A bizarre and slightly frightening report out today tells of a new breed of ant that has infiltrated five of the counties around Houston, Texas by way of a cargo ship. The little buggers (no pun intended) are small (a little bigger than fleas), travel in erratic lines and are called “crazy rasberry” ants. The good news is they eat the dreaded Texas fire ant. The bad news is they are attracted to electrical equipment and have wreaked all kinds of havoc on phone and computer systems in the Houston area.
“They have ruined pumps at sewage pumping stations, fouled computers and at least one homeowner’s gas meter, and caused fire alarms to malfunction. They have been spotted at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and close to Hobby Airport, though they haven’t caused any major problems there yet.”
If I didn’t know better, it seems as though nature is throwing yet another monkey wrench into our civilization. So far this year we’ve seen the devastating natural disasters in Myanmar and central China, the thinnest arctic sea ice ever recorded and now computer eating ants. You’d almost think the marketing folks behind M. Night Shyamalan’s latest flick, The Happening, met Mother Nature in a dark alley and made a deal for free PR. Now where’s my bug spray?
While surfing tonight, I found a great site that highlights just how old John McCain really is. If elected, he would become the oldest first term President in our nation’s history. Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily, but being the leader of the free world is the most demanding, stressful job on the planet. Can a man who would take office at the age of 72 deal with the pressures, both mentally and physically, that the job would require?
This fall, the country is looking to elect someone who represents real change as we look to the future to solve important problems such as renewable energy independence, health care reform and global warming. Electing someone who is older than the state of Alaska itself is not a vote for the future, it’s a vote for the past. Here are some other things younger than John McCain (born Aug 29, 1936):
Just one year after last May’s stamp hike from .39 cents to .41 cents, rates are rising yet again. On Monday the price to mail a first-class letter be .42 and that roll of stamps you bought at the Post Office just last week will need .01 cent orphans in order to get mailed. Learning about this latest rate hike has really angered me, especially considering the current anemic state of the United States Economy. With the average cost of a gallon of gas approaching $4.00 a gallon, food prices that are skyrocketing and an ever weakening dollar, the last thing we need is to spend even more money to mail our bills and send our Father’s Day cards.
Of course, you could have purchased the Post Office’s “Forever Stamps” last week instead of the traditional .41 cent fare (I’ll never buy normal stamps again), but this still seems like a perfect occasion for “smart government” to step in and wave the rate increase for the good of average citizens. I realize that the increasing cost of fuel hits the Post Office just like average Joes, but I still think they could take one for the team. The only part of this equation that gives me any comfort is that I’ve made the shift to paying almost all my bills electronically in recent months. The only businesses that still get a paper check from me are local ones where paying online just isn’t an option. Eventually physical pieces of mail will become so expensive that it just won’t be practical anymore, but until then, I guess I’ll be visiting the Post Office on Monday to pick up a sheet of .01 cent stamps. Again. Ugh.
Last night saw some of the worst storms come through North Carolina in a long, long time. Around 8pm I first started paying attention to the weather and then around 11:15pm it got really, really bad. I live in Colfax, NC which is just north of the Piedmont Triad Farmer’s Market. We started listened to Britt Whitmire on 101.1 FM Talk after our cable TV went out shortly after 10:30pm and I have to say Britt did a great job of describing where the storm was heading and alerting people to the danger.
Shortly after 11pm the police scanner started really going crazy. The sky was almost constantly lit up from hundreds of lightening flashes, and the rain started coming in buckets. We did not see high winds where I lived, but on the scanner many vehicles all around us were being reported overturned. Lots of damage on Sandy Ridge road, officers going on foot door to door to make sure residents were okay. The section of Sandy Ridge they were talking about on the scanner was only 2 miles from us, so I knew the bad stuff was close. It wasn’t until this morning on the news we found out just how close.
The map you can click on here outlines the intersections that are closed off this morning due to multiple power lines down, trees and buildings and business that have been damaged. The authorities have set up a command post at the Farmer’s Market just to the south, but you can see from here just how close we were to where the tornado touched down. Even worse, my friend and co-worker Corey Marion lives between me and the red zone, so he was even closer to the damage.
I thank God that neither we, Corey or Talos (who also lives in my neighborhood) were in the path of this tornado. Planes (Fed Ex cargo planes, not Sesnas) at the airport were blown off the runway, 18 wheelers were overturned and some people even lost their homes. This is one storm I think the Triad will remember for a long, long time. Scary!
While watching the primary coverage last night, I was curious about the seemingly large number of delegates that were at stake here in North Carolina. As the Daily Kos reports, it turns out North Carolina received bonus pledged delegates from the DNC as a reward for playing it cool and going late in the primary process:
“To keep states spread out and not all clustered in February, the DNC offered bonus pledged delegates to those states that went late in cycle. Thus, instead of only getting 66 pledged delegates to the Democratic convention in Denver, Indiana gets to send 72. And North Carolina went from 89 delegates to 115. Those extra delegates put Indiana ahead of Tennessee and Maryland and gave it as much voting strength as Minnesota and Missouri. And North Carolina bypassed Massachusetts and New Jersey.”
So thanks to North Carolina’s willingness to wait our turn, not only did we most likely cast the deciding ballots in the race between Clinton and Obama, but our fine state will have more political leverage at the convention. Well done North Carolina, I always knew you were a class act!
14 percentage points and over 220,000 votes later, Barack Obama has won North Carolina. I’ve never been prouder to be in this great state than I am today. Today my fellow North Carolinians stood up and voted for integrity, change and hope, and for that, I thank them. I believe Barack when he says that when he’s the Democratic nominee in the fall, he will compete in the “swing” state of North Carolina. Would the same be true if Hillary was the nominee? Doubtful.
I look forward to the possibilities of a blue NC, but for now I’ll take our moment in the sun when we all decided to speak up, make a difference and vote against entitlement and politics as usual. Thank you North Carolina. Thank you.
One of the things I love most about Twitter is the way interaction between friends and followers can take on a life of its own. Today I casually threw out a question on Twitter that turned into a genuine laugh riot. Taking a cue from one of my all-time favorite shows, Who’s Line Is It Anyway?, the question I posed was this:
Name a quote from a Star Wars movie that could apply to your significant other.
Without missing a beat, I received back dozens of responses, some of the best of which I’ve reposted here for your amusement. Thanks to everyone who took time out to play today, it was a blast!
panache: “Either I’m going to kill her or I’m beginning to like her!”
MauriceReeves: “I don’t know who you are or where you’ve come from, but from now on you’ll do as I say, okay?”
gedeon: “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts kid.”
Moltz: “IT’S A TRAP!!!”
firecracker: “Why you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking, nerf herder!”
dmoren: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”
krystynheide: “I cannot teach him. The boy has no patience.”
and my personal favorites:
ag_michael: “You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide.”
luomat: “No no no, this one goes THERE, THAT one goes there!”
bettnet: “Size matters not. Look at me, judge me by size, do you?”
splorp: “Get in there, you big furry oaf! I don’t care what you smell!”
No one would have expected when the presidential primary season started that little ol’ North Carolina would play such an important part in the selection process. Our state’s late primary has always been something of an “also ran” to the rest of the nation, but not this time. Now we’re center stage and I think I speak for North Carolinians when I say “Let’s do this thing!”
Like many of my fellow NC’ers I’m ready to get in there and vote in the Democratic primary and help elect Barack Obama as our party’s choice for President of the United States. I was speaking to my friends Anthony and Corey this past week at lunch and they both agreed with me that no matter what the outcome, they want to get the primary completed and get onto the general election. Hillary has made several calls to each of them and I could hear the impatience in their voice as we talked over lunch. As the large number of NC early voters reveals, they are not alone.
If the latest Zogby polls are to be believed, then Obama still holds at least a 9 point lead over Clinton as we start the week. Things are tighter in Indiana, but something tells me that Barack just may pull it out and finally, thankfully, put the nail in the coffin that is the Clinton campaign. But knowing Hillary and her “entitled” attitude, it would take nothing short of a miracle to get her to drop out of the race early. Something tells me if Indiana and North Carolina go the way I think they will, she’ll see a number of super delegates abandon her en masse.
I feel like North Carolina is that underused rookie sitting on the bench who turns to his manager and says with fantastic enthusiasm “Send me in coach!”. Our time at bat is almost here and for our sake, and the sake of our children, I hope we step up and hit a homer.
If you’re wondering where I’ve been all this week, I can answer that question in just three words: Mario Kart Wii. I’m told that another big video game was released this week and that everyone and their dog is playing it, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is. For me there are only mini turbo-boosts, banana peels and mushroom cups. My ghosts are setting records, I’m unlocking karts and not getting the sleep I need.
If all of this makes absolutely no sense to you, then count yourself lucky you’re not caught in the vice-like, addictive grip that is Nintendo’s latest creation. But for the rest of you, you know exactly what I’m talking about and you’re in luck. I’m going to share just a few of the pearls of wisdom I’ve gleaned from my brief, but remarkable stint on the Mario Kart racing circuit:
Don’t use the wheel - You can get much greater steering control, as well as deploy and control weapons better using the Wiimote and nunchuck controller combo.
Start regional - Nothing is as demoralizing as starting a world-wide race and seeing 5 players pop up whose names are Japanese and who have virtual rankings somewhere in the 8000 level. Race the home front to start.
Bananas are good for you! - Drag them behind you to block incoming shells and keep players from bumping you from behind.
Tricks, tricks, tricks - Flick the wheel or Wiimote whenever you go over a jump and you’ll do a trick and gain a mini-boost when you land. It really helps to keep you ahead of the pack.
And if you want to put these tips to the test in a little old 1 on 1, then my Mario Kart friend code is: 0216-1192-5921, I hope to see you on the Jungle Parkway soon. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have just enough time to get in a 50cc race before I head off to work. Bye!
We’ve taken our first steps into a larger world with episode IV of Sci-Fi Cast. Our weekly podcast discussing season 4 of Battlestar Galactica and all things geek, has made the jump (sorry, had to do it) to Apple’s iTunes. You can now subscribe to the show by visiting the podcast section of iTunes.
This week’s episode is sadly missing Krystyn, but we have high hopes she’ll join us for episode V next week. In the meantime, Jen, Dave and I theorize about the internal temperature of Colonial garbage scows, what makes for the perfect BSG episode (according to Jen, it’s all about the act-ion!) and how bad it would suck to have Admiral Adama disappointed in you.
The usual spoiler warning applies, so don’t listen if you’ve not watched “Escape Velocity” yet. It’s kinda like opening your eyes at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. If you do, and you’ve not watched BSG episode 4 yet, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. Well, maybe not that long.
Download or listen to Sci-Fi Cast Episode 4 (21 min) here.
PS - On a personal note, I promise never to download a show from my TiVO while using Skype ever again, which is what I was doing during this episode. If you ever want to sound like you’re speaking through a piece of digital cheesecloth, then this technique works great, otherwise ABORT! ABORT!
