Bubble? Where the hell do you live? Housing prices around here are 1/5th what they were just a few years ago. That's lower than pre-bubble prices, while the population has been growing the whole time.
What does population have to do with it? There's no demand; the ratio of housing prices to income is still too high, houses are still unaffordable. As a nation, median household income grew by 60% from 1990 to 2006, but median home prices more than doubled (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091401170.html, http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/son/index.htm). In a lot of places, it was much worse than the median. A correction was and still is due if you expect people are actually going to buy any of these houses.
The drive-less Xbox 360 Arcade unit is cheap ($199) but to realistically use it, you'll need to buy a "Memory Unit"...
Not strictly accurate; I purchased an Arcade a few months back to replace my dead Elite, and they now come with a built-in 512MB. They've had at least 256MB internal memory since late 2008.
Also note that there are third-parties with "authorized" storage solutions, this isn't a carte blanche ban on all third-party storage. Still, it seems like a random anti-feature.
Hmmmm.
Will knowing these numbers help me procreate before I die?
I don't know about the three or the seven, but the two certainly will... after all, it takes two to tango.
...or even better, chalk and chalkboard (whiteboard sucks
Both suck if you're left-handed; you have to write at an odd angle to not erase what you're writing.
I would rather not have any sort of personal information, such as detailed account info, sent via email. That's insecure, and that's not cool.
What my cable, credit card, and electric company all do is send out an email saying "your online statement is now available, log on to view", which makes more sense.
I live in Portland, and did live in Eugene for several years. There are idiot bicyclists and motorists in both places, for certain. I do regularly hear about people getting ticketed for blowing stop signs in Portland on their bikes, but I think it's a very vocal minority that's doing the bitching.
Personally, though, I both ride and drive, know the laws, try my best to heed them, and watch out for the assholes who aren't. As someone who's consistently on both sides of this equation, I think most people are pretty sane about it.
Oh I forgot, we're talking about Oregon, the state where cyclists (who pay nothing) have more rights on the road than drivers who's taxes and fees actually pay for the roads. We're talking about a state where cyclist "gangs" actively ride the streets of Portland and have been known to pull drivers out of their car for ALLEGED infractions and beat the crap out of them (google cyclist violence portland to see what I mean).
According to the ODOT budget (see page 4), nearly half of their revenue comes from federal funds which, shockingly, everyone pays into. And a bicyclist does not have more rights a car (although a pedestrian does), they are supposed to be treated the same as any other vehicle on the road. Not to mention that a car causes just a tiny bit more wear and tear on the infrastructure than bicycles do.
Finally, the top few hits for "cyclist violence portland" mention a few people encouraging violence against cyclists and a few hit-and-run cases, but I don't see anything like what you're describing; I heard about one isolated incident a couple of months back, where the cyclist was severely road burned, but the stories leading up to the confrontation were conflicting. And while I've seen a fair number of cyclist parades and whatnot, I have yet to see a "cyclist gang" in Portland. Gimme a fucking break.
As for the GPS idea being idiotic and probably overly expensive, I agree with you on that.
"I am, therefore I am." -- Akira