Viewer/Reader Discretion Advised: Matt or Ben

If you are easily offended please move past this post. I can't help it, I found Sarah Silverman's video on Jimmy Kimmel hilarious. Don't get me wrong, I am not big into the use of the "F word", Rap, or a bigging F'ing Good Will Hunting fan, but I still find the video hilarious nonetheless.



Now Jimmy's rebuttal is funny too, but my wife and I have a disagreement on which is funnier. I found the originality of Sarah's funnier, my wife found Jimmy's with all of the celebrities more funny. Now time for you to weigh in. Take the Poll (upper right hand corner of the blog until 3/31). Who's video do you find funnier?

Donate A Day

For many salaried employees out there, today is "Donate A Day Of Work To Your Employer Day". You get to work it, but you don't get any extra pay for doing it. I guess it is not to bad as the employer always gets slighted for paying you a full salary for the short month of February on a normal basis. At least it is still less than any of the other months.

From the Employer perspective it is "Get Back A Day of Work I Already Paid For Day".

Pics.Aminus3.com

My Photoblog site is back this morning. Keep your fingers crossed that it stays that way.

A Little Worried

My photoblog site is not reachable again. Not giving me a warm fuzzy, and I have really been liking it.

I am beginning to have withdrawal. I have been checking out the thumbnails of all of the new pics each day and looking closer at those that draw my interest. Lately I have been getting to them when the next day shows up 11pm CST. The bad part it is a bit addictive once you start looking and I should really be going to bed. I didn't get to the new days pics on Amiuns3 last night and now tonight it is down. I also needed to post my Thursday Challenge pic for today and am unable to do so.

Hopefully they'll get the issue fixed soon and for good.

Grand Central

It looks like one might be able to sign up for Grand Central without an invite now.

Italian Beauty

Beautiful!


Alfa Romeo 8C Spider - Read more about it on Automobile Magazine's site.

Wallpaper here.

Best Wishes David E.

From this months issue of WINDING ROAD:

"As of this writing I will be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of WINDING ROAD Magazine."

David E. Davis Jr.

Best wishes David E. It has been a nice ride. WINDING ROAD and Automobile Magazine have been two of my all time favorites and you have had a part in both of them. Thank you. (Although it would probably be hard to find many auto related magazines that I don't like.) I would say enjoy yourself, but I know that will happen regardless. We'll look forward to your occassional perspectives from the driver's seat.

Photoblog is back

My Photoblog on Aminus3 is working fine this morning.

Photoblog

I noticeed my photoblog site is not reachable. Neither are others hosted by Aminus3. I haven't really paid close attention, it may simply be down for maintenance. I hope it comes back up.

RAW

My camera has RAW capability. I have not used it until this weekend. After playing with it and SilkyPix a bit, I am thinking I might just be a plain old JPG kind of person. I guess if I get time to play with it more and figure out what I am doing I might change my mind, but I am not so sure. Only time will tell.

Here is one that started out in RAW format.



I still found myself manipulating it a bit afterwards. Oh well.

Evernote

I have used Google Notebook, Listas (I would say it is lagging behind), OneNote, and now I see Evernote (of course there is Zoho Notebook as well and I would imagine others I don't know about).





Now EverNote even has a new Beta (like many an invitation only kind of thing) and talk about having everything in one place so that you can find it, but if there is always a new thing coming out for you to keep your stuff in, which one do you finally decide to stick with?



EverNote does look interesting, but the others are interesting to a degree as well.

I can see where one would like to be able to get to information from anywhere, but with work information you have to decide if you can afford to have the information floating around the web somewhere.

So many choices, which is the right one. Of course, one can also do something similar in a more manual fashion simply by copying links and information to documents and have them in one place using things like Google Docs, ThinkFree, ZoHo, and Office Live WorkSpace as well. Some sites have more inclusive features and others serve a niche. What is one to do?

Custom Redbooks

I just saw Andy Piper's post about IBM's prototype mashup "My IBM Redbooks".

Interesting.



I ran through it just to try it out. Kinda cool.

You put in your name and title.



Your write the abstract..



...and the preface.

Snow

It snowed again last night.

I guess to many people saw my post :-) and are trying out myIPneighbors as it appears to be having some issue.

Who are your IP neighbors?

Here is an interesting one.

My IP Neighbors

From the site:

For those on shared hosting, myIPneighbors IP search is a great way to find out who your neighbors are or just to see how many other websites your hosting company hosts your server.

Is your website packed into a crowded host with hundreds of other sites? Or is there questionable content being hosted side by side with your site? If so, it may be time to look for a better host.

Lipps, Inc

Nikon has their new picture site available. You can get your own 2GB Picturetown site for free.

For some reason when thinking Picturetown the old Lipps, Inc. song Funkytown popped into my head. Won't you take me to Picturetown!

Events

We had a Lunar Eclipse this evening and the United States blew a spy sattelite out of the sky with a missle.

With that much excitement today, I wonder what tomorrow could bring. Oh yeah, possibly snow and ice, which could make for some excitement trying to get around.

From The Weather Channel:

Winter Storm Warning


/O.UPG.KLSX.WS.A.0004.080221T1200Z- 080223T0000Z/ /O.EXB.KLSX.WS.W. 0003.080221T1200Z-080223T0000Z/ GREENE IL-MACOUPIN IL-MONTGOMERY IL-BOND IL- FAYETTE IL-CLINTON IL- MARION IL- WASHINGTON IL-RANDOLPH IL-CALHOUN IL- JERSEY IL- MADISON IL-ST. CLAIR IL- MONROE IL-BOONE-MONITEAU-COLE-OSAGE- CALLAWAY-MONTGOMERY-LINCOLN-GASCONADE- WARREN-ST. CHARLES-FRANKLIN- ST. LOUIS- ST. LOUIS CITY-JEFFERSON-STE. GENEVIEVE- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF... LITCHFIELD...VANDALIA...SALEM... CHESTER...EDWARDSVILLE...BELLEVILLE... COLUMBIA...JEFFERSON CITY... ST CHARLES...UNION...ST LOUIS 958 PM CST WED FEB 20 2008
...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM THURSDAY TO 6 PM CST FRIDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN ST LOUIS HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 6 AM THURSDAY TO 6 PM CST FRIDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT.

PRECIPITATION IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN THURSDAY MORNING AS SNOW...BUT QUICKLY BECOME MIXED WITH OR CHANGE OVER TO ALL SLEET LATER IN THE MORNING. THE SLEET IS EXPECTED TO THEN MIX WITH FREEZING RAIN ON THURSDAY EVENING AND CONTINUE INTERMITTENTLY INTO FRIDAY. COLDER AIR WILL THEN FILTER BACK INTO THE REGION ON FRIDAY CHANGING THE FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET BACK TO SNOW.

BY LATE FRIDAY AFTERNOON...SEVERAL INCHES PRIMARILY SLEET AND SOME SNOW... ALONG WITH ONE TO TWO TENTHS OF AN INCH OF ICE...ARE POSSIBLE FROM THIS WINTER STORM.

A WINTER STORM WARNING MEANS THAT A SIGNIFICANT AMOUNT OF SNOW... SLEET AND/OR ICE IS EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. STRONG WINDS ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE.

MotorWeek's Best of Year

The 2008 Scion xB is MotorWeek 2008 Drivers' Choice as Best of the Year.



I really like MotorWeek, but I would have to say they got this one wrong. I think the looks alone would keep the xB from making it as Best of the Year, but that is just my opinion.

Reps and Dems

Tonight I have candidates from the two main parties (Republican and Democrat) showing up on my blog via Ads by Google. This time one happens to be a Presidential Candidate and the other a Gubernatorial Candidate.

Eyealike

I tried Eyealike Faces and it returned 2 pages worth of results for my picture. I was a bit surprised by the wide ranging matches it returned for me.



People like, Garrett Dillahunt, Luke Perry, Robert Kennedy Jr., Philip Glass, David Duchovny, Christian Kane, Anthony Kiedis, as well as the likes of Jeff Garlin, Paul Rusesabagina, Jon Lovitz, John Lithgow, and Cuba Gooding, Jr.

I used the same picture with same cropping a couple of times and the results, while close, were not exactly the same, as Mark Derwin showed up as the 4th one on the list the second time. Maybe the order isn't specifically suppose to be ranking them either, so maybe he was on the second page the first time and I just missed him.

My wife might be fine with me looking like some of those in the results, but I don't think I'll be mistaken for anyone of them anytime soon. Maybe I'll have to check back and see the results once it has made it out of Beta.

The company also has Eyealike Copyright Video.

Enter SILObreaker

Have you checked out World Press Photo's online magazine, "Enter"? (One can also download it in PDF format - February 2008 Edition 9)




Have you tried SILObreaker?

Firefox 2.0.0.12

Firefox 2.0.0.12 is out.

2009 Challenger

Nice, but pricey.

Presidential Primary Winners

A rather close one in Missouri as McCain beats out Huckabee by a mere 8,681 votes and Obama edges out Clinton by 10,356 votes.

Depending on how you look at it, it was easy to call for the Libertarians as Uncommitted ran away with it, getting 46.8% of the vote compared to Wayne Roots 18.1%. Of course, when it comes down to actual votes, it was also the closest race as Uncommitted only won by 591 votes. :-)

Matt Blunt not running?

As Governor Matt Blunt has stated that he will not seek re-election, why does Missourians for Matt Blunt, Inc. continue to collect donations?

Candidates on Missouri Ballot

Paul, Ron REP
Thompson, Fred REP
Romney, Mitt REP
Giuliani, Rudy REP
McCain, John REP
Huckabee, Mike REP
Wiles, Virgil L.R. REP
Tancredo, Thomas REP
Hunter, Duncan REP
Cort, Hugh REP
Keyes, Alan REP
Gilbert, Daniel REP

Clinton, Hillary DEM
Obama, Barack DEM
Edwards, John DEM
Spelbring, Ralph DEM
Kucinich, Dennis J. DEM
Richardson, Bill DEM
Biden, Joe DEM
Dodd, Christopher J. DEM
Gravel, Mike DEM

Root, Wayne A. LIB
Imperato, Daniel LIB
Phillies, George LIB
Jingozian, Michael P. LIB
Kubby, Steve LIB
Hollist, Dave LIB

Missouri Primary

Are you looking for Missouri Primary results? You can stop by the Missouri Secretary of State website to find them. The upper right hand corner shows the number of precincts that have reported. The lower right shows the date and time of the election results. Refreshing the page every so often will give you updated counts.

The list shows the candidates name, followed by their party (a party code definition table resides at the bottom of the listing), the number of votes and the percentage of votes that they have received within their party.

Missouri's Second President

If you ask most in Missouri how many Presidents have been from Missouri, they will tell you one. And many of those can probably tell you that it was Harry S. Truman.

Can you name Missouri's 2nd President? I think many fewer people know about him. I learned about this from my son. I had never even heard about this before. He was never officially acknowledged as President and hence does not display in the list of Presidents on the Whitehouse website.

Some contend that David Rice Atchison from Plattsburg, MO, was President for a day.

There is a bronze monument of the man in Plattburg.

Excerpts from Senate site:

On a statue in Kansas City, Missouri, an inscription reads, "David Rice Atchison, 1807-1886, President of the U.S. [for] one day." The day of President Atchison's presumed presidency occurred on March 4, 1849.

In those days, the vice president regularly attended Senate sessions. Consequently, the Senate chose a president pro tempore to serve only during brief vice-presidential absences.

Until the 1930s, presidential and congressional terms began at noon on March 4. In 1849, that date fell on a Sunday, causing President Zachary Taylor to delay his inauguration until the next day. For some, this raised the question of who was president from noon of March 4 to noon of March 5. Of course, we now know that Taylor automatically became president on the fourth and could have begun to execute the duties of his office after taking the oath privately, a day before the public inauguration.

In 1849, the Senate president pro tempore immediately followed the vice president in line of presidential succession. That era's ever-present threat of sudden death made it essential to keep an unbroken order of succession. To ensure that there was a president pro tempore in office during adjournment periods, the vice president customarily left the Senate chamber in an annual session's final days so that the Senate could elect this constitutional officer. Accordingly, the Senate duly elected Atchison on March 2, 1849. His supporters, to the present day, claim that the expiration of the outgoing president's and vice president's terms at noon on March 4 left Atchison with clear title to the job.

This Urban Legend is even noted on Snopes.

Tesla

The Tesla seems to be making a fair amount of press. Being a hot little sports car and being green (electric) has put it in the spotlight.

It could be that I do not totally understand. I can grasp how an electric motor vehicle itself might inherintly be more environmentally friendly than say a gas engine vehicle, but beyond the scope of the vehicle itself, I am not sure how green everything is.



Electricity may be cheaper than gasoline at the moment, but if you did mass produce electric cars that need to be plugged in to recharge, how long before we have a hard time meeting demand for electricity? Production of electricity from what I would guess to be more green solutions, such as hydro, wind, or hydrogen doesn't seem to be growing in leaps and bounds, so could enough electricity be produced to sustain everyone plugging their car in every night. Nuclear in my mind has a bad rap and as I understand it, the largest amount of electricy in America today is produced from coal. Would increased burning of coal to supply more electricity really be green? If you compare the carbon footprint from the production of gasoline and the emissions from the gas powered vehicles to that of burning coal and using electric cars there may be a big difference. I don't know. If there is, lets see that information promoted, rather than just focusing on the electric vehicles themselves.