It doesn’t have the same tactile pleasure, but it also doesn’t have the Legos embedded into your heel in the middle of the night. Infinite bricks! Free digital Lego buildie thing download.

One learns several things from this article on aid to Burma:
1. There is a charity called Telecoms Sans Frontieres. Neat! A sidebar lists their usual technical kit.
2. Burma continues to behave in a way that reasonable governments don’t, especially being afraid of free communication.

Sub-headline: “Rare events likely to become commonplace, climate report says”

I was thinking about taking LAT Homicide off my favorites list (I haven’t visited in a while) but I stopped by today and saw this gem:

Another South LA resident, who goes by the name of Cheese, said simply, “This is LA…”

In an article about something you don’t care about is hidden this gem:

In fact, bars and taverns statewide have seen a greater increase in business than before the smoking ban’s passage in 2005, according to a state Department of Revenue study released Tuesday. Watering holes saw 20 percent more revenue in 2007, compared with the 0.3 percent gain it saw in 2006, the first full year with the ban.

Rick took some of his teen advisory group members (STABbies) to Emerald City Comicon. He is a good man, he is a brave man, and willing to not only drive unrelated teens to Seattle but also to be a positive influence on some very thoughtful yet embarrassed young people.

As the photographer was organizing us for the shoot, he gave me some direction. In the midst of that direction he said something that didn’t quite register. He gave us more direction, and said something to me again that didn’t quite sink in. He said it to me a third time and then, with horrible realization, I realized what he had been saying. He was referring to me as “Dad” and he must have believed that I was the father of the STABies!

“Whoa! “ I said, “I’m not their dad! I’m their librarian.”

“Whatever.” He responded, “Move a little to the left.”

Hey, remember when Travelocity had dream maps, and you could see how little it would cost you to travel to various glamorous and not-so-glamorous destinations? Now they have a partner site called lastminute that has a list rather than map format that woos you to various destinations. I checked where I could go without any area or date restrictions and found quite a few appealing destinations (though they all seemed to be for only a couple days at a time, unless I was misreading the information– if I’m flying to London, I would like to stay for longer than a weekend.) .

From our friend FOIA, a list of the books, movies, and music at the International Space Station. The reading just reinforces that astronauts will always be astronautish, but I’m intrigued by the movies. Well, intrigued by season one of Sealab 2021. Seems a little too… on the nose.

FARK takes on the READ poster.

A guy crawled under the reference desk and was poking at the power outlets. I said “can I help you?” and he said he was just looking at the outlets. Then I realized he was probably with the firm that will be remodeling the building in the fall. But it was equally likely that he was a patron looking for somewhere to plug in his laptop. Or crazy.