re: the Simpsons and the Vatican, I liked this bit.

"Homer finds in God his last refuge, even though he sometimes gets His name sensationally wrong," L'Osservatore said. "But these are just minor mistakes, after all, the two know each other well."

So, you think Benedict is a fan? Or do the Jesuits have Tivo?

Steph, I'm not so sure they do. [link]

ita, looks like you are good. [link] You have curbside styrofoam recycling! I'm so jealous.

Recycling factoid #2 - just because it disappears from your bin doesn't mean it's getting recycled. When in doubt, call your Solid Waste Mgmt dept. Many contaminents are sorted out at the processing center, or rather *not* sorted out so they end up in the trash pile. However, contaminants make recycling more expensive and cause problems when processing centers sell their materials to markets, so don't just throw whatever in your bin knowing that it will be sorted out.

15 sites that went kaput in 2009 (images)

eta:

SpiralFrog shut its doors on March 19th, but that was far from the end of the drama for the music streaming service. In its three-year run, the company had amassed $9 million in debt, and sent a message to the music industry that ad-supported music was not a viable, long-term money-making solution.

Matters were made worse when it appeared that those inside the company had sold user e-mail addresses to third-party companies, a move that was made just before the company changed hands to creditors. This also went squarely against the site's original terms of service, which assured users that their personal information would be kept confidential.

Other woes included unpaid employees, and music that was left unplayable due to stringent DRM that required visiting the site every 60 days to get it renewed, making this one of the worst site closures of the year.

Music DRM that requires online validation before it will play "your" music is a bad idea, kids.

When I worked at a grocery store, in the bottle return area, they told us that if we put the wrong thing n the wrong barrel, it would cause the whole gaylord (what they called the giant boxes that the barrels were dumped in, I have no idea why) to be discard rather than try to sort through it. I do not know if this is true.

Also, ita, next time you have electronics to recycle check this link: [link] Don't know if it's more convenient than Goodwill, though.

I am always available to answer Buffista's waste management questions. It makes me happy to research this stuff and pass it on.

Thanks for doing that legwork, smonster. Of course, I just threw out some styrofoam this morning. Dammit. Next time.

I want to stick a sign on the bins telling people not to try and recycle their pizza boxes. Pizza boxes are nasty. But so often I see them in the bin.

eta: Goodwill is closer, smonster, but that's good backup info to have.

I do not know if this is true.

It's certainly possible. Depends on the level of contamination and the sophistication/tolerance of the sorting facility. If the store was sorting on site and selling directly to markets, then yeah, for sure.

This all is one reason that single-use plastic water bottles made of corn-based plastic (PLA)is a shitty, shitty idea. They claim it's biodegradeable (which is *not* the same as compostable) and that it's recyclable - right now the markets don't exist and there's no way to tell the PLA bottles from regular plastic and according to the recyclers we've talked to, just one PLA bottle could ruin a whole load.

This all is one reason that single-use plastic water bottles made of corn-based plastic (PLA)is a shitty, shitty idea.

If you were marooned on a desert island and had no food, could you eat PLA bottles to survive?

Google Video is gone? When did that happen? I swear when I was searching for a Simpsons clip just the other day Google kept dumping me in Google Video instead of directly into Youtube like was sensible.

Or maybe it was just a video results screen.

FCM

Lauren Ambrose
Lauren Graham
Liv Taylor

Laurence Fishburne
Lee Pace
Liam Neeson