Monthly Archives: April 2004

6 Simple Reasons

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6 Simple Reasons why it’s a good idea to register at Air America Radio’s website:

  1. John Ashcroft will know where to find you.
  2. All our annoying pop-up ads are invisible.
  3. Because they shut down the Dennis Kucinich dating chat room.
  4. Our spam is vegetarian.
  5. You like making up passwords.
  6. You were banned from the Fox News website for having your own opinion.

Hee! Repeat chuckle as required. It appears they’ve taken many suggestions to heart from the Majority Report comments thread (the longest comments in Moveable Type blog history? Mmmayyybe).

So “Heck, Yeah!” I’m registering.

Amazing Race Premieres July 6th!

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Coming Soon! – Latest News on Amazing Race.

At last, a firm broadcast premiere date!

Variety reports that CBS has firmed up plans for its summer schedule, and the biggest news is the networks’ decision to pair established hit Brother Brother with the Emmy-winning The Amazing Race to create a two-hour reality block on Tuesdays from 9-11 p.m. CBS is also planning to bow Mike Fleiss’ The Will during the summer.

Both “Brother” and “Race” will have 90-minute season premieres on Tuesday, July 6, with Big Brother 5 airing from 8-9:30 p.m. and “Race” following from 9:30-11 p.m.

(snip)

“Race” will air Tuesdays at 10 p.m. starting July 13.

Okay, so Tuesdays are choir practice night, but we’re out of there by 9 or so most weeks. Good enough. Now at least David knows to stay out of the family room if he doesn’t want to hear the hollering and groaning and whooping and such.

They’re ringing in some also-ran from “Big Brother 4” to compete – I’ve never heard of her but there was much groaning on the “TAR in the Media” thread at Television Without Pity about it.

Some changes in the way things are done -for example, teams coming in last in a non-elimination round get all their cash stripped from them, and they aren’t given more cash at the beginning of the next leg. Cash means cabs and other forms of transportation (not to mention eating and other basic needs). So this could make things interesting, especially since the couple of seasons teams “knew” when it was a non-elimination round, and thus tended to relax a little in the race not to be last. This will force them to charge hard all the way.

There’s some other rule change – “yielding.”

The TWOPers aren’t happy about the casting and the rule changes, but some have decided to adopt a “wait and see” attitude.

I’m just glad that there will be another installment of Amazing Race. With possibly another in the offing, timed to begin a little more quickly (they’re currently casting for TAR6 already).

A few things you need to know if you start reading boards on TWOP – specifically in the Amazing Race forum.

  • God Is In The Tub No amount of praying to the Almighty will get you out of this; God is in the bathtub and can’t be disturbed.
  • Pre-Hate, Pre-Love: In the last few weeks before premiere, once the bios of the contestants have been posted at CBS.com, people will be deciding in advance whether they like a team or a contestant or not. For instance, there was a lot of pre-love for Da Klownz last season. There was a great deal of pre-hate for Russell, because he sounded asshatty in his quotes. There was a bit for Jon and Kelly (JoKe) because they said something about not liking fat or ugly people. However, they were funny and energetic, so some of the pre-hate for them was transformed into grudging affection (not all).
  • Miss Alli Miss Alli rules. Her recaps rock.
  • Zaprudering happens. If you have TiVo, you’ll be golden. If you don’t, you’ll be asking a lot of questions.

Again, not sure about the changes, just glad Phil will return soon.

Winter Retreat

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closeup of snow crystals and meltwaterThe day we walked up the road in Lamb’s Canyon, the sun was warm and bright, and everything looked as if it had been done over by Mother Nature’s spring cleaning — all the branches were bare on the aspen and scrub oak. The snow was slowly drawing back the covers it had thrown over the rocks and the ridgelines from their winter sleep. It’s not spring up there just yet, but it’s just around the next turn in the road. And in the meantime, the snow is melting into pure, cold water. From here, it flows into Parley’s Canyon, then Mountain Dell Reservoir, and from there it either becomes drinking water for the Salt Lake Valley, or it flows down into the Jordan and eventually might make it as far as the Great Salt Lake, where it doesn’t do anyone much good except the companies that run lake water into huge evaporation basins for recovering salt and other minerals.

But for now, it’s clean and beautiful and fresh and newly made. It’s a shame it has to go from flowing naturally, in classic “babbling brook” fashion, into dark pipes and covered runoff channels. Just so that someone might drink it once it’s been chemically treated, or that it might water some plants — or more likely run down and be lost in polluted channels or algae-covered salt pans.

I might end up printing and framing this image – most of the others from that day are nice, but chaotic with trees and roots and rocks all crowding into the image, but this one is simple and clean.

Image Makeovers

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With the help of the latest entry at Learning Movable Type: Text Wrap, I’ve improved the way the images for the Scotland entry in the travel journal work with text wrapped around them (or under them, in the case of a short amount of text).

It’s noticeable when you scroll down from the Scotland entry – pretty neat and wrapping correctly – and then get to entries like York and London.

All of this is leading up to a boatload of images to be messed with. I ended up cancelling the Art Institute excursion with David’s parents and staying home today (shame, it’s beautiful out) because of the niggling, tickling, sore throat).

We were hoping to take some more photos tomorrow, but I’ll have to see how I’m feeling in the morning.

And in the meantime, there are a lot of photos to look at and cull from the recent Salt Lake trip.

David started putting my images in their own gallery and changed things around – some images may get deleted as they’re duplicated elsewhere in the blog. But for now, they’re all here.

And the gallery for both of us for the Salt Lake Trip is one level up.

Yuck, Yuck, Yuck

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Oooooog.

I don’t feel so good. I think I’ve got the beginnings of a sinus infection. I’ve been off all week and could have been decently and appropriately sick, but nooo. I’m getting sick at the beginning of the weekend, but not be sick enough to stay home from work next week.

And tomorrow, we’re supposed to meet David’s parents downtown and go to the Art Institute. Sunday we’re supposed to get together with Steve and go on an early-spring photo safari to the Botanic Gardens again. And I don’t want to stay home anymore.

Bleah.
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