Use the "red key"
In a bizarre junket that I haven't quite made sense of yet, Slate has sent Tad Friend (that's "Don't Call Me Mr Latte or Mr Amanda Hesser" to you) and his wife, the NYT food pixie Amanda Hesser, to France with the apparent purpose of riding Segways around Paris. This has got to be somebody's massive commercial - the series features a "Promotional Considerations" page where you learn that pretty much everything was paid for by some company, although it doesn't appear to have been directly financed by Segway. But what mostly confuses me about this is who the hell this is aimed at - Amanda Hesser fans? Foodies? Francophiles (not the best timing for THAT one)? Boulevardiers? It's obviously meant to sell Segways, since I haven't yet read a single even mildly negative comment. But why is Slate shilling Segways? And WHY did they pick these two to do it?
And I thought R.W. Apple's getting the Times to pay for his vacations was bad.