pet supply sale (local to TwinCities)

PetsMart here (near 694 & University, in Fridley) is going out of business at the end of the month. The shelves are half empty already, and markdowns are now showing up on most of their merchandise. If you've been looking for an excuse to buy an aquarium, pet furniture, or stock up on dog food, now's a chance to get some deals. Check them out.  Yes, another sign that the economy here bites.

Below is a picture taken at a new Bear event in St. Paul. Proof that I do actually leave the house sometimes. *grin* The guy on the left is named (I think) Al, and the guy between us is one of my roommates foeclan. I talked to Al again in January last Friday, and he had to attend a mandatory meeting at work the next day that coworkers assumed was a prelude to layoffs. Hopefully he's still employed this week.



Have I mentioned that the economy here bites?  *laugh*

a darker shade of black

A scientist at Rice University in Houston has "created a carpet of carbon nanotubes that reflects 0.045 percent light, making it 100 times darker than a black-painted Corvette". The article doesn't mention if they're submitting their discovery for publication in a peer reviewed journal. They are, however, submitting it to the Guinness Book of World Records.

*sigh*

gay men face new staph disease

(sorry, busy day for posting...)

I heard about it first on an NPR broadcast, but the physorg article has a few more choice details on this disease.

• it's called MRSA USA300, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
• "About one in 588 people" living in the Castro district are infected
• "About one in 3800" people living in San Francisco overall are infected
• "sexually active gay men in San Francisco are about 13 times more likely to be infected than the general population"
• not limited to sexual transmission, "the new multi-drug resistant microbe spreads easily through skin-to-skin contact, invading skin and tissue beneath the skin. Both strains cause abscesses and ulcerations that can progress rapidly to life-threatening infections"

The NPR article mentions that a few people have already died. It is so virulent that (emphasis added by me):

Boswell says the new variant also causes more-virulent skin infections.
"They grow much more rapidly," he says. "Hours can make a difference."
But because doctors often try ineffective antibiotics first, precious time is lost.
"That delay, which can often be days and in some cases even weeks, can result in significant compromises of the patient — in some cases even death," Boswell says.

Me, I'm not prone to tactile involvement even on standard social protocols. And I've had sex only once in the last 5 years, so I'm not really worried about myself.

But the rest of you... be careful, eh?