Mike Franklin
- Matt: you have no idea how excruciating a flight is with no tv, before the invention of ipods or anything else
- Matt: staring at your path across the atlantic...
- Mike: um
- Matt: inching across for 9 hours...
- Matt: oh wait
- Matt: you're older than me
- Mike: I've been flying transatlantic since 1988 :P
- Matt: nevermind then

The car comes with a great cocktail-party boast: if your Veyron, at rest, were passed by a $500,000 Mercedes McLaren SLR doing 100 m.p.h., you could floor the accelerator and still reach 200 m.p.h. before the Mercedes could match its speed. (via Behind the Wheel - Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport - Pinnacle of the Past, Just $2.1 Million - Review - NYTimes.com)
One standard reference, from 1905, lists more than 6,500 distinct varieties. There are apples for keeping, cooking, eating and the making of ciders, with names as colorful as they are various: Scollop Gillyflower, Red Winter Pearmain, Kansas Keeper…
And even in formerly great apple-growing states, including New York, the number of different apples has greatly diminished. According to one estimate, only 11 varieties make up 90 percent of all the apples sold in this country, and Red Delicious alone counts for nearly half of that.

For 27 months, Ian Fisher, his parents and friends, and the U.S. Army allowed Denver Post reporters and a photographer to watch and chronicle his recruitment, induction, training, deployment, and, finally, his return from combat. A selection of photos from Ian’s journey are posted below. (via Captured Photo Collection » Ian Fisher : American Soldier Photos)
“Then along came a cyclist. And I thought, ‘Good, he’s a big bloke,’ and shouted, ‘Can you help me please?’
“He stopped and turned around and I thought, ‘Oh, my God, it’s Boris Johnson.’
Yet another study, cited in a recent report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, looked at how well 19 developed countries succeeded in avoiding “preventable deaths,” such as those where a disease could be cured or forestalled. What Senator Shelby called “the best health care system” ranked in last place.
The figures are even worse for members of minority groups. An African-American in New Orleans has a shorter life expectancy than the average person in Vietnam or Honduras.
New research from mobile phone firm T-Mobile reveals nearly a quarter of [British] men (22 percent) regularly include a kiss on texts to their male mates …
“Metrotextuality” is most widespread among 18-24 year old males with three quarters (75 percent) regularly sealing texts with a kiss and 48 percent admitting that the practice has become commonplace amongst their group of friends.
