What a wild night last night was! People took more than 12 hours to get home taking a commute that often took less than an hour.
Here’s a video from the local NBC station talking with a woman stuck in the snow:
Archive for January, 2011
This again goes under the “people take their sports wayyyy too seriously” category. Yikes!
Here’s the story from the Chicago Tribune:
>>John C. Stone might be the most famous Green Bay Packers fan in Chicago.
The 34-year-old Roseland resident was fired Monday from his job as a car salesman at an Oak Lawn Chevrolet dealership for wearing a Packers tie to work, but he’s already been offered a job at another dealership and been interviewed live on a nationwide sports radio show.
“I didn’t know all this publicity was going to come with this,” Stone said in an interview this morning. “But you know what? It lets me know who has my back.”
Sorry I missed putting up a musical extravaganza last weekend, but I thought I’d make up for it this time with some Disney music, which I nearly always enjoy.
First off, let’s listen to some computer-like electro-music from Tron: Legacy:
When I saw Up in the theater, I left with a headache. However, recently Tron: Legacy didn’t do that to me, so I’m hopeful things will get better in the future. But I wasn’t certain if this was unique to me or not.
Turns out I’m not alone. Here’s the story from myway.com:
>>3-D means headaches to many, yet companies push on
Jan 20, 6:08 AM (ET)
By PETER SVENSSON
NEW YORK (AP) – From Hollywood studios to Japanese TV makers, powerful business interests are betting 3-D will be the future of entertainment, despite a major drawback: It makes millions of people uncomfortable or sick.
Optometrists say as many as one in four viewers have problems watching 3-D movies and TV, either because 3-D causes tiresome eyestrain or because the viewer has problems perceiving depth in real life. In the worst cases, 3-D makes people queasy, leaves them dizzy or gives them headaches.
Every once in a while, I read a stupid criminal story that just makes me shake my head.
This is one such story, from reuters.com:
>>Burglars snort man’s ashes, thought it was cocaine
(Reuters) – Burglars snorted the cremated remains of a man and two dogs in the mistaken belief that they had stolen illegal drugs, Florida sheriff’s deputies said on Wednesday.
The ashes were taken from a woman’s home in the central Florida town of Silver Springs Shores on December 15. The thieves took an urn containing the ashes of her father and another container with the ashes of her two Great Danes, along with electronic equipment and jewelry, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said.
When I was growing up in the 1960s, lasers were considered THE weapon of choice. From Star Trek‘s phasers to any ray gun you could find, lasers were mysterious and deadly.
Who knew that just a few years later, they really would become such a dangerous tool! Here’s the story from the AP:
>>WASHINGTON — More than 100 incidents occurred at Los Angeles International Airport last year in which the safety of planes was put at risk by people pointing at them with lasers, and nearly as many incidents at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, federal officials said Wednesday.
I’ve been sick with a serious cold/flu/whatever that has been making the rounds where I work. I did get some reading done, but not much else.
Of course, I thought I had it bad until I read the following news story:
>>Police Look For Two Hit And Run Drivers Who Hit Same Man
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Philadelphia Police accident investigators say they are looking for not one, but two hit and run drivers involved in a pre-dawn pedestrian fatality in the city’s Torresdale section.
Accident investigators say the victim, classified as John Doe, is believed to be about 25 years-old. He carried no identification. Detectives say the incident happened just before 4 a.m. Monday morning in the 85-hundred block of Frankford Avenue near Benson Street.
Perceptions are changing, and what’s interesting to me is that they seem to be moving my way!
Here’s the article from the Los Angeles Times:
>>Gallup has some good news and some really bad news for President Obama
Finally, some good news to please President Obama in a new Gallup Poll.
The survey finds that more Americans still identify themselves as Democrats (31%) than call themselves Republicans.
Now, the bad news:
That 31% ties the lowest annual average of Democrats since 1988, when fellow Harvard Law alum Michael Dukakis got thumped by the first Bush to become president.
I keep hearing on the news that the economy is on the upswing, that things are looking up, that business is doing better. And yet, my experience tells me otherwise. Several of my friends are unemployed, part of what is being called a “jobless recovery.” (I consider that a contradiction in terms.)
Maybe my view of what’s happening is limited, but based on an article by Rasmussen, I don’t think so:
>>Importance Of Issues
With a new Congress scheduled to swing into action this week, the number of voters who rate the economy as a Very Important issue has reached its highest level since early August 2008.
A new national telephone survey finds that 87% of Likely U.S. Voters view the economy this way, well above the importance they place on any other issue on a list of 10 regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
I enjoy sharing the songs I like so much that I’ll try and do that as much as I can during 2011, particularly on the weekends.
So, let’s kick the first weekend off with some of my favorites. First, Nick Cave performs “To Be By Your Side” from the movie Winged Migration. I love that the percussive sounds in the background are often the sounds of the geese’s wings beating: