Tanker Truck Closes Route 24 - Yahoo! News

Somone was in a hurry. How does this stuff get on the wire?


Tanker Truck Closes Route 24 - Yahoo! News

Best Ice Cream Ever

This is a vacation post... yes, I'm blogging on vacation. We had the most amazing ice cream today and that is not hyperbole. A co-worker of mine is always looking for a franchise opportunity and I think I found it.

It is Mount Desert Island Ice Cream (slogan: Fearless Flavor); no website. They have the most spectacular ice cream you will ever taste. How good? Let's put it this way, I probably eat a pint of ice cream a year (don't like the stuff). I ate half a pint today and plan on going back. Technically, I had sorbet, but I sampled half their flavors before I settled on Blueberry-Basil Sorbet. J-- had Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream (which I gratuitously sampled). Mexican Chocolate was a concoction worthy of Montezuma himself; a Mexican chocolate caramelized with brown sugar, curry, and cinnamon, all blended smooth as ice cream can come. We went back to thank them for the samples and, truthfully, tell them it was the best ice cream we've ever had.

We're going back tomorrow. I hope anyone who Googles Bar Harbor, Maine sees this post and checks out Mount Desert Island Ice Cream.

Two Words

Lobster. Omlette.

I love vacation.

Off to Maine!

I've never felt so guilty leaving my pets. Posting will be lighter than normal (which means it will be non-existant) as I'm on vacation. Ta.

Lists - Part 2

"No, I think there're only about six lists."

*head to table*

Lists

Overhead at home:

"... then there's the Mejer's list at work which may or may not contain things on the first Meijer's list..."

AAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Word of the day: Drudgery

Man, what a boring ass day. After a morning of repetitive edits, I got a string of repetitive meetings. Then, when the afternoon finally arrives, I get another, monumental, repetitive task. All in a days work (well, two actually, since I'll be finishing the mind-numbing edits in the morning) for this little slave to higher education.

I'd log on to WoW, but I'm afraid I'll just wind up farming $MINERAL. Less than 3 days until I climb into the Jeep, J-- at my side, and head for the East coast. Oh, did I mention that the main road into the area we're staying passes over a river that's currently 8 ft (that's 2.4 meters) over flood stage?

Ok, upbeat frame of mind (note, I will try to avoid using "positive" as anything other than a math operator from here on out): my current ToDo list consists of:

• Reassemble cousin's computer


• Pray parts aren't FUBAR'd again


• Complete a butt-load of mind-numbing work for work


• Prep the Jeep


• Load the Jeep


• Pack


• Unpack


• Repack


• Tire of packing


• Complain about money


• Curse iPod (can't find accessories for a damn 3G iPod. WTF?!?)


• Burn CDs


• Avoid capital expenditures above $40 until shellfish is on the menu


• Complete any tasks assigned to me on J--'s list(s)


• Stop using parenthetical pluralisation on words


• Come to grips with realization that cabin (to be home for over a week) has no Internet access


• Google WiFi hotspots at destination and strategic locations on the way


• Suppress Canadian jokes (love you guys!) as we'll be traveling through it


• Find passport


• Enjoy vacation

All in all, not a bad list. Of course, I haven't seen J--'s list.

This post brought to you by Ménage à Trois Red; I'm aware it may be the new White Zin.

Free calls to all landlines and mobile phones within the US and Canada with Skype

Skype has announced that, until the end of this year, all calls to US and Canadian landlines and mobiles will be free. No credits to buy, no sign-up fee, no strings. It's an old marketing move, but it's got 4752 diggs and climbing.
Link to Official Skype Blog

New Gear - Camera

My weathered camera, an HP c610, finally started to have ghosts. It would randomly shut off on fully-charged batteries, constantly forget the date (which means that I'd have to set it up every time I started the camera), and generally was taking more and more time to get "quick" snaps. With vacation rapidly approaching, J-- and I talked about getting a new camera.

Keep in mind that the last time I was shopping for digital cameras, I was on the bleeding edge; 2 Megapixels, built-in flash, auto focus with a bright LCD display ran around $500-600. Big cash for me back then.

But now, with the purchase of our new camera (which we independently chose), less than $200 gets us a pretty nice camera. We bought the Sony DSC-600, a 6 Megapixel unit that is half the size and weight of my old camera, takes clear photos and videos (which my old camera didn't), and draws less power (two batteries have last through well over 6 hours of on-and-off use). All in all, pretty happy. With a 1 Gig expansion card, we can take over 300 photos in one go or almost 45 minutes of video.

Vacation will be the true test. I'm geeked just to have a new toy. (Stop rolling your eyes J--).

Stupid Evil Bastard: Blizzard unveils new male Bloodelf dance at E3.

The dance for the new race in World of Warcraft has made it onto the web. Thanks to Les (again) at SEB for the video and for feeding me more (relevant) news than almost anyone.

Link

Up and running

This site now runs on WordPress. Goodbye Movable Type, you freakin' slow-ass software.

New Pearl Jam - Best in Years

Pearl Jam has a new self-titled album out. Get it, listen to it. Do it now. If you liked one track off of Ten, go get this album. It is not the Vedder-centric crap of Vitology or *shudder* No Code. I gave up on Pearl Jam years ago; this album brought me back. It's also not whiny emo crap, just straight-up rock and roll with a touch of that old Pearl Jam vibe.

Get it on iTunes or Amazon.

Doogtoons Asks a Ninja

If you've never seen Ask a Ninja or Doogtoons, you can get the best of both in this YouTube video. Ask a Ninja is one of the funniest bits on the 'net; you should check it out.

Ask a Ninja
Doogtoons

Woo hoo! Holland FTW!

Via Darren Barefoot (one of the better blogs on the Web, IMO), comes news of Goldman Sachs handicapping the World Cup. Holland is an 8.0% chance to win (fifth in the Goldman Sachs rankings). They do so need to win. Voetball! Go KNVB!

40% of American adults play video games

Under what is quite possibly the stupidest headline ever written by Wired ("Who Shall We Kill Tonight") is the story about the AP-AOL Games poll that showed 40% of adult Americans play video games. Now, aside from the obviously vested interest in inflating that number, why is this such a surprise? The article's example is a 29-year-old graphic artist, someone who would spend a considerable amount of time on a computer and would be drawn to that platform for entertainment. And, at 29-years-old, squarely in my generation, this gamer is someone who, like me, probably grew up during the high-points of gaming to date: Commodore, Atari, SNES, Doom and the advent of online gaming. We're a generation weaned on video games and the generation that brought those games and platforms into the homes of our families.

The really interesting point in this article, which I'm not certain was correlated in the poll, was the amount of TV that this group watches. I know I share the feelings of the illustrative quotee in the Wired story when she says: "I watch less and less TV. I turn it on and the shows are just idiotic[.]" Every $REALITY_SHOW_N that pops up is one more nail in the coffin of my advertiser-funded television viewing. Even the news is idiotic, with placed ads, no objectivity, and the integrity of a ruble.

Link to Wired story

Remember this story in the next week

Barry Bonds is one homerun away from tying Babe Ruth for all career homers. It couldn't have happened to a bigger asshole. Bonds is the epitome of everything wrong with baseball: inflated salary, no respect for team or teammates, alleged drug use, and a dick to fans.

Case in point, HR 713. It's the perfect story for a ball player. Air Force serviceman buys $20 ticket ($20?!?!?) and catches HR 713. Air Force serviceman gets into news conference and asks Bonds if he would sign the historic ball. Bonds says nothing (to his credit, last year he would have said "no"). He does take a photo with the guy, but only if the serviceman will sign a (what? a what?).. That's right, a waiver for Bonds' reality TV show. Hmm, wonder what motivated Bonds to do the photo op?

He's going to get the record (with no star by it either) and there's nothing that can stop him. It's too bad, baseball used to have some class.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Cripple Fight

Man With Prosthetic Legs, Deaf Man Brawl

OMG, Teh Funneh!

I know it's a complete cliche to link to The Onion, but damn is week's issue funny.

NASA Announces Plan To Launch $700 Million Into Space

Can we get the writers from The Onion to hook up with Stephen Colbert and produce some sort of Ubersarcastic Media/Current Affairs Boffin with which to lay waste to all legacy media systems? Please?

Of course, there's always the classics.

Clinton Deploys Very Special Forces to Iraq

Question to My Chelsea/Ann Arbor Readers

Anyone know of a salvage company in the area? I'm looking for old, solid, wooden doors and some angled steel with mounts (to be used as legs for a table). Email or post in the comments.

Thanks!

Dear US Press Corps

The reason everyone in the blogosphere loves Stephen Colbert's presentation at the White House Correspondent's Dinner is because we're laughing, with him, at you. A comedian just took you to task for not doing your job. Might be something in that you should look into.

See it on YouTube

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Salon has a full-length but poorer quality video
up as well.

And, of course, a torrent of a high-quality video.

Seriously, if you don't understand why this speech is so important, I'll bet you have a "W '04" sticker on your vehicle.

UPDATE: YouTube has removed the video's at the request of C-SPAN.

UPDATE the second: It's now up on Google Video, this time with C-SPAN's permission.