When a Mexican band, with instruments, got on the BART yesterday, of course I wanted to take their picture.  

I just took out the iPhone, pretended I was reading email, opened the camera app and clicked the shutter.  

Voila! A picture of the band. 

Media group Reuters revealed higher-than-expected profits for its first half, and said sales were strong.

The business is being taken over by Canadian publisher Thomson.

"Against the backdrop of the pending..., Reuters stayed focused on driving growth in the first half and delivered the strongest six months of sales and installations in more than five years," said CEO Tom Glocer.

Reuters is expecting the formal filing of the Thomson deal with European competition authorities in September following pre-filing discussions.

First-half trading profit rose to £175m from £156m a year ago.

Currency effects, mainly the weakening of the dollar against sterling, cut trading profit by £25m.

The group said that, because it was in an offer period, it was not giving any revenue or margin guidance for 2007.

Canadian-based electronic publisher Thomson on Thursday said the two companies were making good progress in obtaining the required regulatory approvals for the acquisition.

The companies announced in May that Thomson was buying London-based Reuters for £8.6bn in cash and stock to create the world's leading provider of news and data for professional markets.

The company expects full year capital expenditure to be similar to last year's £228m.

writes "The National Science Foundation is reporting that the number of published U.S. science and engineering articles plateaued in the 1990s, despite continued increases in funding and personnel for research and development. This came after two decades of continued growth. Since then, flattening has occurred in nearly all U.S. research disciplines and types of institutions. In contrast, Asian and EU research had significant increases in this period. They do point to one positive for the US, however: article quality. According to one of the researchers, 'the more often an article is cited by other publications, the higher quality it's believed to have. While citation is not a perfect indicator, U.S. publications are more highly cited than those from other countries.'"

1862: American astronomer Lewis Swift discovers the presence of a large comet that will soon bear his name. Three days later, another American astronomer, Horace Tuttle, makes the same sighting. So this heavenly body comes down to us as the Comet Swift-Tuttle.

Based on their observations, and those of other astronomers who began tracking the comet's highly elongated orbit, it was calculated that Swift-Tuttle would make its next appearance during the 1980s. They were close. Japanese astronomer Tsuruhiko Kiuchi rediscovered the comet in 1992.

Aside from its unusual orbit, Swift-Tuttle is also significant as the host body of the Perseids meteor shower, one of the most prominent in the northern sky.

Oh, and there's one more thing.

Comets come and go, literally, but Swift-Tuttle's orbit is of particular interest to us earthlings since astronomers calculate that it is very likely to strike either the Earth or the moon on its next pass. They've even zeroed in on a date: Aug. 14, 2126.

We'll just have to wait and see.

(Source: Astronomical Society of the Pacific)

Kiosk, the unassuming curiosities store in SoHo, is never a bad trip. The store is semihidden, upstairs from Spring Street, past the busy back doors of a restaurant kitchen. Entering through a doorway with muslin curtains, you discover a loft space divided in half by shelves that display small, enticingly lighted objects freshly plucked from the tabacs, farmacias and alimentaris of somewhere else — all the odd things you might stare at as a displaced tourist.

The store presents interesting objects from a different country every four to five months, gathered by the owner, Alisa Grifo, and her husband, Marco ter Haar Romeny, on their travels. Germany is the featured country this summer, and you can find everyday items that don’t seem so everyday here, like a tube of mustard or an egg pricker, which creates a tiny hole in the egg so it doesn’t crack as it boils.

"I guess if you need to boil the perfect egg to serve the perfect breakfast in the land of perfection then you need this," reads a typed blurb next to it.

Hilarious, energetic descriptions written by Ms. Grifo accompany each object. "Oh man my head hurts, but this graphic design takes the pain away. Buy it for the box, the pills are a gift," she writes about a set of 32 headache pills that come in bold-colored boxes from a Munich pharmacy ($31).

Even a white dish towel ($19) gets a close look and appreciation: "It reminded me of the starched aprons of well-mannered waiters in Germany and a delicious meal I had of trout, cabbage and potato."

Ms. Grifo understands the power of everyday objects when you are traveling. In the end, you may remember the shape of a bar of soap, the odd feel of the toilet seat, the clownish graphics of a candy bar wrapper more than all the old churches and crusty museums you felt obligated to visit.

The store’s mission statement, displayed prominently above the shelves, explains that most of the items "are traditional goods that have been developed over generations or anonymous design found in general stores, D.I.Y.s and kiosks: products designed not around one personality but the result of local aesthetics and needs."

After grad school, Ms. Grifo sharpened her acute eye and sense of design working in fashion public relations, set design for film and theater, and finally as a prop stylist for photo shoots. Instead of buying Manolos, she prudently saved her money to travel, collecting weird items that could fit in her bag. Soon clients and friends were begging her to bring back more.

She opened the store in November 2005 with her friend Ross Menuez, a designer who had been using the space as a studio. Mr. Menuez now works elsewhere and is a consultant for the store. Kiosk shares the space with Areaware, a design firm. Its showroom is in the back, sectioned off with shelving and a crepe paper curtain.

The space feels raw, quiet and open, more like an artist’s studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, than a place of commerce. With each country she has featured, Ms. Grifo has observed a theme emerging. It may be unsurprising that many of the items from Germany are about control (hello, egg pricker), organization and efficiency.

For example, the Kwik Project Journal ($11) is a blank book with a page divided for each day of the week, and a perforated tab that you can rip out and use to complete your related errands. "I am testing their book on my husband, Marco, to see if it has any impact on his behavior," Ms. Grifo’s blurb says.

I liked the two Kaweco Sport pens. Developed in the mid-1920s, the compact pen can easily fit in a back pocket. I bought the white ballpoint ($20) and black fountain pen ($25).

It seems I jumped the gun and announced the end of production on Amulet before all of the color adjustments were complete. The 4-color printing process sure is a headache. I'm going back over every file to adjust the colors on a CRT monitor (since I worked almost exclusively on LCDs) and I'm also stripping the text and making sure they print purely black (and 40 percent cyan). So, I still have a few days left of production on this beast. During breaks, I've been watching segments from the recent BBC documentary series, Planet Earth.

Amy bought the original British version of the series, which is great because I have a real fondness for David Attenborough (the HD version is narrated by Sigourney Weaver). After Blue Planet, Life of Mammals, and other great BBC nature documentaries narrated by Attenborough, I feel like I've been journeying around the world with him. Anyway, this series is awesome. Highly recommended.

Flight 4 arrives in stores this week!