Nothing to see here

Facebook has sapped all my strength, and I barely use it. Blogging is hard work. I have nothing in the bag anymore. What is lefty that hasn't been said?

CBS Radio Mystery Theater

Watching an old Twilight Zone episode, I heard some background music which jarred loose a memory. The memory being that of driving from Bryan TX to Lake Charles LA in the evening, somewhere between Conroe and Orange TX and hearing the CBS Radio Mystery Theater on the AM radio.

At night, over that stretch of state highway 105 and IH35, it is radio no man's land. Except on one trip I tuned in the show on some distant station not knowing what it was. The signal faded in for about 3 or 4 minutes, and then static and noise would creep in for a minute or so (hopefully during the commercials) and then the cycle repeated. Everyone else in the car was a bit irritated at the coming and going of the reception but I stuck with it. Blame for my affection of radio can now be laid at the feet of this radio show.

I don't remember that show, or much of the others I might have heard on other nights later. The draw to them must be the sci-fi, Twilight Zone -light nature of the stories, the sound effects, dialogue, and E.G. Marshall putting in his two bits introducing the acts and pointing out the chilling irony of the proceedings. It was fun for an hour or so.

Recently I located a website that has mp3 files of some of the shows - not nearly all 1399 episodes but a decent collection. The first few sound like they were taped right off the air. News casts from the top of the hour are included - news of Nixon and Watergate, sports reports with ABA basketball scores. Budweiser "when you say Bud, you've said it all" ads, Special K cereal, and PSAs from the broadcast are left in. Its a mini time capsule. They also had that late night sound of AM radio - the station is tuned in, but there is another station or a whistle or light static bleeding over the reception, threatening to wash out the dialogue so you have to listen closely.

Another I listened to had Kim Hunter voicing one of the main characters. She portrayed one of my favorite movie characters - Zira, the chimpanzee scientist who helped Charlton Heston in Planet Of The Apes - one of my favorite all time movies.

Not all the episodes are radio gold. Probably most are just average fare, maybe laughable. I don't mind too much. Its fun - a good memory.

Four Years of blog

First post published this month four years ago. One of my first posts was about my mazda biting the dirt on 3/7/5. I almost did too. Gas price on that day was $1.89 per the big gas sign on the interstate. I now work across the street from that station and see that gas price sign everyday. It rang the bell at $3.99 - I don't think it crossed over the $4.

I still remember that wreck clearly. I felt like I escaped two crashes that morning. I have lost the photos an insurance sales agent took for me. He worked for the company that insured my house and took the pictures for me.

Crossword constructor starts a blog

Brendan Emmitt Quigley has begun a blog on crossword puzzles and construction of them. His puzzles are usually fun to work on and are full of modern references. Good insights into his process of putting puzzles together. There is a pledge to post at least 3 puzzles a week, and in pdf so as to make them easy to print.

These Are A Few Of My 100 Things

Time Magazine has an article about living with only 100 things. That is a pretty tall order. Depends on what your definition of "thing" is. Does a set of golf clubs, tees, balls, cart, and bag all count as one thing. I sure hope so. One of the participants is quoted addressing this problem.

Cait Simmons, 27, a waitress in Chicago, takes a different approach. Although she has pared down her footwear collection from 35 to 20 pairs, she says, "All my shoes count as one item."

I am pretty partial to my stuff, and probably irrationally attached to several items I hold dear, particularly an afgan knitted for me by my grandmother, and my grandfather's old wooden creaky rocking chair. This article looks and smells like self-loathing freedom haters to me. As long as you are not consumed by possessing things, or them possessing you, I say what's the problem?

Chupa Chups

Here is a little tune that has been stuck in my head off and on over the past week. It comes from the Chupa Chups website. What is a Chupa Chup? It looks like a Tootsie Pop except it's fabrique en Mexico. I got two of them from a hotel lobby recently - a chocolate ice cream flavored and and orange cream flavored pop. The chocolate one wasn't bad, and I've been too afraid to try the orange.

The website features some flash animation depicting various pop culture scenes from recent decades. Stick around to the end, if not just to have the tune burn into your subconscious.

Google street maps

I received an email from my brother John late today telling me that the old car we recently sold is shown in front of our house on Austin street maps. My response - what are Austin street maps. After he replied telling me it is part of google maps, I looked up my address, and holy cow, there is my house. Two cars in front. Christmas lights are still up. So this was done over Christmas. The view can be maneuvered with the mouse. Wow. Its really good.

I have to wonder if this is a good thing tho. There have got to be a lot of creeps out there that could use these views for nefarious deeds. I don't really know what could happen to us personally but it bothers me in the back of my mind.

PS The basketball goal is gone - it fell on the Honda during a heavy storm over the Christmas holidays.

Unplugged

I was listening to Laura Ingraham's radio show yesterday as I took the end of the week off for Spring Break. She was talking about "unplugging" from the electronic connected world, if not for a short a period of time to cleanse and rejuvenate the brain. She also spoke with Jon Mattleman (link from Technorati) about programs he uses with middle schoolers and why unplugging is a good thing.

This topic is constantly lurking about our house. As our kids use the internet more for email, chatting, and stuff, we are battling to limit the time spent online. But our kids don't come close to the hundreds of minutes a day online either - but on occaission they can come close.

How difficult is it for us to unplug? In my opinion we're not in too deep. Only one computer in the house, well except for Evan's and nobody wants to go into his room and he doesn't want to come out, and as a result demand far outstrips supply as far as online time goes. Only one family cell phone with no text messaging and I have a business cell phone - no texting. Cable TV is only the basic of basics. We get 12 channels maybe and several are the community access stations which are jokes. Everyone now has a personal mp3 player too, except Evan recently had his stolen and is using Sam's. Beyond that we're relatively free of technology, and yet we feel its tidal pull. Email must be checked, Facebook page maintained, mp3 players managed, research for school (something actually productive!), and checking the blog reader. Homework on the computer is accompanied by Instant Messages, and other chatter and distractions.

Unplugging is a conscious effort, hard work most of the time met with resistence. We took a trip last October to Big Bend National Park as part of unplugging, but an mp3 player or 2 went along, and all the pre-trip planning happened online. It was successful but we were swept back into the tech current as we returned home.

I can't argue against a regular respite from the information superhighway, on a family basis too, but its a planned, announced event.

Unfinished posts

Blogger really does me no favors by allowing a post to be saved without publishing. I am able to leave some things in there like leftovers in our refrigerator, eventually they turn bad and are thrown away.

Here's to starting something that gets finished, or rather the other way around.

Keeps me Searching for a heart of gold

Had any memorable online or other research experiences? How did you get what you needed? Give up eventually? Let this guy know.

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/12/new_survey_what.html