A roundup of stuff that wouldn’t necessarily make it on the blog, but is worth noting:

• The recession is doing more than laying people off. It is resulting in abandoned subdivisions, and that’s not good news for the people who are left after the builders stop building. One homeowner in northern Tarrant County says she is living amid blocks of half-built town homes, with drywall exposed to the elements and pieces of trim missing. People have dumped a dresser, a basketball hoop and an abandoned car in her neighborhood in the last few months, and she fears that vagrants will move in next.

• Your brain may start slowing down as early as age 27, according a study in the journal Neurobiology of Aging. The BBC reports that the study says our mental powers peak at 22, marking the start of old age. Professor Timothy Salthouse of the University of Virginia found reasoning, spatial visualization and speed of thought all decline in our late 20s. Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, while abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until the 60s.  

• A village in southern England, complete with manor house, local shop and cricket club, is for sale for $31 million (just in case you don’t want to buy a Tarrant County subdivision). The charity that owns the village wants to use the money for other projects, and its estate agent (British for Realtor) says he expects a lot of interest. And the woman quoted in the video at the 50-second marks looks like she came straight from a Monty Python sketch.