is of course the Justice scales that rest on top of fasces, a bundle of sticks with an axe inside - the ancient symbol of authority. Along with the swastika, fasces has been marred as a symbol of Fascism, to which it gave its name.

I don't know if you noticed, but the golden arches of the McDonald's logo are not always "golden". McDonald's allows for a surprising range of color variations, like this green logo that was necessary to downplay the shameful existence of Mickey-D's in an uppity Sedona community. They even planted a shrub to hide the logo.

A fine example that might explain the failure of the The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention is the sinister looking logo on the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. The color harmonizes with the silhouette of A-12 Blackbird above on the deck of USS Intrepid.

By the way, I always thought that Grimace was chicken nugget gone bad. As it turns out, I was wrong about the chicken nugget part, but was right about the gone bad part. Grimace used to be a four-handed villain hellbent on stealing shakes. My favorite quote from one of the number of the Mystery of Grimace websites: "Grimace wasn't marketable as a fat ass purple thief, but is marketable as a fat ass purple nice guy". Well, at least the Hamburglar is continuing his life of crime. And I am afraid Ronald might join him soon enough after being fired in Japan.