Oh shit...

Well, you may or may not have noticed that the blog I read most frequently, Right-Thinking from the Left Coast, disappeared yesterday. Turns out that the building in Dallas that housed the server for his and several other blogs was struck by lightning... twice. Read about it here. Apparently, God actually does hate Republicans.

DST WTF

Congress just passed a big energy bill that includes a provision to extend daylight savings time, and that prospect frightens a couple over-protective mothers.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - As Congress voted to extend daylight-saving time, some parents whose children wait for school buses in the morning darkness doubted whether an extra month of daylight is such a bright idea.

"I don't think that it's safe," said Nikki McIntosh of Little Rock, whose children Myah, 12, and Alex, 11, occasionally ride a bus to school.

I'm not really blogging on this because of these whining mom's who are worried that their kids might have to stand for 5 minutes in anything less than broad daylight. Doesn't really matter to me. What boggles my mind is the idea to make a meaningless change to an already meaningless change. When you switch the clock in April and October, there is actually nothing different about the world, except all the clocks are screwed up. If you change your clock three weeks earlier, you might not need to turn your lights for another hour every evening, but you'll need to keep them on for an extra hour every morning, if you're up then. Nothing is changing, you're just moving the hour of energy usage. What the hell?

P.S. Oh, and I thought this might be a good time to mention something else I'd been meaning to blog on. It's just kind of funny. I'm sure you've heard of Paul Harvey. If you don't, he's a news commentator who's like 1000 years old. Anyway, sometimes, whenever there's news about daylight savings time, he gets really irate. Generally, Paul Harvey's pretty docile, giving an old man's traditional/conservative viewpoint on the news, but when daylight savings time is in the news, he gets very bitter and uses words like "lemmings" to describe people who change their clocks. I mean... yeah, daylight savings time is stupid, but it's there and there isn't much point in bitching about it on the radio. No one's going to just get rid of it. Especially not now since they're extending the stupid thing.

Great Moments in Cognizance

So I made a delivery to Season's Hospice yesterday, and there was a woman sitting with the nurses at the nurse's desk. She said I looked familiar, that I dated someone she knew. She asked me my name, and I told her, to which she replied, "Yeah, Joe, you used to date... [name removed]" "Tammy" "Tammy, yeah. I used to cut her hair." I went with Tammy when she got her hair cut short... once. This woman remembered who I was from meeting me once, about 8 years ago. I thought it was worth a mention here.

(I decided not to publish Tammy's last name, as a courtesy to her. I only know of 2 people who regularly read my blog, but with the internet you never know what kind of freaks might wander in.)

The Big Pictures

I was going to post more pictures, but I don't have a way of resizing them, and the 6 I uploaded used 43% of my monthly bandwidth limit. So I'll post more when I get back.

Fucking space shuttle.

Shady Internets

Jeremy and I are sitting in front of a closed Panera Bread right now so I can connect to the internets. It's not the same one I uploaded pictures from earlier; like you cared. Apparently, in July, there's a thunderstorm almost like clockwork, around 5 o'clock, everyday. There was one when we picked up the car yesterday, and another one just after we got done looking at apartments for the day.

Saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at Downtown Disney after eating at Planet Hollywood. Oh yeah, O-Rock 105.9 is the best radio station ever. Better than whichever station you usually listen to. Time to head back to the hotel and sleep.

The voyages of the starship Discovery...

Ok, so I admit I've been crossing my fingers, hoping that the launch of the Space Shuttle would get delayed at least a day, so I could see the launch when I was in Florida. The original launch time was today, just over an hour ago, and I'm not going to be able to be in Titusville to see the launch until at least like 5 or 6 o'clock tomorrow. As launch time approached, things kept sounding better and better (for me).

First they said the hurricanes didn't affect anything and there was a 70% chance they'd launch on time. Looming clouds changed their prediction to 60%, but they were still confident they'd launch on time. Then a protective window covering fell off and damaged two tiles of the heat shield, which could have posed a problem, but they fixed it pretty quick. Now, a faulty fuel gauge has grounded the mission until at least Monday*, when I'll be less than an hour west of the launch pad.

I kind of feel bad that I was hoping it would get delayed, and now it actually is... The shuttles get delayed all the time just before launch, so this actually isn't out of the ordinary. I was actually fairly sure it would get delayed, because many launches do, and this one is particularly important that there aren't any problems. Well, I get to see the shuttle launch for the first time since I woke up to see pieces of Columbia re-enter the atmosphere. Yay for me.

*Scott saw something on the news that said the shuttle is going to launch Saturday right as I was reading an article about the launch being delayed until Monday. Whichever, I just hope it isn't delayed any more than Monday.

37 Nanosecond Photo

Ah, the smell of fresh electronics. The battery is charging up right now, but keep an eye on my photo blog in case I decide to upload something.

P.S. I have a humorous screengrab I took yesterday that I was going to post here, but I'm too lazy to do it right now. I'll probably do it later.

Money... It's a Hit.

One of my favorite bands, Pink Floyd, recently overcame their issues of the past to play together again for the Live 8 concert in London. I went to Pink Floyd's site a couple weeks ago to find their front page plastered with this nice little quote regarding the Live 8 concerts:

"Like most people I want to do everything I can to persuade the G8 leaders to make huge commitments to the relief of poverty and increased aid to the third world. It's crazy that America gives such a paltry percentage of it's GNP to the starving nations. Any squabbles Roger and the band have had in the past are so petty in this context, and if re-forming for this concert will help focus attention then it's go to be worthwhile." - David Gilmour (Emphasis mine)

So the Live 8 concerts are ending, and the numbers are coming in. I can't say I'm suprised who handed Africa the most money. Those damn, greedy, apathetic Americans. By a long shot. (And the article is from a Scottish news source, so American-media-haters beware).

PRIVATE American citizens donated almost 15 times more to the developing world than their European counterparts, research reveals this weekend ahead of the G8 summit. Private US donors also handed over far more aid than the federal government in Washington, revealing that America is much more generous to Africa and poor countries than is claimed by the Make Poverty History and Live 8 campaigns.

Church collections, philanthropists and company-giving amounted to $22bn a year, according to a study by the Hudson Institute think-tank, easily more than the $16.3bn in overseas development sent by the US government. American churches, synagogues and mosques alone gave $7.5bn in 2003 - a figure which exceeds the government totals for France ($7.2bn) and Britain ($6.3bn) - according to numbers from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which deal a blow to those who claim moral superiority over the US on aid.

Ouch. Don't give me that do goody good bullshit. 15 times more? Of course, most Europeans like to spin it, and talk about "GNP" and exclude private donations. When you don't tax the shit out of your citizenry, they're able to donate their own money. Lee over at Right-Thinking shares my sentiments, and I got the link to the article from there.