Montykins: Harry Potter vs. Lord of the Rings
A good article about both of these eagerly-awaited film adaptations.

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Rumors of War (The Steam Genie)
Guess ironing the mail doesn't work either.

Germ Expert Says Panicky People Can Iron Mail
And it's better than taking anti-biotics unnecessarily, which is a bad, bad, bad idea. Though it's like the Unibomber as far as risk...it's bad if you're a target, but they've been pretty specific targets so far, and most of us aren't working for a high-ranking Senator or a major media outlet. So it's bad, but panicking is counterproductive...

Old school pride
One of the teachers at my old elementary school was the Minnesota Teacher of the Year. (Of course, she wasn't teaching when I was there, in fact, I imagine many of the teachers that were at Gatewood when I was there are retired or moved on at this point...)

Bin Laden as Lex Luthor
It certainly is an interesting comparison.

One of the cool things on the norm site now is that it now includes a "norm's diary" section in the archives, which is sort of a side-line commentary on the strip from Norm's perspective. And since Big Plot Things are happening right now, it's really interesting and cool...

I just have the massive fear that the strip will jump the shark at this point, but I really hope not. It's such a great strip...

''Buffy'' slays competition in syndication
And I imagine it must be doing well for FX as well. (I spent a couple hours today catching up on episodes that I'd recorded but hadn't seen since they were originally aired.)

In My Tribe
Ethan Watters could be writing about me -- I definitely feel "tribal" in some sense; fandom, after all, is a tribe (well, several of them, actually), and my group of friends from high school is also a tribe. (Though that group has not been as strong as it once was, with friends leaving town and such.)