Here’s the good stuff:

• Ten Things Your Restaurant Will Not Tell You is the title of this must-read article.
• Do you like chess? Then you’ll love this comic.
• When Wikipedia rules the world, stuff like this might happen…
• Here’s a list of the world’s most corrupt countries, as classified by Transparency International.
• Meth is making inroads among the yuppies, not just the white trash. After you read this article, I hope you’ll be as disgusted as I am with the whole mess.
• Here’s how to get a pre-sliced banana, without peeling it.
• Dan Heller wrote a darn good article about photo keywording and photo searches.
• Boris Yeltsin, now called the father of Russian democracy, has died.
• Want to start your own podcast? Host it yourself with Loudblog, the easy-to-use podcasting platform. (I use it and recommend it for the ComeAcross podcast, which is currently in hiatus.)
• A macaw has managed to teach a boy with severe learning disabilities how to talk. Wonderful stuff!
• I like this simple but great tutorial from Rick Sammon on basic photographic techniques. Check out Part 1 as well.
• This obelisk patio furniture is great. It comes apart into chairs and a table, then stacks back up into an attractive column.

This post picks up where my previous one left off. Here’s the good stuff:

• Do you like old printing presses, or the quality print jobs in old, rare books? Then you’ll love this video of a small press that still uses the old methods to create some amazing results. (You’ll need Quicktime to view it.)
• John Dvorak is a Mac troll. And I bet he’s drooling for an iPhone as well.
• Check out the Google Maps directions from NYC to Dublin.
• Did you know raw milk is illegal in many states in the US? Neither did I, until now, but I think it’s a very silly thing. Check out the stance of the public official quoted in the article. You’d think the guy was talking about terrorists, not some stuff we find in the supermarket. Remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld? See any similarities?
• This article made serious waves when it came out a few weeks ago. The Washington Post arranged for one of the world’s best known violinists, Joshua Bell, to sit in a DC metro station and play on his violin — a Stradivarius. The music was classical, but extremely moving. Would people stop and listen? Would they realize what they were hearing was amazing? Check out what happened.
• Back in April, Johnny Hart, the cartoonist who created B.C. and Wizard of Id, died. Rest in peace, Mr. Hart!
• Look At This has a series of “Monkey-ed Movies” on their blog. They’re parodies of movies and television programs done entirely with chimps. Funny stuff!
• Keith Washington was, or may still be, Prince George county’s deputy homeland security director. He is also trigger happy to the extreme, and can pull his gun on you at any time. He’s shot up two furniture delivery men in his home, and also pulled his gun on a real estate appraiser as the man took photos of his home. Someone tell me how this guy got the job. Or is the Homeland Defense department purposely looking for these sorts of people?
• IKEA makes prefab houses, and they’ve begun to make them available in England.
• This is a great video of the real estate house prices from 1890 to the present, adjusted for inflation, and plotted as a roller coaster ride.
• A drunk guy fell under a passing train in Cologne, Germany. After the train went over him, he got right up and kept on going. That’s one lucky dude.
• Beware the bot fly and its larva. This is NOT something you want to experience. There’s also a video to go along with that.

I can’t resist sending interesting links through email to my close contacts, or publishing them to my Twitter page. But I thought it’d be a good idea to collect them every once in a while and publish them on my blog as well. Hope you find them as interesting as I do!

• Have you been unable to get a mortgage or to rent a place lately? You may be on one of the government’s many terrorist lists. The Treasury Department has started to release names of suspected people to private businesses. They’re supposed to check against these lists when doing business with normal folks like you and me. The sad part is, the lists are inaccurate and there are many false matches. It’s also a serious invasion of our privacy. See “Ordinary Customers Flagged as Terrorists“, in the Washington Post.
• If you use FeedBurner, you’ll be glad to know they’ve released a Twitter Feed Flare that will let your site visitors automatically submit a link to your blog posts on their Twitter pages.
• Have you been getting hassled about your photography in public places? You’ll get a laugh out of this What The Duck comic.
• The Japanese are doing some pretty cool things to save energy in their country, and in many ways, are on the leading edge of energy efficiency and conservation.
• The FBI abuses its right to use gag orders when they investigate suspected crimes.
• Got money to burn, no common sense, and a desire to possibly pee in your pants while eating dinner? Great, then have dinner in the sky.
• Hey look, here’s a really cheesy Bollywood movie featuring a dancing Superman and Wonder Woman…
• The last WWI combat veteran, Ret. Army Cpl. Howard V. Ramsey, has died. Rest in peace, brave soldier!
• Russia has formed a super agency that will control what the media says and does. Gee, what does this remind me of? Oh, I know, communism…
• Just what is Supermarket 2.0? Watch it and see.
• I always thought the Art Lebedev Studio made products that bordered on useless, but this is just not right. Although, given the date when it was released, I have a feeling it’s an April Fool’s joke.
• A very cool dog saved its owner’s life by jumping on her chest as she choked on a bit of apple. It worked! There’s a video as well.