Atomic Horns This Friday at Ray's ESG

And here's a special bonus free plug: Ray's ESG.

All the cool kids will be there - will you?

Friday's Feast - Leap Day Edition

Feast One Hundred & Eighty One

Appetizer - Who was the last person you hugged?

My daughter, Tink, when she got up this morning.


Soup - Share a beauty or grooming trick or tip with us.

Wash your hair. Take baths or showers. Cut your nails. Don't wear clothes that are visibly dirty. Trim your beard (males only). What, you really expect me to know anything special?


Salad - What does the color yellow make you think of?

Dandelions.


Main Course - If you were to make your living as a photographer, what subject would your pictures revolve around?

Kids playing, theme parks, kids playing at theme parks...


Dessert - What was the longest book you ever read?

Probably one of the mammoth Stephen King books like "The Stand".

How to Get Unstuck in Time

Ok, Lost fans. Here's my theory for the time displacement surrounding the island:

Picture the island as a dot on a piece of paper. Picture the boat as another dot on the other end of the same side of the paper. Now draw a line between the two dots - that's the distance in real time and space between the island and the boat:
The chopper takes off from the island around dusk (according to Sayid). It's dusk on the boat, too, because the two areas are actually in real time sync with each other. It's Christmas-ish 2004 in both places. Things are proceeding normally.
Now picture the island existing within a bubble or dome of some sort. Anything that hits this bubble without being on the precise correct heading (sort of a corridor through the bubble) encounters a "warp". This "warp" connects through "subspace" (for want of a better term) and bridges the 40-minute gap. While in that warp, for the people on the chopper a short but indeterminate time has passed, but it's obvious when they finally get through and arrive at the boat, it's the middle of the next day. It's also the middle of the next day on the island. So they've essentially been caught up in that warp for a day, while subjectively to them the time passes much more quickly. Picture it as a layer of jello that, while allowing radio waves to pass through unhindered (they can talk in real-time from the island to the boat and back on the radio) it hinders matter and slows it down. The effect is more or less unnoticed on the chopper by Frank and Sayid (although they experience it as storm turbulence) except for Desmond, who, due to his unique exposure to the hatch electromagnetic radiation, becomes "unstuck" in time.

So the chopper and its passengers leave the island at dusk, run into a thunderhead, and come out of it on the other side in full daylight. To them, only a short time has passed but to the island and the boat it's been a full day.

This accounts for what happened to Daniel's rocket in another way - it was launched from the boat, and supposed to arrive on the island in app. 20 seconds. It takes far longer than that to arrive, and when their clocks are compared, it shows that while "x" minutes have passed for Daniel on the island, "x+31" minutes have passed for the rocket. It was stuck in the barrier for a number of minutes, out of time with the rest of the island.

So picture the barrier as a big bubble of jello, catching objects going in and out and holding them for a particular amount of time that seems short to those coming out and long to those coming in, then releases them to arrive at their destinations. If Frank flew the chopper back to the island and missed the safe corridor, he would probably arrive later than expected again, and to Frank he would've been gone even longer still.

I'm Not Running for President, and Neither Are You

Bloomberg: I'm not running for president

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has squashed the notion of running for president this year, declaring that he will not seek the White House but might put his support behind another candidate who embraces bipartisan governing.

Yeah, well, I'm not running either. So there. I win.

I'm also not running for mayor, County Commission, dogcatcher, or in the New York Marathon. Does that get me an AP Wire story? Probably not...

My New Desk

I just had this great new desk installed in my office:



Yeah, people are looking at me funny, but hey...I've got a model of DS9, 3 Star Wars lego keychain men, Micromachine Trek ships, a Borg cube, the Enterprise NX-01, a stuffed lionfish, The Abominable Snowman from Rudolph, a framed aerial photo of EPCOT and the World's Fair, a print of Prince Eric fighting Malificent, Bill and the Conjunction Junction guy and a working tribble in my office. Who can tell a difference?

Ok, I don't have the cool Han-Solo-in-carbonite-desk, but you know I'd use it if I had it. Buy it for me here and I'll let you sit behind it and pretend you're Princess Leia...

6th District to get a Merry Christmas this year

(from the live blogging of the County Commission meeting)

District 6, Seat A

Interim Knox County Commission Chairman Thomas "Tank" Strickland drew 6th District, Seat A from the hat.

Strangely enough, there's a little-known Knox County regulation: Tank Strickland is now also required to be the 6th District's "Secret Santa" at the County Commission Christmas party.

Quick Takes on the Traumas of Life

I'm in a big blogging lag, without the will to post much at all. A lot's going on in our life these days and it seems like the more my offline world throws at me, the less I feel like blogging. When things get boring, I'll get back to posting I suppose.

In a nutshell: flu and flu scares, science fairs (Brainyboy 1st place!), Valentine's Day Simple Machine Project, end of basketball and beginning of soccer, church drama, Atomic Horns drama and new opportunities I hope to advertise soon, almost-teenage birthday sleepovers, "Spiderwick Chronicles" quite good, and once again no chips for Lent. No chips, snacks, popcorn, crackers, nothing good. It's starting to make me hallucinate, but I'll get through it. I've lost 7 pounds so far, which is good.

Anything else? Oh yeah, I opted against surgery on the bulging, herniated disk in my neck and will be starting Physical Therapy soon, and will have steroid epidural injections in my neck the first of April. Yeah, there's that little decision that was on me all last week...

One final thought: UT suspended punter Britton Colquitt and revoked his scholarship for his umpteenth DUI and alcohol-related arrest. Critics once again all over coach Fulmer for not keeping control of his players and the program. All I have to say is there's a young man here with a serious, serious substance abuse problem that is nobody's responsibility but his and his family's. That's where the focus should be, getting him into treatment and rehab so he can hopefully live with this addiction. I've seen the tragic, tragic results of alcoholism and the only thing it brings is grief and regret.

Cause and Effect

Maybe I'm being totally simplistic about such matters, but after reading this the yesterday:

TVA board will vote on rate increase (Knoxville News Sentinel, 2/12/08)

Tennessee Valley Authority board members will vote Friday on a rate increase that would add between $4 and $7 to monthly bills for residential customers, starting April 1.

...

"The reason for it is we are going to do these long-term investments and meet new power generation," said TVA spokesman Gil Francis. "It is a combination of gas turbine plants and Watts Bar 2 and it is going to allow us to continue to have the resources to keep the lights on."

...

TVA is spending $423 million this year to build and buy more gas-fired plants and recently began a $2.5 billion program to finish its second reactor at the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant by 2013.

Ok, higher power rates you just have to deal with. If they're for increasing capacity to meet future demands, I'm kinda ok with that - I'm not sure an addition $4-$7/month ($48-$84/year) would be that big of a burden on anybody...

But then I saw this in the paper today:

Drought induces TVA's $17M first-quarter loss (Knoxville News Sentinel, 2/13/08)

TVA reported a loss of $17 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2008, as the federal utility continues to feel the pinch from a drought that has stretched on for more than a year across the Tennessee Valley.

...

To make up for the gap between power demand and TVA's generation capacity, the utility is spending $423 million this year to build and buy more gas-fired power plants and is launching a five-year, $2.5 billion project to finish a second reactor at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

I'm not trying to make more of this than there is, but the separation of the two stories makes it seems like TVA's increasing our rates to pay for increasing infrastructure, but then the next day it comes out to appear they're only trying to recoup a significant 1st quarter loss that, even allowing for the intensity of the drought, should've been handled to a tune of less than a $17 million loss.

Am I being needlessly suspicious here, that execs are raising rates not just to increase generation capacity but make up for the loss of the bottom line on their paychecks?

Double Play

I love when Amazon comes to visit :)

Courtesy of my brother, I recently took advantage of a nice Amazon.com gift certificate. First up, the long-awaited but trepidation-filled animated Dragonlance movie.

Longtime viewers may remember the "Inn of the Last Home" is a fictional inn from this fantasy book series based on the Dungeons & Dragons series. This has long been a favorite series of mine, and in my opinion much richer, more fun and less pretentious than Lord of the Rings ever thought about being. I'd highly recommend any fantasy fans to give them a try. Meanwhile, the animated adaptation of the first book, "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" awaits.

The other half of Amazon's delivery was the latest Jimmy Buffett album, a live 2-disk CD of his March, 2007 beach-side concert in the Caribbean island of Anguilla:

While any new Buffett is heaven to me, what makes this compilation special isn't just the music but the accompanying DVD showing Jimmy live in concert - both at the Dunes concert venue, but also some acoustic tunes sitting around on the beach with the band. A great DVD.

I'm a happy parrothead :)

Catfish Hunters

Voters boot officials tied to county turmoil

Republicans repudiated the officials directly involved in the year-long political upheaval in Knox County on Tuesday, turning out all but two of those who had opposition in the county primary.

Democrats got in on the rebellion, too, with Amy Henley-Vandergriff thumping George Stooksbury, despite running a shoestring campaign against a seasoned politico in the county clerk's race. Stooksbury has been running the clerk's office since October.

Foster Arnett Jr. attributed his runaway victory over Commission Chairman Scott "Scoobie" Moore and two other opponents in the GOP county clerk's race to anger over the status quo.

The citizenry taking charge of their county combined with the NYT article that said (among other gems):

At curtain’s close, the 12 appointments included the son of one outgoing commissioner, the wife of another outgoing commissioner, the father of a sitting commissioner, a top aide to the politically muscular sheriff, and a businessman who years earlier had come out on the wrong end of a sexual harassment suit. It seems a catfish could have been appointed if properly connected.

The Catfish Hunters have practically hurled a no-hitter.

Best Care Anywhere

One of these days, when we make our long-planned/never-fulfilled West Coast Trip, I'm going here.

Or better yet, someone should just recreate it in their backyard somewhere. How cool would that be?

Best Super Bowl Ad of the Night

What would've made this commercial a true classic, though, if right at the last moment when Charlie Brown was about the snag the Coke Bottle a huge Lucy balloon comes out of nowhere and snatches it away from him...

Maybe next year - a sequel!

Fly Oceanic Air!

Oceanic Air has a new website... Makes me want to fly with them!

Not.

Anyway, if you go to that site, you can re-watch the commercial they ran last night (without the interference from this guy). Is it just me or are those flight attendants, while quite attractive, rather creepy?

Also, and this is the true geek in me shining through but I downloaded the source code for the home page and found two "clues":

At the very, very top of the page is printed "<--a warn witness-->" (in HTML code when something is surrounded by "<--" and "-->" means it is commented out, or not intended to be seen actually printed on the website).

A little lower down is, "<--smash moat-->".

Now when they ran the LOST Experience two summers ago there were clues embedded in the webpages, so I'm assuming these are similar. Any ideas what they might mean?

Where's Michael?

No, not this Michael. this Michael.

Harold Perrineau's name was in the opening credits of the season premiere of "Lost" last night, but as far as I could tell was nowhere to be seen in the entire episode. Was a scene with him filmed and cut? Saved for a later episode? Or was he there and we just didn't see him?

And that was totally You Know Who sitting in Jacob's chair in the Haunted Cabin. ;)

Speaking of the Haunted Cabin, One-eyed guy peeking out at Hurley (and scaring my wife to death)? Mikhail. I need to go back and check his eye color, but I bet that's who it is. The guy in the window had (a) brown eye, and I think it's significant they only showed the left one since Mikhail's right eye is gone. I don't think it was Michael (see above) because the skin tone was too light.

Did anyone think, right after Charlie disappeared from talking to Hurley, the woman sitting at the table in the background with the blond hair could have been Libby? Ok, just me.

Who is Naomi's sister? Right before she died (again) she told George on the sat phone to "tell her sister she loved her" (Unnngggggh!! *thump*). Who's her sister? Is she significant? I thought at first it could be be Penny (obviously not blood-related), but when Charlie told Penny that Naomi had parachuted to the island, Penny said, "Who's Naomi?" instead of even a momentary recognition of the name. And Desmond would've probably known her, or known of her from before. Maybe Naomi's not her real name, but George knows who she and Penny really are? I can see a plotline develop there.

I suppose it could also be Nadia, Sayid's erstwhile girlfriend. I don't know if Naomi is Iraqi (I'm assuming Nadia is) but she's the closest match ethnically we've seen on the show that I can think of.

Friday's Feast

Feast One Hundred & Seventy Eight

Appetizer - What is your favorite kind of cereal?

I'd say Raisin Bran would be at the top of "sorta healthy" cereals, but my all-time favorite would have to be Lucky Charms. That frosted oat cereal with sweet surprises...why, they're Magically Delicious!


Soup - When was the last time you purchased something for your home, what was it, and in which room did it go?

Wow, we actually haven't bought anything really for the house in a good while. There's a number of things we need to buy...a new deck door, for one.


Salad - What is the funniest commercial you’ve ever seen?

Probably the funniest one I ever saw was the famous "Herding Cats" commercial that aired during a Super Bowl a few years ago. Here's a Youtube link.


Main Course - Make up a name for a company by using a spice and an animal (example: Cinnamon Monkey).

Thyme Turles


Dessert - Fill in the blank: I haven’t ______ since ______.

I haven’t eaten squid since well, never.

Author! Author!

Ok, I'm digging the new site I just found: Ficlet

What Are ficlets?

A ficlet is a short story that enables you to collaborate with the world.

Once you’ve written and shared your ficlet, any other user can pick up the narrative thread by adding a prequel or sequel. In this manner, you may know where the story begins, but you’ll never guess where (or even if!) it ends.

Check out my first attempt. Beware, I've read a lot of Stephen King...


UPDATE (01/31/08): I've written a second one: http://ficlets.com/stories/19745. Short stories are fun when you have a limit of 1024 words!

My Creepy Daughter

Eight-year-old Tink was under the weather most of this past weekend (a polite way of saying she was yakkin' all over the place, including my parent's house where she was a guest Saturday night. Sorry, mom and dad - I'll make it up to you. How bout next weekend?)

She's much better now, though last night she complained again about her tummy hurting. Probably nothing, she went on to bed around 9pm.

Later, pushing 11pm after everyone else is in bed and I'm at the computer, listening to the UT/Bama basketball game on the radio, I heard voices. Or more accurately, a voice. Coming from downstairs.

Now, a quick bit about the layout of our house. The computer desk is on the landing at the top of the stairs. I can come to the top of the stairs, look down and see the whole living room (there's a vaulted ceiling so everything's very open-air). A bridge/hallway that's also open-air to the vaulted ceiling, goes from the landing, over the living room to Tink's room. Brainyboy's room is downstairs in another part of the house.

Did I mention it was storming?

So I get up, wondering who in the world is talking below in a high-pitched voice... I come to the bridge, look over and there's Tink sitting on the couch watching the UT game with a very blank expression. Ever have one of those moments where you feel like you should literally rub your eyes in disbelief and shake your head (eh-eh-eh-eh-eh!) like in cartoons? For her to get downstairs, she would've had to come down the bridge, walk past me at the computer and then down the steps to the living room. All out in the open.

Kid's so light that barefoot she didn't make a sound and I never saw her out of the corner of my eye so intent was I on my, er, my spreadsheet. Ok, my web surfing. Ok, my World of Warcraft. But that's not important.

I ask her, a bit incredulously, why she's out of bed and if she's ok. She gazes up at me, smiling faintly. Ok, creepy (Have I ever told you how much she resembles little Heather O'Rourke from Poltergeist - "They're here!". I need to film her doing that sometime, it would creep you out, too). I go downstairs, pick her up and carry her back up to her room. I ask her once again if she feels ok, and she says, brightly, "yep!". I lay her in her bed and kiss her goodnight - she gives me a kiss too and settles right back to sleep.

She didn't remember a bit about it this morning.

Creepy dang sleepwalkin' kids.

So Ironically Symbolic

One of the worst things about election time in Tennessee (one of the many bad things, of course) is the interminable litter:





Pathetic.

What makes it ironic is that the candidates' campaign staffs - all campaign staffs, nationwide really - actually think these road sign jungles represent anything more than what their candidates really are: artificial, paper-thin, insubstantial participants in popularity contests. All that matter are their names. In their eyes if you recognize the name, the more likely we are to vote for them. The more people recognize the name, the better chance they'll be elected.

Meanwhile we have to put up with scores of blighted spots like the one above (taken at lunch on Northshore Dr. near Kalamata Cafe and the Pizza Kitchen). They might as well be cardboard cutouts of the candidates waving for all the good they do.

All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

I TOLD YOU!!!! I TOLD YOU!!!!

And did anyone listen? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!


(Big ol' hat tip to Big Orange Michael for cluing me in that this LOST mobisode was available)

Ready to Get Lost

I just watched last year's 2-hour season finale of "Lost" again, in prep for next week's season premiere. This season may be strike-shortened, so get it while it's good.

A few last minute thoughts that occur to me from the finale before we plunge ahead to season 4:

1) Christian Shepherd, Jack's dad, is alive. I'm certain of it. When Jack was confronted by the doc and asked if he was drunk, Jack said, "Call my father down here and if he's drunker than I am, I'll leave." No matter how drunk Jack was, he wouldn't "forget" his father was dead. He remembered which key opened the drug cabinet, he knew the name of the woman that was in the car wreck. Yes, he was drunk and his motor skills were impaired, but he wasn't amnesiac. Somehow Christian Shepherd not only survive his "death" he survived the plane crash.

2) Miles away, baby Aaron knew Charlie was dead. As soon as it happened he began to cry, and while it could be chalked up to dramatic license, I think it's significant in showing the baby's developing abilities.

3) Apparently one of the people that died in the finale is Not Quite Dead. That means either Charlie, Mikhail, Bonnie and the other woman in the Looking Glass Station, Mr. Friendly, Ryan, or one of the rest of the "Others" killed on the beach. I'm banking on Mr. Indestructible, Mikhail. He's survived cranial sonic disruption and a speargun to the heart - what's a little hand grenade?

4) It was apparently confirmed over the summer that the body in the coffin was Michael. Why would Jack get all broken up to the point of ending it all over Michael's death? What could happen in Season 4+ that would re-endear Michael to Jack, but not to Kate (who said she would not have gone to his funeral)?

Any other loose threads from the finale I missed?


UPDATE (01/25/08): I kept the 2-hour finale on my DVR since last May when it first aired. It's one of the first shows I "taped" (still use that word since it's easiest to understand, though there's no actual "taping" going on) when we got DVR last year, and it's almost been an old friend - first on the menu list by a long shot for several months. When I'm scrolling through the recorded menu, I always use "LOST (2 hrs)" as my starting point and work backward to find the most recent shows. I'm not sure I can stand to get rid of it now, it's like part of the family...