The world is running out of copper. Fifty years from now the richest men on Earth will be the ones who stocked up on plenty of those 100-feet of CAT 5 cable at Best Buy.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Churches now targets for Kelo seizure
Never thought the day would come in America when the government would start closing down churches, did you?
This past summer the Supreme Court handed down their Kelo decision, in my mind the worst thing the court has done since Roe v. Wade more than thirty years ago. According to the ruling, government can now use the power of eminent domain to condemn private property and give the land to another private party if it's determined that doing so would be financially advantageous (i.e. more tax money coming into the city or state). In other words if you've been living in the same house for the past forty years, with everything on it paid up, and if the town decides that it could make a lot more money by kicking you off your land and putting a Wal-Mart there instead, it can legally do that now.
Some people's houses have already been condemned under Kelo, and now it looks as though not even the house of God is safe. National Review Online is reporting about a church in Oklahoma that is being told it has to vacate its property, so that the site can be cleared for a Home Depot and other retail development.
I wrote about this a month ago, after hearing some Christian legal quisling on the radio say that Christians should do whatever government tells them to do so that government officials won't "get mad" and take their churches away. And after thinking a lot about it, I've come to the conclusion that there's nothing morally wrong at all for Christians in this country to start defying our government openly and brazenly on some things, especially when it comes to our rights... which God has established, not the state. Our elected officials have by and large failed us miserably, and it's once again falling to the common man (and woman) to draw the line and say "to this point and no further". Better we do that sooner than later, if for no other reason than because forestalling initiative now will mean a far harder task at setting things right down the road.
If we don't do that, well... Welkome to Amerika, komrade.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Getting hopelessly Lost
When it comes to television, I'm only slightly more liberal than the Amish. Am that way with most things actually for that matter. I don't desire to spend any time on something unless I'm totally convinced that doing so is not only not a waste of my time, but is enlightening and edifying somehow. I don't want to be merely "entertained"... I want to have to think about it too.
If I'm writing a lot about Lost lately, it's only 'cuz I'm just now finally getting hooked on this show, after a year of this somehow being under my radar. And I can't believe that I've been missing something so good. THIS is a show for the thinking person. It's the rare find that entertains without catering to the least common denominator by insulting the viewer's intelligence. And shows like that have been darned too few and far between.
For the past few days Lisa and I have been watching all the episodes in the Season 1 DVD set that we got for Christmas. Tonight was time for number six, "House of the Rising Sun", focusing on the Korean couple Sun and Jin. It's a good story. But the one that's been on my mind the most since we watched it Sunday has been "Walkabout", the first (of many I hope) episodes centering on Locke... who's emerging as my very favorite character on the show. I've been a fan of Terry O'Quinn for a pretty long time now, ever since he played Peter Watts on Millennium, and it's so delightful to see him given such a deep role that's showcasing all his talents. Every scene he's been in has been nothing short of captivating. If Jack is coming out as the leader of the group, Locke is definitely becoming its spiritual center, or at least the cipher between the survivors and the island.
So this is what we watched tonight, after a very few minutes of American Idol that made it pretty clear it was gonna be little more than plain ol' nastiness all around. Maybe some funny stuff happened, I don't know... but I'm glad we got to watch something instead that will stick with us for a lot longer. I just can't wait to get to Hurley's episode (which is supposed to be in this set somewhere) and to find out more about the mysterious John Locke.
Happy 300th Birthday to Benjamin Franklin
The definitive Renaissance man, scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin was born 300 years ago today in Boston. Pretty cool, eh?
American Idol begins tonight: Who'll be picked to win this year?
Next Tuesday night is when American Idol runs the show about the auditions that took place here in Greensboro this past fall. I'll admit to being morbidly curious as to how many bad singers came out of this town (the auditions here replaced those that were going to take place in Houston had that town not been swamped with Hurricane Katrina refugees). But otherwise I'm not watching, because there's so little doubt in my mind that it's a rigged game. Last year Carrie Underwood was picked to win from the getgo by the Idol execs. I knew she was from the very first time she appeared on the show: how many other contestants at that stage of the game did Fox go all-out to produce a background video for? No other contestants received that kind of attention as Underwood did. It's also pretty safe to say that she got the lion's share of the magazine and tv news coverage... a LOT more than the other eleven finalists. Can she sing? I'll say she can, and very well too... but EVERYTHING was tilted in her favor by those running the show, and that puts too much of a taint on any success she's had since winning the competition last spring. I didn't watch the first season but seasons 2 and 3 seemed more or less "let the chips fall where they may". Last year's was a fixed game though: too much so for me to have any interest in who'll come out of this year's edition. I mean, what's the fun in watching a "fair" contest when the people running it have already decided who is going to win?
American freedom: 1776 vs 2006
Something that occurred to me a few days ago...1776:
"Give me liberty or give me death!"
-- Patrick Henry
"Give me liberty or give me death!"
-- Patrick Henry
2006:
"Give up your liberty or you're going to die!"
-- too many Bush supporters
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." -- Benjamin Franklin
Monday, January 16, 2006
Could America ever produce another Martin Luther King Jr.?
Lisa and I spent most of the week after we got married honeymooning in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. We'd planned to stay at our rented cabin until Tuesday but we were having so much fun in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area that we spent an extra day there. That still left us with half a week of honeymoon to use up somehow. It was sometime Wednesday that the idea struck to do something really spontaneous, that we hadn't intended to do at all when we started this ride: after we'd check out Thursday, we'd get onto I-40 and head west. We'd go all the way to Memphis and make a "religious pilgrimage" at Graceland.
Well, that's what we did, and it took about eight hours of driving across the length of the state to get there. We saw Graceland and got totally Elvis-ed out. Later on Friday night Lisa and I were on this trolley car that goes through a lot of the downtown area: it wasn't a "guided tour" thing at all, just something to ride for fun. We crossed Beale Street, saw the Memphis nightlife in full swing. And then off to our right I saw a building that looked very familiar somehow. And it took all of three seconds to realize what it was that I was looking at...
It was the Lorraine Motel.
It's the place where on April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed as he exited a room onto the second floor balcony.
We had a good rest of the evening in Memphis, and the next morning drove back to Georgia through Mississippi and Alabama, stopping in Tupelo to visit Elvis Presley's birthplace (how did the King wind up in so much of our first week of married life?). In every way we had a terrific honeymoon. But seeing the Lorraine really had an impact on me after that. It's not everyday you see a place that tragic from American history.
So today is Martin Luther King Day here in the states. Which I've never liked the idea of at all, because if you've ever studied his speeches you'll know that this isn't how Martin Luther King Jr. would have wanted to be remembered. He wanted to be recalled as a man of humility, and I'm afraid that what's happened instead is that in the past few decades he's been transformed into an icon of power. Man of God that he was, he would not have desired to be turned into an object of veritable worship. King definitely would not have wanted his memory to be used for political gain either. The man was by no means perfect - yes, I'm aware of the apparent plagiarism that he committed - and I don't think he tried to project that he was in life. So why should we be disingenuous to his memory by making of him what he never was, and what none of us can even be?
Like David - another great leader with many flaws - King relied upon and was sustained by his faith in God. And God rewarded that faith by transforming Martin Luther King Jr. into one of the greatest orators in American history. When I think of great speakers of the past half-century in this country, only three names readily come to mind: John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and King. Each of them has his style of why he is that memorable, but of the three King's was by far the one that most burned itself into the American conscience. Maybe it was because not since Jonathan Edwards had a preacher man been so eloquently powerful.
So this morning I caught myself thinking of something that's pretty darned sobering: could Martin Luther King Jr. have been so successful at conveying his message if he were doing so today, instead of the 1960s?
More to the point: is it even possible at all for another Martin Luther King Jr. to rise to the occassion in today'a America?
Do we still have it within us to produce a King? Or a Frederick Douglas, or a Gandhi, or a Lech Walesa, or any other person who has possessed both the vision and the desire to seek nothing more than the liberty of his fellow man?
All of these men and more possessed one striking characteristic, no matter the background of where they came from: they sought no glory for themselves, and everything for others. They didn't want to be great leaders. They probably would have tried anything but involving themselves in petty politics, and they still wound up not only becoming involved, but turning their worlds topsy-turvy in revolution... and peacefully at that.
Might someone of their caliber still be found in this country today? Or could someone of their stature even be allowed to rise to the fore?
Let me tell you a terrible secret, dear reader. There is a minority in this country - I would even dare say throughout this entire world - that is despised above all others. Throughout history it has been the most loathed and scorned faction of all. Every other group that comes to mind has had its champions, but in contrast to those, the heroes of that which I speak of have been sorely few and far between. On the lists of persecuted minority groups, this one is almost certain to be absent, and not even considered at that.
The minority I speak of is that of the individual.
And that is what this country's next "civil rights movement" must be about. There is every right given to the sundry factions of this land... but very few given to those who wish to be apart from the collective mindset. And what rights they do enjoy are threatened with each passing day: obviously by the bureaucrats. But those merely effect the will of they who hate the individual, because the individual possesses something that those in the faction do not: the simple strength of will to listen to a different drummer and step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
If there is ever to be another leader that America produces who will be anything of the stature of Martin Luther King Jr., that leader is going to be one who speaks not of the rights of the many, but champions the rights of the one.
He (or she) will be someone who looks past the meaningless politics of today's America. That person will not be bound by the cruel illusion that is the "conservative versus liberal" mentality. This person will certainly be no subscriber to either the Democrat or Republican parties. If a Christian, this leader will eschew the corruptness and lust for temporal power that plagues too much of the modern church: the champion of the individual will seek to free the Bible from the flag, not bind it up even more. In every way, this person will fly in the face of everything that we accept as being the status quo... and that person is going to be endangered far moreso than Martin Luther King Jr. ever was.
Because such a person will stand not against one faction, but all of them at once. And whatever supposed "differences" that those groups clammoring for power may have with each other, they will not hesitate to make a concerted effort toward vanquishing the one who threatens the world they have established even as they have been at each other's throat. However much they speak of "tolerance", the voice of that one will be that which must be silenced at all costs. Because if one person dares to speak against The Way Things Are, then he or she would assuredly show others that they too could defy the masters of this world.
In the least, this person will be ignored by The Powers That Be and their lackies in the mainstream press. At most, such a person could very well be marked for assassination. But even that could not stop so determined an individual: far worse than the death of the body is the death of one's principles. "They" are led by a tiny group of madmen who would not hesitate to rob others of their earthly existence. But there is one part of each of us that can never be chained, and can always be denied them so long as we choose to deny them that victory: our own minds. And the person who teaches his fellow man that it is time for each of us to assert the mind given us will be a person marked for destruction indeed... because he or she, like King and Gandhi, threaten the very foundation of society.
Is there such a person to be found in America today? I like to believe there is. That's why I'm writing this right now. I don't know who may read this. Maybe that person is out there somewhere, and he or she will find this essay and ponder what I'm trying to convey here. That is how I have my victory over the things of this world, in my own small way. That is how Martin Luther King Jr. had his victory - by choosing a way other than those of which he was expected to take - and for his effort he was rewarded with greatness. If what I write can reach just one person who could be inspired by it to become the next Martin Luther King Jr., then I will be eternally thankful to God that He led me to write all of this out.
Somewhere out there is the next great orator of American history. And he or she is going to start a chain reaction that throws off the shackles from the minds of the American people. And for the first time ever, we are going to be a people truly of Dr. King's vision: considerate of each other, and not what group we boast of belonging to.
Whoever you are, you're out there somewhere. I pray you will be used by God in a mighty way, and sooner rather than later.
Proof at last that we were at Star Wars Celebration III
One Wednesday evening last April, Lisa and I packed up our little Corolla for the longest road trip we'd ever attempted, and drove off into the dusk. Destination: all four days of Star Wars Celebration III in Indianapolis. The route we'd plotted would take twelve hours driving time into southwestern Virginia, then up into West Virginia and across what came to be the monotony of Ohio before reaching Indiana... practically all backroads. This was gonna be whole new uncharted territory to us.
It was around midnight when we were headed toward the West Virginia/Ohio state line on US 35, and we saw a sign that said the town of Point Pleasant was 7 miles ahead. And that got my mind reeling: "Point Pleasant, Point Pleasant, Point Pleasant... where have I heard that name before?" Not the Point Pleasant in New Jersey where I have family, but I was sure I'd heard of "Point Pleasant, West Virginia" somewhere...
And then it hit me, and I remembered how it was that I knew of Point Pleasant. And I immediately wondered if we would be going over that bridge. Sure enough a little while later we crossed it. And I told Lisa that on the way back I wanted to take a picture of the bridge.
So a few days ago TNT was showing The Mothman Prophecies, a movie with a lot of problems but more or less is based on something that supposedly really happened: the Mothman sightings that occured in the late 1960s. The whole story took place around Point Pleasant. And the bridge we took over the Ohio River was the Silver Memorial Bridge: the one built to replace the original bridge that collapsed in 1967, claiming the lives of 46 people. The bridge you see in the movie is the Silver Bridge that's there now.
Well, seeing that the movie was on reminded me that after all these months, I've still not posted any pictures from Star Wars Celebration III on this blog. The thing of it is there were so many pictures that it would have made a single post too unwieldy. That and the fact that I was just wiped out from too much Star Wars to have put them up immediately after we got back, and then other things took bigger priority. Maybe sometime soon I'll find somewhere to store them all online and then just make a link to that from this blog, but I can provide some photographic evidence that we did, indeed, make the pilgrimage.
This was taken the first day of Celebration III: that's Deborah, a very dear friend from Texas (and super-talented costume-maker and jewelry designer) and me (note the Forcery t-shirt I'm wearing). Deborah is in her Mara Jade costume. I'm holding the lightsaber that I built for her three years ago for the costume she wore at Celebration II: it's a replica of Luke Skywalker's original saber...
This next one was taken Sunday morning, the last day of Celebration III: Lisa and me in the Artoo Builders Club room, along with Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio. Notice that we (and Deborah in the above pic) are wearing the four-day passes - the ones with Darth Vader printed on them - around our necks. I've also got my lightsaber - the one I built for that crazy marriage proposal stunt in 2001 - clipped to my belt...
Several hours later, on the journey back home, we pulled the car to the side of the road on the Ohio side of the state line. Looming ahead of us through the fog and light rain was the Silver Memorial Bridge. We both got out of the car and Lisa took this photo of me with the bridge in the background...
And there's probably a hundred more pics that we took, and someday I am gonna find the time to get those hosted probably. But if not, at least there's now proof that we came, we saw... and then we came back :-)
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Real-Life Project SCOOP space probe brings Lord-knows-what to Utah desert
Here's the story from the AP:
Capsule Carrying Comet Dust Lands in UtahI hope that's ALL that's inside that capsule: don't wanna see this happen, do we?Jan 15, 8:40 AM (ET)
By ALICIA CHANGDUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah (AP) - A space capsule ferrying the first comet dust samples to Earth parachuted onto a remote stretch of desert before dawn Sunday, drawing cheers from elated scientists.
The touchdown capped a seven-year journey by NASA's Stardust spacecraft, which zipped past a comet in 2004 to capture minute dust particles and store them in the capsule.
"It's an absolutely fantastic end to the mission," said Carlton Allen, a scientist with NASA's Johnson Space Center.
A helicopter recovery team located the capsule Sunday and was transferring it to a clean room at the nearby Michael Army Air Field. The capsule will be flown Tuesday to the Johnson Space Center in Houston where scientists will unlock the canister containing the cosmic particles.
Researchers believe about a million samples of comet and interstellar dust - most tinier than the width of a human hair - are locked inside the capsule...
What we REALLY watched last night
We got the "Trash" made and munched on that, but instead of the pilot episode for Lost we watched the latest movie to come through Netflix: Christmas With The Kranks, with Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. And a whole lotta other notable faces: Dan Akroyd, M. Emmet Walsh, Tom Poston (I'd wondered how he's been doing and it was great seeing him again, he plays the priest), Cheech Marin, Jake Busey (who's looking more like his dad with each new film he's in), bunch more. This may surprise a lot of people but this movie is based on the novel Skipping Christmas written by John Grisham (yes the king of the lawyer stories). Allen and Curtis play a couple who won't be celebrating Christmas this year with their daughter because she's out of the country with the Peace Corps, so the Mr. Krank gets the idea (and signs his reluctant wife on eventually) of not having Christmas at all and instead spending the money on a cruise that leaves Christmas day. Which you'd think would be easy enough, and then their neighbors and co-workers start giving them all kinds of hell about it. It's a darned funny movie and a clean one too, with a pretty upbeat message at the end. Well worth watching even if we have just left the holiday season.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
We call it "Trash"... what do YOU call it?
Today has been the windiest day in recent memory that I can remember. Enough so that for the most part we stayed in, out of the wind chill. Had plenty to do though: the website I've been building is finished and went online a few hours ago, and my client seemed pretty impressed by the finished product when he came by this afternoon. In the meantime there was taking down the final bit of Christmas (the tree is bare, I pack it up tomorrow) and playing videogames. We thought of going out tonight (I'm itching to get to Toys R Us and use this gift card that Lisa got me, hoping they'll have the new LEGO Star Wars Slave I set) but instead opted to stay inside and watch the pilot episode of Lost from my new DVD set, which I actually watched a few nights ago but Lisa thought it looked interesting so she wants to check it out from the beginning too.
But right now Lisa is engaged in, I guess you could say she is beginning a ritual that she'll probably be doing the rest of her life. I first did it two years ago and now it's her turn to pick up the tradition. She's in the kitchen right now making a batch of Trash. She did her first one a few days ago and for a first-timer she did pretty good.
What's "Trash"? I don't know if that's the regional name for it, but that's what my Mom and her family and most other people I've known around here call it. It's called that because "there's all kinds of junk in it". I've heard that different parts of the country have other names for it but I've no idea what those names are: if you call it something else, send me a note about it.
So what's this "Trash" stuff? That's our name for Chex Party Mix. You know, that scrumptious melange of Chex cereal, nuts, pretzels, Worcestershire sauce and other seasonings that there just can't seem to be enough of around the holiday season. We always have enough raw materials to make a few batches into February. And Lord help us, we gotta have 'em. Mom makes this stuff like crazy around Christmas and it's always the first thing to go: she gave us a few containers of it this past month, what little there was that Dad didn't eat! Only difference between the stuff we've been making and the original recipe is that we've never used bagel chips, but that's okay. Lisa's got a fresh batch in the oven right now... and it smells delicious!
So that's our plan for tonight: watching Lost and eating Trash. As good a thing to do on a wintery Saturday night as any :-)
Friday, January 13, 2006
Iran and Venezuela: How they threaten American stability
Am taking a break right now, while finishing up a client's website. And while perusing through the news I found this article at the Washington Times (disclaimer: they ain't my favorite news source) about Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela. He's proposing starting-up a "Bank of the South" that would provide loans to countries in South America, as a direct competitor to the U.S.-directed International Monetary Fund.
Herein is the real reason why Chavez is so thoroughly despised by many among America's political and financial leaders, and it has nothing at all to do with Chavez's leftist inclinations: Chavez is moving the lower half of the Western Hemisphere out of Washington's control. Bear in mind that several countries south of us have become financially depleted over the past few decades: obviously from corrupt leadership but plenty of it has to do with these countries being in perpetual hoc to foreign interests. That Argentina's government took out such outrageously large loans so recklessly is inexcusable: for that alone, the people of that country and others should have had their "leaders" strung up from the nearest telephone pole by their circular reproductive units with piano wire. But the IMF should never have granted the loans to begin with. IMF's behavior in all of this has been like a bartender who keeps the beer coming even though the customer's obviously had too much to drink. They should have known that there'd be nothing but trouble coming out of this, absolutely must have been aware of what kind of characters they were trusting this money with, but they kept sending the dough down south anyway. The ineptitude of these countries's leaders guaranteed that there was no way the loans could be reasonably repaid: it became loansharking on a grand scale. And over time this is how a lot of countries in South America came to be controlled - however indirectly - by governments thousands of miles away.
So now with Argentina's debt paid off, Venezuelan president Chavez is actively taking steps to make sure that U.S.-led interests won't be financially dominating his region any longer. Say what you will of Chavez: between this, and financing a new South American news network to compete with U.S. media, he is fostering a kind of independence for South America that hasn't really been known in modern times. And this time there's no cut in it for the politicians in Washington and their financial backers. No wonder Pat Robertson wants to kill the guy: Chavez is going to cut off a reliable influx of money toward his neighbors north of the equator.
But whatever Venezuela is doing right now is nothing compared to the threat posed to the United States by Iran... and it has nothing to do with possible nuclear weapons. That's just a pretext tossed out to the American people to distract them from the real reason why the warhawks are now trying to drum up support for an attack on Iran.
For the longest time now, the global oil trade has been done with the U.S. dollar. And that's about all that's really propping up the dollar right now: American money has become such a fiat currency that without the circulation of dollars through oil commodities, there is scarce little reason for other countries to keep using the dollar for much of anything. It's scary, but true: American financial stability is dependent upon the value of the dollar as the sole unit of exchange on the oil market. If another currency starts getting used, it will devalue our dollar significantly. And so far nothing has threatened - or been allowed to threaten - our hold on that.
But now Iran is positioning itself to finally break the U.S. grip on petro-currency.
This coming March, Iran will start up its oil bourse. For the first time oil trading will not be done in dollars, but with another currency: the euro. Remember not so long ago when the European Union was first getting the euro started, and how almost worthless it was? Under Iran's plan, other countries will begin paying for oil on its bourse in euros, drastically increasing that currency's value. The U.S. dollar meanwhile - either incrementally or almost immediately - will be dumped as the de facto unit of exchange... and will certainly suffer an incomparable loss in value. If you think inflation is bad now, you ain't seen nuthin' yet...
Does anyone really think that in the face of this kind of financial threat, that the holders of power in the United States won't try something to stop Iran from going through with its bourse? Call me overly-suspicious, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it turned out that one of the - if not the - real reasons we invaded Iraq three years ago was because Saddam Hussein had moved the trade of Iraq's oil off the dollar and onto the euro. Iraqi oil was again being bought with the U.S. dollar just a few months after we took over the place. If Iraq was deemed to be even that much a threat to western financial stability - to whatever a degree it was - what is going to happen when Iran attempts the same thing... only far bolder in design?
If this were all a game of chess, it would seem so classic: the king is caught between the knight of the south and the rook of the east. The pawns and pieces are almost exhausted. And there is very little that the United States can do at this point to stay out of checkmate. Between the growing financial independence of Latin America and the possible undercutting of its monetary value by a mid-east enemy nation, the United States faces a severe failure of its economic and foreign policies almost entirely across the board.
The thing of it is, America didn't have to have been caught in a pincer like this. But we've traded away so much of our industry to other countries, and left so little for ourselves... what else is there left, but to practically expect that our "leaders" will lash out in vain desperation?
This is the kind of thing that I think about, when I'm not working on something else.
Okay, break's over. Time to get back to designing that website.
Is Lost's "black smoke" the new Rover?
This week's episode of Lost has a lot of people talking, what with Mr. Eko's backstory and all. The "black smoke" is getting plenty of attention too. Here's a screen-cap of Eko staring it down, courtesy of lost.cubit.net:
I'll admit to still being a relative newcomer to Lost, and I haven't kept up with the discussion boards but it turns out that my theory that the black smoke is a nano-machine cloud has been suggested already. Well, the guy running The Regularly Scheduled TV Show Blog has a great theory about what "Lostzilla" might actually be...
"I think Lostzilla isn't a killing machine but more of a machine to keep them on the island. Thus, it killed the pilot after he let them know there was no hope in waiting to get off the island, and didn't kill Locke or Eko since they've surrendered themselves to living on the island."Do you know what this means if this turns out to be true? It means that the creators of Lost are getting some of their ideas from the 1970's TV show The Prisoner... in which case they're gonna really start screwing around with our heads. Lookahere...
I can see the final episode of Lost now: Hurley's holding Locke captive down in the hatch and screaming "Who is Number One?!", before ripping Locke's face clean off only to reveal that it's a mask and beneath it... a gorilla. All while the Beatle's "All You Need Is Love" is playing in the background.
Good theory about the black cloud. I like it a lot :-)
TheKnightShift.com gets used... FINALLY!
It only took a little over five years, but at last I'm making use of my theknightshift.com domain name. When I first registered it in October of 2000 I was doing my reporter gig in Asheville, with no website at all to put it on but I thought it sounded too clever to not be the guy owning it. So I swiped it up. And it's been just sitting there all this time, periodically renewed but otherwise not doing a darned thing whatsoever. Think the first people I told about it to were Geoff Gentry and my old discipleship partner, during lunch at Sandy's Subs in Elon one day after church. They thought that was a neat name and Lisa's been telling me all this time that I needed to do something with it. Well finally after one wedding, four moves, eight jobs (two of 'em at one time), two Star Wars movies, a whole lotta nonsense and no kids (yet) later, TheKnightShift.com becomes something I can proudly boast about!
Using it forwards you to this blog, so you can remember www.theknightshift.com (or just theknightshift.com) instead of theknightshift.blogspot.com, but the blog is physically still sitting on Blogger's server. Maybe someday I'll move the entire blog to my own dedicated server and stick my domain onto it, but for now I'm perfectly happy to still use Blogger, and use theknightshift.com as a convenient pointer for everyone I know (and don't know yet). And I might use this on my own commercial services website eventually... but for now feel free to use it to come here :-)
EDIT: Special thanks to Kim in Technical Support at Register.com for helping me fix a problem with the domain forwarding. 'Preciate it a lot Kim!
The Doctor is coming to America! Sci-Fi Channel to run new Who
He's back... and it's about time!! Get it? Ahhh nevermind...
The Sci-Fi Channel is going to start running the new Doctor Who, it was announced earlier today. Up 'til now the only way those of us on this side of the Atlantic have been able to watch the Doctor's new adventures has been to download episodes via file torrent. This past Christmas day there was an awesome Christmas special - the first episode to feature David Tennant as the new Doctor - that was especially fun to behold. Those of us who've been going through the hassle of downloading know only too well that the uninitiated are about to discover something very special come March, when Sci-Fi starts running the episodes: you've no idea what "manic" means until you see Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. There is some serious action, heartbreak, and humor headed this way: can't wait to see what the reaction will be like to the "Bad Wolf" episode featuring the "Anne Droid". The only downside to all this is that the release of last season's DVD set, originally slated for next month, is getting pushed back to June. But that's a minor price to pay for finally getting Doctor Who imported over here. Thank you BBC and Sci-Fi Channel!
Thursday, January 12, 2006
No fun in Smallville political stakes
For the first time since we've been married, Lisa and I aren't watching a new episode of Smallville together tonight. We liked the "Lex-Mas" episode that ran in December very much, but 20 minutes into this new one and it's about nothing but that RIDICULOUS "state senate race" storyline, which has been a snore-bore since the night Tom Wopat guest-starred to ask Jonathan Kent to run for the office. Lisa's now playing a game on my Nintendo DS and I'm sitting at the computer posting a rant.
Nothing about this election plotline has been the least bit believable. I mean really: just what kind of pull does the Kansas state senate have that would entice Lex Luthor to run for the job? Why the heck is Lionel Luthor involved in this anyway? Why are both sides pouring insane amounts of money into their campaigns? They showed Kent's campaign headquarters earlier in this episode. Back in '94 I worked part-time next door to the headquarters of a closely-watched U.S. House campaign, and that was practically a hole in the wall that you wouldn't even know was there if you'd walked past it: It was nowhere near as swanky as what Jonathan Kent has for his state election run. From everything I've heard of it, there's going to be some assassination attempts going on in this race too. So I ask again: how does a state senate seat possibly rate this kind of outlandish attention? Is the Kansas legislature considering a ban on Kryptonite or something?
C'mon guys, this ain't no fun. There's been some good stuff this season, like Aquaman and Brainiac. Can't we see more of that instead of political shenanigans that defy every stretch of belief?
Trying out a new way to blog
This is the first post I’m making to my blog via the Blogger for Word plugin for Microsoft Word. If you’re running Windows XP or 2000 and have Word 2000 or newer, you can install the plugin and compose your stuff in Word, then publish directly to your blog! So this is really a test to see how well it works. This is going to come in handy for the occasional longer article that I write.
