Here's an assortment of items.

The braintrust that is the Oregonian recently wrote a cover article about a study which concluded that college graduates with degrees in science or mathematics start jobs with a higher salary than graduates with liberal arts degrees. Is this really new information? I seem to recall this being true when I graduated from high school.

Bob had a party here last weekend and some brilliant person brought a bag of CapeCod brand potato ships: sea salt and cracked pepper flavor. Excellent food discovery. I could not put the bag down and I'm not a major chip eater. Find these and try them.

Here's a few more Star Wars thoughts. That universe was a dangerous place to live and especially to raise children. Everything is located on the precipice of something and there are no fences or safety devices anywhere to be seen. Every ship lands on some flimsy platform or sometimes just docks at a window in some skyscraper and the pilot has to jump from the cockpit to the balcony. Then the whole Utapau planet civilization lived in deep holes with different, unfenced levels and nothing but water and rocks at the bottom. Obviously the Galactic Senate did away with liability claims. And what about that Jedi gunship that tools about Coruscant high above the city with a giant door open (who knows, maybe there isn't even a door) and Mace and Yoda and the gang sit right in the door, dangling their legs in the air. One drunk guy in a space ship drifts out of his lane and bumps the gunship and there go the Jedi sprinkled to the ground.

I've also been thinkging about Ian McDiarmid who plays Palpatine/Darth Sidious. Other than Star Wars he's a frock film sort of guy, so you have to wonder. Maybe he's at a garden party with the neighbors and one guy is talking about how he developed some new rocket science that will change humanity and another guy is like a miracle surgeon who rebuilt a baby's heart. And then Ian chimes in, "I kicked Sam Jackson's ass in a movie." I would totally do that if I were him.

Finally, have you heard of the movie, Elle Enchanted? I don't know why this movie wasn't a huge success. It's Cinderella by way of the Princess Bride as done by some folks who are no strangers to mind altering adult recreation. It's wonderful. It has a huge musical number in the middle to Queen's "Somebody to Love" and another one at the end to "Don't Go Breaking My Heart." Charming film. Great for a rainy afternoon.