As ever in no particular order other than all this stuff either makes me chuckle or face palm. You decide which is which:

  • Seattle’s monorail shut itself down on Saturday, trapping 200 passengers for a couple hours. A faulty switch was blamed.
  • Curt Bramble, evidently the majority leader of the Utah state senate, tried to pawn a personal check off on a pizza delivery girl. Pizza girl blogs about it. Now the whole world knows that Curt Bramble, majority leader of the Utah state senate, is an imperious tool.
  • Stroll down memory lane with tech’s forgotten brand names. Here’s one that was everywhere in the 80s and 90s: Broderbund. And I’d argue that the little micro columns that Prodigy used to run were the world’s first blogs.
  • Don Carrington has dug up more odd business deals involving state money and Rick Watson, the brains behind the Randy Parton Theater. You are not gonna believe this one: Fingerprint scanners for hazardous material transport. Actually got the state of North Carolina to throw over $300K towards the scheme.
  • Can’t Uptown paper reporters get their publisher on the phone? Ann Caulkins is on the board of the United Way that decided to pay Gloria King $1.2m. last year. Or is Caulkins already driving the coverage via a frickin’ poll that set out to prove that the “controversy” over King’s haul might reduce contributions? Ya think? Such a classic Charlotte story and song-and-dance.
  • Props where due: NC DOT actually got Weddington Road re-opened a day early, on Saturday. Kids absolutely could not have gone to school with the detour and associated back-ups in place.

That’s all, stay safe out there.