It's been quite some time since we've been to the beach.....

We just went this past weekend. I had forgotten how much I love the beach. I don't think that I had ever encountered jellyfish (though they were small) up close and in person. I think I had a few close encounters with them this time. No big deal! That certainly didn't keep me out of the water! Between hanging with friends, swimming with jellyfish, rolling in the sand and kicking a footbag, it was a blast. See?



I look like such a hippie...

Oh, by the way....

This is also pretty slick...

Make that super-wicked cool!

And there you are.....

Out some place sans a microwave but wanting a tasty snack.......

All you need is a cell phone and some popping corn. I'm sure this has been done often, but it's the first time I've seen it. Pretty slick!

Pop Corn téléphone portable micro-ondes
by sassiere

Those zany folks at JibJab have a great new campaign season animation for the world....

Check it out!

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

I was ever-so-slightly perturbed yesterday afternoon...

Someone I know received an e-mail from a service professional (using their work e-mail addy) about some "fraudulent internet campaign funding" of a certain Democratic Presidential nominee. I won't even include the text here because I don't want to propagate crap. The e-mail cites an article by a New York Times reporter that SHE DID NOT WRITE. In other words, absolute lies are being spread. A simple search of the reporter's work for the suspect article turns up ZILCH.

I want one thing to be crystal clear right here and now...

I DO NOT support Obama. I DO SUPPORT Bob Barr. However, false information will not be the basis of my opposition for the Democrats (or the Republicans) and I hope that it won't be yours.

A link about this hoax: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2008/jul/08/bogus-dowd-column/

From a slightly psychological/sociological standpoint, I realize that the folks who believe junk e-mails like this and continue to forward them have likely already made up their minds. In other words, many of these e-mails will be "preaching to the choir". However, there are undecided folks out there.

Snopes.com perhaps? http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/donations.asp

I've put up 3 new songs for your listening pleasure at my myspace.com music profile

Here's a video I slapped together for one of them....



Vote for Liberty in November - I support Bob Barr

Happy summer solstice y'all!

I TOTALLY DIG the summer!

I've been on (for me) a music spree lately. For me, 3 CDs within 2 weeks was enough to call a spree. The goods......



I've wholeheartedly enjoyed Enigma since MCMXC A.D.. This was the latest of my purchases. First impressions? This should be a classic! Nice ambience and beats......

The CDs by The Offspring and Disturbed are not my typical genre (various electronic stuff). But, I've listened on and off to The Offspring since Smash and even had a fun time at a show of theirs in Albany about 10 years ago.

Disturbed is a new one for me. Very good stuff with a harder edge....

Disturbed @ MySpace

Enigma @ MySpace

The Offspring @ MySpace

The Offspring has had a free download of the first single released from Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace available for a little while. The sweet thing about it is that the mp3 is DRM-free AND high quality. More details.....

I can't forget to say .....

Happy Father's Day!

To all you moms out there, but to mine especially........

Happy Mother's Day!

Whewwww, I'm whipped so this will be short..........

Other things musical? Check out (specifically QNTAL) this remix contest from acidplanet.com. They even provide (limited capability) the software to do it. Pretty slick! If QNTAL isn't your speed, check out one of the other contests.

Last but not least...

Huntsville's homegrown arts festival is going on this weekend. It's been a while since I went, but that's OK. The Huntsville Arts Council's Concerts in the Park series begins at the end of May.

It's not often that I frequent the ice cream aisle at any store....

When we lived up in Illinois, one of our frequent haunts (especially during the summer) was Whitey's Ice Cream. That's one of a few things I miss about living up there (not enough to ever move back, mind you). Anyway, during some of my most recent forays into the netherworld of Wal-Mart at 4 A.M. I noticed that Ben & Jerry's had little single size servings of several of their most popular flavors. I happened to stop by the local House that Walton Built this morning and my curiosity got the better of me. I must say that I kinda dig these little cups. One 3.6 fluid ounce serving was of course loaded with calories (particularly from fats) but only about as many as you'd find in an average candy bar.

Hey, if you're lookin' for something interesting to do on Sunday night (April 20th this coming weekend), consider checking out the Dixie Derby Girls vs. the Nashville Roller Girls. I think that would be highly entertaining but I'll be working.......

In parting....

I download the Department of Homeland Security's Daily Open Source newsletter. They used to send it via e-mail, but they have since ceased doing so. Now I use a nifty little batch file (that invokes wget for Windows) to download it via Windows Scheduled Tasks. For those who have any interest in that type of thing, here's the batch file that I use:

@echo off
echo %%date%% = %date%

for /f "tokens=1-4 delims=/ " %%i in ("%date%") do (
set dow=%%i
set month=%%j
set day=%%k
set year=%%l
)

wget http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/DHS_Daily_Report_%year%-%month%-%day%.pdf -O dhs/DHS_Daily_Report_%year%-%month%-%day%.pdf


Well, I'd better run along. Time to catch as many ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZs as I can! Peace, y'all!

Woohoo, it's Tax Day......

Speaking for myself, I'm much hipper on THIS IDEA.....

'Twas a VERY slow day off for me. I did get the chance to do my standard early morning run to the local branch of the Bentonville behemoth. Plus, there was a great dinner at Red Lobster (well before Wally-world). Topping it off with the "Warm Chocolate Chip Lava Cookie" made dinner wonderful.....

I just read that one of the bands (backandtotheleft) from the Metropolis Records label called it quits. They were working on a new album prior to dissolving. The songs they had been working on are available for download via their MySpace page....

Speaking of things musical...

The latest issue of Improvijazzation Nation is up in the aether! Check it out!

One nifty thing I found at the Wally-world was Sarah Brightman's latest album Symphony. I looked last week but only skimmed the racks. I looked a little closer this morning and was somewhat surprised to find it....



I have to listen to this CD some more to figure out my faves and such but it seems good so far!

Been off the scope for a while, I guess.........

Around this day last year, I was in roughly the same situation that I'm in now. I was in the middle of training for work and we were in the middle of an outage at my nuclear plant. It's too bad that I didn't have a VNV Nation show to catch in Atlanta this year. That happened on April 7th last year. Just to say it again, that show was excellent. I was completely stoked to have picked up Judgement in support of their tour of the same name! I had new music for the ride home (though I suppose it might have been excessive to have listened to it for the 3-1/2 hour drive). I would have had more of a difficult time making a show like that this year because of the hours. Besides, I had more mundane things to do. I think this was the first time I've ever browned up 10 pounds of meat at 5:30 in the morning. Tomorrow's meal at work will be chili. I'm hoping for a great batch!

Last night was fun! We ate dinner (first time) at P.F. Chang's for a friend's birthday and then visited one of the maternal units. I also got to chat with the daddy-o via webcam. I still think it's cool that I was viewing (and chatting up) a person and a room over 4,000 miles away in near real-time. Thanks for the internets, Al Gore!

All you women out there might find this interesting.....

BTW, my paternal unit pointed out some music of his. Checkit....

Well, you folks have a fine time now! Sleep is calling........

I think that my tenure here yakking about politics and other miscellaneous things is over.....

April Fools'!

Well, week two of our outage at Browns Ferry (as noted by the government info about our 3/18 power reduction here) is done. Always fun....

At least I've been able to hang out with my wife and friends a little bit. I meant to stay up all of this early morning but I didn't. I think my body was telling me that it wanted sleep. I even had a little chance to talk to my daddy-o last night. Speaking of the parentals, check out his latest Improvijazzation Nation. We might even be able to work out a cam chat next week on my day off. That would be pretty cool!

Perusing the news after my grocery run this morning, I was slightly surprised to see that the American Heart Association is making a push for "hands only CPR". The conventional CPR training will still be available but this is for those folks who can not (or might be unwilling to) provide the breaths associated with conventional CPR. Not a bad idea if it can save more lives....

We're up to about 20% of our 1988 grad class over at classreport.org. It'll be interesting to see how many people sign on before the reunion...

Well, I'd better run along. I have to prep for the next six days (technically nights) of work. Peace, y'all!

I just happened to read in one of the local media outlets...

that the local community college right down the road is in the midst of celebrating its 60th anniversary. I just thought it was kind of interesting. I kind of remembered thinking about Calhoun because an old high school teacher of mine (this year marks 20 years of being out for me) is kind of high on their food chain and also the head of the school's Center for the Study of Southern Political Culture. Pretty cool......

It must be nice that the Republicrats (to them at least) have a clear candidate for the general election. Old John McCain can even start in with general election ads....



I myself am partial to the following....



Woohoo, we'll probably get some rain today. In addition to the need for rain and the fact that it will help my yard, I don't even care much that there's a chance that we'll get it over the weekend. Of course, I'm sleeping during the day (like a vamp) anyway and my next day off is Monday. Heck, my only day off is each Monday. That makes for some pretty nice currency.

Kind of switching back to birthdays, ye olde FBI turns 100 this year. I'll bet that someone from the Bureau's early days would be overwhelmed at the changes in the past century. Like....CYBERCRIME!

Well folks, the bed is calling so I must say adieu.....

In the recent months with stories of a slightly floundering net pioneer, one thing has amazed me...

Yahoo! and Google offer a breadth of tools and services in addition to just search. And yet somehow, Yahoo! (even with a slightly longer corporate history than its dominating competitor) just doesn't seem to be kicking it like the old GOOG. The process by which some businesses succeed and dominate (and others don't catch on quite as well) is pretty amazing to watch sometimes.....

Burgerslayer?

Man, all the hubbub......

About Hillary's schedules....and Barack's speech:

As expected....

El Presidenté gave his speech regarding the fifth anniversary of going into Iraq.

As a minor aside and in response to his use of the following sentence:

"Because we acted, Saddam's regime is no longer invading its neighbors or attacking them with chemical weapons and ballistic missiles."

Lest we forget, a look at the era and nature of Hussein's use of chemical weapons in the past leads right back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in some ways.

Greetings, earthlings....

'Twas unhappy news to hear of Arthur C. Clarke's passing.

And....

Lest we forget, today is year five. Here's a song for that....



El Presidenté is supposed to give a speech regarding the anniversary at The Pentagon sometime today. Borrowing from Lil' Cheney and the irreverent romp known as Lil' Bush, "Rah rah rah, WMD, rah rah rah... rah rah rah, freedom is on the march, rah rah rah".