Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

To mark the one-year anniversary of lunchinabox.net, I just launched the Bento Store Locator with Google Maps to make it easier for the lunch-packing community to share their knowledge of local stores in a common location. This interactive map should help readers quickly find nearby stores that sell bento boxes and accessories, check out feedback from other readers, input new stores, and leave their own comments on individual store entries. (Like a very basic version of Yelp.com, but focused only on bento gear.)  Full details and posting guidelines here at Lunch in a Box.

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

Adventures in Bentomaking is running a bento contest and will give the winner a goodie bag with a bento box and bento accessories.

I also gave a reader a Got Bento? wall clock for the most clever lyrics to the SNL song "D**k in a Box" using "Lunch in a Box" instead. Full details here at Lunch in a Box.

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

A few updates today on online bento shopping (Ichiban Kan), bento gear in Europe (Daiso stuff via Japan Centre), conferences I’ll be attending (BlogHer & Anime Milwaukee), and something that annoyed me this week.

Full details are here at Lunch in a Box:

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

A reader wrote a hilarious Lunch in a Box song parody spoof on the Saturday Night Live "D**k in a Box" song. Full details and a song lyric contest here at Lunch in a Box.

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

Last week evidently the main Lunch in a Box site and many other WordPress blogs were hacked in a subtle way, with hundreds of invisible links added to the site without my knowledge (more info on the attack here). This resulted in Lunch in a Box being deindexed from Google, Yahoo and other search databases, and explains why Google Ads for unrelated topics like bad credit fixes and Viagra started appearing on the site as of last week. I’ve cleaned up the code and am plugging the security holes, but wanted to let readers know that the site may be up and down as I work to ensure that this won’t happen again. Please accept my apologies for any inconvenience this causes!

I’d also encourage any of you with WordPress blogs to view your page source code, and do a quick search on “credit” and “viagra” to ensure that you haven’t been hit as well. More info is in the link above.

UPDATE: Evidently upgrading to WordPress version 2.5 will close the security hole that let this happen.

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

Just a quick reminder that today is the last day for entries in the Lunch in a Box lunch gear organization event. How do you keep everything accessible and at hand without lunch gear taking over your kitchen? The author of the most ingenious solution will receive my review copy of the new book Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes (see my full review here).

Cross-posted here at Lunch in a Box.

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

Sanko in San Francisco's Japantown has expanded its bento inventory, and now stocks unusual bento accessories I haven't seen locally. Full details here at Lunch in a Box, with a San Francisco Japantown bento shopping update covering Ichiban Kan, Sanko, Nijiya and Kinokuniya.



 
 

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

I'm running an event/contest to gather clever methods of organizing lunch-packing accessories and containers. The author of the most ingenious solution will receive my review copy of the upcoming bento book Face Food: The Visual Creativity of Japanese Bento Boxes. Submissions are due by Friday, March 14; full details are here at the Lunch in a Box website.

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

I'm putting together a full, organized list of packed lunch blogs and would like to invite readers to leave a comment at the main entry on Lunch in a Box with details of your own active lunch blogs. Any container is fine: bento boxes, Laptop Lunchboxes, Mr. Bento-style thermal lunch jars, brown bags, etc. Thank you! 

Lunch in a Box has moved to lunchinabox.net   Come join us over there for the full entries, and be sure to check out the Top Speed Tips page for tips, tutorials and equipment reviews!

Results of the 4th annual Menu for Hope charity raffle are in, and over $91,000 was raised for the U.N. World Food Programme. The Lunch in a Box bento prize goes to Mrs. Nicole A. H.; contact me to claim your prize. Way to go, everyone! Full details here at the Lunch in a Box website.