The Life and Times of Bill

A record of my day

2008-04-20T19:47:00.003-04:00

Today, I went to the Cincinnati Art Museum in Eden Park.

I saw:

A Jaguar 1969 E-Type Roadster... it was exceedingly awesome
"Maps and Manifests" by Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford
An exhibit called 'LeWitt x 2" that had a sampling of the expansive collection of Sol LeWitt, an artist and collector who passed away in 2007.

It was a beautiful museum in general. I'd like to go back and look at things more closely.

In other recent events:

I went on a fun road trip to New Orleans. Photos here.

Also, I'm finishing up my EMT-Intermediate training. It's the second level of being an EMT.. between basic (what I already was) and paramedic.

Baby Lopez from Billy V on Vimeo.

Stupid people, and I moved

2007-06-03T15:19:00.000-04:00

By order of Bradley, I am blogging.

Last week, I took a call at work from at woman at 123 Fake St* reporting that her ex-boyfriend stole her cell phone. Our officers located this individual, but he denied it, and he didn't have the phone on him.

Ten minutes later, I get a 911 call reporting there are small children getting drunk in the front lawn of 123 Fake St. Naturally, my suspicion is raised since our officers were just there, and they normally notice small children kicking back brewskies.

As I suspected, the ex-boyfriend was making a false report in retribution for calling the police on him. That normally might be hard to prove, if he hadn't made the 911 call from the cell phone he just stole.

Seriously, who calls 911 from a phone they just stole? To report a fake emergency? Dude, we have caller ID, and we record it. He got charged for it.

*Street addressed changed to protect the innocent

In other news, I just moved apartments. The building my old one was in got bought out by the university, and apparently their dollar is more valuable than mine, so I got to move. I rented a giant moving truck and that was fun. I cruised around in it and was like "hey, check out my sweet truck!"

Random items of interest:

My new apartment has a balcony with a stunning view of two trees.
Biggest disappointment of the week: my giant moving truck had no air horn.
Best happy moment of the week: seeing one of my sisters graduate
Current crisis: the pop machine is out of Mountain Dew

Recent life in pictures

2007-01-06T07:18:00.000-05:00

Christmas wooshed on by, once again.

In the Arena District:

Jon and I went picture-taking at night:

from flickr.com/photos/billyv

Headline confusion

2007-01-05T13:28:00.000-05:00

"ABC News: Top Stories - Sylvester Stallone Attacks Mexican Border Fence"

Does this headline make anyone else think Stallone went crazy and tore apart a fence? Apparently they meant he verbally attacked the plan.

What a disappointment.

Seeing the wrong words

2006-12-31T18:39:00.000-05:00

It's weird and amusing how, when I read fast, my brain sometimes sees the wrong words.

I just read the sentence, "Think of it as a convenient, but shorter term solution (much like leasing a car)."

My brain saw "(much like teasing a cat)". That is a much funnier sentence. I laughed.

For your Friday amusement

2006-12-29T18:30:00.000-05:00

From a CNN story:

A 21-year-old German tourist who wanted to visit his girlfriend in the Australian metropolis Sydney landed 13,000 kilometers (8,077 miles) away near Sidney, Montana, after mistyping his destination on a flight booking Web site.

According to a press release from an alliance of government scientists:

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

That's funny.

On the Ohio smoking ban

2006-12-23T21:05:00.000-05:00

Ohio recently passed a ban on smoking inside public places statewide. Bars, restaurants, bowling alleys... no smoking, please. You can still smoke in your own home, your own car, and outdoors.

[20:35] Chris C: the smoking ban, for instance. that was completely unconstitutional
[20:36] Bill: I'm not a fan of your cancer sticks, so I'll leave that issue aside.
[20:36] Chris C: i'm not a fan of car exhaust. i'm not a fan of the chemical plant right down the road from me.
[20:37] Bill: me either.
[20:38] Chris C: they're also telling owners how to run their businesses.
[20:41] Bill: i don't think i could ever be convinced of a connection between civil rights and smoking in enclosed public spaces.
[20:41] Chris C: well, you're not a smoker. but a fraction of the population chooses to be
[20:42] Chris C: and a fraction of businesses in the united states chooses to have a smoking section to accommodate those who do smoke
[20:57] Bill: The problem here is that people are having trouble visualizing the harm because it isn't immediate. We're all about blood and gore. There is insurmountable evidence of the danger of second hand smoke, and how sitting in a bar is like smoking x number of cigarettes / packs. About how often non-smoking family members get lung cancer *before* the smokers.
[20:58] Bill: It's like drunk driving. No one is against banning that. The harm is clear and immediate. You are allowed to drink. You are not allowed to drink and drive, because you will eventually hurt other people.
[20:58] Bill: And individual businesses don't have the right to permit it.
[20:58] Bill: Kroger cant be like, "Hell, you're allowed to drink and drive in our parking lot."
[20:58] Bill: "It's our god damned parking lot."
[20:58] Bill: "And we want to cater to those who have an activity they like to do that will harm other people."
[20:58] Chris C: hahaha
[20:59] Bill: "Go shop somewhere that doesn't let you drive drunk in the lot. Screw you!"
[20:59] Chris C: the population has to die off somehow.

Kroger is badass like that.

But seriously, what do you think about it?

Notes on life

2006-12-17T20:12:00.000-05:00

It should be illegal to make the commercials obscenely louder than the tv program.
Sweet and sour chicken isn't sour at all. And it's the sauce that is sour, not the chicken. We need to have a dialog with the restaurant people about this issue.
Denzel Washington is always really angry in movies and shoots people a lot. I think he could benefit from an outlet like fingerpainting. Eric suggests interpretive dance.

I don't like studying.

2006-12-15T07:44:00.001-05:00

I don't like studying., originally uploaded by Billy V.

The sun is up now. I went to go dig my ipod out of the car, and discovered that it had rained. It seems so fresh outside.

I went to get Steak n Shake earlier / last night, and ate it at the firehouse while I studied for an exam today. I spilled my cherry coke, and was sad. I'd only managed a couple sips of it before I fumbled. Oh how I wanted that Cherry Coke, and instead I had to watch it slowly soak into the carpet.

I just read a lot, and watched bits of a movie to reward myself. Now I shall sleep for a few hours, and read more when I wake up.

That is all.

[Exam at 2:45. I don't like school.]

Wireless AMBER alerts

2006-12-11T08:48:00.000-05:00

This seemed important enough to share with people. You can get free amber alerts on your cell phone, specific to your area, by visiting wirelessamberalerts.org.

For the unfamiliar, the wikipedia article tells us: "In the United States and Canada, an AMBER Alert is a notification to the general public, by various media outlets, of a confirmed child abduction. AMBER is a backronym for "America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response", and was named for 9-year-old Amber Hagerman who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996."

They say that the first few hours are the most critical in cases of a child abduction where there is a risk of harm, and amber alerts are issued as quickly as possible to get the word out on what to look for.

Hey, it's free. And if you happen to save a kid or something, I'll buy you an ice cream cone.

- Bill

You know what really grinds my gears?

2006-12-01T05:39:00.000-05:00

So I bought a new bottle of shampoo recently, and used it for the first time. I'm in the shower, wasting hot water, and I pick up the bottle to read the instructions. Yes, I was actually reading the instructions.

We all might wonder why instructions are even necessary on a shampoo bottle. It's always the same thing. Yet I check every time I get a new one, just in case, because you never know when it is going to be something radically different. "Mix three tablespoons of shampoo in a wooden bowl with one teaspoon of chocolate syrup and apply with steel wool," it might say. But no, the directions were pretty standard.

And then, the next paragraph.

"This product was not tested on animals."

WHAT?! I threw the bottle down in horror. Not tested on animals? How on earth do they know its safe for me, then?

This is ridiculous. I demand that all my products first be tested on animals.

Making Firefox sexy

2006-11-18T09:38:00.000-05:00

One of the many beauties of the Firefox web browser is the ability to make it do just about anything you want it to. In its default state, it works great. But you're not default, are you? No. You're super sweet, and customization is what you're all about.

Internet Explorer 7 is out now, and it's worth examining. Mainly because they've finally caught up to many of the features Firefox has had since the beginning of time.

But too little, too late, in my opinion. And their support for standards hasn't improved yet. I won't bore you with that part.

I do like the layout of the new IE7 in how it conserves screen real-estate (making more of the actual webpage visible without scrolling). Luckily, you can make Firefox look anyway you'd like with customization and extensions.

Here's mine:

The main helpful change I made is more effectively using all the blank space on the menu bar found at the top of the default layout. By right clicking on it and choosing 'Customize...' you can rearrange all those toolbar elements.

I moved the navigational buttons to the top-left, with the address bar next to them. I've optimized my bookmarks by using the bookmarks toolbar, and when an icon for the site is available, deleting the title of the bookmark for a nice icon-only toolbar.

The drop-down menus, which I rarely use, got moved to the right of the address bar. Since the 'Tools' menu is the only one I find myself clicking on regularly, I consolidated more space by putting the rest in a single drop-down with the Tiny Menu extension. You can put all or some of your menus in one drop-down. Very handy.

I also gave the address bar a little more room by getting rid of the progress spinner in the top-right corner, and the Go-button I never use on the address bar.

With some option-tweaking, and more advanced code pasting, you can make your browser exactly how you want it. Check out tips and tricks on Mozilla for more fun changes.

What have you done with your Firefox?

I've done 92 stupid things.

2006-11-18T08:59:00.000-05:00

Today's stupid survey brought to you by me. Prepare to be dazzled and amazed by the intimate details provided below.

Level 1
( ) Smoked a Cigarette
(x) Smoked a Cigar twice now... does that make it a habit?
( ) Tried Weed
(x) Drank Alcohol

Level 2
(x) Are / Been In Love
(x) Been Dumped good times.
( ) Shoplifted
( ) Been Fired
( ) Been In a Fist Fight i only get in kick fights

Level 3
(x) Snuck Out Of a Parent's House
(x) Had Feelings for Someone Who Didn't Have Them Back crappy!
( ) Been Arrested
(x) Made Out With a Stranger it was spin the bottle, i swear
(x) Gone Out On a Blind Date

Level 4
(x) Had a Crush on an Older Person...
(x) Skipped School
(x) Relationship With a Co-worker
(x) Seen Someone / Something Die unfortunately

Level 5
(x) Had a Crush on One of Your Friends
( ) Been To Paris
( ) Been To Spain
(x) Been On a Plane
( ) Thrown Up From Drinking

Level 6
( ) Eaten Sushi I don't do seafood.
(x) Been Snowboarding/Skiing Let it snow, let it snow.
(x) Met Someone What the hell does this mean?

Level 7
( ) Been In an Abusive Relationship
( ) Taken Pain Killers
(x) "Liked" Someone Who You Couldn't Have
(x) laid On Your Back and Watched Cloud Shapes Go By
(x) Made a Snow Angel

Level 8
(x) Had a Tea Party Two sisters, it happens.
(x) Flown a Kite
(x) Built a Sand Castle
(x) Gone Puddle Jumping
(x) Played Dress Up See above.

Level 9
(x) Jumped Into a Pile of Leaves
(x) Gone Sledding
(x) Cheated While Playing a Game
(x) Been Lonely
(x) Fallen Asleep At Work / School
In certain classes, it is more noteworthy that I'm awake.

Level 10
( ) Used a Fake / Someone Else's ID
(x) Watched the Sun Set
( ) Felt an Earthquake
( ) Killed a Snake Never encountered one on a plane

Level 11
(x) Been Tickled
( ) Been Robbed / Vandalized
( ) Robbed Someone
(x) Been Misunderstood
( ) Pet a Deer Not for lack of trying. They run away.

Level 12
(x) Won a Contest
( ) Been Suspended From School
(x) Had Detention
(x) Been In a Car / Motorcycle Accident

Level 13
( ) had / Have Braces
(x) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night or more...
(x) Had deja-vu
(x) Danced in the moonlight

Level 14
(x) Hated the Way You Looked
( ) Pole Danced
(x) Questioned Your Heart
( ) Been Obsessed With Post-It Notes

Level 15
(x) Squished Barefoot Through the Mud
(x) Been Lost
( ) Been To the Opposite Side of the World
(x) Swam In the Ocean / Gulf
(x) Felt Like You Were Dying

Level 16
(x) Cried Yourself to Sleep
(x) Played Cops and Robbers Laura and I did that a lot...
(x) Recently Colored With Crayons / Colored Pencils / Markers
(x) Sang Karaoke
(x) Paid For a Meal with Only Coins

Level 17
(x) Done Something You Told Yourself You Wouldn't
(x) Made Prank Phone Calls indeed.
(x) Laughed Until Some Kind Of Beverage Came Out Of Your Nose
(x) Kissed In the Rain

Level 18
(x) Written a Letter to Santa Clause and he wrote back!
(x) Been Kissed Under a Mistletoe
(x) Watched the Sun Set With Someone You Care / Cared About
(x) Blown Bubbles
(x) Made a Bonfire on the Beach and i'd like to again

Level 19
( ) Crashed a Party
( ) Have Traveled More Than 5 Days with A Car Full Of People
(x) Gone Roller skating / Blading
(x) Had a Wish Come True
( ) Been ###### by a Monkey This amuses me.

Level 20
( ) Worn Pearls
( ) Jumped Off a Bridge Does a cliff count?
( ) Screamed "Penis" In Class/work
( ) Swam With Dolphins Do sharks count?

Level 21
(x) Got Your Tongue Stuck to a Pole / Freezer/ice Cube
( ) Kissed a Fish
( ) Worn the Opposite Sex's Clothes
(x) Sat on a Roof Top

Level 22
(x) Screamed At the Top of Your Lungs
(x) Done / Attempted a One-Handed Cartwheel Attempted, failed.
( ) Talked On the Phone for More Than 5 Hours Probably 3.
(x) Stayed Up All Night

Level 23
(x) Picked and Ate an Apple Right Off the Tree
(x) Climbed a Tree
(x) Had / Been In a Tree House
( ) Scared To Watch Scary Movies Alone I would; prefer not to.

Level 24
(x) Believed In Ghosts
( ) Have / Had More Then 30 Pairs of Shoes
( ) Gone Skinny Dipping
( ) Jail / Visit (went to visit)

Level 25
( ) Played Chicken
(x) Been Pushed Into a Pool with All Your Clothes On
(x) Been Told You're Hot by a Complete Stranger
(x) Broken a Bone Wrist, yay.
(x) Been Easily Amused Right now.

Level 26
(x) Caught a Fish
(x) Made A Video
(x) Caught a Butterfly Sorry Mr. Flutters
(x) Laughed So Hard You Cried
(x) Cried So Hard You Laughed

Level 27
( ) Mooned / Flashed Someone
(x) Had Someone Moon / Flash You
(x) Cheated On a Test
There was a lot of whispering during grade school vocab tests
(x) Forgotten Someone's Name Hey.... you.
(x) Slept Naked
( ) French Braided Someone's Hair A freedom braid?
( ) Been Kicked Out Of Your House

Level 28
(x) Rode a Roller Coaster
(x) Went Scuba-Diving / Snorkeling
( ) black-Mailed Someone
( ) been Black Mailed

Level 29
(x) Been Used
(x) Fell Going down The Stairs
(x) Fell Going up the Stairs
(x) Licked By a Cat
(x) Bitten Someone
(x) Licked Someone

Level 32
( ) Been shot at There was gunplay, but no shots fired.
( ) flattened someone tires
(x) Drove your car until the gas light came on Every week.
(x) Got five dollars or less worth of gas

Total: 92

Pictures from flying!

2006-11-09T20:46:00.000-05:00

I went on an airplane ride again, and took a multitude of pictures. Check out the whole album here.

We flew over fun places like Kings Island, three corn mazes, and the Touchdown Jesus (?) on I-75. Plenty of autumn pictures over Oxford and Miami U as well.

Video time

2006-11-07T22:48:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was down at Erica and Bradley's house with their friend Eric, and we decided the prudent thing to do would be to make a music video. We began selecting the music, Jared arrived to join the fun, and soon after we were complete. See the results below, or on Google Video.

"Fun Zone" by Weird Al

This one Jared recently uploaded: Erica telling jokes to herself, via greenscreen.

I like it a lot.

The week in pictures

2006-10-23T23:55:00.000-04:00

I've begun my attempt at Project 365 - in short, a quest to take at least one picture per day and add some key happenings in the description. [Read more about the project here.. it's a great idea.] You can see my photoset for Project 365 here. Unfortunately, I'm 11 days into it and I've already missed one, but I'm going to keep marching forward and try to not let that happen again.

On Tuesday the 17th [all photos from that day], I stopped on my way home from class in Hamilton to take some pictures by the rain-swollen Great Miami River. I also took some requisite driving photographs.

On Friday the 20th [all photos from that day], there was an afternoon trip to the opthamologist in Columbus, and family time.

Ellen had a Navy JROTC drill meet the next morning so she was busy preparing for that.

Saturday the 21st, my sister Sarah and I took a trip through the carwash at BP with three colors of soap on our way to Olive Garden.

Sunday morning, the 22nd, I went along with Erica and Bradley on their churchhop. They review what it's like for a newcomer at a different church every Sunday and post to the blog. This week was the Clough United Methodist Church. Check it out. Afterwards, we had cookie time at a bakery.

Today, the highlight at work was taking delivery of our new shiny white police cars. Navy blue is being phased out for the safer white.

I also tried out my new gorillapod, a bendable mini-tripod that attaches to just about anything. I used it to take a from-above photo at the firehouse.

Whew. All that link-pasting was exhausting.

School memories, and new photos

2006-10-14T09:14:00.000-04:00

Something popped into my head this morning, and I'm not sure why.

Good morning to you! *points*
Good morning to you! *points*
We're all in our places,
with bright smiling faces,
and is the way
to start a new day!

We actually had to recite this every morning in first grade, as a class.

I'm not sure if, were I to become a teacher, I'd make my students do that.

Fast forward to tenth grade in sophomore Honors Geometry. The teacher was Mr. Brooks, and there was no sing-song routine. That was his first year teaching at our school, and it was particularly easy to ruffle his feathers.

He was always calling us "people" when we screwed around. "Peeeeeeee-puhl! Settle!" I'm sure he was thinking of more colorful language.

One day, being the mild-mannered young man that I was, I passed a note around the class with specific instructions.

Collaborating as a group more efficiently than ever before, the entire class quietly removed a sheet of loose-leaf notebook paper while Mr. Brooks prattled on about the hypotenuse or some similar geometry-related drivel.

When the second-hand on the wall clock struck 10:13, the entire class, in unison, tore their sheets of paper in half. The combined sound was tremendous.

Mr. Brooks whirled around, dropping his chalk in the process. He looked perplexed and nervous. We acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Slowly, he turned back to the chalkboard, and began again. At 10:15, we acted in unison once again, all crumpling our paper into a ball. Again, a simple sound magnified by 30 people, and Mr. Brooks jumped.

"Peeeeeee-puhl!" he bellowed, not sure at what or whom he should direct the admonishment, knowing only that something nefarious was going on.

When the clock hit 10:18, the coup de grace of our synchronized rebellion was delivered. The class noisily stood up, paper-balls in hand. Again, Mr. Brooks whirled around, displaying a heightened level of concern. As a group, we walked forward towards him, turned, and discarded our paper balls in the trash can at the front of the room as Mr. Brooks backed into a corner.

Several months later, he confided that he thought we might be marching forward to pick him up and hoist him out the window, and wasn't sure if he should yell or run.

Evil, evil students we were.

--

As for current events:

Monday was shopping with Erica and Bradley. We hit up the mall, got the requisite pretzel and Dippin' Dots, and took the photo-booth picture I posted earlier.

The rest of the week has been work and school, work and school. Yesterday morning I worked with Kel-bel, who I don't see nearly enough these days. Since it was so cold, we made hot chocolate and listened to Christmas music. Nothing like a little Sinatra, Crosby, and Nat King Cole to start your day off.

That's all, folks.

BUSTED!

2006-10-12T17:31:00.000-04:00

Good times in the mall photo booth with Erica and Bradley. We are a fine looking bunch of criminals.

Video video bo bideo

2006-10-07T09:53:00.000-04:00

Google, according to rampant rumors, is in talks to buy popular video-sharing website YouTube.com for $1.6 billion. From an article in the Seattle Times:

"It's damn cheap for a company that already has a global presence," said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with the San Francisco-based Global Equities Research. "YouTube's brand identity is no less than Google's and is no less than Coke's."

What? YouTube has as strong a brand identity as Coke? Poppycock.

Trip Chowdhry, like his name, is ridiculous.

In other news, I went to visit Erica and Bradley last night in Cincinnati and it was oh so wonderful to see them again. We went and played in the park, and then teamed up with their pal Eric at Steak 'n Shake where we discussed the "walking taco" and everyone else saw Luigi from Nintendo but me.

Back at Erica's we began planning the production of a fantacular music video, and Jared arrived just in time. He's taken the tape home to edit it, so stay tuned for linkage when it's up on Google Video. It will be awesome.

I got home at 3am, and woke up at 6 for work at 7. Yeeeehaw.

Update: See lovely Erica's pictures from the day. The handful I took are below.

Miscellaneous garbage

2006-09-27T22:25:00.000-04:00

I've got some media to share with you and your immediate family.

An enjoyable comic strip
Former President Bill Clinton appeared on FOX News to speak about his environmental initiative, and was instead asked why he failed to catch Bin Laden. Result: an awesome interview. Watch the whole interview here. Jon Stewart's take on the media's reaction was also enjoyable:

I've also recently discovered an enjoyable read, the Dilbert Blog. Contrary to the title, it is written by and in the voice of Scott Adams, the Dilbert creator. It is not written from a Dilbert perspective. He comments on recent events, and does his best to be controversial. He rouses a great deal of dissension in the comments to his posts, and it is clear he enjoys it.
A somewhat creepy article topic in the Guardian: The last words of Texas death-row inmates as recorded and displayed by the state's justice department's website.
Check out the project We Feel Fine. It is visually stunning.
We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.
Extroverted like Me, by Seth Stevenson on Slate magazine. A shy guy takes social anxiety medicine as an experiment. It is interesting.

Nothing about me this time, really.

Stay classy.

Memories and Baseball

2006-08-11T07:26:00.000-04:00

I started looking through old pictures tonight, and felt like I really missed high school. What?! I couldn't wait to be done with high-school. I promised myself I would never, ever miss it; I was so ready to leave.

Now, college feels the same way. Get me out of here! In a few years, will I long for its return as well?

In high school everyone said "these are the best years of your life, enjoy them while you can," and I subsequently wanted to punch them in the head. The same tired lines are repeated in college.

I'm beginning to think that, as we age, the bad memories fade and the good ones intensify. In reality, a return to my high-school days would probably elicit screams of agony, but the pictures sure make it look nice.

I miss the good times. The friends who are regrettably no longer in my life, or at least not to the extent I prefer. I still love you people.

Cincinnati Reds Game

I went down to a Cincinnati Reds game yesterday with Warren and one of his friends. We met up with former work and journalism buddy Quan who now toils away at the Enquirer. It was the Reds vs. the Cardnials, and the win of the night before didn't carry over. The Reds got whooped. Oh well, it was a fun game anyways.

See the rest of the pictures from that day.

Something else you may enjoy:

After being struck by a deer, this cruiser had a rear door replaced. The lettering left behind declares, boldly, "Township LICE". I laughed.

Oh, how I love 'OK Go'

2006-08-02T04:16:00.000-04:00

Today I'm sharing a video with you. Because I love you. That's how we roll here on my website. Feel the love.

OK Go is one of my favorite bands. They initially captured my heart long ago with this video in which they dance to their song A Million Ways in someone's backyard. If you haven't watched it, follow the link.

Well, good news, friends. They added a new video to YouTube.com a couple days ago. This time, they dance to their song Here It Goes Again. On treadmills. Eight treadmills. It is great.

Lavar always told us at the end of Reading Rainbow: "But you don't have to take MY word for it."

Watch.

The band's website.

[Ed. Reading Rainbow flub-up fixed. Thanks, Patty.]

Wednesday Weekend

2006-08-01T05:20:00.000-04:00

It's my day off, yay!

First off: Bradley directed me the best link of the week. Howard Dean does the OC. Advisory: It includes music, and maybe it's because I'm up past 5am but I cried a little when I laughed. Thanks, B-man.

So, what else is new?

A kitty recently invaded.

Fun has been had.

Sinatra has been spun.

Steak and beans have been cooked.

and training fun with Laura progressed.

That's all for now.

One Time, at Sex Offender Camp...

2006-07-25T06:43:00.000-04:00

Strangely, this FOX News story actually does seem balanced...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Iowa's laws restricting where sex offenders can live are causing some of them to reside at campgrounds around the state.

Some sex offenders are listing campgrounds in county and state parks as their home addresses because they are out of money, are struggling to find and keep a job and are facing state laws and town ordinances that keep them from living in many places.

"It's not uncommon," Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said. "We've had them in all of the county parks and some of the state parks."

Information about sex offenders at campgrounds has been forwarded to the Iowa State Association of Counties for consideration as a legislative priority.

State law bars sex offenders with crimes against children from living within 2,000 feet of a school or certified day-care center. Certain cities have even gone farther, banning offenders from living within 2,000 feet of swimming pools, libraries, parks or trails.

Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston said a more specific sex-offender classification system would help them re-enter society.

She said that a clearer system would distinguish between "true pedophiles" and young men who made a mistake with a younger girlfriend.

"We have to be prudent and protect people's safety," she said. "But we also have to recognize that people have to live somewhere. You stress their lives so much that they're going to make more bad choices."

Langston said strangers rarely molest children they don't know. She says that 77 percent of sex offenses take place inside the home, so fear of the "crazy man down the street," or a few spaces down at the campground, is rarely justified.

I agree with this. There is a big difference between a child molester and "young men who made a mistake with a younger girlfriend" as the woman in the article says. But our sex offender residency restrictions are getting even tighter, and they treat all levels of crime the same. The lesser offenders served their time and now are unable to get on with their lives.

I know people who squeal about sex offenders moving in nearby. Do you think they're really going to go door to door raping people, or head straight to your house? Don't flatter yourself. (I kid.)

Point is, we need to evalaute the severity of the crime. End of rant.

Titanic Remix

2006-07-19T17:24:00.000-04:00

From ABC News, "Cruise Ship Mishap Injures Dozens"

PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. Jul 19, 2006 (AP) - In an instant, passengers aboard The Crown Princess cruise ship went from sunbathing to clutching whatever they could as the massive ship rolled heavily to its side, throwing everything not nailed down against the deck and walls.

"Another 20 degrees and I would have been in the water," said Alfred Caproni, of North Adams, Mass., who was on his balcony on the ninth deck. "All the water from the pools was coming right over the edge. It was like Niagara Falls. There were dozens of people with bleeding noses."

The Crown Princess was 11 1/2 miles southeast of Port Canaveral en route to New York late Tuesday afternoon when its crew reported problems with the steering equipment and the 113,000-ton ship listed hard to one side, Coast Guard Petty Officer James Judge said.

It slowly came back up, leaving a scene of terrified passengers scattered across its decks, halls and casino, then headed for the port.

This sounds more like a ride at Universal Studios to me.

My favorite part:

The Crown Princess had been christened by Martha Stewart last month before it embarked on its maiden voyage to the Caribbean from its home terminal in Brooklyn.

No wonder the ship was trying to sink itself.

Today's press release says the injured actually numbered in the hundreds. Scary.