Bostic, North Carolina: Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln?

Found a curious item on the CharlotteObserver.com site about Bostic: a small town an hour's drive west of Charlotte here in North Carolina. Longstanding local folklore has it that Abraham Lincoln was born in a cabin atop what is now a tree-covered hill in this Rutherford County community, and not in Kentucky as the history books say. There is even the Bostic Lincoln Center: a small museum dedicated to the legend (which is not without its own supposed body of evidence). Either of the links will tell you more about the allegation, which is rife with all sorts of old-fashioned nineteenth-century ribaldry!

Hmmmm... fascinating, on numerous levels. I'm not saying that I do believe there's an iota of credence to the claim though (which Geoff Elliott of The Abraham Lincoln Blog describes as "bad history" and calls the Bostic Lincoln Center "one of the worst examples I've yet seen").

But I also know that history is never as clean and cut as the books make it out to be. Real life is a messier affair than most published chronicles. After all, we are talking about nothing more or less than people. So who knows?

Just gonna file this one away as a odd anecdote about the life of Lincoln, and pass this along for your perusal :-)

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Bill Watterson gives interview about CALVIN AND HOBBES

It's been fifteen years since Calvin and Hobbes took their sleigh ride off the comics pages and into cartooning history. They haven't been seen since and now in an extremely rare interview, Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson looks back on it all and reflects on the strip's enduring charm... as well as his thoughts about ending the cartoon's run at the height of its popularity.

I'm not gonna hit the "publish" button on this post without saying that in my opinion, Calvin and Hobbes is the all-time greatest comic strip ever. Hard to pin down a favorite "arc" but the one about the snow goons stands out in my mind as classic Calvin :-)

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BIOSHOCK 2: The Uber Edition!

BioShock 2 finally comes out next Tuesday! Don't even think of buggin' me for the next few days after that, 'cuz Lord willing I will be in line before midnight next Monday evening to get my pre-ordered copy and then spend the rest of the week once again immersed in the sub-Atlantic dystopia of Rapture.

We already knew that 2K Games is coming out with a Special Edition of BioShock 2 and in this video 2K community manager Elizabeth Tobey unboxes the whole package. And then she reveals the BioShock 2 Uber Edition.

Make sure you watch the entire video...

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LOST: Return of the DHARMA Initiative food labels!

We're a little more than 24 hours away from the return of Lost! Want some DHARMA Initiative munchies for your Lost party?

Here's the zipped-up collection that I put together a few years ago of a lot of the DHARMA labels that some people have created. And if you want a buttload more DHARMA Initiative stuff you MUST visit Max Pictures' blog 'cuz that dude has made some that I'd never thought of!

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Still snowed in

Main roads are fine. Secondary roads are now passable. However I live on, like, a tertiary road.

Still trapped inside. More ice and snow on the way. Time is beginning to blur and become a meaningless concept. I hear things... I'm hearing things. Funny things. Personal hygiene... what? Maybe I really died in a car crash on the way back home with the pizza the other night and this, all of this, is some terrible purgatory... or worse.

Thank God I've got the gun and plenty of Cheetos.

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"GOD HATES #TAGS"! Westboro Baptist nuts mocked at Twitter HQ counter-protest

Awright, what the hell has Twitter done to get the Westboro Baptist Church idiots to picket outside its corporate headquarters?

Whatever the "God Hates Fags" bunch's purpose in being there was, a lot more people showed up with some extremely clever signs mocking the "church"...

Also said to have been there was a "GOD HATES #TAGS" sign! Hilarious :-)

Click here and here and here and here and no doubt many other pages popping up documenting the hilarity, which reportedly was enough to drive the inbred progeny of Fred Phelps off the scene!

('Course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my own encounter with the Westboro Baptist loons a few years ago.)

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Fifty years ago today: The Greensboro sit-ins begin

It was fifty years ago today, on February 1st, 1960, that four freshmen students from North Carolina A&T strolled in to the Woolworth's on North Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina for a bite to eat.

The lunch counter was segregated, as were many places throughout the country at the time. Only white people were served at it. Ezell A. Blair Jr., David Leinhail Richmond, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and Franklin Eugene McCain were black. They could order food at the Woolworth's and eat it there, but they were expected to stand and not use the stools and chairs reserved for white people.

Blair, Richmond, McNeil and McCain sat down anyway...

The four young men weren't served their lunch, and eventually left. The next day they came back and 27 friends joined them. The next day, even more people arrived. And very soon the sit-in movement spread like wildfire throughout other cities across the country.

A few months later, segregation was finished. The Woolworth's began serving everyone at the lunch counter.

On this fiftieth anniversary, The Knight Shift and its proprietor gladly tips its hat to Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain. If more people had the simple gumption that these four demonstrated a half-century ago, this would no doubt be a far better world.

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Meet David Morris and his backyard observatory

David Morris (left) is someone I've been honored to have as a friend for many years now so I know of what I speak when I say this: David Morris is like the Chuck Norris of renaissance men! This guy does everything, including competition roller skating and (along with his wonderful wife Gretchen) being active in the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County.

David and I first met because of our mutual love for astronomy. But David, being David, took his passion to the max and pulled off what most amateur astronomers only dream of: his very own observatory! Here's an excellent write-up in today's News & Record about David and his homebrewed facility, which he has christened Smithstone Observatory.

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LOST Season 6 DVD/Blu-ray details!

DocArzt's LOST Blog passes along info about the DVD and Blu-ray release of Lost Season 6. The really good news is that we won't have to wait hardly long at all to buy it! Whereas there's been a seven-month gap between the season finale in May and the DVD/Blu-ray sets, Lost's sixth and final season is scheduled to drop for retail on August 24th!

Also arriving that day will be Lost: The Complete Collection ($229.99 for the DVD and $279.99 for Blu-ray) containing all of the season sets and bonus material, plus an extra disc of exclusive content. Maybe a good buy if you don't have any of the sets yet, but I'll prolly pass and just get the regular Season 6 Blu-ray set, since I'm already well on my way to building up my Lost Blu-ray collection :-)

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Scott Brown, the Republican Senator-elect, favors abortion "rights"

Read about it here.

How the hell is this going to make him any different than Ted Kennedy?

"But Chris, he couldn't get elected in Massachusetts if he were pro-life!"

There are more important things in this world than "getting elected".

I have said it before and I will say it again: the vast majority of the Republican party's leadership and elected officials do not care one iota about the abortion issue. And if they do, it's only because it never ceases to provide a carrot that gets to be dangled in front of "the faithful" to keep them voting GOP in elections.

It just so happened that this time the carrot was "health care reform", and that to many people that is more important than the abortion issue. Rather telling also, that Brown has publicly said he doesn't want the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade... and that alone tells me how much regard Brown has for the Constitution. A wiser person would have said that Roe v. Wade is the worst "legislation from the bench" ever and that abortion must be decided by the states for themselves and not the federal judiciary.

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Prepare to have your mind blown

From the shortest possible distance (the Planck Length) to the edge of the observable universe (93 billion light years) and everything in between, this incredible Flash presentation puts it all into perspective...

Thanks to Shane Thacker for such a humbling and breathtaking find.

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Want to see the first four minutes of LOST Season 6?

No, really... do you?

Mash here for the first four minutes of "LA X", the premiere episode of Lost's sixth and final season. I'm not embedding it though 'cuz even the still from the YouTube video might be considered a major spoiler. But as with every other season, it starts off with a healthy dose of "What the...?!"

Lost returns this coming Tuesday night on ABC.

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"Thank you, Lord!"

Those were the very first words out of my mouth this morning, when I woke up and looked outside at the beautiful snow-covered landscape.

About 8 inches so far. The snow is still coming down and will do so until this evening when it's supposed to become snow and freezing rain mix.

I'm not going anywhere today. And if you have to in these conditions, please be careful out there. But I'm gonna be more than content to stay inside and gaze in wonder at the pristine white countryside.

(Well, I'm gonna do other stuff too, like reading some books etc. And I might blog a bit too :-)

But in the meantime, it's worth saying again: Thank you, Lord!

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New vocabulary term: "Update Creep"

Longtime readers of this blog (all two of them) know that from time to time I come up with new terminology for things that don't yet have a name. Like two years ago when I defined "Hell Époque". Sorta like Rich Hall's "Snigglets" of HBO's Not Necessarily the News years ago... 'cept mine aren't for humor's sake.

Add another one tonight: "Update Creep".

I hit upon it after finishing an update of the security suite software on my computer. The update completed at 6 p.m. tonight... and it's taken me almost four hours to get everything back working on my 'puter the way I'm used to!

So what is update creep?

Update Creep: (noun) The long-term tendency of computer software to gradually evolve into a radically different product through a process of consistent updates and professed "improvements".

I guess Microsoft Windows could be the best example that one could cite of update creep, but it could happen to any software package. Even video games. The Super Mario Bros. series comes to mind but that's one instance where the update creep has still maintained the spirit of the original game.

At least now I can visit my own blog without my security suite asking if it's safe for children (Good Lord, I hope it is! :-P)

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The snow is here

Has been for about an hour or so. Ground is covered. 18 inches is now said to be a strong possibility.

I'll try to post some pics on the morrow :-)

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15 inches of snow coming our way

I'm holed-up in my Sanctum Sanctorum with all the essentials: lots of food, toilet paper, reading material, video games, and a bunch of Orks to paint up for Warhammer 40,000. Not to mention plenty of movies (including my blizzard tradition, John Carpenter's The Thing).

The storm headed straight toward here. May not get to dig out 'til Tuesday, if we get the temps they're calling for.

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Geoff Gentry's thoughts on the iPad

It's been my favorite joke to tell during the past 24 hours...

"Lots of people are upset about the 4:3 aspect ratio of the iPad so Apple is rolling out one with a 16:9 screen in a few months. They're calling it the Max-iPad."

rimshot

Okay, giggles at its horrible name aside, plenty of people are wondering if the iPad is already set to be a bomb for the House of Jobs. Putting it all into perspective is Geoff Gentry: good friend and techno-ubergeek whose opinion on all matters gadget I have long held in great esteem.

Some of Geoff's points about the iPad...

First of all as "magical" and "revolutionary" as the iPad is, it is 1st generation technology. With Apple that means it will get better quickly. Here are my thoughts on the new product.

The Name: Yes the word pod was out there before Apple added the "i" and made it a household word. But pad on the other hand is used for so many things and is hard to add a new definition. Did the naming folks at Apple not do any research with people or online? People automatically started making feminine hygiene jokes about it. While the name is direct, simple (two syllables) and close to the iPod it is lacking. I personally think iSlate would have been a better choice.

The Hardware: The size and astetic design are good but it is lacking in several ways. First, I know they were trying to keep the ports down to a minimum, but having to use an adapter for USB or one for SD is clunky. I look at it and I think large iPod Touch. It lacks a camera (or even better 2). It needs work on the hardware side that I hope will be addressed.

Hit here for more of Geoff's take on Apple's latest igizmo.

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