Random

• Säckpipa -- Swedish bagpipes -- why should the Scots and Irish have all the fun? ~ link

• Home prices drop but sales go up -- turn-around in SoCal -- median price now at $348,000 ~ link

• The Guam Fire Department's high rise ladder truck left the Tamuning Fire Station for the first time in nearly a decade -- under tow. They finally moved it to a Department of Public Works storage area. The problem is that the truck has a faulty hydraulic system and for 10 years they've been looking for someone to fix it but... OOG... ~ link

• Then there is the truck that arrived at the harbor -- shipped from Hawaii -- but no one is sure if it was supposed to go to the fire department or the police department or if it was just shipped by mistake (an awfully big mistake). I understand that there is now an open storage space at the Tamuning Fire Station. OOG...

There are some days when I get dizzy from rolling my eyes so much. ~ link

• Tropical Storm Nuri is now Typhoon Nuri -- belting the Philippines with 103 mph winds. It has shifted course a little and is now heading toward China.

• Dell is getting ready to release a subcompact -- $399 (?) -- Ubuntu OS. I wonder if they'd consider putting one together in Shrek green for me. ~ link

• Quotable: "...While the intent may have been to demonstrate an 'affectionate gesture,' let’s make this very clear: slitting or slanting your eyes is NOT an affectionate gesture. You don’t mock physical appearance because you think it’s affectionate." ~ Eugene Cho

• World Water Week gathering in Stockholm -- 2,500 water experts discussing ways to bring clean water to the world's poor -- "20% of the planet's population face water shortages, a figure that is expected to hit 30% by 2025, according to the United Nations which has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation." ~ link

• The first official NLT (first edition)-only believer ~ link

• All I can say is, I didn't see it on TV. It showed up in my Google Reader -- 30 copies of the article "TV remains top source of news even as online grows" -- some server somewhere went postal. I'm about ready to unsubcribe from Wired News and switch to TV for my news.

• Are Walmart and Target helping to check poverty? I think I'd also bring the US dollar store phenomena into the discussion. ~ link

• "Where does it pay to be an academic?" I can tell you where it doesn't pay -- much -- not that my primary self-description is that of an academic -- it does enter into the mix -- sort'a -- some days more so than others. No complaints about salary, though. ~ link

• "The Communist North Korean government has declared Sweden their enemy and a US war puppet." Isolation does tend to distort reality -- sometimes in extreme ways. ~ link