Potpourri with your smelt?

Published 11:08 pm Thursday, February 25, 2010

The jig’s up: The 45th annual La Conner Smelt Derby happens Saturday in the Skagit County town. If you’re not familiar with smelt, they’re those little fish that your Norwegian Grandpa Einar enjoyed eating whole — head, fins and all.

And since the event takes place in La Conner, derby-goers can stash the smelt they catch in one of those fancy shopping bags with handles, next to the lavender-scented soap.

Fewer meetings, too: Workers who are paid by the hour are happier than salaried folks, new research suggests.

Specifically, the Stanford University team discovered that hourly workers are exactly 1½ times happier than salaried employees — 2½ times on legal holidays.

Download this: Apple has now sold 10 billion songs on iTunes, making it the world’s No. 1 music retailer.

For the nation’s brick-and-mortar music retailers, all is not completely lost. They can market themselves (accurately) this way: “We Actually Sell Beatles Music.”