Comprehend THIS! Something cool for teachers and students (and anyone else)

Found some really neat stuff that I can imagine being a great lesson for science and math teachers to use in their classrooms.

First of all, have you ever wondered about just how big our solar system is? Well, here is a scale drawing of the Earth's solar system: the first one that I've ever seen. There are some physical scale models of the solar system around the world that usually portray the Sun as being the size of a basketball and the Earth as not much bigger than a pinhead several football stadiums away. This is the first one I've seen that could (conceivably) be used for an afternoon's class activity without having to go outside. Remember: the graphics are to-scale representations of the Sun and planets, along with the distances in between them. See how many mouse-clicks it takes you just to get to Mercury... to say nothing about Saturn!

But even that one is dwarfed by this scale depiction of a hydrogen atom, which is also the very first scale picture of an atom I've seen anywhere. In chemistry or physics classes we always see a hydrogen atom being one proton with one electron and no neutrons: one big dot with a little dot going around it in circles. Until finding this page I had no idea just how inaccurate those drawings are when it comes to the distance between the proton and electron. This page advertises itself as being "the largest web page on the entire internet" and I can believe it: if your monitor size is 72 pixels to an inch, that makes this page eleven miles in length from one end of the scroll bar to the other.

These pages tell me a few things. One: that gravity is a lot stronger force than we usually realize if the Sun is keeping objects that far away from it still going in their orbits. Two: that the forces between a proton and a neutron are incredibly powerful given the distance between them and how they interact with other atoms. Three: that most of everything we know about the universe is... just empty space.

And Four: that thinking too much about stuff like this is enough to drive you completely and utterly bonkers :-)

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AFTER-ACTION REPORT: School board members sworn in, new chair elected... and Chris makes a lil' speech

Even though I didn't win a seat, I'm still going to the school board meetings. As I told someone tonight who asked about it, "I'm already in deep". Besides, I believe that the people who got elected... well, four of them anyway... deserve my full support, and I wanted to be there for them. But I also had something else in mind, even though I indicated otherwise a few days ago. But the idea to do this hit last night and it seemed like too good a thing not to do.

So I got to the Rockingham County Schools office about 5:30 this evening. Here's what the school board meeting room looks like after three weeks of renovation to accommodate five additional members:

About 6 o'clock a lot more people started showing up. Here's incoming school board member Reida Drum, looking resplendent in high attire as usual:

And here is Steve Smith, another new school board member, with his daughter:

After a brief reception, 7 o'clock hit and the meeting convened. One of the first items on the agenda was swearing in the new members. Here are Reida Drum, Lori McKinney and Dr. James Austin taking the oath:

Another shot of Dr. Austin and here's Steve Smith getting sworn in:

Ahhh yes, there he is: Ron Price. The man who broke the law by stealing campaign signs then said everything was cool because "I was elected". Here he is, swearing an oath to uphold the policies of the Rockingham County School System, the laws of the state of North Carolina and the Constitution of the United States of America:

Quite a few people noted that of all the candidates, Price is the only one who did not have a family member holding the Bible as he was sworn in. At least one person commented that his wife is perhaps too ashamed of Price for what he's done to show up in public alongside him. Who knows what the deal was - that's school board attorney Jill Wilson holding the Bible that Price is using - but it was certainly a conspicuous absence of support for Ron Price.

I think one of three things is going to happen to Price: he's going to be forced out at some point because of the board being legally obligated to vacate his seat (provided he is found guilty and state law is adhered to). Or this whole mess has emasculated him from being anywhere near an effective school board member, if he winds up staying. Or... nah, I'm not going to say aloud what the third one is. Possibility #3 would be the fun one to watch happen. I don't want to stifle that from probably occurring.

The meeting continued. This was the end of Wayne Kirkman's and Tim Scales' terms as board chair and vice-chair, respectively. Nominations were taken for those two positions and when all was said and done, Elaine McCollum was elected new board chair and Amanda Bell as vice-chair:There were no new reports to hear from, so the meeting then went into public comments. And here is where Yours Truly took part in tonight's drama, ladies and gentlemen. I was the first one to sign up to speak during this portion of the meeting. So I went to the podium and read aloud the following:

One day in Germany, Martin Luther came across a group of villagers who were raiding the town's storehouse. Luther asked them what they were doing.

"We're taking food!" they said to him.

Luther told them that they should stop.

"Why should we?" said one of the villagers, "God wants us to eat!"

"No," Martin Luther replied. "I don't know that God wants you to eat. But I do know that God wants you to be honest."

Chris gives it short and sweet

And that's everything that I said. I made sure to wink at Ron Price after I delivered this lil' history lesson. Did he "get" it? Probably not. But that wasn't going to stop me from driving home the point - in my own way - that there are more important things in this world than winning elections... like the simple matter of doing what is right.

Following my speech, Richard Moore got to the podium and essentially read out the police report from the night Price was found with the stolen signs. Board member Celeste DePriest attempted to stop him, citing that it was a "personnel matter". Moore deferred the matter to the school board attorney and Jill Wilson said that legally school board members are not school system personnel. Moore continued with his remarks.

One way or another, I don't believe Ron Price's term is going to be anywhere near smooth sailing.

The meeting continued with a few other agenda items, reports from the superintendent, etc. Then the public portion of the meeting ended and the board went into closed session. While we were leaving quite a few people told me that they "understood" the point I was making with my brief remarks. One person told me it was one of the more powerful speeches they'd heard in one of these board meetings.

And that was it. And who knows: maybe in two years that'll be me getting sworn in as a member of the school board. I'm definitely considering another run, in light of how good I did and how many people have told me in the past month that I need to run again. But that's still a ways off: Lord only knows what's going to happen between now and then.

In the meantime, the long twilight struggle goes on...

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I hate TV Christmas specials

There are so many Christmas specials on TV about the true meaning of Christmas that the true meaning of Christmas has lost all meaning.

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But if they outright must be part of the season, we might as well have the greatest Christmas special of all time, celebrating its 41st anniversary on the air this year...

A Charlie Brown Christmas will never get old. Between the quirky animation and the classic "Linus and Lucy" tune and funky dance scene and Linus's heart-touching "that's what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown" scene, it's no wonder this was a classic from the very first time it aired in 1965.

By the way, according to the guys at X-Entertainment, you can now buy a replica of Charlie Brown's pathetic Christmas tree from UrbanOutfitters.com:For $24 it can be yours. I might get one of these for next year, just to see how many presents we can fit under it.

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Last year I posted the Top Ten Worst Christmas Songs Ever (which appropriately enough was post #666 for this blog). I'm currently working on a feature called "The Worst Christmas Specials Ever". I'll try to have it posted in the next several days.

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Grace Hopper was born 100 years ago today

The modern world owes more to this fine lady that it will probably ever realize...

Today is the 100th birthday of Grace Hopper: Rear Admiral of the United States Navy and computer science pioneer. Hopper was the first person to come up with a compiled computer program (as opposed to a program that's executed line by line). She was also instrumental in creating the COBOL programming language (which is still used in a lot of business applications today) and perhaps most famous of all, it was Grace Hopper who made the terms "computer bug" and "debugging" a regular part of computer jargon. One day an insect flew into a relay on the Mark II computer that she was one of the top researchers on. The bug caused the machine to start making mistakes. Hopper found the insect, taped it into a notebook and recorded it as the first "bug" found in a computer. Her work with computers would later make her the focus of a story on 60 Minutes and landed her appearances on The Tonight Show and David Letterman, who she wowed with her famous "nanoseconds" visual aid (a foot-long piece of wire that was the length that a signal would travel in one billionth of a second).

The above photo was taken in 1984. Admiral Hopper passed away in 1992... but the legacy she has left us through her work with computers will no doubt be with us for many generations yet to come.

So in honor of her memory: Happy Birthday Grace Hopper!

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Before it goes down the Memory Hole (Ron Price again ZZZZzzz...)

He just can't stop doing this to himself...

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's time yet again for another examination in that wonderful case study of solipsism, Ron Price: admitted thief and future member of the Rockingham County Board of Education who believes that it's okay to break the law because "I was elected".

This will probably get zapped into oblivion before too long, like when he admitted to the crime on his blog then "scrubbed" it out. So because I've wound up playing a small part in this sordid drama and for that reason I'm led to make an accurate chronicle of all this, I'm going to document what Ron Price has put on his blog this time, before it does a Keyser Soze and "just like that... it's gone."

Here's the link to his latest post. But before we look at that, take a gander at what he's put in the header of his blog...

The swearing-in of new members isn't until 7 p.m. this coming Monday night... but Ron Price is already telling people that he's a school board member! Which maybe that's a nitpick. But for at least 24 hours now Price has been claiming something that legally isn't his at all, at least not yet. He should be calling himself a "school board member-elect" if anything.

And why does he capitalize it to be "AT LARGE MEMBER"? In my experience, people only holler like that if (a) the building's on fire (b) someone got shot (c) has a pathological need for attention. I wasn't the only one who took notice of that, either.

Anyway, here's his latest... thing:

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Look for the complete and factual account of the sign incident on this web page in the near future.

posted by Ron Price | 7:30 AM

WHY isn't he giving us the "complete and factual account" right now?! Is this so hard to do? The man has had an entire month to tell us what "really" happened. Why hasn't he done so already? This seemed so obvious that I may or may not have done the right thing in doing this, but I was compelled to post a comment on Price's post. There are four of them as of this writing. I'm going to copy and paste them exactly as they appear:

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4 Comments:

Eric H. Smith said...

It's about time. I hope it is not only complete and factual but you share with the voters why you did it and why it was right.

9:21 PM

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Christopher said...

It's not that hard to tell the truth about something. It's the simplest thing in the world actually.

If there's a "true and factual account" of what happened that night, why haven't you shared it with us yet?

Could it be that you can't share "the truth" with us until it passes muster with your attorney?

By the way Ron, you aren't an "AT-LARGE MEMBER" of the school board yet. There's more than 84 hours still before you get sworn in. So it's a complete innacuracy to tell people that you are on the board now.

12:01 AM

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Drew said...

You campaign as a Christian and a conservative but you are really a thief who doesn't give a damn about doing what's right by the people of this county. You are just another crook and swindler. And you use too much hair coloring too. You are a joke now and you will be a joke when you join the board. But that doesn't matter to a bastard without conscience like you I bet.

12:38 PM

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Penny Owens said...

Oh for Pete's sake, just spare us all...You admitted it on your blog, you admitted it personally to me on November 9th... as well as other people at various times...You cannot explain it away, you cannot justify it, you cannot change the facts and the witnesses accounts of what they SAW YOU DOING, and you cannot be an effective School Board Member. You cannot hold the students and employees of the Rockingham County School System accountable and expect responsibility and integrity from them when you lack these qualities yourself.

3:47 PM

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Ouch! Come one Drew, don't hold back: tell us how you really feel!

As I said, the swearing-in of new members is during the December meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education: at 7 p.m. this coming Monday night. I plan on being there plenty early because I want to see the four candidates who did not break the law get sworn in and show them that they have my complete support: I believe that Dr. Austin, Lori McKinney, Steve Smith and Reida Drum are going to serve us well.

But I'd be lying if I said that I also wouldn't be there to chronicle what might happen regarding the Price fiasco. There's little doubt that at least one deputy sheriff will be on scene for the express purpose of keeping the situation under control. Word on the street is that Political Soup host and former candidate Richard Moore is planning to attend every forthcoming meeting with a "Brad Miller for Congress" sign kept where Price can always see it. Although I will not be referencing this situation in any manner during the school board meetings (this is only going to matter during open session if/when the state board refers the matter to them if Price is found guilty in court... well supposed to anyway) my digital camera will be armed and ready for whatever happens.

"Ain't we lucky we got 'em... GOOD TIMES!"

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DON'T watch tonight's DOCTOR WHO on Sci-Fi

There is only one reason I can possibly think of why tonight's episode of Doctor Who on Sci-Fi merits some curiosity, and that is because the actress who plays Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter movies is in this.

Other than that, "Love & Monsters" is an unholy mess of an hour that you'll never get back and will probably not even be able to admit to anyone for as long as you lived that you actually watched this thing (here's my original review of the episode from June).

This is the absolute worst episode of Doctor Who of all time. And probably for all time. Yes folks, even if Doctor Who goes on for another forty-odd years, I doubt any future episode will plunge to the depths that "Love & Monsters" reaches. It actually makes the whole "Trial of a Time Lord" fiasco from Colin Baker's era seem downright brilliant... and that's saying something! And that's not just me believing this either: a LOT of fans agree that "Love & Monsters" is the ultimate low point of the entire series.

It's an episode so bad, that to this day it's the only episode of the revived run of Doctor Who that I not only banished from my hard drive (I downloaded this after it first ran on British TV months ago) but also damn well refused to burn it to CD-ROM. I wiped it out as soon as I finished watching it. You think I'm gonna DVR this tonight? Feh!

To its credit, the episode has a pretty neat premise: a few people who've witnessed various activities of the Doctor come together to pool their info. They wind up forming something of a Scooby-Doo gang that investigates stuff, but mostly become a tight-knit social group that cooks together and starts a band. Then they get infiltrated by this nasty guy who makes them become all business and no pleasure. It's obviously meant to be a metaphor about how there are some fans of the show (or anything else) who enjoy it and others who take it too seriously...

...but whatever redeeming qualities there are to "Love & Monsters", it all gets flushed straight down the crapper in the final ten minutes of the show.

But, there's nothing I can actually do to force you not to watch this particular episode of Doctor Who. It's all left up to you. Just ask yourself this: if you knew beforehand that an hour of television featured something that looks like this...

...and also had a character who talked about getting oral sex from a slab of concrete...

...would you really be desperate to watch it?

The "Love & Monsters" episode of Doctor Who broadcasts tonight at 8 on the Sci-Fi Channel. Don't say I didn't warn you!

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Hey FIREFLY fans: Wanna be a Browncoat?

It's set to be announced today that Firefly is being turned into a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game.

I don't play MMORPGs anymore, but if they'll let you be a Reaver I might have to check this out :-)

(Or, if a player is a Christian, the game should let him/her play as a Shepherd so they can walk around the game spouting spiritual stuff to other players. That might be even more fun than running harvesters in Star Wars Galaxies :-P)

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Was my approach to education appreciated by the Flanneled One?!

It's been sent to my attention that the first commercial from my school board campaign - the "Star Wars" one with the Death Star blowing up the schoolhouse then the scene with me wielding my lightsaber - has been given special mention as one of a group of "great education-related videos" by a website called Edutopia.

Edutopia, it turns out, is the website of The George Lucas Educational Foundation.

Here's what the site has to say...

YOUTUBE PICK: BEST CAMPAIGN AD EVER!
It didn't win him a seat on Rockingham County, NC's school board, but Christopher Knight's Star Wars-themed video spot won him loads of giggling fans (1:01).

This made my day!! It's probably the closest I'll ever get to making an officially-approved Star Wars movie! Okay, kidding aside, it is an honor to get mentioned by this, an organization that I've long had a lot of respect and admiration for. When George Lucas did The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (wow... going on fifteen years ago!) I thought that show was an amazing means of teaching history to young people. I'll admit it: I applied for a few jobs with Lucasfilm over the years (what self-respecting Star Wars geek hasn't?). But even more than the chance to work on a Star Wars movie, I wanted to be part of the effort to use these stories as vehicles for innovative learning. THAT is going to be the long-lasting legacy of these stories. And although I never did it in an official capacity, I've absolutely played to the hilt any opportunity to use Star Wars and Indiana Jones to impart knowledge and values to my students. That's what I tried to do with this first commercial too. But I never thought it would wind up referenced on George Lucas's education website. That's just... wow!

So to the good folks at The George Lucas Educational Foundation: thanks!! :-)

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Wii are in danger

I've been lusting for a Nintendo Wii for the past few weeks, even though it'll probably be awhile before we wind up getting one. Now I'm not so sure if wanting a Wii is such a hot idea, given that we just bought a 37-inch HDTV and we want it to last for awhile. A new website called Wii Have A Problem... is chronicling the mayhem that's resulted from using the Wii's unique controller. The toll so far: 8 television sets (including some pretty 'spensive sets), 2 laptop computers, a window and one slashed hand... and the body count threatens to rise even more as we get closer to Christmas. Click on the link and admire the wreckage!

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Sixty-Five years ago today...

"...December 7, 1941 - A date which will live in infamy..."

Today will mark the final time that the survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack will ever reunite. Their numbers are now fast dwindling.

U.S.S. Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The memorial floats directly above the sunken battleship:
a tomb for the more than eleven-hundred sailors
who perished aboard the Arizona
during the attack.

"To remember."

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Yeah, another update on the Ron Price fiasco

Quick primer for those who don't know what's going on: Ron Price, one of my fellow school board candidates, was caught in the act of stealing campaign signs on the evening of November 6th, the night before the election. The signs he stole belonged to U.S. House incumbent Brad Miller and Price was working on the rival Vernon Robinson campaign. Price later said he was just taking the Miller signs to the local DOT because they were illegally placed. Maybe that's so... but it doesn't explain why Price put Robinson signs in their place. Well, I didn't win a seat but Ron Price came in fifth so he's set to be sworn in to the Rockingham County Board of Education this coming Monday night. Since his act of larceny a lot of people have called for him to do the right thing and step aside (here's my open letter to Price). Price is refusing to do so. He even told at least one person that it was okay that he broke the law because "I was elected".

I reported last week about Price appearing in court. I didn't know at the time but Price pleaded "not guilty" to the criminal charges of endangering advertisements, which carries the same penalties as does being in possession of marijuana. It's worth noting that there's been a petition to be sent to the state board of education calling for Price's fitness to serve on the board be investigated by the county board: if the county board agrees that he broke the law, they would have to vacate his seat.

If Price had pled guilty that would have been substantial grounds for his removal from the board (provided the board does abide by state law in this matter). If he's found guilty in court that's going to look even worse for him. At least one person with knowledge of such matters has told me that in all likelihood, Price's goose is cooked because there's a high probability he'll be found guilty... assuming, of course, that the board adheres to the law if he is.

Meanwhile, more candidates from the school board race have weighed in and said that Price has no place on the school board. On his Reidsville Free Press website last week Jeff Sykes called for Price to step aside. And now former candidate Penny Owens has published an e-mail she recently sent to Price:

Realizing you may not have had a chance to review the school board policies with regard to what we expect from our students, I have taken the liberty of forwarding this portion of Policy 4300 to you. I am interested in your comments, although I am sure you will not respond. How ironic that you do not exhibit these qualities yourself, but our students are expected to and you will have a position of authority over our students as a member of the school board.

G. Integrity and Civility

All students are expected to demonstrate integrity, civility, responsibility and self control. This expectation is directly related to the board’s educational objectives for students to learn to be responsible for and accept the consequences of their behavior and for students to respect cultural diversity and ideological differences. Integrity, civility, responsibility and self control also are critical for establishing and maintaining a safe, orderly and inviting environment.

This is the heartmeat of the matter right here: the example that Ron Price, as a member of the school board, would be setting for the students of Rockingham County. How is it going to look to the children when they have someone who broke the law - and even admitted that he did it but brazenly refuses to be held accountable - who is running the schools they're in?

No doubt Price isn't going to do the right thing, and he's going to be sworn in on December 11th. But I have serious doubts that he'll be there for long. And even if he does manage to hold out, he's going to be a really lame member of the board in the minds of plenty enough people.

More as it develops...

EDIT 3:16 AM EST 12-8-2006: Price has changed his blog again. This time he's telling us to "Look for the complete and factual account of the sign incident on this web page in the near future." He's also already calling himself an "AT LARGE Member Rockingham County Board of Education. Dedicated to serving the students and citizens of Rockingham County"... nevermind the fact that there's still three and a half days before he's actually sworn in.

If the "complete and factual account" of the sign incident is still to come, why hasn't he shared it with us already? I mean, telling the truth shouldn't be the hardest thing to do in the world, especially for a Christian.

My take on this? We won't hear "complete and factual" from Price until it passes muster with his attorney.

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Opening scene from the STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL

I don't dare force anyone to watch the entire thing. If you want to find it, it's easy enough to track down on the web (it's also "serialized" into several parts on YouTube). But in this season of too many Christmas specials on TV, it's good to be reminded of how much worse they all could be by taking a look at the most glorious travesty that was ever done in the name of Star Wars...This is the thing that George Lucas has stated that if it were in his power to do so, he would track down every existing copy and have them incinerated. There's a reason he has that sentiment and if you watch this you'll understand why.

I will say this though: when I was the Humor editor at TheForce.net, the Star Wars Holiday Special did provide a lot of great pics to use in the "Captioning" feature. I went back and tracked 'em down: #36 and #37 are from late 2000 and a year later I ran #57 (again featuring Harvey Korman as the weird 4-handed alien "Julia Child") and #58 (that's Art Carney with Chewbacca's son Lumpy... yeah this was a pretty forgettable special awright). I remember those captions especially well 'cuz everyone really enjoyed poking fun at the Holiday Special. And these aren't from the special but I still have a lot of fondness for #41 (a pic from the B-movie Yor: Hunter from the Future) and #61 (doesn't Andre the Giant look so much like Emperor Palpatine in that shot? :-).

Anyway, if you really absolutely must, don't let me stop you from watching the Star Wars Holiday Special. It should be seen by every Star Wars fan at least once in their life. After that, even Jar Jar Binks looks pretty good.

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"Conservative" group goes too far with "manger" scene

The lust to destroy other people because of their political persuasion will certainly lead to the downfall of this country. I don't care who it is who's doing the hating: Democrat or Republican or "conservative" or "liberal". Seeing one's fellow man as a target of political expedience is... I don't know what else to call it except "base evil".

(Look in some of the more prominent "political discussion" forums if you want to see what I mean. Which is one of the reasons I quit doing those.)

I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. I also hold to many more traditionally conservative values than I do with other political leanings. That said, what's depicted in this picture disgusts me. And not because of the intent these students probably had in mind either. I suppose the "conservative" students at the University of Texas think of themselves as particularly clever for having come up with this. To me it's a display of intellectual shallowness. It shows that the students are incapable of thinking outside the box that their political philosophy has confined them to. There's definitely nothing Christian about it...

That's an "ACLU Solstice Barn" that the Young Conservatives at the Austin campus of the University of Texas have set up. Mary and Joseph have been replaced with homosexual "Gary and Joseph". The Magi are Stalin, Lenin and Marx. Of course they also had to do the "currently stylish" thing and throw in Nancy Pelosi. Here's the story at WorldNetDaily if you want to know more.

I've no love for the ACLU. I think they've done a few good things over the decades but those have been woefully overshadowed by too much lunacy, like attacking public display of manger scenes at Christmas (oh I forgot, it's "the holidays"). They're too much known for the evil they've done as opposed to the good. I've no problem with attacking them as an organization...

...but there is a line of appropriateness and good taste. And these "conservative" students have crossed it with this display.

I don't care if Stalin, Lenin and Marx are insulted, if it's not done as crass as it is here. What bothers me is the inclusion of Pelosi. These "conservatives" and far too many others desperately want to hate someone for the "sin" of being a Democrat. It's not like when Bill Clinton was President: Lord knows that man deserved the ridicule... but loathing someone because you are expected to do so by your political party shows how little free will some people have. To me, there's no difference between this and the "Two Minutes Hate" from Orwell's 1984. This just happens to be more sophisticated. But it still serves the same purpose: focus the people's raw emotion on something, let them vent their anger... so they'll be distracted from the things that really matter and hence become more controllable. And isn't that what this whole thing is, really: a show of power and control?

Those aren't conservative values. At least, not any that I wound up adopting over the years. Neo-conservative maybe, but not classic conservatism.

Bottom line: these "conservative" students are accomplishing little more than showing everyone how very proud they are to be willing to be used as tools to further something as ultimately meaningless as a political agenda. And they're doing as much damage to the imagery of Christmas as the group they are attacking with it. If there is anyone with adult maturity among the Young Conservatives at the University of Texas, they should tear this thing down tonight.

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Weird Al is "White and Nerdy" at the VH1 Big in 06 Awards

What a terrific performance!

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What's a good "upconverting" DVD player?

Lisa and I are still in awe at "the Behemoth": the 37 inch LCD high-def TV we got about two weeks ago. Not that we're really that materialistic or anything: "instant gratification" is something we've never really pursued so far as "buying things" goes. But all the same: this is one heckuva television... and I've never even been a die-hard TV person! It's not just the high-def broadcast that's amazing either: I never imagined that Halo on the Xbox could look so beautiful.

So yeah, we like it a lot. And though I'm on the conservative side when it comes to new technology, I must admit that I would love to get as much out of this as I can. The sound quality is perfect for us as it is (I doubt I'll ever spring for a Surround Sound or home THX system) but when it comes to playing DVDs, well...

I'm waiting at least two years, and see which of the two competing high-def formats becomes the standard. But all the same, I'd love to get as good a picture as can possibly be produced from my collection of DVDs.

So for the past several days I've been researching standard DVD players with the "upconversion" feature, or sometimes called "upscaling". That means that the player enhances the video data from the DVD for output through the HDMI channel. A lot of people swear that this makes standard DVDs look really good on an HDTV: that even at 1080i it's pretty stunning. If there's any way to make my precious Star Wars saga or The Lord of the Rings look that much more awesome on this high-def set, I'd certainly fork over a reasonable amount of coin for it.

So if anyone knows of a DVD player with upconversion that would be well worth the money, that you know does a really good job at improving the resolution/color/other stuff, I'd appreciate it if you could please recommend it to me :-) Thanks!

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The book binge continues with HELTER SKELTER

I commented to Mom earlier tonight (okay, so it's 3:30 a.m. on December 5th, and I've been awake since yesterday morning, so it was really Monday night) that in the three-some months during which I was running the school board campaign, I lost track of everything that I usually keep up with. Among those are movies that have came out that I've wanted to see but haven't had time to yet (The Prestige, The Fountain and Casino Royale are tops on the list).

And I'm a voracious reader too, and there hasn't been time to do that much either. The rumor is that the seventh and final Harry Potter novel is due to come out on July 7th (#7 on 7/07/07, wouldn't that be cool?) and I'm hoping to re-read all six of the current books before then. In the meantime I'm catching up with stuff that's come out lately, like the new Star Wars novel Darth Bane: Path of Destruction and Michael Crichton's latest thriller Next. I'll probably be picking up Orson Scott Card's Empire - a speculative novel about a modern day civil war in America - pretty soon.

But in the meantime, ever since finishing Next a few nights ago, I've immersed myself in another book. One that I've read many, many times over the years...

"The story you are about to read will scare the hell out of you"

Those are the very first words that you find when you open the cover of Helter Skelter. If anything, it's an underwhelming warning that isn't adequate enough at all. Because after more than three decades, Helter Skelter is still the most classic true-life crime book ever written. And no matter how many times I've read it, the book continues to horrify.

This is the same copy I bought in May of 1992, a few weeks before graduating from high school. My best friend Chad had been reading it and he said I would probably ummm... well, "enjoy" isn't the right word to use, is it? One of the local stations happened to run the Helter Skelter TV movie like a week before I got the book, and that piqued my curiosity all the more. Once I started reading it I could barely stop.

This is still the definitive book about the Charles Manson murders. Written by Vincent Bugliosi: the man who prosecuted Manson and the other defendants in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murder case. This is the textbook that should be studied at length by every judge, lawyer, and member of the law enforcement in the country, and anyone else interested in the law. Helter Skelter is not only an amazing study in how to build up and prosecute a criminal case, but it's also a dire chronicle of official blundering and the negative impact of departmental rivalry. I still cannot comprehend how the investigators originally did not believe the murders at the Tate house and the ones the following night at the LaBianca residence were connected in spite of the similarities... like ummmm, the words written in blood at both scenes.

By the way, 2006 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Helter Skelter two-part made-for-TV movie. It came out not long ago on DVD if you ever want to watch it. Apart from the names of some of the characters being changed (the most obvious being Manson's defense attorney Irving Kanarek, who came Mr. "Scoble" in this production) it's probably the most accurate film adaptation from a book I've ever seen. One thing I happened to catch is that during the raid on Spahn Ranch in the movie, Juan Flynn is dressed exactly as he is shown in the photo in the book, even though Flynn has no speaking role in the film. It's the small details like that which make this movie so good. And it must be said: the portrayal by Steve Railsback of Charles Manson is still one of the most chilling ever seen of any character in movie history. Too bad that his performance was so awesome that Railsback wound up getting typecast because of it and since then has mostly found work playing other murderous wackos (he even played Ed Gein in a movie about that case).

Anyways, I'm re-reading Helter Skelter now, and at the rate I'm going I might have 9 or 10 more books read by New Year's. Which is all the more impressive considering we've got that new 37-inch high-def TV set (maybe I'll play the Helter Skelter DVD on it for Lisa to watch :-P).

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Scales Street at 10 PM on a Saturday night in December

I did nothing on my shift from 3 to 11 p.m. this past Saturday except run the Draper, Leakesville and Reidsville Christmas parades over and over again (that wasn't my programming decision by the way :-). Lisa said she was coming by the station and I asked her to bring my digital camera with her: I wanted to try to take some pics of the streets outside the station lit up for Christmas.

These were taken at 10 p.m. on the night of December 2nd, 2006, from the corner of Scales Street and Gilmer Street in Reidsville, North Carolina. The first is looking north up Scales (you can just see the Confederate monument way down the street)...

This next one is looking toward the big mural...

I'm going to take a few more nighttime pics of places around here decked out for the holidays in the next few weeks. And a short while before I took these, I snapped some pics of the inside of our station. So if you ever wanted to know what the real innards of a TV station look like, your chance is coming up soon :-)

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