Random

• Giant ant colony -- great video of an ant colony that "covers 50 square metres and goes eight metres down into the earth. The ants removed 40 tonnes of material to build this enormous colony." ~ link

• "20th Century Fox will pick up the tab to co-finance the third Narnia film, Voyage of the Dawn Treader." ~ link

• Metropolitan Kirill is the Russian Orthodox Church's new patriarch -- probably a step back into the dark ages of Russia. Hopefully I'll be wrong. ~ link

• Starbucks says they'll stop brewing decaf after the noon hour because the demand is low in the afternoons. That seems counter intuitive. I know people who drink caffeinated coffee in the morning but switch to decaf for the afternoon so they aren't awake all night. Maybe I'm missing something about the chemistry. Starbucks will brew afternoon decaf upon request, though. ~ link

• Starbucks is closing 300 stores because sales fell 6% in 4Q '08. This means that from now on there will only be a Starbucks on every other corner. Apparently, people aren't as willing to spend half their paychecks on lattes during a down economy. Of course, Starbucks could drop their prices. ~ link

• The US House of Representatives passed an $819 billion economic stimulus package. I'm still not convinced that you can spend your way out of a recession using money you don't have. That's how we got into this mess. But then again, what do I know? I don't even understand how Twitter is making money. ~ link

• I also don't understand why we can't keep the power on on Guam. I'm working on battery because the power is out for the third time in a week! Island leaders get upset when people suggest that Guam is a third world country. It's not (we're not suffering here). But it certainly has a lot of the same problems as third world countries.