Clark Griswold: Bend over and I'll show you.
--- Christmas Vacation
This is pretty much how things seem to work in my office at times.
I’m the guy banging his head with the phone.
(One of my favorite beer commercials… even though its for Budweiser (Budweiser sucks)).
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Australia's military was Friday making plans to examine the suspected remains of a World War II airman found dangling from a canopy of trees in a Papua New Guinea jungle last week
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Mexican archeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.
This movie was a recent arrival from my Blockbuster queue. Though is seems to have revieved a fairly high rating on IMDB (7.1 out of 10), I’ll admit to being confused by a what I perceive to be a fairly basic plot flaw. Maybe somebody can explain to me what I’m missing here.
Without giving away any major spoilers, here goes:
Apparently they can record but state they can’t rewind.
Um…. huh? How is that supposed to work? Crap like that manages to ruin a movie for me.
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US competition authorities have demanded extra details from Belgian-Brazilian brewer InBev regarding its planned takeover of US rival Anheuser-Busch
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The Atlantic League has sold a record 33 players to big-league clubs in 2008.
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Pabst Brewing Co., which owns the brand, said Friday it will be releasing Schlitz in draft form starting this week and next at 150 locations in Milwaukee, Chicago and Minneapolis.
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That beer with the old-time mystique is back on shelves in bottles of its original formula in the city where it was first brewed more than a century and a half ago.
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A 10% tax on alcohol sold at retail levels, was added Jan. 1 in Allegheny County to pay for mass-transit and became the back-breaking straw that ignited the grass-roots rebellion. Along with the flood tax, the state charges a 30% markup fee, a $1.30 bottle charge, and a 7% sales tax. It also adds a few cents to make sure all prices end with a nine.
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Be sure to check all 5 parts
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We cannot avoid the BSOD
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It turns out that the Rev. Rick Warren gave both Senators Barack Obama and John McCain an advance look at some of the questions he posed to them on Saturday night at the Saddleback Church forum in California, according to church officials.
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New Gallup Poll Shows Beer's Lead Over Wine, Spirits is Back to Double-Digits; Shift Most Evident Among Adults Ages 30-49, Back to Beer After Trying Wine
(note: I really need to make sure I hit ‘publish’ when I’m done with an entry. This was written 4 days ago).
Last Friday I received my medical release. We decided to celebrate by going on a hike in Rocks State Park on Saturday. Hiking has been a favorite family activity for a while but we’ve been unable to do for a couple of years now.
This was supposed to be a nice, relaxed hike. Something to get us slowly back into the activity. Unfortunately, one wrong turn blew that idea right out of the water. We planned on driving up to the Rock Ridge Picnic Area, having lunch, then doing the (easy) red trail to the King and Queen seat rock formation and keeping to the easier areas on the white and blue trails. That plan was nixed when we missed the turn on Route 24 that would have taken us to Rock Ridge and ended up in the parking area for the purple trail that was beneath the King and Queen seat formation. This is not a trail you want to start out on when you haven’t been actively hiking for a while. It’s very steep and very rocky. We considered heading back to the car a few times but the further we went, the cooler the rocks (and the view) became. Eventually we found ourselves at the top of the trail at the K&Q formation.
Heres where things turn bad. For me.
The cooler that has lunch in it is back in the van. The Van is at the bottom of the trail. Nobody wants to walk back down the trail to get to the van only to drive back up to the picnic area just a few hundred feet away from where we were standing. So the wife and kids get to go sit at a picnic table while I hump it back down the hill (cliff), collect the van and drive around and up the ‘mountain’ to the picnic area. So that pretty much sucked. It wasn’t all bad however… I did get to witness an idiot who decided flip flops where reasonable footwear for hiking on rocks nearly rip a toe off when her foot became wedged in a crevice and I saved myself $12.
I knew that this park charged for vehicle entry to the picnic areas. I also knew that the charge was $2 for MD cars and $3 for out of state cars. However.. I DIDN’T know that on summer weekends, that charge magically turned into a per person instead of a per car charge. That means an expected $3 would have been $15. Except now, since I left the family behind after we hiked up the trail, I was the only person in the car. The gate attendant told me it would be $2. I reminded him that I was an out of state vehicle and it should be $3. He thanked me for my honesty. I then told him that if he wanted honestly, I actually brought four other people with me, they had just hiked up the trail and were waiting for me. He paused for a bit then said “Well… you’re the only person I see in the car so that’s all that matters to me right now” and opened the gate. Works for me.
After lunch I allowed something very stupid to happen. We kept hiking. This time we took the white trail which headed down. Nowhere near as bad as the purple trail, but down nonetheless. Even though we kept saying ‘the farther we go down, the farther we have to walk back up’, we kept on going. Eventually we find ourselves wading in Deer Creek…. all the way back down at the bottom of the park. Guess who had the honor of walking all they back to the top of the park (in wet shoes) to get the van?
All bitching aside it was good to finally be able to get back on the trails again.
Vultures, originally uploaded by psychophil.
Spotted about halfway through our hike of Rocks State Park.
I didn’t think this photo would turn out at all. I was shooting towards the sun and figured it would just be washed out. The strange thing is that the camera was not set to B&W. I guess the sunlight in the background just overpowered the color info. I’m actually pretty pleased with the result.
Sucked.
Not the ceremonies themselves, but the fact that NBC interupted the damn thing with two minutes of commercials every seven minutes. The opening drum act was amazing but we couldn’t get into any other part of the show because every time you’d start to get drawn in, commercial. Way to go NBC.
I also wasn’t very impressed with Matt Lauer et. al. and their comments during the walk of nations. They were pretty childish at times with statements including, but not limited to, making fun of certain nation’s uniforms/costumes during the walk.
NBC also just pulled off the topper of the night by cutting away to the mega-millions drawing during the walk reducing the ceremony to a tiny PiP on the screen. Way to stay classy NBC.
The whole thing looked like it would be pretty spectacular in person (especially the last part of the torch relay). It’s a shame NBC butchered it.
A quick glance over at the archives list over there on the right this morning and I realized I have been running a blog on this domain for five years now (started with Geekpress then switch over to WordPress a couple years later).
I guess there’s other far more expensive hobbies I could have gotten into. Like Jeeps, homebrewing, console and computer gaming. Wait…. nevermind.
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major national retail chains like OfficeMax, Barnes & Noble, BJ’s Wholesale Club, the Sports Authority and T. J. Maxx
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Gallon for gallon, pure ethanol contains one-third less energy than gasoline, and the ethanol industry acknowledges that E10 reduces mileage by about 2 percent.
I was killing a bit of time today at work and found myself checking out Rob’s site when an entry caught my attention. To be precise, it was this one where he mentions a bike ride on the rail trail through New Freedom and stopping at the Railroad Cafe for lunch (Which means he very nearly went through my back yard). Granted, lots of people do this every day… its hardly worth mentioning. Except for the date (July 20th) was also the same day the family and I were returning from vacation and we decided to stop and get some lunch before picking up the dog at the kennel. I’m assuming you can guess where we were headed for lunch by now.
However, at the last moment, (meaning I had my hand on the door ready to walk into the cafe) I decided we should go across the street to The Hodle instead (we had just eaten at the cafe earlier in the week). Wondering when exactly Rob was there, I switched into stalker mode for a bit and checked the times listed on his flickr photos. Sure enough thats exactly when I was there with the family.
Its probably for the best that I changed locations at the last moment. Rob may (may) have been a bit freaked out by someone he doesn’t recognize suddenly calling out ‘Hey Vees!’ in a very small cafe with very few exits.
So instead of doing it in person I figure I’d just blog about it to the Internet. I mean there’s no way that could freak anyone out in the slightest way. Right?
(In all honesty, since we both work in Hunt Valley, this kind of thing probably happens more often than we know. Hell, for all I know Rob knows exactly what I look like and runs like hell whenever he sees me coming).
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You can put your bike on a rabbittransit bus. This looks like a great idea.
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York County's public transportation system
A year ago I talked about the rumor the Rabbit Transit might actually add a route connecting PA commuters to the Maryland Light Rail system. At first I was pretty happy to read this then had my hopes quickly dashed as I read that they planned on making it an express line (no stops) from York to Hunt Valley… totally bypassing all the ‘bedroom communities’ in between.
A year has passed and that rumor seems a bit more concrete now. In fact, they’re talking about a January 09 start date. There’s still no definite info on proposed stops but the following statement from the article looks promising:
The exact route of the buses has not yet been determined, Farr said, but it would start in downtown York and work its way south to Shrewsbury and head as far south as the light rail Timonium.
The mention of Shrewsbury is a good thing since that is right smack in the middle of a pretty major commuter area.
But, as usual, they mention something that pretty much ensures I won’t be using the bus line.
The cost has not been set, but Farr estimated between $14 and $16 round trip per day, or about $280 per month for five days per week. Discount rates would be available for a monthly pass.
$14 to $16 per day. That is far more than I currently spend on gas (and thats driving a Jeep no less). A monthly pass wouldn’t really be an option since there are days when, for various reason, I need my vehicle at work to do my job. I was hoping for a commuting option that I would be able to use 2-3 days a week. With those rates it looks like I’m still driving.
Edit: Here’s something I just noticed in the article that makes things a bit more confusing:
The van pools to Maryland will continue, with a third van being added soon, he said. The vans cost $115 per month per passenger.
Interesting. Van Pools to Maryland? A quick Google search turns up the fact that they now run a Van service from Shrewsbury to Fort Meade (south of Baltimore).
So how is it monthly bus service from York to Hunt Valley will cost $280 but van service from Shrewsbury to Fort Meade, a longer and more congested route, costs only $115 per month?
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Whether you love it, hate it, or have never thought about it, chances are some politician wants to ban it.
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This isn’t the first time pre-written, xeroxed or boilerplate DWI reports have come up. Not the first time someone’s been arrested at 0.0
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But, alas, they had no idea just who would come — youthful Wiffle ball players, yes, but also angry neighbors and their lawyer, the police, the town nuisance officer and tree warden and other officials in all shapes and sizes.
The new Delicious site it up.
related: Del.icio.us finally getting an upgrade?, Dilapidated Del.icio.us
I received a link to this youtube video via email from a friend:
Pretty cool video though I’m not sure I agree with the use of the music ‘The Imperial March’ as part of…
Wait…. WTF is that? Located at :38 on the video:
Some have suggested that this is nothing more than the Army testing their newest body armor. I think it’s pretty obvious that the Evil Robot Invasion(tm) has begun and I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
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