Fortunately....

The fine people of Athens made (again, my humble opinion) the proper decision last night. I'm not saying there are no adverse effects of alcohol. Heck, I'm living proof. However, it is possible to work through those kinds of issues and just making the city dry wouldn't have ended them anyway. Besides, I found out (I kind of suspected before arriving) that our precinct wasn't voting on the wet-dry thing anyway....

Well, it looks like people aren't being as careful on the roads during the "Take Back Our Highways" campaign as they probably should be. It's not like this little traffic jihad came unannounced or anything....

EARTHQUAKE!

I was glad to hear that my father and family survived Flossie out in Hawaii. I forgot to ask him if he had been that close to a hurricane before. I imagine that he's seen a typhoon or two from the time he was in Korea. I'll have to ask him. Yo, daddy-o, ever been through a tropical-type storm?

Well, I need to go shower right now. I'm stinky. Good night, folks!

PS, for a cool video (this was very spiffy live), click "read more"...

As I am often driven to extremes....

I am going to have to find a way to grow some of these. The site admin for Children of Acid happens to have a great picture of some of these peppers that he has grown. I enjoy insanely HOT food and I believe that these will be entirely too hot for me.....

It looks like the wet-dry issue has kind of stirred things up on al.com's Limestone County forum. As a last plea for common sense (in my humble opinion), if you are reading this and voting on the issues in Athens tomorrow, remember this:

Prohibition Worked Wonders

Howdy, folks...

For those of y'all in my immediate neck of the woods (i.e. Athens, AL), don't forget to join the fray in the wet-dry vote on Tuesday. Obviously, I have my own opinion on the vote. For those who swear that repealing sales will cut down on drinking and driving, I DO NOT BELIEVE you. For those who vaguely invoke the "adverse effects of alcohol" (I saw that in a recent article about the wet-dry issue), alcohol is still for sale in at least some of the surrounding counties. Those who desire alcohol will go to those areas and purchase alcohol to bring it back or, worse yet, drink it on the way back into town or before coming back into town.

For those of you in any part of Alabama, don't forget that the "Take Back Our Highways" campaign begins on Alabama roads this week.

I forgot to mention that we saw The Bourne Ultimatum last week. Great movie!

Running on fumes...

Well, I got back from Columbus in one piece and (amazingly) free of road usage fees around noon today. Of course, I left from Columbus at 6 AM EDT. I dropped my daddy-o off at the airport and then engaged ludicrous speed...

Once I got home, I chilled for a while. Since I had missed it for the past couple of days, I had to partake of the hot sauce on a spoon ritual and then go outside to sweat for about an hour. I knew before I returned that we were going to a Huntsville Stars game with friends this evening. Man, it's been a while since I've even thought about watching (let alone attending) a baseball game. That was quite fun.

All in all, the early rise, seven hour drive and baseball game as a finale should make it supremely easy for me to get right to sleep.

In conclusion, click "read more" for a nifty video (from Tristraum via youtube.com) that I've also included on my myspace profile. Sorry, I like exposing the world to different music...


Tristraum - First Embrace

Yeah, we're cookin' with gas now...

I'm in Columbus, OH. Unfortunately, it's under sad circumstances. I'll be at a viewing for my grandmother tomorrow and a memorial service on Thursday. I've only been up here to visit several times in the past twenty years. I'd say that I'd change that, but I'm never totally sure where life will take me anyway...

The drive from Athens, AL to Columbus was almost perfect (i.e. no speeding tickets and no serious traffic SNAFUs). I say almost because I get to within 5 miles of my aunt and uncle's home and almost have a big wreck. Fortunately, I'm well schooled in the tactics of insanely diversionary driving. I missed hitting the woman who pulled out in front of me by less than one foot. Whewww! That was too close....

My dad and brother are supposed to be flying in fairly early tomorrow. On that note, I'd better skedaddle. It's approaching 1AM and I should try to wake up fairly early in the morning. I am stoked about the wi-fi connection. Later, folks!

It is with an extraordinarily sad heart...

that I have to say farewell to my Grandmother Metcalf. I can say that I don't feel that I ever spent enough time around any of my grandparents but that can't be changed now. She was a TREMENDOUS person. I know that she played a larger part in my life than any of my grandparents because of things that happened long ago.

RIP Grandmother Metcalf! We'll miss you immensely!

Delerium - Angelicus

This video was released soon after Delerium put out Nuages du Monde. Different...

Fairly recently, myspace.com added a feature to be able to list your status and mood...

Now maybe it's just me, but I find it very odd that one of the "moods" they have available is "high". Even the little emoticon looks kind of like a stoner. Maybe they just mean ultra-happy. If not, I'm not sure that I would list "high" as my mood in such a public place...

Speaking of MySpace like things...

Check out MyDeathSpace.com in the next couple of weeks! Unfortunately, the site received an immense amount of traffic after being the subject of an article and isn't currently available.

If this bit of research is true, I might be better off than I thought. I was overexposed to the sun frequently when I was a kid. Back then, it would have taken a team of wild horses to drag me out of the swimming pool during the summer. I had a few sunburns that were excruciating. Hopefully, I never experience skin cancer (or any kind for that matter).

Speaking of caffeine, it's about time to load up on some more. I tried stay awake by loading up on caffeine last night, but the strangest thing happened. After downing a 16 oz. can of sugar free ROCKSTAR, I was out within thirty minutes. I never expected that to happen...

Anyway, y'all have fun. I'm going to get hyped up on caffeine, taurine, guarana and B vitamins! Bye!

As far as campy movies go...

My Super Ex-Girlfriend was fairly funny. I had recorded it on the ReplayTV on a whim and we finally got around to watching it. I think that I'd say I'm glad I didn't pay money to see it...

The latest news from NASA brings up lots of questions....

So far, my latest book is fairly interesting. I wouldn't call it riveting (which is why it's taking me a little while to read it). However, Ted Gup does a good job of discussing the dangers to democracy of living with so many (he argues too many) secrets.

If you can appreciate the humor (quite rough around the edges at times) of Carlos Mencia, check out the "Mind of Mencia Blog". I just discovered it a couple of weeks ago, but I read it whenever there's something new. Funny! Lil' Bush needs a blog now. I don't see Lil' Bush having the same staying power as Mencia. Long live Carlos!

Well, it's probably beyond the time that I should have been asleep, so sweet dreams folks! I'm gonna crash!

If you tend to drive, oh, perhaps a little above the speed limit at times...

Well, always be careful. However, you might want to exercise more than the usual amount of caution from August 13-17. al.com has a write-up about the 'Take Back Our Highways' initiative here while the official press release from "the man" can be viewed here (.pdf file). Mind you, I don't advocate speeding or anything...ha-ha-ha!

I should be asleep! Nighty-night world!

Can you tell the difference between a phishing site and a legitimate one?

Test yourself with this little phishing quiz. The knowledge gained from this quiz can be fairly useful and potentially save you some trouble...

Well, I sure as heck hope that I'm ready to wake up EARLY tomorrow. I am not naturally a "morning" person. Coffee helps with that, but I still hate getting up before the sun! Unfortunately, this morning, I was up until around 5 AM. But, I napped for a few hours and then loaded up on, you guessed it, some coffee. Maybe I should have gone to the grand opening of the latest addition to Athens restaurants, Chick-Fil-A.

I might have had a chance to work some overtime today, but I got plenty done around my house. I'm glad I stuck around here. Top the day off with some fine pizza from Village Pizza, and all was well!

Good evening, folks!

Oh yeah, lest I forget...

There's a fairly new restaurant over at The Village of Providence(in Huntsville) called Market Street Cafe. The selection and food are good. I know for certain that the meat loaf and the banana bread pudding were super tasty!

I like cats and all, but....

I'm quite certain that I wouldn't want this kitty coming over and curling up next to me any time soon...

A little bit of aimless wandering about the internetS (with the help of a Google news alert for TVA) brought me to an old school picture of power generation by TVA. I wonder what the place looks like now. The idea of a "100-year-old photo blog" is fairly unique...

My daddy-o's site for Zzaj Productions has been relocated to a new server. Check it out! Also included are archived issues of Improvijazzation Nation (new one linked from the front page), my dad's improv music e-zine.

Just a quickie here.....

A little further exploration allowed me to find the following bands:

Chinese Theatre

Tristraum

Quite interesting!

W00t!

This stretch of nights is over. I consider myself somewhat of a creature of the night. I naturally tend to stay up very late at night when I have the chance. There's just something nice about calling a set of the night shifts over. Now it's time to see how long I can stay awake. RED BULL...!

So, I get home and see a friend request on myspace.com. It looked like a band profile. I check it out and well....

I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy the music of James D. Stark. It's kind of cool to hear goth/electro in the form of (mainly) love songs. The sound elicits Depeche Mode, Camouflage, and other similar bands. Seeing that I enjoy that sound already, this stuff's right up my alley. But, it's not a clone of other music (though there is a DM remix on his profile right now). Support independent artists and check out this dude's work, if you dare...

Man, oh man, oh man...

With the exception of having gone in for twenty minutes or so last week to take care of a small administrative task, I haven't been to work since the last week of June. Up until an hour ago, I was looking (and feeling) totally scruffy. It's been such a long stretch off. But, I'm rested up and raring to go. Crowning achievement? I suppose I'm stoked that I can say that I made it to 37. We went out and had a great dinner with my mom and company last night. Thanks again!

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work we go....

I so love...

living where I can go get fast food at four in the morning. I suppose that what I ate wasn't too good for me, but my breakfast sure was tasty. Besides, there wasn't much better to do....

I saw a segment on NBC Nightly News the other night...

The title of the segment was "Did 9/11 create a culture of secrecy?" Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a story page on MSNBC's site.

NBC's Bob Faw was interviewing journalist/author Ted Gup about his new book called Nation of Secrets. There's more information about the exact premise of this book here. I just purchased it this evening. I'll let y'all know if it's any good. Come to think of it, I don't read enough. When I do read something (not for work), it's almost always related to politics or current affairs. C'est la vie...

You fine folks have fun now!

As it almost always happens...

I've been staying up later and later at night as my time off from work winds down to an end. It's not so bad, though. At least I'll be ready to go into work on the night shift. Anyway, I was looking for something of quality to watch on TV last night. It often seems like that quest grows more difficult. I finally stumbled across this movie on the Sundance Channel. While watching it, I was thinking what a crappy set of circumstances these folks had if the complete innocence that they tried to assert all throughout was true. After the movie, I looked around a little bit. I found the Wikipedia article about the "Tipton Three" and the Wikipedia entry for the director of the movie. Both of those pages had a link to an article from The Guardian (UK newspaper) about a follow-up story to determine the truth of the story portrayed in the movie. I will repost the pertinent part here in the event that the usual link rot occurs:

"Sisters are doing it for themselves

Andrew Anthony
Sunday June 3, 2007
The Observer

.....
Buried away in the schedules with almost no advance publicity was Lie Lab. Making use of new techniques in magnetic resonance imaging, the programme set out to discover if its subjects were telling the truth. Last week those subjects were Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, better known as two-thirds of the Tipton Three.

That was the name given to the three young men who were picked up in Afghanistan in late 2001 by American forces and transported to Guantanamo Bay, where they were held without charges or trial for two years before being released back to Britain.

Campaigners for the men have always maintained they were innocent tourists-cum-aid workers, caught up in the invasion of Afghanistan. This was also the line of Michael Winterbottom 's film, The Road to Guantanamo. And given the tone and approach of Lie Lab, it also seemed to be a belief shared by the programme makers.

But at the end of what was actually a rather dry and laborious piece of science TV, when confronted with results that suggested he was less than forthcoming with the truth, Ahmed confessed (Rasul had refused to go through with the test) not only to visiting an Islamist training camp but also handling weapons and learning how to use an AK47.

None of which justifies or excuses his sub-legal and subhuman treatment in Guantanamo, but it does raise some questions about the portrayal, in some quarters of the media, of the Tipton Three as blameless heroes. The Lie Lab seemed almost embarrassed by its findings and was neither prepared, nor set up, to follow through on the story. But perhaps another TV programme might one day ask what a British citizen (or citizens) was doing at a guerrilla training camp, learning to fire weapons, in the middle of a war.
....."

From Andrew Anthony on Big Brother | Lie Lab | Brits Get Rich in China | Hotel California: From the Byrds to the Eagles | Media | MediaGuardian.co.uk: at http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2094030,00.html

I probably can't know the whole truth about what happened, but it seems like there's a lot more to this story (and movie) than meets the eye.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Not much to say here...

How about a couple of links?

I stumbled upon one slick offering from the Library of Congress called The loc.gov Wise Guide by accident. The Library of Congress has some excellent material available online. For links to the "Wise Guide" and other cool stuff, check out the Library's news page.

Have you ever wanted to know when the sun's going to go down or the moon's going to rise? How about for the whole year? Check out the data services page from the Astronomical Applications department of the U.S. Naval Observatory.

Finally, what about the loved ones at home when military members are deployed? The DoD has a website for them. Straight from the site:

"MilitaryHOMEFRONT is the official Department of Defense web site for reliable Quality of Life information designed to help troops and their families, leaders and service providers. Whether you live the military lifestyle or support those who do, you'll find what you need!"