Modern furniture lovers will ooo and ahh over MiniatureChairs.com where the designs of Eames, Mies Van Der Rohe, Noguchi, and several others are available in small scale. Faithful reproductions of the Ball Chair, Joe (the baseball glove chair), and the Marshmallow Sofa are ready for your desk, shelf, or mid-century dollhouse.

Greenlight Concepts takes glass discarded from upgraded stoplights and turns it into lighting fixtures. Recycled Glassworks (I’ve mentioned them here before) turns them into plates.

Whole Foods agreed in February to buy Wild Oats for $18.50 a share, totaling $565 million. Since then the FTC antitrust wheels have been grinding away. A lawsuit filed in June resulted in a decision to allow the merger to proceed, however the FTC decided last week to appeal. The merger is on hold but additional arguments must be quickly filed by Wednesday, leading some to believe that the appeal is not expected to succeed. But if a stay is granted, the merger could be in limbo for months longer. The stores’ defense claims that mainstream markets now sell plenty of organic produce, so consumers will still benefit from competition.

David Letterman may have jokingly advertised “Hot Toast on a Stick” but the Illinois State Fair has brought breakfast on a stick to life with a “Breakfast on a Stick” competition. Beverly Cutler took the blue ribbon in the adult division with her Sensational Sunrise Dippers (sausage, egg and cheese wrapped in a biscuit with a side of gravy). Anthony Karas also won for Bacon-Wrapped Savory Buttermilk Crepes. The junior division ribbon went to Rachael Eden’s Wonton Eggs (eggs, curry, bean sprouts and snow peas in a wonton wrapper).

Lynn Johnston announced in 2002 that her comic strip “For Better or For Worse” would finish up in five years. Readers have observed storylines wrapping up, with the Pattersons settling down into retirement. Now Johnston has decided that instead of ceasing the strip entirely, she will be taking a “hybrid” model by mixing new material with old. Her characters, who have been aging in real-time, will go into the ageless mode typical of other comic strips. New plots will also incorporate remembrances from earlier years.

In 1986 I saw the Merchant-Ivory film “A Room with a View“, immediately went to the library to borrow the E.M. Forster novel, read it, and returned to see the movie again a few days later. I remember a summer night in Cambridge, Massachusetts when some friends and I put the soundtrack on auto-repeat and played a 2,000 point all-night game of Spades. On trips to our favorite poster store I would hope to find an Italian version of the movie poster, which I had my heart set on buying (only French and English were in stock). The movie still tops my favorites list. Now, twenty years later in the U.K., ITV is making a new movie adaptation of the novel — not a movie remake the producers would stress, but a fresh interpretation of the book. With such strong actors inhabiting the original roles, Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham-Carter, Judi Dench, Daniel Day-Lewis, it will be extremely different for fans of the first movie to accept new characterizations. But the classics are constantly reinterpreted on film, so a new approach to the details could be very welcome. Eileen Quinn, head of drama for the production company, is blogging about her experiences working on this new adapation. Casting details lie therein.

Tiger cubs triplets at the Philadelphia zoo. They’re ready to meet the public.

As much as I enjoyed Babylon 5, I considered the DVDs too expensive to own. Thanks to Steve I was alerted to a Best Buy deal: $19.99 per season this week. Amazon has a few of the seasons for the same price, but not all.

The number of cats with hyperthyroidism started increasing in the U.S. soon after the use of PBDEs became common.

Persian leopard cubs at the Budapest zoo came out for a photo op. Cuteness abounds as the 2-month-old triplets make their public debut.