Congratulations to Jason Whitlock at The Kansas City Star and Phil Mushnick at The New York Post for having a shred of common sense following the Don Imus firing.
Imus isn’t the real bad guy Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture. (KC Star, April 11)
Brainless Hypocrites Win Again (NY Post, April 13, 2007)
For more, check out FMQB.
Comment spam is back.
It was gone for a while after I finally broke down and bought Moveable Type 3.2. But over the past couple of weeks, I've seen an alarming increase in spam comments both here and over at Mike's blog, which runs off the same server/MT installation. MT 3.3 is out, but I haven't had time to download it.
Holly requires commenter registration... that might be next here too.
Get your regular dose of airline news and insight from the best source I know of -- Holly Hegeman herself -- at PlaneBuzz.
I've been helping Holly with various projects and managing the weekly publishing of the (subscription-based) PlaneBusiness DailyBanter and keeping the web server up and running for more than five years now.
Wow, time does fly. :-D
So, if you didn't know, I'm working in Japan for six weeks. Three weeks have already gone by -- amazing.
Today I, unknowingly, bought coffee in Starbucks very first Japanese store. The store is located in Ginza, one of Tokyo's several upscale shopping areas. It's also home of the first Apple Store in Japan.
The Starbucks store opened 10 years ago this week, Aug. 2, 1996. Pretty amazing.
I've now visited Starbucks in the U.S., Canada, and Japan. I've been to Apple Stores on both coasts of the U.S. and Japan. One of these days I'm going to compile a list of Apple Stores that I've visited.
Lisa: Okay here are some travel tips: only drink bottled water, don't get into an unlicensed taxi, and, remember, they have winter during our summer.
Homer: Wait wait wait wait wait! So in August, it's cold?
Lisa: That's right
Homer: And in February, it's hot?
Lisa: Mm-hmm
Homer: So it's opposite land! Crooks chase cops! Cats have puppies!
Lisa: No, Dad. It's just the weather
Homer: So hot snow falls up?
Lisa: (giving in weakly) Yes.
Homer: Whoo-hoo!
Electricity was restored at about 4:40 AM. Woo.
The TV sound woke me up, as I had been watching it when I went to sleep, the receiver came on when the power did.
Back in September 2003, after the hurricane swept through the DC area, thousands of people were without power. I remember clearly when the electricity died -- I was outside with the video camera doing a little windy filming in the storm. A transformer or circuit exploded down the street -- quite possibly the same one that went out last night -- in a bright ball of light and loud bang. It's all on video (don't ask me where that is). I remember exactly where I was one week later when the power was restored, taking a shower by flashlight.
My bathroom is in the basement and there's no window. So, without electricity, it's pitch black in there.
Today all those memories returned... showering in the dark, warm food in the fridge (Joanna took the stuff out of the freezer and did something with it this morning... she could have just put it out in the snow, it would have been fine outside), and nothing to do at home.
I'm using the free wireless at Panera to get online now, and I can only hope that PEPCO gets to our little outage -- it's only the immediate area that's without power -- and we're not stuck like this for too much longer.
I tossed Henry out in the snow briefly today. He didn't really seem to find it all that funny. :p
The Pepco map updated at 1 AM. The difference is huge from the 12:30 AM map. Before there were four or five zip codes colored in to indicate outages. Now it's a huge area of Maryland and a small part of the District.
This can't be good...
The battery on my PowerBook is gradually going too. Half an hour left.
The electricity went out. Apparently there was a loud boom when it happened. A fire truck went by on the next street down, so it was probably a transformer.
We're not up on the Pepco map yet, but it hasn't been updated in almost half an hour. Looks like they have quite a few small outages here and there.
I'm sitting in the living room with candles lit and a fire going (though this wood isn't burning all that intensely) wondering how much longer the battery that's keeping the router and cable modem running is going to last.
Also this is my old PowerBook and its battery isn't all that great at holding a charge any more.
Hopefully this won't be anything like the last time the power went out... Hurricane Isabelle kept us in the dark for an entire week.
I think we're up to about five inches of snow so far, I might take a walk outside in a bit to see what it looks like.
Also, the web cam is not updating while the power is out.
The weather forecasters seem to have forgotten how to forecast snow. The predictions have ranged wildly from "it's too early to say" a day or so ago, to anywhere from 4 inches to a foot. Snow is expected to start some time Saturday afternoon.
And, happy day -- just in time for "BIG SNOW STORM 2006!" is the return of my web cam. All new hardware and software are powering it.
Click on the image for a larger view.
As of now, there's no historical/timelapse imagery, but I'm working on that too.