Wii need cables, and lots of 'em!

Last week Nintendo launched its new gaming console, the Wii. And Nintendo played a much smarter game than Sony did with its PlayStation 3, 'cuz what money that Sony would otherwise have plowed into their fiasco of a marketing campaign, Nintendo has used in production. There may now be about a million or so Wiis on the shelves here in the states by the end of the year: if you direly want one enough, you should be able to get one (and this is one gaming system right out the gate that I would love to have!).

But alas! All is NOT well at this hour with the Wii. It seems that Nintendo vastly underestimated the demand for the component cables that are used to hook up the Wii to a high-definition TV set. What Wii component cables are out there are now going for around $150 and even more on eBay. Last week, on the day that Lisa and I bought our first HDTV, I ran out to the local Wal-Mart to get a component cable to hook up our DVD player to the set. I also tried it with the standard A/V cable and there is a HUGE improvement when using the component (which is very much like a standard RCA plug but its used to deliver separate channels for red, blue and green for output, sorta like a 3-CCD camcorder). Since the Wii doesn't have any dedicated HDTV capability, the Wii's component cable has become a must-have thing for a lot of Wii owners (if you want to see what Wii graphics look like with component cable versus standard AV look here and do the mouse-over on the graphic). A third-party component cable industry is starting to rise to fill the need, and for those Wii owners who are feeling particularly daring instructions have started appearing online on how to create your own Wii component cable.

The reason I'm posting about this is that I find it rather fascinating. I've never seen people go so crazy about new video game systems before... and now they've gone ape over a relatively inexpensive cable, of all things. I remember when the big craze was over Super Mario Bros. 3 and the original Mortal Kombat and then the Nintendo 64 (even though I never owned one) but what we've seen going on this past week or so between the PlayStation 3 and the Wii dwarfs them all.

And I have to wonder: as sophisticated as video game systems have become, with their realistic graphics and depictions of real-world situations and physics, what's going to be the next big video game fad? How much more "real" than real can a video game get? And will we always be this mad to get on the bandwagon for the latest system?

Lord only knows. But I'm going to be VERY interested to see what kind of video games there are when my children start playing them some years from now. I just hope that I haven't lost my gaming skillz by then :-)

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What to be thankful for

Last year for Thanksgiving, my life-long best friend Chad wrote a really neat article about the things he was thankful for. He said then he was inspired by writers like Furman Bisher at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who make a yearly ritual of this. And yesterday Jenna Olwin posted a really nice note about Thanksgiving.

They've made me realize that I've never really done anything like this... in spite of having a LOT to be thankful for. So although this is something pretty new to me, I'm going to make an earnest attempt to pull this off.

I'm thankful for...

...my beautiful wife Lisa, who really is everything that I had hoped and dreamed and prayed for in a wife. There's not a day that goes by that I don't thank God for putting her in my life. And for all the stuff that she has to put up with me on (like ahem the recent campaign) she really is the most amazing woman I've ever met.

...my parents, who have been there and supported me throughout the years and have bestowed upon me a lot more ability and wisdom than they will probably ever know.

...my sister Anita, who never ceases to astound me. That the little sister who used to run at the sight of a tiny spider would grow up into a skilled professional who deals with gross things like internal anatomy and musculature and whatnot has been one of the most remarkable transformations I've ever witnessed.

...having some of the best friends that a guy could possibly hope for. Way too many of them to try to mention here and do them any justice.

...new friendships made this past year. Especially the one Lisa and I have struck up with Jenna Olwin... who has already become a very dear sister in the Lord to us.

...having a pretty wacky place to work in, that is anything but boring.

...having been able to run, for the first time in my life, a campaign for public office. And one so unique that it landed my photo in The New York Times, the News & Observer and the News & Record among other places.

...and I'm very thankful (and still stunned) that I received 4,648 votes in the election.

...for new opportunities that God has recently opened up, that I'm looking forward to seeing what becomes of them.

...for the people in our church, who are more inspiration for me to seek out Christ all the more than they will probably ever know.

...that I was able to make one short film and three pretty neat commercials in the past several months, in spite of some things.

...that Lisa and I got to drive down to Charleston, S.C. in May to watch Ed, one of my best friends, tie the knot with his lovely bride Olivia.

...that we got to have some pretty neat adventures away from home during this year. Sometimes in places we hadn't even intended on going to.

...that in spite of a very nasty beginning of the year, that God has brought us a lot further than we thought we would be at.

...for discovering an awesome new barbecue ribs place (Pigs R Us in Martinsville).

...that "Weird Al" Yankovic released Straight Outta Lynwood, one of his best albums ever.

...that a few months ago I was able to drive the entire length of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, after wanting to do this for 14 years.

...that I was able to read a lot of books this past year, including The Chronicles of Narnia for the first time in my life.

...for being able to say that I'm thankful to begin with.

I know, it's not a perfect list and I've no doubt left some things off. But the important thing is to just be thankful at all, right? Maybe next year I'll do it better :-)

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Thanksgiving 2006

This was probably the least festive Thanksgiving Day that I've ever had in my entire life, but I still wound up having a pretty good day. I was at the station at 6:45 this morning: it's automated so that it runs Shepherd's Chapel on its own from 6 to 7, and then we run an hour of what we call "news reel" straight from an iMac. I made sure that was running smooth then locked up the place and drove down to the nearest convenience store to get "breakfast": a Snickers bar to go along with the Mountain Dew I brought. After news finished running at 8 I was then scheduled to run the tape of this past weekend's Reidsville Christmas Parade for about two hours. Then a live call-in "swap post". Then an informercial. Then a Thanksgiving Day parade from Detroit. Followed by the only two regular TV programs that I had to keep an eye out for commercial breaks. Then run the hour-long tape of the Layne's Brothers pharmacy show and then the Reidsville parade again. Fortunately about 1 p.m. my friend Johnny dropped by the station and he stuck around for an hour or so: it was great to have some company to break up the monotony. When I left at 3 I already had the Thanksgiving episode of The Beverly Hillbillies ready for my relief to run. And I think they've run the Reidsville parade at least twice more this evening. Anyhoo, didn't get to be at the family Thanksgiving dinner but Lisa brought me a plate home.

And right now, we're having a quiet evening still oggled by "the Behemoth" (the HDTV we bought yesterday). I'm considering driving to Greensboro in a little while so I can be at Four Seasons Town Centre when they open their doors for "Black Friday" at 1 a.m.! Maybe just to take pictures for the blog. I know: they're CRAZY to be doing that. It's materialism run amok. I used to enjoy going out the day after Thanksgiving just to watch the people and look at the new stuff in stores: it's maybe been 3 or 4 years since I've done that though.

Anyway, that was more or less Thanksgiving 2006. Next year I'm going to fry three turkeys, just to more than make up for not getting one in this year!

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"Hey, why aren't you getting ready to fry some turkey??"

A few of my friends have noticed something conspicuously absent among my posts this week: namely, that I'm not writing about frying a turkey for Thanksgiving like I've done for the past few years (click here to see how last year's bird came out). Well, the sad fact of the matter is: I won't be deep-frying a turkey today, for the first Thanksgiving since I started doing it in 2002. I've got to work most of the day at the TV station so frying a bird for the family's usual dinner is out.

Plus, I really haven't had time to properly prepare a turkey. To do it right takes about two days or so of working with the bird: thawing it, doing the "water trick" to determine how much oil to use (VERY important to do this so you don't put too much oil in the pot and risk an overflow), washing the bird thoroughly. And then the biggest (and most fun I think) part of preparation: injecting the turkey full of your choice of marinade. If you want it really juicy throughout you should start injecting at least 36 hours before putting it in the fryer to give the marinade time to saturate the meat. I usually inject more marinade every 4-6 hours in the meantime... and also rub in plenty of Cajun seasoning. You could get away with prepping the bird early on Thanksgiving morning to fry around noon... but to me, this is a work of art that I'd rather not do at all than do a rush-job with it.

So no turkey this time. But I might buy at least a breast tomorrow when they're on sale and start work on it to fry maybe Sunday. But I'm still going to miss frying one on Thanksgiving Day this year. Between the satisfying blast of Cajun-scented steam that rises out of the pot after you put it in, and the fun that comes with picking the right music to have playing while I work, and the sheer rush of adrenaline that comes with performing one of the most dangerous forms of cooking known to man... there's a lot to regret missing this time. But I'm sure that I'll at least make up for it come Christmas :-)

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"Farewell My Lovely"... and Hello the Behemoth!

I want you to take a good long look at this...

This Zenith television set was the one that Lisa had in her apartment when she was a grad student at the University of Georgia. In other words, from the very beginning of our dating relationship, this TV set has been there. On weekends when I drove to Athens from Asheville to visit her (which was practically every weekend) we almost always went to Hollywood Video and rented a movie, or I would bring one from my collection. Just off the top of my head, I can remember us watching M*A*S*H, Lady and the Tramp, A Clockwork Orange, The Wizard of Oz (that was the weekend in January 2002 when I wound up buying Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and we rented Oz just to see if that "alternative soundtrack" thing works... which it really does!), Tron, bunch of others. The one I'll always remember is the weekend we rented Deliverance, not long after we'd done this rafting trip: Lisa hasn't said anything about doing another raft/canoe trip since.

After we got married, Lisa brought this TV set from Georgia to our new home in North Carolina. It's been a faithful fixture in our living room ever since. We've watched more DVDs on it than we care to remember. It's had a Gamecube and an Xbox hooked up to it. A few weeks ago Lisa watched me live on TV during the televised school board candidates forum on this set. It started out with a set of bunny ears that barely picked up reception at times, to having digital cable service.

To say that this TV set has seen us through a lot in the past six years would be an understatement.

Well, this isn't "goodbye" at all, because we've decided to move this set into a spare bedroom and it'll no doubt see more use for some years to come. But for awhile now it's been messing-up when showing a lot of red on the screen, and the upper-right of the screen has this permanent "dirty" look that is really obvious when it's an overwhelmingly white image. The only movies that I've been able to watch on it for the past year or so without any noticable loss of quality has been the Matrix flicks: guess 'cuz those are either very green or very blue hued.

Long story short: as trusty as this TV set has been to us, Lisa and I decided a while back - and we felt we deserved treating ourselves to something after all the stuff we've gone through lately - that it was time for an "upgrade".

I've spent the better part of the past five days immersing myself in as much material about high-definition television as I can find. Until this past Sunday I'd never even heard or cared to know about "HDMI". Neither had a lot of things having to do with choosing between a plasma screen and an LCD set entered my mind until this week. There's probably two-dozen sites dealing with HDTV that I've bookmarked in my Mozilla browser in the last few days. Phone calls were made. Friends consulted. And in the end, Lisa and I headed off toward Greensboro early this afternoon to do some comparison shopping... and possibly even come home with a new HDTV set.

We visited Circuit City and Best Buy (we've also done a little bit of looking at the local Wal-Mart Supercenter). From the beginning we'd thought of getting, at most, a 32-inch set. Well, after seeing some sets we liked and comparing some things and steadily whittling down the candidates, we found one that we really liked a lot. So we pulled out the checkbook and bought the thing...

...and it wouldn't fit into my car! We'd driven my Corolla to Greensboro 'cuz it's been really cold and rainy today and it heats up better (I think anyway) than Lisa's Oldsmobile Cutlass. Well anyhoo, we tried but there was no way to get the thing in. We drove to my parents' house to see if we could borrow Dad's truck: but he's got this huge toolbox in the bed of it that would leave absolutely no room for an HDTV box. We headed back home, got Lisa's car, and made a return trip back to Greensboro to make another attempt at transporting it. This time we were able to squeeze it into the back seat... after removing it from the box (which was broken down and stowed in the trunk).

It was about 6:30 when we got home this evening. I watched a little bit of TV on the old set of the live news (and tonight's edition of Political Soup) coming from the station I work at. Then I unplugged everything from the wall and the TV and the digital cable box and the Xbox and the Gamecube and the DVD players (yes, plural: one of them doubles as Lisa's karaoke machine), had a heaping big mess of cables and such in the floor, and then commenced to figuring out how to set up this thing.

An hour and a half later after beginning the operation, with the new set sitting on the TV stand, I pulled the protective foam wrap off of the HDTV. I think Lisa and I both gasped at how big the thing was. And in that moment of awe, I gave it a name...

Behold: the Behemoth!

Thirty-seven inch LCD screen high-definition television set, manufactured by Sylvania. With HDMI and more input/output plugs than I've ever seen on a single appliance in my entire life. Incredible picture. Awesome sound. "Larger than life" would describe it pretty well: I swear, Robert on Everybody Loves Raymond looked twelve feet tall when we first tried out the thing. The picture I took does it no justice: that's a scene from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on standard HBO, and in real life it looks terrific enough. We're due to get the HDTV hookup from the cable company on Monday, and I can't wait to see how that's supposed to be even better.

This thing absolutely dominates the living room. You can be standing on the far side of the kitchen and see everything with stunning clarity. It's like that "Weird Al" Yankovic song "Frank's 2000 Inch TV" come to life.

All things considered: I think Lisa and I may have made a wise investment with this HDTV set. Something I told her this afternoon when we'd stopped for pizza at Pie Works (we'd already bought it but this was after our first failed attempt to bring it home): this is going to be the TV set that our children grow up watching. Ain't that cool??

Well anyway, that was our big adventure today. And now I'm going to go see if I can use the component cables that I bought a short while ago to hook up our DVD player to it and give that a quick whirl: can't wait to see how The Fellowship of the Ring looks :-)

EDIT 12:32 AM EST 11-23-2006: The last time I saw The Fellowship of the Ring this good, it was almost five years ago in the theaters. I also put my DVD containing The Baritones and Forcery in and other than some artifacting with Forcery (which may be relative to the bitrate it was encoded at to squeeze onto the DVD) they look pretty darned good too. It's definitely the biggest screen that I've ever seen my own movies on :-)

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Dad in his knife shop

About 3:30 this afternoon Lisa and I went to my parents' house. Dad was out in his knife shop. I walked inside and found Dad in the following pose amidst all his tools and just so happened to have my digital camera with me...

Here's some of the stuff he's been working on lately...

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Update on "The funniest graphic I've ever made"

Just over a year ago, I posted here about a graphic that I had made. And I said that this was "hilarious". I even went so far as to say that this was the funniest graphic that I'd ever produced. Unfortunately I also said that I couldn't publish it then, because if I did "it would - not 'might' but 'would' - cause a helluva lot of confusion that I would be scrambling to clarify". In closing out the post I said that I would probably release it for everyone to see "sometime in 2006".

Well, I just wanted everyone to know that I haven't forgotten about this. The graphic is still safely tucked away, waiting to be used... and I soooo want to use this!! Unfortunately things beyond my control made it so it couldn't happen in 2006 after all.

But given how well things have been going lately on this end, 2007 is starting to look very promising.

Lord willing, this next year is going to be just full of surprises that I'm working on to share with you all. Pray that one very wonderful one especially gets to happen. And then, the laughter will commence... :-)

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Tom Cruise has 66% of my face

First it was Jenna Olwin who did it. Then Darth Larry ran the thing on himself. Lisa did hers too but she hasn't posted it to her blog yet. So I thought that I might as well try out the MyHeritage facial recognition gimmick that figures out who you most look like. I used the photo we took of me wearing my "I is a school board candidate" shirt on election night.

And, here's what it spat out...

So Tom Cruise and me share 66% of our facial characteristics. I also somewhat resemble Oded Fehr (the guy who played Ardeth Bey in the recent Mummy movies), Michael Jordon, Jeb Bush... and Alanis Morisette?! Well, you should see who it said Lisa looked like... but she'll kill me if I spill it here!

I was darn positive this was going to tell me that I looked like Ralph Fiennes, William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi because plenty of people over the years have told me that I look like those guys, especially Fiennes. The site encourages you to try other photos, so who knows who else I might resemble.

EDIT 12:12 AM 11-22-2006: I did it again, this time with the photo we took for my campaign's newspaper ad. Some surprising results this time...

So now I look like two well-known race car drivers (Jeff Gordon and Alex Yoong), a Playboy supermodel (Rachel Hunter), a legendary tough-guy actor (James Coburn), the guy from Hostel (Jay Hernandez), the Rev. Billy Graham, all-time football great Joe Montana, and Captain Jean-Luc Picard/Professor Xavier himself Patrick Stewart. Still no Ralph Fiennes. That's one weird assortment of characters to resemble though...

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PlayStation 3: People are either really desperate...

...or really dumb.

Check out this auction on eBay:

Playstation 3 System Lots of INFO!!! CHEAP GOING FAST!!

System Spec:

· 60 GB Playstation 3
· CPU – Cell Broadband Engine
· GPU – RSX
· Memory – 256 MB XDR Main Ram, 256 MB GDDR3 VRAM
· Hard drive – 2.5” Serial ATA (60 GB)
· Input/Output – Four USB 2.0 ports
· Memory Stick/SD/Compact Flash
· Communication – Ethernetm, Bluetooth 2.0, Built-in IEEE 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi
· Controller – Wireless Bluetooth (up to seven)
· Resolution – 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
· AV output – AV multi-out, Digital optical, HDMI
· Disc drive – Blue-Ray/DVD/CD player
· Sound – Dolby Digital 5.1 (games), Dolby TrueHD (Blu-ray movies)
· Bundled with the hit movie, "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" in Blu-ray (Sony may change it)

Sensational Controller:

New gamers intuitively move the controller while playing, even though that movement has traditionally had no relation to what's going on in the game. Sony has picked up on this tendency and is using it to bring a new level of control into the PS3. Inside the controller is a high-precision six-axis sensing system that accurately detects fine movements in pitch, roll, and yaw, as well as three dimensions of movement, to control games. This means that future PS3 games will be controlled by the movements of your hands rather than just your thumbs. For example, you might be able to steer a car by holding the controller like a steering wheel.

This is only for information to buy a ps3, you will not actually receive a ps3 from winning/buying this auction, all you will recieve is information on where to obtain a $400.00 PS3.

In other words: you are not bidding $400 for an actual PlayStation 3. You are bidding on the secret information that this guy will give you once payment is secured on how to obtain a PlayStation 3... for another $400.

And if anyone considers this to be a wise investment, I have some beautiful ocean-front property in Wyoming to sell.

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"I can't hear ya!"

One of the all-time funniest clips from Sesame Street:There was also a "sequel" to this where Bert finds Ernie, again with a banana in his ear. Bert asks why Ernie has the banana in his ear and Ernie replies "To keep the alligators away". Bert says that there are no alligators on Sesame Street. Ernie doesn't miss a beat: "You see, it's working!"

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Petition is afoot and state statutes: The latest from the Ron Price fiasco

There is now a petition being circulated throughout Rockingham County (note: file is in Acrobat format) calling for the removal of Ron Price from the school board.

And Penny Owens, one of the unsuccessful candidates for school board, has found what is apparently the North Carolina statute calling for removal of a school board member on grounds of immoral conduct:

§ 115C‑39. Removal of board members; suspension of duties by State Board. (a) In case the State Board of Education has sufficient evidence that any member of a local board of education is not capable of discharging, or is not discharging, the duties of his office as required by law, or is guilty of immoral or disreputable conduct, the State Board of Education shall notify the chairman of such board of education, unless such chairman is the offending member, in which case all other members of such board shall be notified. Upon receipt of such notice there shall be a meeting of said board of education for the purpose of investigating the charges, and if the charges are found to be true, such board shall declare the office vacant: Provided, that the offending member shall be given proper notice of the hearing and that record of the findings of the other members shall be recorded in the minutes of such board of education. (b) In the event the State Board of Education has appointed an interim superintendent under G.S. 115C‑105.39 and the State Board determines that the local board of education has failed to cooperate with the interim superintendent, the State Board shall have the authority to suspend any of the powers and duties of the local board and to act on its behalf under G.S. 115C‑105.39. (1955, c. 1372, art. 5, s. 13; 1981, c. 423, s. 1; 1995 (Reg. Sess., 1996), c. 716, s. 5.)

Click here for more info.

Not long ago someone suggested to me that maybe we are making too much of this, because - and this is something I was entirely unaware of for the past few weeks - many of the signs that Ron Price was picking up were in close proximity to the Teamsters hall on Highway 14. And that if he did have malicious intent in mind, that Price should have known it would be insanity to attempt to sabotage a Democrat candidate's campaign in sight of the Teamsters (who were without any exception that I know of pulling hard for all the Democrat candidates).

Here's my thing about that though, and Ron Price is far from the only one I would level this charge at: all the same, Price did put the priorities of furthering his political party over principle (i.e. doing the right thing and having DOT take care of the problem). And I have extremely little patience and tolerance - maybe even none at all - when it comes to people who think of their party first and being considerate toward others second.

Maybe that's just incumbent to the political independent in me, and maybe this isn't how things work in "the real world"...

...But nonetheless: There is right, there is wrong, and it isn't that hard to tell the difference between the two.

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HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX teaser hits online!

Do you realize that a few days ago was the fifth anniversary of Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone coming out in theaters? That's five years of Harry Potter movies we've had so far. And I'm really looking forward to the next one. Click here for the Quicktime trailer of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

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Five years ago today: "The Proposal Stunt"

It was at 3 p.m. on November 20th, 2001 that I did this... thing. Readers of TheForce.net went to the site that afternoon to check out the latest news on the Star Wars Episode II front. Instead they got a cryptic headline at the very top of the page titled "Lisa McBrayer, Please Click Here" with the sub-heading "Your boyfriend has something he'd like to say to you ...". When they clicked on it, there was a passage of scripture from 1st Corinthians, followed by something of a "poem" from Yours Truly. And then below that, this graphic:

Here's the link to the original article, although the image itself went missing when TheForce.net site got upgraded a few years ago. But the text is still there if you want to check it out.

The thing that still amazes me about it is how fast Lisa said "yes": I was down on one knee by the point she read that on the screen (and I was wearing the same outfit as in the pic) and she said "yes" less than a second after I asked her.

There was much more to it than what everyone else saw that day though. When she came into my apartment I had candles lit all over the place, and I sat her down on my sofa and read to her the part from Ephesians about husband and wives serving the Lord together. Then I removed her boots and socks and washed her feet with a basin of water I had hidden under the chair nearby. It was while drying her off that I told her that "I've got something to tell you, but I'm not good at making speeches so you'll have to read this..."

This thing had been six months in the works, since like May of that year. The original plan was for me to do it in either a Jedi costume or a set of Stormtrooper armor (thus being her "Knight in shining armor") but I couldn't secure either for it. In the end, it was just plain ol' me proudly wearing a sweatshirt from my college, with a lightsaber and the engagement ring. Then we went out to celebrate, meeting my sister at the Cracker Barrel in Asheville for dinner. After that we got back to the apartment and soon headed off for the three-hour drive to my parents' house to spend Thanksgiving together. This was the same day that the soundtrack for The Fellowship of the Ring came out, and I'd bought two copies (including one for her) about 8 that morning at Wal-Mart but I saved listening to it until Lisa and I could do it together. We put it in the car's CD player just as we were hitting I-40 heading east.

It was one of those days where you can't help but remember every tiny detail, but I won't bother sharing all of them. It's just that I can't believe it's been five years already. Some people thought I was crazy to do it like this. But I wound up doing it for two reasons: one, to make it extra-special and memorable for both Lisa and me... to make it something neat to tell our children and grand-children someday. And second, a reason that definitely wasn't in mind when I first conceived it: this was coming just two months after 9/11. It was a time when we all needed something to laugh at and cheer us up and affirm that in spite of the worst of tragedies, we still have to go on... because in the end, that's how we really win. Someone even sent me a nice e-mail in the days following the proposal and said this was a really uplifting thing that I'd done. If just one other person out there got a laugh and some hope out of it, then it was well worth doing.

Anyway, that was five years ago today, and for me it really is something worth commemorating on this blog. It was definitely, bar-none, one of the bigger stunts that I've done so far in my life...

...but the biggest is yet to come.

It's waiting, boys and girls: sitting on my hard drive for the right moment to be set loose. It's coming to this blog, and perhaps sooner rather than later.

Be afraid :-)

(BTW, special thanks to a lot of good people who in whatever way helped make that day five years ago that much more fun, especially Chad, "Weird" Ed, Josh, Deborah, Maggi and Helen, and "lowbridge"!)

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2006 Reidsville Christmas Parade

Last night at about 6:30, the 2006 Reidsville Christmas Parade - the first-ever night-time Christmas parade in the city's history - kicked off. The parade organized in the Pennrose Mall/Turner Drive part of town and progressed down Scales Street toward the downtown area. And Lisa and I were there to watch it all. Actually since it was WGSR Star 39 - the TV station that I work at - who was in charge of the parade this year, I've been able to watch everything behind the scenes about it for the past few months now. I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon helping with getting floats situated in the staging area. And I could have taken part in the parade... but I chose instead to watch it with Lisa.

Okay well, on with the pics!

This first pic is of Ken Echols, co-host of WGSR's popular Monday Night Live. Ken should not be confused with his neer-do-well brother Fred Echols who is sometimes heard on the radio...

Here's Lisa. Now I wish that I'd gotten her to take my pic too while we were there. Since it was cold and some headgear was called for, I wore my fedora to the event.

Ken Echols and Mark Childrey - the hosts of Monday Night Live - perched atop the scaffolding from which they were doing live TV commentary about the parade. The WGSR crew was up 'til 5 a.m. Saturday morning, then got a few hours sleep and was soon back at it later Saturday morning getting everything ready to televise the parade live. I've never seen a city street covered with so much cable. Anyway, Ken and Mark were in fine form as usual last night.

Looking down the street toward the direction the parade would come in from.

The man who put it all together: WGSR Star 39 General Manager Charles Roark. Charles had been working for months getting this parade together. He was running one of the cameras down on the street last night.

It was sometime after 7 when the parade reached the downtown area, headed up by a police cruiser followed by these JROTC cadets.

Calvin and Lisa Phelps, the Grand Marshals of the 2006 Reidsville Christmas Parade. It was Calvin Phelps who bought and re-opened the Chinqua-Penn Plantation... something that a lot of people around here thought would never happen again.

Local singing sensation Cindy Price. That car looked hot! Cindy doesn't look too bad herself :-)

The Reidsville Senior High School Marching Band. Conspicuously absent was the Rockingham County Senior High band: believe it or not the administration of RCSH (my alma-mater) wouldn't let their band perform in the parade this year... because they believed it wouldn't be safe for the kids to be out that late at night! I'm not going to comment any further on how ridiculous a thing it was to keep the RCSH band out. But the RSH band played well.

A pack of Cub Scouts.

The Rockingham Theater's float. After the parade the Rockingham Theater (which is located just across the street from where were were standing) had a free showing of It's A Wonderful Life. We didn't go watch it though. Sometime I need to check out the Rockingham Theater again: the first and only time I've ever been in there was when Alien 3 came out in 1992. Maybe if/when my next movie is finished we can premiere it there :-)

Layne's Brothers Pharmacy had their entire flotilla of delivery vehicles scattered across the length of the parade. Alright all together now: "What time is it? IT'S TIME FOR A LAYNE CHANGE!" The brothers never fail to deliver that pun every time they're in the studio doing their show :-)

This next photo requires some explaining to those not from around here. This is part of the Williams-Trull entry. Williams-Trull is a business in Reidsville that sells tractor parts and lawn mowers. This sign - the one saying "MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE FAMOUS SIGN" - has been outside their location for a long time. Well, earlier this year the City of Reidsville started fining them a ton for having an "illegal" sign. It caused quite an uproar, especially when other businesses started getting fine notices in the mail too. Oddly enough, I inadvertently got pulled into the mess when The Baritones premiered and a lot of people noticed that the City of Reidsville had, per their own rules, placed an illegal sign at the Farmer's Market! Well anyway, I think it got resolved somehow but the folks at Williams-Trull couldn't resist making everyone laugh at the city for how it acted during this whole thing.

More of the Williams-Trull float.

Play Paint, a local paintball company. Its marchers were all wielding paintguns and doing fancy moves with them. I was reminded of the "Legitimate Businessman's Association" marchers with Fat Tony and the other Springfield mobsters in the parade from that episode of The Simpsons a few years back.

WGHP Fox 8's Brad Jones, talking to WGSR's Jessica Robinson.

Knutson Landscaping received First Place in the competition for best float. Among other things their float featured a mechanized reindeer pulling Santa out of a chimney.

I forget which dance troupe this is. But you see Charles in there with the camera? My pictures do it no justice: Charles was really boogying with the dancers last night!

The First Congregational Christian Church float.

I forget who had this float. It was really pretty though.

These guys were kewl! It was a group of skateboarders that marched in the parade. They stopped in front of the dignitaries and TV cameras and did some pretty amazing skateboard stunts. A few of them came close to wiping out and eating pavement... but all the same they amazed everyone watching with their tricks.

Cheryl's Dance Center, another dance troupe.

The Wentworth PTA float. I think they earned Third Place in the floats competition.

Ahhhh you knew these guys had to be in there somewhere: its them wacky Shriners! Some years they've come marching in playing band instruments and swinging swords. A few times they've driven carts. This year... they were on mini-motorcycles! They were definitely quite a crowd-pleaser.

More of the Shriners in action.

The Care Kids entry with a mounted group on horseback following close behind.

The High Sheriff of Rockingham County, Sam Page. He's looking pretty sharp on horseback with that Santa hat perched atop his cowboy hat.

Remember a few weeks ago when my photo appeared in The New York Times? Well, I'd been asked to be part of this float but I respectfully declined: I really did want to spend the parade watching it with Lisa instead. But the other two local school board candidates feature in the article - Richard Moore and Eric Smith - came in costumes from their respective commercials on the Neely Chronicle/Political Soup "Big Bad Political Car". The "motif" of this float was "Chosen NY Times Favorite School Board Candidates Who Don't Steal".

And here's another shot of Richard Moore as the "Big Bad Political Car" drove past.

And finally, the grand finale of the parade: Santa and Mrs. Claus! This was the big float that WGSR was sponsoring and I hadn't seen it until the actual parade last night, but I gotta say that's one of the fanciest floats I've seen in this town.

Here's a close-up of the Clauses.

And with that, the 2006 Reidsville Christmas Parade drew to a close. Mark Childrey echoed a sentiment shared by many there last night when he said that this was probably the best Christmas parade that Reidsville had ever put on. It was definitely the most unique in that it was at night, and there were some people wondering how this was going to work out... but when all was said and done, this parade was a rousing success!

Special thanks go out to Charles Roark, Matt Smith, Lori Martin, Debbie Moore, Jimmy DePalma, Jessica Robinson, Mark Childrey, Ken Echols, Tyler Richardson, Bobby Martin, Brandon Lantern, and everyone else who worked behind the scenes to pull it off.

And very special thanks to a lot of good people who I got to meet last night who told me that they'd voted for me :-)

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School board election: 4,648 is the new 4,584!

According to a story just up at the Reidsvile Review, with the canvass of votes for Rockingham County now in, it looks like I picked up some votes. For the past week and a half I've been proud of the 4,584 votes that was the "final tally" on election night. Well, after the canvass, it turns out that I got 4,648 votes.

Thank goodness I didn't go ahead with getting 4,584 tattooed on my chest like I've been threatening to do... :-)

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Just got back from the 2006 Reidsville Christmas Parade

This was by every possible stretch the best Christmas parade that Reidsville has ever put on... or at least the best one that I've ever seen. For the first time in history the parade this year was at night! I'll be uploading pics from it hopefully by sometime tomorrow.

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Now playing exclusively in Rockingham County, North Carolina...

(For anyone finding this and wondering what it's about, please read "An open letter about - and to - Ron Price".)

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