Greg In The Desert

• www.KOB.com – APD sees rise in new meth making method – Meth makers have found a new way to create the highly dangerous drug—they call it “shake and bake.” APD says most of the meth cases they work with now involve the shake and bake method.
• THE MOST NOTORIOUS COUNTERFEITER: DETAILS Article on men.style.com – Despite the best efforts of the Secret Service, the printer behind these notes evaded capture for more than three years. By then, Albert Edward Talton, of Lawndale, California, was responsible for putting more than $7 million in phony currency into circulation. And he'd made much of it using supplies purchased from his local Staples.
• Struggling homeowners left in limbo – Five months into the $75 billion federal program meant to toss a lifeline to homeowners facing foreclosure, most people in need of help are still floundering. Overall, about 15 percent of borrowers across the country who are eligible for the program have been offered help from their lender, according to a recent U.S. Treasury Department report. Of those homeowners, 9 percent have participated in a trial loan modification. President Barack Obama's administration is calling for lenders to ramp up their efforts and help 500,000 more homeowners by November.
• www.KOB.com – Man arrested for 22nd drunken driving offense – State police say a Mora County man has been arrested for his 22nd drunken driving offense – and his blood-alcohol content tested almost five times higher than New Mexico's legal limit.
• Colorado wildlife experts get aggressive going after smart bears – The Denver Post – Colorado wildlife overseers flummoxed by a rash of bear-human conflicts are searching for options, from "adverse conditioning" to haze nuisance bears that have been trapped to raising the number of hunting permits to thin the population. Wildlife officials say hundreds of clashes this summer in mountain towns — including a fatal attack, a mauling and myriad break-ins — require an aggressive response.
• Philltopia » 15 life lessons learned from SimCity – Ah, SimCity. While all the other video games out there were teaching us to become violent, antisocial little monsters, SimCity was quietly showing us the positive, constructive side of life. As a loyal player for many years, I thought I’d reflect on the countless insightful lessons this little game has taught me.
• iPhone Jailbreaking Could Crash Cellphone Towers, Apple Claims | Threat Level | Wired.com – The nation’s cellphone networks could suffer “potentially catastrophic” cyberattacks by iPhone-wielding hackers at home and abroad if iPhone owners are permitted to legally jailbreak their shiny wireless devices — that’s what Apple claims.
• Al Jazeera English – Asia-Pacific – China cracks down on rights lawyers – The authorities in China appear to have mounted a sweeping crackdown on human rights lawyers, revoking the licences of more than 50 lawyers in the past week.
• The Best Place To Hide Money: Conversation With A Burglar – Personal Finance Advice – I had quite the interesting conversation this weekend with a person who happened to be a former burglar. It was great timing because I was wondering if something like the skid mark underwear for hiding money would really work. I also figured that if you wanted to know the best place to hide your money from a burglar, a former burglar was the person to ask.
• SIA: Global chip sales on an upswing – New Mexico Business Weekly: – Worldwide sales of semiconductors for the second quarter of 2009 were $51.7 billion, a 17 percent increase from the first quarter when sales were $44.2 billion, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported Monday.

• Why Neoconservative Pundits Love Jon Stewart — Daily Intel — New York News Blog — New York Magazine – "There is genuine intellectual curiosity," May told New York. "He's a staunch liberal, but he's a thoughtful liberal, and I respect that." May isn't the only conservative gushing about Stewart. While the movement professes a disdain for the "liberal media elite," it has made an exception for the true-blue 46-year-old comedian. "He always gives you a chance to answer, which some people don't do," says John Bolton, President Bush's ambassador to the United Nations and a Fox News contributor, who went on the show last month. "He's got his perspective, but he's been fair." Says Bolton: "In general, a lot of the media, especially on the left, has lost interest in debate and analysis. It has been much more ad hominem. Stewart fundamentally wants to talk about the issues. That's what I want to do."
• Autopsy: Bear killed woman near Ouray – The Denver Post – An autopsy has determined that a 74- year-old woman was killed by a bear, just the third such documented fatal attack in Colorado. Wildlife officials say they think Donna Munson was killed as the result of years of feeding bears that visited her log cabin north of Ouray.
• Apple Shoots Ad For New Product in California Diner | Cult of Mac – Amid tight security, Apple shot a TV advert for an unreleased product at Jax Truckee Diner on Tuesday afternoon. Unfortunately, there are no pictures or even a description of the mystery product. Because of the security, no photographers or reporters were allowed on set. Filming took place on Tuesday afternoon.
• Is public healthcare in the UK as sick as rightwing America claims? | Society | The Guardian – The NHS has become the unexpected target of those opposed to Barack Obama's healthcare reform proposals. Republicans and rightwing commentators in the US have made strong allegations about the failings of Britain's health system. Denis Campbell and Girish Gupta put those claims to professionals in the health sector
• Warner builds pic with Lego – Entertainment News, Los Angeles, Media – Variety – Now count Warner Bros. as one of those studios: WB is toying with plans to develop a movie around Lego and its popular building blocks. Scribes Dan and Kevin Hageman are penning the script for the family comedy that will mix live action and animation. Warners is keeping the plot tightly under wraps, but it's described as an action adventure set in a Lego world.
• www.KOB.com – Simpsons documentary films at Isotopes Park – Director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, 2004) is working on a documentary of The Simpsons, the cartoon series from which the Isotopes got their name.
• EC criticized for conduct during Intel investigation – Ars Technica – Did the European Commission overlook some evidence during its antitrust investigation of Intel that might have influenced the outcome of the decision, which went against the chipmaker? The European Union ombudsman believes that may have been the case, saying that EC investigators failed to include details of a meeting that presented one PC mantufacturer's decision to choose Intel CPUs as being purely performance based.
• Phoenix – Valley Fever – Customer Allegedly Bumps KFC Employee With Car After Condiments Dispute – Monique Aguet, 26, zipped through the drive-through at a Kentucky Fried Chicken near Bell and Reems roads about 7 p.m., Surprise police say. When she dipped her hand in her bag of food and found there were no condiments, Aguet allegedly went off the deep end.
• www.KOB.com – Many unemployed turning to truck driving – The rough economy may be responsible for a dramatic increase in enrollment at the CNM truck driving school. Many of New Mexico's unemployed are going to school so they can hit the open road and switch gears to a more stable industry.

• Transparent aluminium is ‘new state of matter’ – Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion.
• Blue M&Ms ‘mend spinal injuries’ – The compound Brilliant Blue G blocks a chemical that kills healthy spinal cord cells around the damaged area – an event that often causes more irreversible damage than the original injury. On the downside, the treatment causes the skin to temporarily turn bright blue and BBG needs to be injected soon after the trauma. The test injections were given within 15 minutes.
• iBank provides yet another reason to dump Quicken for Mac – IGG Software has announced a "Why wait another day?" rebate program to persuade frustrated Quicken Mac 2007 owners to switch to iBank 3.5 (US$59.99). If you're a Canadian or U.S. owner who purchased iBank after July 10th, 2009, and have proof of ownership (installation disc or receipt) for either the Mac or Windows versions of Quicken or Microsoft Money, sending in a mail-in rebate form will get you a $20 incentive to switch to iBank.
• S.C. case looks on child obesity as child abuse. But is it? – USATODAY.com – Jerri Gray was doing all she could to help her son lose weight, her attorney says. But something had gone terribly wrong for the boy to hit the 555-pound mark by age 14. Authorities in South Carolina say that what went wrong was Gray's care and feeding of her son, Alexander Draper. Gray, 49, of Travelers Rest, S.C., was arrested in June and charged with criminal neglect. Alexander is now in foster care.
• Consumerist – Watch Out For Panasonic’s Proprietary Battery Cameras – Panasonic – Many of Panasonic's cameras will only work with official Panasonic batteries—the newest models require "an embedded security ID chip," while older models have been issued a firmware upgrade that locks out third-party vendors. This is already pretty obnoxious, but what makes it even worse is Panasonic can't keep up with demand, so the batteries they insist you buy for your camera aren't available.
• Al Jazeera English – Americas – Man gets life for Bush murder plot – A man who received a 30-year jail sentence for joining al-Qaeda and conspiring to kill former US President George W. Bush has had his penalty increased to life imprisonment. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, 28, was given the harsher sentence on Monday after a US appeals court ruled that his 2005 punishment was too lenient.
• AP Sources: U.S. Man Was ‘Gold Mine’ of Terror Intel – Local News | News Articles | National News | US News – FOXNews.com – Months before President Barack Obama took office with a pledge to change U.S. counterterrorism policies, the Bush administration gave Vinas all the rights of American criminal suspects. And he talked. "This was by the numbers. It was a law enforcement operation and it worked,"
• BBC NEWS | Americas | Whale wedged on cruise ship bow – A rare whale was discovered wedged on to the bow of a cruise ship when it docked in a Canadian port. The 70ft fin whale, a threatened species in Canada, was found when the Sapphire Princess docked at the Port of Vancouver, the cruise company said.
  It said it had "strict whale avoidance" measures and it was unclear where, when or how the whale became stuck.
• Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide | Environment | The Observer – Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months. The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
• Southwest Airlines breaks losing string, posts $54M profit | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News – Southwest Airlines Co. said Tuesday it earned $54 million in the second quarter, the Dallas carrier's first official profit after three quarters of losses. However, the carrier said it cannot guarantee that it'll make money in the third quarter, typically one of the strongest for Southwest and the airline industry.

• Potential Hosts Beware! – I chuckle when I recall the first question he asked me as we walked to the parking garage at the airport – "Do you have anything like a lake around here with a beach?" Yes, I know it was in bad taste but I simply said "Tingley Beach." A few days later he didn't see the humor when we drove by Tingley and I said "surfs up dude!" (Note to self – remember the Tingley Beach response for all of my boogie boarding buddies who come out)
• Jalopnik – General Dynamics RST-V Series-Hybrid With Cool In-Wheel Motors – General Dynamics RST-V – The General Dynamics Reconnaissance Surveillance and Targeting Vehicle is one cool piece of kit. It's powered by four electric in-wheel motors and can export thirty kilowatts directly to the grid. It's also got neat-o gauges.
• News : Car show features a banana with appeal – Rio Rancho Observer – "Top Banana,” you see, is the name he’s attached to his 1958 Ford Ranchero, painted a bright sunrise yellow with a sunrise red interior. You won’t be able to miss this Ranchero. It’s not one in a million, but it is one in 9,950, which is the total Ford made that year.
• The number of U.S. households who are completely unready for Junes DTV transition has dropped to 3.4 percent : Dealerscope – Albuquerque-Santa Fe, once again, was named the least-ready market, followed by Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston; Providence-New Bedford, meanwhile, was pronounced "completely ready."
• Guns, ammo disappearing as demand grows – He credits the run on guns and ammo to a number of factors: investors buying up to sell at higher prices, survivalists stockpiling for doomsday, first time gun buyers and worries that President Barack Obama is going to enact stricter gun laws.
• Walking Away from an Underwater House | Bad Money Advice – The idea that you can just send the keys to an upside down house to the mortgage holder (“jingle mail” or more properly “ruthless default”) and be done with it seems to have gained some popularity of late. Apparently, some people are beginning to believe that this is something special about houses. New cars that were bought on credit are usually worth less than what is owed on them at the start. Does anybody think they can reconsider the purchase after a few months and just hand it back to the dealer, no questions asked? Are houses different? Can you just mail in the keys?
• Obama to take aim at credit card abuses | Reuters – President Barack Obama plans to crack down on deceptive credit-card industry practices that have saddled U.S. consumers with huge debts and soaring interest rates, U.S. officials said on Sunday.

  Top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said Obama would be "very focused in the very near term on a whole set of issues having to do with credit card abuses."

• Obama to take aim at credit card abuses | Reuters – President Barack Obama plans to crack down on deceptive credit-card industry practices that have saddled U.S. consumers with huge debts and soaring interest rates, U.S. officials said on Sunday.

  Top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said Obama would be "very focused in the very near term on a whole set of issues having to do with credit card abuses."

• 12 Years of Low End Mac – There wasn't much to The New Low End User, as I first titled it, in April 1997. It had almost two dozen Mac profiles, from the Mac Plus through the last 68030-based desktop Macs, a few links to other online Mac resources, a whopping 3 graphics, and absolutely no advertising.
• Errors of Enchantment: They Just Don’t Get the Tea Parties – The rallies, while they did take place on tax day, were not really about taxes. Rather, they were, I believe, an expression of frustration at Republicans and Democrats, both of whom have supported out-of-control spending, bailouts, government takeovers and subsidies of private business, and unbelievable increases in indebtedness levels for the better part of the last decade. The unfortunate truth is that the Obama Administration has simply continued and expanded upon many of Bush's policies and the people who work every day and make this country great are not happy. That is the message I got from the tea parties (at least in Albuquerque where politicians were specifically kept out of the limelight).

President Barack Obama and Vice Present Joe Biden released their Tax Returns thought the White House blog.

Obama had an adjusted gross income of $2,656,902. Biden had an adjusted gross income of $269,256. The President’s return is dated April 12th, I guess they nearly wait until the last minute too.

• Americans are moving on up to smaller, smarter homes – USATODAY.com – New homes, after doubling in size since 1960, are shrinking. Last year, for the first time in at least 10 years, the average square footage of single-family homes under construction fell dramatically, from 2,629 in the second quarter to 2,343 in the fourth quarter, Census data show.
• Inside Obama’s bank CEOs meeting – Eamon Javers – POLITICO.com – President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”

  “My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

• Teach yourself to become ambidextrous! – It seems to me as well that we are meant to use both hands. When we are first born our brains are evenly weighted on both sides. Over time however our brains become heavily lop sided, with a right-handed person’s brain being far larger on the left (we use the opposite side of our brain when controlling our hands). Twin studies where one is left handed and one is right handed, have proven the cause to be our dominant limb. Having learned about brain plasticity at university I know that this is as a result of our brain ‘adapting’ to use, and that by the same principle we could once again enlarge the side that has fallen into dissuse. Scientists have also suggested that enlarging your brain in this way could have knock on effects improving intelligence or creativity.
• Slashdot | ARM — Heretic In the Church of Intel, Moore’s Law – For 30+ years, the PC industry has been as obsessed with under-the-hood performance: MIPs, MHz, transistors per chip. Blame Moore's Law, which effectively laid down the Gospel of marketing PCs like sports cars. But with mobile PCs and green computing coming to the fore, enter ARM, which is challenging the Gospel according to Moore with chips that are low-powered in both senses of the word. Some of its most popular CPUs have 100,000 transistors, fewer than a 12 MHz Intel 286 CPU from 1982 (download PDF). But they also consume as little as a quarter of a watt, which is why netbook makers are embracing them. It's 'megahertz per milli-watt,' that counts, according to ARM exec Ian Drew, who predicts that 6-10 ARM-based netbooks running Linux and costing just around $200 should arrive this year starting in July."
• Barack Obama Maintains Control Over Banks By Refusing to Accept Repayment of TARP Money – WSJ.com – The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell 'em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.
• Meacham: The End of Christian America | Newsweek Religion | Newsweek.com – The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.
• The Annual Elm Seed Festival – Duke City Fix – We call the the tree parents of this menace, Chinese Elm, (Ulmus parvafolia), but in actuality they are Siberian Elms, (Ulmus pumila). I have heard many stories of how all these elm came to be in Albuquerque, including that Mayor Tingley was responsible, but all I could find was that Tingley planted elms in the University area in the 1930s. Maybe that is all it took, because I have never encountered a plant so prolific. If you don't have them in your neighborhood, give it time. In years to come you will be able to join in this celebration.
• Article limit in Pro. What should it be? – People are using Instapaper in ways I had never envisioned, storing thousands of unread articles. I got a very nice support email earlier this week from someone saying that the Unread page wasn’t working, and he suggested that it might have been because he had 16,000 unread articles. (He was right.) I never anticipated this sort of scale — the most I’ve ever had unread was 72.
• Fewer Calories (Carbs, Protein or Fat) Are Called Weight-Loss Key – NYTimes.com – For people who are trying to lose weight, it does not matter if they are counting carbohydrates, protein or fat. All that matters is that they are counting something.
• No end in sight – It's shocking enough that 90 people have been killed in mass shootings in the US in the past 2 years. But it's even more shocking that 44 of those deaths have occurred within the month since March 10, 2009, when Michael McClendon touched off a firestorm of violence that ended with the deaths of 10 people in rural Alabama. This has been a month of grave infamy in the United States.

There is a poorly thought out argument in a AP article that taxing tobacco is a tax on the poor. A Google search for the author, Calvin Woodward, suggests he would never write a positive article about President Obama.

One of President Barack Obama’s campaign pledges on taxes went up in puffs of smoke Wednesday.
The largest increase in tobacco taxes took effect despite Obama’s promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.
This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.

• Review: NeatReceipts for Mac Review | Scanners | Macworld – NeatReceipts ships with a small portable scanner that you use to scan documents into the NeatWorks application. (NeatWorks works with several other scanners and is available for purchase separately from the NeatReceipts package. The Neat Company has a list of scanners that work with the program.) When a scan is complete, NeatWorks begins performing optical character recognition (OCR) on your documents; depending on the size of and amount of information on your document, this can take anywhere from a few seconds to just under a minute to complete. When the OCR is done, NeatWorks does two things: it tries to determine the type of document you’ve scanned (text document, receipt, or business card), and then populates data fields with information it finds on your document based on the document type it has selected.
• New gel is stronger than steel – Latest News – MSN Tech – Scientists have created a gel that acts like muscle when charged with electricity but is far more powerful.
  The "aerogel" is almost as light as air, as stretchy as rubber, and stiffer than steel by weight.
  Made with ribbons of carbon "nanotubes" – tiny hollow tubes of carbon – the material can expand to 220% of its original length or width in milliseconds when electrically charged.
• Apartment Therapy The Kitchn | How To Make Finger-Licking Fried Chicken It’s Not As Scary As It Seems – After getting married, one of the first things we learned to make was fried chicken. With a husband whose Grandmother had award-winning chicken frying skills, it was a quick realization that we too would soon be learning the trade. Even though a fryer lives in our pantry, we don't bother. With techniques that are simple and are sure to produce perfect results each time…just make sure to lock the front door so you don't have neighbors following their noses into your kitchen!

  There is a fear of frying. We know… and it's ok, we're here to help you overcome just in time for picnic season!

• Identity Theft and the Economy – After four years of steady declines in identity theft cases, the new report found a 22% increase in the past 12 months. This adds up to 1.8 million more victims in 2008 than 2007. Identity theft is making a comeback.
• News : Rio Rancho trying to get share of federal stimulus money – Rio Rancho Observer – Rio Rancho officials are making sure their city gets its piece of the pie.

  Earlier this month, the city got news from the Mid Region Council of Governments that it would receive $14 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to extend Paseo del Volcan from Iris Road to US 550.

• News : Presbyterian still on hold – Rio Rancho Observer – The construction of Presbyterian Hospital in Rio Rancho is still on hold, but Elizabeth Brophy, a spokesperson for Presbyterian Healthcare Services, said the company is still committed to building a hospital in Rio Rancho.

  “We are very committed to Rio Rancho and the residents of Rio Rancho,” Brophy said. “We want to be able to provide services needed in that community and we will continue to focus very hard on that.”

  The construction of the $230 million hospital is on hold because of the bad economy. Presbyterian Health Services’ board of directors decided last year to hold off on issuing $200 million in bonds until the economy improves and there’s more clarity in the economy.

  “It’s frustrating for all of us on every level,” Brophy said. “We want to fulfill our promise but we are still coming to Rio Rancho, it’s just frustrating.”

• News : Secret bases and UFOs on Rio Rancho man’s mind – Rio Rancho Observer – The Northern New Mexico town of Dulce has long been associated with rumors of UFO sightings and an alleged secret military base underneath a mesa, but Rio Rancho resident Norio Hayakawa is hoping to provide the town’s residents with an opportunity to dispel those rumors, or perpetuate them.

  For a one-day conference, Hayakawa is bringing together residents, former police officers and Jicarilla Apache (Dulce is on a reservation) officials to discuss the rumors and to give people an opportunity to come forward with new information

• Mexico’s woes draw renewed focus now by the United States – A maelstrom of drug-related violence. A brewing trade war. A wheezing economy.

  The United States has sometimes treated its southern neighbor like an afterthought, but Mexico's growing problems are taking center stage now as a parade of U.S. Cabinet members descends on Mexico City ahead of an April 16-17 visit by President Barack Obama.

  This week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit, trying to find common ground on contentious issues such as border violence and trade rules before Obama's trip.

• Land use may have been responsible for the 1930s dust bowl – Ars Technica – The dust bowl can be attributed in part to natural climatic patterns such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation; however, a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science suggests that the agricultural expansion of the 1920s my have played an important role in amplifying the drought.
• 10 business lessons from ‘Battlestar Galactica’ | Topics | Macworld – You think your business has it rough? The people of Battlestar Galactica have lived through a recession you wouldn't believe. With dwindling resources, a skeleton crew, enemies constantly lurking out of view, and a pervasive threat of annihilation, Admiral Adama navigates the vast unknown. Like any leader, he makes his share of mistakes–sometimes with devastating consequences. But regardless of the fate of that ragtag fleet, the tale of Galactica is rife with lessons that can benefit any business leader.

• Hundreds Vying For Jobs With Albuquerque Isotopes – Albuquerque News Story – KOAT Albuquerque
  “I wouldn’t be surprised by the end of the day if we saw 1,000 people coming through here,” said John Traub, general manager of Isotopes.

  Applicants were competing for 100 open positions with the Albuquerque Isotopes for when the baseball season starts in the spring.

• What got cut from the stimulus bill – CNN.com
  CNN obtained, from a Democratic leadership aide, a list of some programs that have been cut, either entirely or partially: 

  Partially cut:

  • $3.5 billion for energy-efficient federal buildings (original bill $7 billion)

  • $75 million from Smithsonian (original bill $150 million)

  • $200 million from Environmental Protection Agency Superfund (original bill $800 million)

  • $100 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (original bill $427 million)

  • $100 million from law enforcement wireless (original bill $200 million)

• Sponsor Subway sticking by Phelps – Yahoo! News
  Restaurant chain Subway is still counting on Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps’s power as a pitchman, despite the uproar over a photograph of him with a marijuana pipe, Advertising Age reported.

  “Like most Americans, and like Michael Phelps himself, we were disappointed in his behavior,” Subway, which specializes in sandwiches, said in a statement.

  “Also like most Americans, we accept his apology. Moving forward, he remains in our plans.”

• Artist Shepherd Fairey Arrested in Boston Friday Night | Thomas Hawk Digital Connection
  Shepherd Fairey, the famous graffiti artist responsible for Obey as well iconic imagery used in the Barack Obama presidential campaign was arrested in Boston on Friday night. Fairey was in town for an opening of a new show of his, “Supply and Demand,” at the Institute of Contemporary Art. He was arrested on two outstanding warrants for graffiti in Boston.
• Apartment Therapy Re-Nest | DIY Dryer Sheets
  We posted about making your own dryer sheets before, but we think we might like this way even better. It doesn’t use any chemicals or heavy liquids…
• iPhone Carrier Update hints at AT&T MicroCell coming soon
  we’re still not super-stoked on the idea of paying a monthly fee to improve AT&T’s own service
• Homes destroyed as Australia struggles to rein in fires
  On Saturday temperatures in Melbourne soared to 46.4 degrees Celsius (115.5 Fahrenheit), the highest on record, local media said, with the mercury in the community of Laverton on the city’s west hitting 47.9 C (118.2 F). 

  Officials said dozens of fires were blazing across the country’s densely populated southeast, and police said at least one that hit Sydney’s metropolitan area late on Friday had been deliberately lit.

• Wal-Mart Looks At Chicago, Other US Cities For Expansion
  Wal-Mart is having “fairly regular conversations” with Chicago community leaders about opening several stores within the city, and considering the ” financial and political viability” of the move, said John Bisio, director of public affairs and government relations for Wal-Mart in Chicago.
• DRIVEN Magazine | Geek Storm: Halo fans won’t stand for “toddler” blocks
  In a deal that was initially seen as a coup for the Canadian toy company, MEGA Brands Inc. recently announced a licensing agreement with Microsoft Game Studios to produce MEGA Bloks building toys based on the extraordinarily popular video game series, Halo.However, Halo fans (some of ’em, anyway) are up in arms to see their only semblance of a hobby licensed out to a company best known for making the poor man’s LEGO .