So, what did I miss?

I've been out of town for a few days (yes, the animal posts were queued up in advance of my departure), and I've barely been able to keep up with what's been going on outside of Oracle-land.

So what did I miss, Inland Empire-wise? Maybe I should just go over to the Foothill Cities Blog and find out.

Oops:

The Foothill Cities Blog recently suffered a rather significant server catastrophe. While we're picking up the pieces and cleaning up, we're going to go ahead and make some long overdue improvements to the site.

Expect the FC Blog to be back soon, new and improved. Thanks for reading and we look forward to be back in blogging action soon.

The Claremont Insider has conspiracy theories:

We are thinking that some of the enemies made by the FC Blog have finally done their dirty work. Probably the most likely suspect is Arnold Alvarez-Glasman, city attorney of West Covina and other cities, who was involved in a dust-up with the FC Blog last year. (We'd provide a link but, as we may have mentioned, the FC Blog is no more; gone; kaput; a former blog.)

Speaking of the Claremont Insider, it links to a pretender to my throne. Well, if anyone's going to take my Empire away from me, it might as well be David Allen. But perhaps one shouldn't model one's empire on Kim Jong Il:

"Foreign visitors are advised upon their arrival in Pyongyang not to throw away any North Korean newspapers lest they despoil a photo of the leaders," the story notes.

" 'Don't tear or crumble the newspapers. Don't throw it in a dustbin. Don't wrap something with it or use it for some other purpose,' warned guide Gil Hyun Ah, who said offenders would have to write formal letters of apology before being permitted to leave the country."

Did I mention that David Allen happens to work at a newspaper?

But the big story today in the Inland Empire is the big story in many communities throughout the western United States. It ain't only houses that go kaboom:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. Inc. came to the rescue of Washington Mutual Inc. Thursday, buying the thrift's banking assets after WaMu was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in the largest failure ever of a U.S. bank.

OK, so it looks like I missed a few stories here and there. But if, in the future, I end up neglecting my imperial duties, check this list of blogs from The Pretender. (I should be nice, since he added my blog to the list after the fact...)