Today's Lagniappe

A few more things I ran across today:

The Newspaper Archive has now put hurricane stories online: Hurricane Archive. Here's where you can read -- for free -- newspaper stories from around the country on every hurricane since Galveston, 1900. The Galveston Daily News is here, and many other papers, although the stories might not always be from a paper in the area affected. Not many Florida papers here, for instance.

Ripe London is a blog about eating, food shopping, restaurants and cooking in London. This is even more interesting because the author, Jessica Stone, calls herself a "Cuban-marinated, Russian-blooded New York food snob".

Among the recent postings, one on cascos de guayaba con queso:

Growing up in Miami, it was guaranteed I would always find several cans in the kitchen cupboard, sharing space with the Mahatma Rice and frijoles negros (black beans). During hurricane season, our stock pile was impressive.

And, here's one for all of you, who like me, would like the ambient noise around me to be as natural as possible: Lower the Boom. This one's from a foundation dedicated to trying to eliminate excess noise from our streets, particularly that from 'Boom cars'. You know what they mean. According to the site, there's a corporate and political fight to be fought here too:

Our quality of life has been devistated through the unconscionable greed of the manufacturers who market the misuse of infrasonic technology and promote audio terrorism to those who have no sense of empathy or respect for the rights of others.

Bravo. I've been offended by those electronics products ads that encourage buyers to 'annoy the neighbors'. Even though I now live far out in the country, I still hear them sometimes. As well as lots of huge loud pickup trucks with bad mufflers.

Last: Are you a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fan? Have you got your towel today?