BlackBerry breakdown and other interesting newspaper articles 4/19/07

Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell moved to the Philippines two years ago. Her family and friends were waiting to hear from her after she disappeared on a trip to a mountainside in a remote part of Hugao province. But Wednesday, soldiers found her body buried in a shallow grave in the northern Philippines, and they think foul play might have been involved. Whatever would make them come to that conclusion? Maybe because she probably didn’t dig her own grave?

Another interesting news item says that ice-breakers smashed through some ice off Newfoundland’s northeast coast Wednesday to free some 100 seal-hunt ships. There was a possibility that some of the ships would be pierced by the ice and possibly cracked. Newfoundland is the third and the largest part of Canada’s seal hunt. The total for all three is 270,000 seals. The seal pelts go to the fashion industry in Norway, Russia and China. I think it would have been great if the ice-breakers had become stuck and possibly pierced by the ice and cracked just like the seal-hunt ships. At least it would have given the seals a chance at a longer life.

Another item was about the big BlackBerry fiasco. It seems that they stopped working about 5pm on the west coast Tuesday and didn’t resume until sometime Wednesday morning. Research in Motion, the Canadian company that makes the BlackBerry, didn’t say much at all and didn’t return calls or e-mails. They did issue a statement in the morning saying that users in North America were affected but nothing about how long, why or how many were affected. San Jose Councilman Pierluigi Oliverio tried during the night on Tuesday, and when he couldn’t get anything, he thought maybe he had dropped his BlackBerry or done something wrong. “BlackBerry users tend to be neurotic,” Councilman Oliverio said. I think we all knew that already! For example: when I visit Teri her BlackBerry is always in use. Even if she has a day off, she’s on that damn thing, clicking away at text messages or whatever they are. When she comes up here to visit, the BlackBerry is in use all the time . . . in the car, on the street, in the house, out to lunch and on and on. I didn’t hear from her yesterday and think she may have been in a state of shock from being without the BlackBerry for a few hours. I trust she’s recovered and is back to normal . . . texting her little heart out!