PSoTD

This may be the theme song for personal transportation over the next decade:

Motor scooter sales are up, up, up:

EUGENE, Ore. - Gas prices may be creeping down, but lots of motorists are still looking for ways to beat the high cost of travel.

Many are making the move to small motorcycles, motor scooters and mopeds.

How does an average 80 miles per gallon going 60 miles per hour sound?

That's what you can do in a medium-powered motor scooter. All across the Northwest, more people are opting for these gas sipping two-wheelers.

Bill Cole runs a shop that sells bicycles and motor schooters. Sales at his Wheelworks shop jumped 300 percent in June, and July is trending the same way.

"We're thankful for it," Colse said, "but we didn't see it coming."

"I'm completely sold out of Piaggios except for some used one. This bike just sold the other day. We have some more coming in," Cole said.

How much more will gas prices drop? They've dropped 30 cents per gallon in the past few weeks in the Harrisburg area, which is welcome relief. But it's up to all of us to keep the pressure on the price by being conservative in use, reducing demand. Plus, the annual stories of gas prices going up because of the need to create heating oil will soon be making the rounds.

How long do motion picture companies keep their movie web sites?

Nothing like watching Charlie Rose late at night because you can't sleep, and watching two newspaper national economy beat writers throw the "D" word around. Not only did it make it harder to go to sleep, but now all the tortilla chips are gone.

What do Bud drinkers have to say?

"It saddens me that a large, truly American company has become just a fraction of a larger, homogenized global corporation," said Michael Coakley, a Bud Light drinker from Hoboken, New Jersey. "However I doubt that quality or pricing ... will change much at all."

If I had to pick the worst beer in the world, it might just be Bud Light. Not that it's the absolute worst beer - I find it grotesque but I actually have had worst - but because it is so emblematic of America's Big Corporation beer swill. Bud sucks, Miller sucks, Coors sucks, etc...

It makes me wonder... why would a Bud Light drinker even think about beer quality?

Karoshi.

I'm sure some find it heroic, and perhaps in some rare, rare cases that could be the case - such as finding the cure for a disease that kills, or stopping an asteroid from destroying the earth... but anything less than that isn't heroic, but a sad lapse of wisdom in both culture and individual.

This isn't a mood enhancer for West Virginians:

Do you think West Virginia's graduating seniors have a bright future to look forward to in this state?

No, they'll have to find opportunities elsewhere 62%
Only if substantial changes are made 30%
Yes, West Virginia offers opportunities 8%

But I do kinda wonder if you'd find some negative numbers in almost any state at this time.

Me thinks you will get a laugh, or at least a groan, out of this.

Um, call them what they are. Tent cities.

In an effort to fight dwindling conference attendance, hotels are promoting to associations that if they hold their meetings at their facility, the hotel will provide each guest a $10 (or similar amount) gas card for every night they stay.

Actually, platinum, and thieves know it.

The Marion County Sheriff's Office continues to investigate the stealing of Catalytic converter from vehicles, as several more have come up missing.

Chuck Whitehead had eight converters, two chain saws and a chain hoist stolen from his property last weekend, estimated about $2,000 worth of goods. He said they used bolt cutters to cut the chain at his gate sometime between 7 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday, when he discovered his gate open.

Catalytic converters have been installed under cars since the mid-1970s. They use a small amount of platinum, palladium and rhodium to convert harmful engine emissions, including nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, into less harmful ones, like nitrogen and carbon dioxide.

Platinum's value can be up to $2,075 an ounce. A catalytic converter contains between three and seven grams of platinum. This recent price spike is largely the result of fears of mine closures due to power cutbacks in South Africa, which controls some 80 percent of the world's platinum output. Smaller amounts of palladium and rhodium are also used as catalysts and they are running about $445 and $7,300 an ounce, respectively.

The average converter brings at least $100. Replacing a catalytic converter can cost about $300 to $1,000. Bigger cars and SUVs make inviting targets, as they can have two converters or even four converters.