4.26.2008

Blogging Saves Lives!

According to CNN, anyway.

The story piqued my interest because it's about a Berkeley grad student who narrowly escaped Egyptian jail by Twitting (tweeting? Twittering?) 'Arrested' to his blog. Ah, the powers of technology. And just think of Berkeley's next superlame recruiting slogan (though I can't imagine it could get worse than "Do U.C. Berkeley?" Get it? Get it?): UC Berkeley: Turning Ordinary Dorks into Global MacGyvers.

Not going to lie, I feed off of Berkeley news and Craigslist ads to keep myself going as I pitifully procrastinate invisible piles of papers to write.

Speaking of which, I cannot afford to live in the Bay Area. Despite the housing market crisis (or because of it?) rent has not remotely stabilized in either Berkeley or Oakland. Half the landlords are charging far, far too much (come on, $2800 a month for a barebones 2BR more than 2 miles from campus?), a quarter are expensive but understandable, and the last quarter is suspiciously affordable ($10-1300), probably because those apartments are dumps or you will get shot walking home from the mini-mart to which it is so conveniently located near.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

PLUS, in June on the CA ballot there is Proposition 98, which is going to eliminate rent control! Ahhh!!

http://www.no98yes99.com/

kfed said...

Well, technically rent control hasn't existed in California since 1995, but Berkeley rent control has been pretty much screwed since at least that long.

At least it's only another year. Sigh.