If you didn’t know already, yes, Michael Jackson has passed away at the age of 50.

Honestly, I don’t give him much thought in my day-to-day. I don’t listen to his music on a regular basis. The last time I enjoyed MJ, it was at Frank’s cousin’s house. We listened to his greatest hits as we drank wine and ate finger foods. It was fun. Nostalgic with a dash of creepiness thrown in, since Michael was such an oddity. Because of the “kid” accusations, the skin color changes, the plastic surgery…

When I heard the news of his death, I was sad, though. For the same reasons. Nostalgia, no doubt, peppered with a bit of compassion for the later years of his life. It definitely wasn’t what anyone would call normal. And back before exploiting your kids and family on reality TV became all the rage people kinda thought that MJ went a bit koo-koo because he reached high celebrity at such a young age.

Let that sink in, people. Especially those that have cameras follow them and their children around, branding their faces into the world’s brains.

Speculation on Michael’s family and their contribution to his quirkiness was evident. But come on. Kids and early celebrity/icon generally don’t mix well. Most of us can conjure up examples in our head of child-celebrity gone wrong and parents pimping their kids out while they enjoy the riches.

It is a sad trainwreck. As a culture we put people on pedestals for the wrong reasons, treating a celebrity as god because of how they make us feel or how they distract us, or how we envy them. It no longer requires talent to reach a state of godliness in this country. Celebrity, once somewhat reserved for the exceptional (athlete, musician, actor), is now handed out to those born into circumstance (money or otherwise). It is not enough to simply watch their movie, or listen to their music; we want to know where they buy their coffee, what’s their favorite spot on the couch, refrigerator contents and how the inside of their bathroom looks, including the closet.

Endless, the amount of media generated from the “entertainment” business. From magazines, to television shows, blogs… let’s face it, the celebrity in this country are like drugs — if they were eradicated, how many people would be out of a job? What would we do if we could not peer into the lives of others, dissecting it on a daily basis?

Have you heard about the rising concern of a rice shortage?

There are no shortage of articles (The Daily Tribune, news.sbs.com.au, thedailygreen.com) about it.

Another point of view:

Because when hoarding occurs, when even, say, 10 percent of your customers suddenly buy 10 times the amount of a single product than they normally would buy, the product is quickly exhausted and the supply chain will have trouble immediately providing the product… So there is not a physical shortage of rice; there is a problem with the supply chain because hoarding has stressed the system. – cnbc.com

If you haven’t noticed, it isn’t just America dealing with the high cost of gas prices, costs of food, and living. It is really kind of scary. We’re feeling the pinch more than ever. Gas is high, wages aren’t keeping up, and now rice, a “filler” food is on the rise, too. What next, beans?

Gmail is great. Got all my email on there.

Google is fine and dandy, too. Got the toolbar set up to search from the Goo’ an everything.

Until it goes down and you can’t access it over the span of a couple days.

I can’t seem to find any information on why Google is down or how long it will be.

NEW YORK (AP) — Heath Ledger was found dead Tuesday at a downtown Manhattan residence, and police said drugs may have been a factor. He was 28. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Ledger had an appointment for a massage at the Manhattan apartment believed to be his home. The housekeeper who went to let him know the masseuse had arrived found him dead at 3:26 p.m. – [link]