Random

> Much of the UK has been snowed in for a couple of days. Meanwhile, spring weather has returned here in the Arizona desert. Back to shorts and flip-flops. But the brown haze hanging over Phoenix reminds us that we're in late-fall or winter. The seasonal inversion holds in the pollution. ~ BBC

> "...Seth Priebatsch, the 22-year-old founder of Scvngr, a social location-based gaming platform for mobile devices (Google is an investor), has said that he dropped out of Princeton 'to build a game layer over the world.'" Imagine being able to live your life as a game -- earning points for brushing your teeth, walking instead of driving, buying pop-tarts... "Games are on the verge of transforming our concepts of work, education, and commerce." ~ FastCompany

> Unless, of course, Jesus returns on May 21, 2011. Bob Smietana gets j-game points for the lead on his story about Harold Camping and the media campaign his followers have developed to spread the news of Jesus' return on May 21, 2011. (Harald is sure that he's done the math correctly this time.) ~ link

> There is a lot of wisdom packed in Chuck DeGroat's post "The Missional Position: Myths and Musings on Being Single" ~ link (via)

> "Yoido Full Gospel Church released 20 satellite congregations to become independent, effectively reducing the church roll by some 360,000 members." ~ link

> For those who romanticize the past -- if you were in the top US tax bracket in 1955, you were paying 81% of your income in taxes -- nearly double of what the top bracket is paying today. ~ NY Times

> Another bizarre TSA story -- Sometimes the passengers are as wacko as the policies. ~ CBS

> "Atheists to display 'Reason's Greetings' banner at holiday parade" -- As Skye Jethani puts it, "These guys put the humor into humanism." ~ Mercury News | Skye

> Let's start 35 family farms this Christmas. ~ link

> "...reminded how ordinary I am even tho' my life is not that ordinary. Can I be an ordinary radical or radical ordinary?" ~ Sivin Kit

> California Pizza Kitchen has opened its first restaurant in China. It is located in Shanghai. ~ Bloomberg