There's more detail on the hunt for gollum in Unfinished Tales. Still not a lot, to be honest.

The most interesting thing is the explanation of how Gollum escapes from Thranduil. Basically, Sauron had been unable to completely break Gollum - perhaps because of Gollum's hobbit heritage. So Sauron had let Gollum go, in the hope that Gollum would find his way to the Shire or Baggins - both names Sauron had got out of him, but both things Gollum didn't know the location of. So Sauron let Gollum go, but kept an eye on him.

Then Aragorn captured Gollum, just outside Mordor. Now, Sauron knew (from Gollum) that the One had been found, but he did not realise anyone else knew this. So he was now worried that Gollum's new captors would discover this information, and thus Sauron would lose an advantage. Hence he arranged for an orc-raid to capture or kill Gollum. However, Gollum escaped. There were also Nazgul in the area, searching for the Shire in the guise of black riders, so in terror of the orcs and the black riders, Gollum hid in Moria./p.

The universal laws of driving skill:

1. Drivers everywhere in the world are terrible.
2. You either live or have lived in the city with the world's absolute worst drivers.
3. You are a great driver, as is everyone you know personally.

Strange but true.

I think it's because the spammers are selling DRMed pills these days and if you opt-out, you lose access to the extended functionality of your penis.

I don't think we have a word mildinconvenienceists

"manager"

(3) [2 points] A friend on a social networking site comments: "O RLY?".
(a) How should you reply?
(b) What picture might you expect to see attached to the comment?

I should think windows systems with iTunes get shot at all the time in the more ornery parts of the country..

In 2005, half of Bhola Island in Bangladesh became permanently flooded, leaving 500,000 people homeless. The Bhola Islanders have been described as some of the world's first climate refugees. In 2007, a Bangladeshi scientist stated: "We're already seeing hundreds of thousands of climate refugees moving into slums in Dhaka." These refugees were fleeing flooded coastal areas.

The inhabitants of the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea are also among the first climate refugees due to sea level rise attributed to global warming and climate change. Other inhabitants of low lying islands and Island states, are also at risk. Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Maldives are especially susceptible to changes in sea level and storm surges.

I'd be careful using the phrase "final solution" when talking about the Vatican ...

..and then hit it with our 200 megawatt orbital heat ray?

No no, this is private enterprise.

Exactly! The problem here is not that a company can change the weather; it's that only one company can change the weather!

We need to encourage multiple companies to put up their own weather-controlling power-beaming doomsday satelites. Then customers will have the freedom to select the weather-provider of their choice. Informed consumers will make rational decisions about the weather they need, ensuring a correct balance of rain, wind, and sunshine. The free-market will thus ensure optimal weather for at minimum price!

They get abducted by Government agents when their books get too close to the truth.

Hmm, both Stanislaw Lem and Robert Anton Wilson "died" recently. I'm not sure which worries me more :-/

For a moment there, I read that headline as:

Time Warner Plans Pricing For Tiered Shelves

I heard a FOAF story about a taxi driver who installed a GPS in his taxi. He'd always say to new fares: "You can have the GPS route, or you can have the route I think is best. Which do you want?"

Many, perhaps most, people would pick the GPS ... and promptly get stuck in traffic, because it doesn't know when to avoid main roads, all the shortcuts available, etc. It paid itself off in a few weeks..

It occurs to me that there is certainly overlap between "gay & lesbian themed" and each of those other categories, so this is not quite a complete denial..