Bomb at UMass?

A suspected bomb was found at UMass Amherst. Campus is closed until 11am. And that's everything anyone knows.

ETA: The school is open for business. The "bomb" was a hoax: a six-pack of beer with wires sticking out, and a note to the effect of "if you move this it will explode." More info is supposed to be in the Springfield Republican tomorrow, but UMass's keeping mum about it and what I said above is the barebones from MassLive / Springfield Republican and WWLP.

Bird Evac kit

Even if you're a non-bird person, feel free to take a gander at my new Bird Emergency Evacuation Kit page. You might think of something I missed, or it might be useful for you as another type of pet owner.

"His Dark Materials"

This post is spoiler-ful, so if you haven't read Phillip Pullman's series His Dark Materials, including the books "The Golden Compass"/"Northern Lights" (US/UK), "The Subtle Knife", and "The Amber Spyglass", you should stop reading this now. l0stmyreligi0n (or however you sp3ll it) keep reading since you said you want to know what I think on this; ayashi bookmark this and come back when you're done.

I've finally finished "reading" the series (unabridged audiobooks, narrated by Pullman, with a cast for the voices of the characters), and there's a few ideas that are stuck in my head that I wish to explore - I kinda wish I were in an English class and could get credit (and motivation) for writing essays about these books. I've titled the latter two below ambiguously so if you don't want spoilers DON'T CLICK.

Please pardon any name misspellings - I know how to pronounce them unlike someone reading the text version, but I don't know how to spell them. I appreciate spelling corrections, as well as specific quote/chapter references, since I'm not about to go back through 32 CDs worth of material (9, 9, and 14 respectively - let me know if you want to listen to the series and we can talk shipping or ripping).

( The Nature of Daemons )

( The Master of Jordan College's Prophesy )

( The Witches' Prophesy )

For more info, try
http://www.bridgetothestars.net/index.php?p=FAQ (
http://www.hisdarkmaterials.org/

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Okay, everything before that cut I wrote on Oct 18, and then I just now realized I'd never posted this, and I've kinda dried up on the last subject, but I wanted to make sure my thoughts on items 1 and 2 got up and viewed, so I'm just going to post this as is.