The "Radioactive Boy Scout" gets 90 days in jail

Oddly enough this is the second story in the past few days involving Boy Scouts and hazardous materials (here's a link to the first). Curious, that...Anyway, last week David Hahn was sentenced to 90 days in jail for stealing smoke detectors from an apartment complex. After being caught taking one, police found 15 other smoke detectors in his apartment.Years ago David Hahn...

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Dinner at Texas Roadhouse

Yesterday Lisa and I went to Winston-Salem and wound up eating at Texas Roadhouse. This was my first time trying their food, although Lisa ate at one in Georgia a few months back and kept telling me how good the barbecue ribs were.Well, I ordered a full slab of ribs and something happened that very, very rarely occurs: I couldn't eat the entire order. And ya wanna know why? 'Cuz that slab was huge!! Probably the biggest portion of ribs that I've...

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First review ANYWHERE of TRANSFORMERS: THE SCORE by Steve Jablonsky (and a peek at how you might be able to get a signed copy!)

The doorbell rang just after 11 this morning.Usually that means it's Dad come by for a visit, 'cuz he's the only person who ever rings the doorbell: everyone else just knocks. So I took a looksee out the peephole to see if it was him.It wasn't. It was a lady in a FedEx uniform holding a package.I thought that it must be something Lisa had ordered, because she's all the time...

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Y'all ain't gonna BUH-LEEEEEVE what I'm listening to right now!

It arrived via FedEx today!It's not out in stores until this coming Tuesday!It's (GASP!) a legitimate copy!It's even signed by the composer!I'm listening to it right now!It sounds glorious!And there is something very very cool coming soon regarding this, that is going to be for a good cause, that you are going to have the opportunity to take part in.Review coming so...

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The "Star Wars" school board commercial is 1 year old today

It was one year ago today - on October 6th, 2006 - that the now-(in)famous first commercial from my campaign for Rockingham County Board of Education started broadcasting on WGSR in Reidsville...I had just finished it that morning, and while the video was doing the final render I ran out to find Debbie Moore so that I could give her the check for a month's worth of airtime. Then I got home, burned it onto a CD and drove it over to WGSR and handed...

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Bad cops, fear, and the Second Amendment

A deputy sheriff in Minnesota shot and killed a family's dog, in front of a 2-year old toddler in the family's yard. It's a pretty sick story.Who here is willing to bet that after an "internal investigation" that it's going to be announced that the deputy over-reacted and will be fired?More likely the sheriff's department will come out and say that the deputy did nothing wrong, and will soon be back at work as if nothing happened.That's what always...

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A FEW GOOD MEN on Family Channel at 8 tonight

I'll never forget that movie. The first time I saw it, was on a red-eye flight to Brussels in late June 1993. The movie ended and when everyone opened their windows, England was below us.That was a pretty wild flight for a commercial airliner. All kinds of neat characters wound up on that plane. It was sorta like Cheers at 35,000 feet. Too bad passengers aren't allowed to be so jovial anymore.Anyway, it's a great movie if you've never seen it...

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Is "Globalization" a merit badge? Lead-laden Chinese products now plague Boy Scouts

Yesterday the following item landed in my e-mail:Attention Scouters and Parents,We received notification on Oct. 3 relating to defects in the Cub Scout Immediate Recognition Kit (Item # 01804). It may contain lead levels in excess of U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission standards in the paint on the totem badge.The Boy Scouts of America has directed all of its Scout Shops...

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Dinner at Back Yard Burgers ... with magic by Marlo!

For the past few months WGSR has been running these 30-minute promos for the Back Yard Burgers in Danville (just across the border in Virginia for those who aren't local). I'd never eaten at a Back Yard Burgers before, so last night Lisa and I drove up U.S. 29 to check it out.I think that many more trips to Danville are going to be in my future, because I got the Double Meat Back Yard Burger with lettuce, tomatoes and Swiss cheese and it was deeeee-licious!...

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Obama won't wear an American flag pin... and I agree with him

I will never vote for Barack Obama to be President. Let me be absolutely clear about that. You'll never see me trying to persuade others to vote for him either. But if he seriously believes this, then I'll absolutely agree with the man on this much. Obama has stopped wearing the American flag pin that is seen adorning just about every politician in this country.Why? Because since 9/11, Obama told an Iowa TV station, the pin has become "a substitute"...

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Sputnik was launched 50 years ago today

One of the biggest achievements in human history took place 50 years ago today on October 4th, 1957. That was the day that the Soviet Union launched Спутник-1, better known to we in the western world as "Sputnik 1" (it means "Co-Traveler 1"), the first artificial satellite to be launched into Earth orbit.For something about the size of a beach ball, Sputnik raised a hella...

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Hollywood coming to Rockingham County! MANDIE AND THE SECRET TUNNEL to film at Chinqua-Penn

This is great news, because it really shows how far Chinqua-Penn Plantation has come in just the past year. The historic manor near Reidsville was once among the most opulent and celebrated houses in America, until it had to close down several years ago because of lack of funding. Then last year Calvin and Lisa Phelps bought the place and immediately started turning things...

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More copyright insanity: Sony BMG claims ripping CDs is "stealing"

Slashdot is reporting that the head lawyer for Sony BMG is claiming that we should not be allowed to copy the tracks from CDs that we buy to our personal MP3 players. Jennifer Pariser says that we should be buying multiple copies of a CD: one for each device that we intend to play it on.Ars Technica has more on the story, which came from testimony in a court case involving music companies.As someone on the Slashdot thread has already noted: Sony...

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30-second clips from TRANSFORMERS: THE SCORE now online

30-second snippets from each track on Transformers: The Score are now on the CD's product page at Wal-Mart's website.Just going by these clips, this album sounds amazing. Easily many orders of magnitude better than anything from the score that has wound up online (with "official releases" like Burger King's posting of the Decepticons theme on its website in mind). And there are now only six days left before it comes out!I was thinking the other...

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My wife leaves me to go study banjos

No joke: over the past 3 months my wife Lisa has been gone from home for roughly a month. All on trips to places where she's been learning how to enhance her abilities as a music teacher. This past week she went to the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching out in Cullowhee (right across the road from Western Carolina University) to learn about the banjo and its history: from its origins in Africa to its adoption as a traditional...

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An X-Wing Fighter that actually flies!

An outfit calling themselves Polecat Aerospace in California has built an almost full-sized X-Wing Fighter from the Star Wars movies. It's 21 feet long, has a 19-foot wingspan, and it really flies!It is made of wood and some aluminum, and is propelled by four solid-fuel rockets. It even has an Artoo unit that can rotate its head by remote control. And to top it all off,...

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James Purefoy will wield the sword of Solomon Kane

Superhero Hype! is reporting that James Purefoy has been cast as the namesake character in Solomon Kane. Recently, Purefoy has been widely acclaimed for his portrayal of Mark Antony in HBO's hit series Rome.In case you're wondering who Solomon Kane is, he's a creation of Robert E. Howard: the same writer who gave the world Conan the Barbarian and Kull the Conqueror. Solomon...

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