Following on from Tennessee, we thought we’d add another state to our list and seeing as Alabama is the closest one (apart from Tennessee) we headed over there.
That was our first mistake. Though I’m sure Alabama is a nice state, we managed to find our way to the scariest, most rundown shanty town I’ve ever seen… It was straight out of Deliverance and yes I know Deliverance is set in Georgia, but let’s not get petty here. Erika was driving and for some god unknown reason, she kept driving deeper and deeper into this ruin of a town who’s name I forget… And trust me, I’ve looked on plenty of maps and it doesn’t even show up! It’s a Scooby-Doo ghost town!
So yeah, that was my brief run in with Alabama, my 11th US state after Maine, Florida, New York, Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Massechusetts, New Jersey, Georgia, Tennessee… Later on this week I hope to add North and South Carolina to the list making it 13 states in 10 years, most in the last 5.
Though, one funny moment came out of the trip. We stopped by a river for a break and to stretch the legs, and beside the river was a little dock of sorts, so Erika goes walking towards the end and what do we see lurking under the dock?
An Alligator!
Well, it looked like an Alligator at first, so we’re screaming at Erika to come back on to land and she’s having none of it, which was funny cause the “Alligator” was just a bit of wood. But I swear, for a few seconds we were sure it was an Alligator. Scary but funny in the end…
Yesterday we took a trip up north to Tennessee and Chattanooga to be a bit more precise… And it was a pretty cool day.
We stated out at about 10am and eventually arrived at the first destination somewhere between 12pm and 1pm, the place was Ruby Falls at Lookout Mountain, which is a 145′ underground waterfall deep inside Lookout Mountain, not for the claustrophobic amongst you as the cave trail gets pretty tight at times.
Ruby Falls:
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After the Falls we headed through what we called “the scary part of town” to Downtown Chattanooga, which really isn’t much to write home about, to the Tennessee Aquarium, which houses the largest freshwater aquarium in the world and walking round it, it was pretty easy to believe…
Tennessee Aquarium:
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And finally after the Aquarium we headed to The Chattanooga Choo-Choo (c’mon, you knew we were going to) but unfortunately my camera had long since died of power by then, so hopefully I can steal pictures off other people… After the trip back in time we went to Rock City, but unfortunately it was closed, much to our annoyance.
And here’s a few obligatory panorama’s, firstly the actual Ruby Falls and Chattanooga its self.
I also found out the third round of BlogMadness was open (and now closed) and I got beat by 7 votes to 11. Thank you to everyone who voted for me in these 3 rounds and taking me 2 rounds further than I expected to go, it’s been fun.
It’s a gorgeously sunny day outside, so what do I do? Well, breakfast on the back deck is a must… Normally I wouldn’t go outside as it’s only 30°F (but feels like 25°F) which translates to about -1°C in my terms.
Yet in the sun it’s not too bad, quite pleasant really… So with the new laptop Erika bought (and gave to me to use) I’m sitting outside (the joys of wireless internet y’all) but it’s a bit too bright to see the screen… So back inside I go to finish this off.
No plans for this Sunny Sunday, everyone else is slowly waking up so I’ll see what’s going on…
Yes! The Pixies are getting back together!
After 11 years of “will they, won’t they”, The Pixies are havin’ a reunion and hitting the road.
They’re talking, they’re rehearsing, and they’re going to perform together for the first time in more than a decade. The Pixies, acclaimed as the most influential pioneer of the late ’80s alt/rock movement, and who effectively blazed the path for groups like Nirvana, Radiohead and Pearl Jam to rise to superstardom, have officially confirmed their much-anticipated reunion. The original line-up – Frank Black/vocals, guitar; Joey Santiago/guitar; Kim Deal/bass; and David Lovering/drums – are already holed up in a Southern California rehearsal space working together for the first time since they disbanded in 1993.
I can’t wait…
Hey, bloggers! Ever wish you had a permanent copy of your journal, laid out and bound like a regular book? Well, now you’ve got your chance… A new company called Blogbinders which does exactly that. Blogbinders is one of a growing number of new “print on demand” publishers here in the US, basically they hold an electronic version of your book at their offices, then print one copy at a time whenever you need one. It’s a great deal for self-publishers who often don’t need that many copies of our books but sometimes need them at a moment’s notice.
Even better, you don’t even need to collect up your journal entries to put in an order, just tell them the beginning and end dates of what’s to be included in the book, and their automated software will actually go to your site, pull the relevant text, and format it all into a trade-paperback book for you, color cover and perfect-binding and all.
NOTE: So far only blogs at Livejournal.com work with this software, they’re hard at work right now, though, to update the software to accept any journal powered by Blogger or Movable Type.
Much like other print-on-demand companies, once you’ve put in an order the electronic version of your book sits at their company’s hard drive, and they send you a link you can put at your own site, so that anytime one of your readers wants to they can just click on the link and order a copy themselves. They also have their own online store where you can choose to have your book promoted and sold through them.
The per-book price is a little expensive, so I don’t recommend it for people who are going to do full print runs of their journal i.e. more than 100 copies, if you’re just some regular blogger, though, and have always wanted to own a couple of copies of your journal in paper form, for posterity’s sake or to give out to friends and relatives, I highly recommend you check them out. Plus, it never hurts to give your readers a chance to buy your journal in a more permanent form; believe me, you can sometimes be pleasantly surprised by how many of your online readers will actually shell out a few bucks to own something like that.
Why didn’t someone think of this before? We have have an unclaimed day at the end of February every four years, this year no less… So why not petition to make it a fun day… A Pizza Party U.S.A. day! Sure it’s not a real day, but neither is February the 29th if you think about it.
And it’s such a great idea… SUCH a great idea. In fact I’ll go as far as saying “Best. Idea. Ever.”
Look at the facts…
Everybody gets the day off. No, I mean everybody. I don’t want to see any poor saps working at Denny’s or Wal-Mart during Pizza Party U.S.A. – we’ll pass legislation making it illegal to wear a nametag on Leap Day. The only people allowed to work will be the mail carriers charged with delivering the pizzas to neighborhoods around the nation (and each will receive a copy of the Shins’ “Chutes Too Narrow” for their trouble).
Then, at noon on Feb. 29, citizens from around the nation will travel to their local community centers, present photo I.D. (to prove they chipped in), and receive in return:
- Three slices of pizza
- A 16-ounce soda. And no diet soda, either – this is a pizza party, people!
- $2 in quarters for the video games
Community centers that don’t already have video games will be required to install Berzerk, Mappy, and the cool version of Discs of Tron where you actually get to climb into the cabinet.
What’s NOT to love about it? A day off and 3 slices of pizza… And a national database will list your likes and dislikes in terms of toppings so you’ll always get the slice you want!
So go forth, sign the petition, I already have…
I’ll have Ham & Pineapple on my pizza please, no Mushrooms…
I’m tempted to join in the 2004 May 1st Reboot “competition” but seeing as I’ve just redesigned this place it doesn’t seem worthwhile. Also shutting down a blog for the month of April doesn’t do much good… Except drive away readers, regardless of whatever cause the web design community thinks the reboot is worth doing for… I dunno. If I hadn’t done this on Monday I would be tempted, but I’ll most likely pass.
Besides, the “Reboob” parody is still fresh in my mind…
Anyways, we have visitors well, ummmmm, visiting I guess, this week… And it finally hit home that this is well, ummmmm, my home… It all came from a conversation (of sorts) with the waiter at the restaurant we were eating at, it went something along the lines of:
Waiter: “Ahhh, you’re not from here, are you all visiting?”
Friend: “Ohhhh no, us two (points to her partner) are but these lot (points to us four) live here…”
Which got me thinking “shit yeah, I LIVE here…”, which is something I hadn’t really thought about, believe it or not. I figured I was just here, end of story but yeah I live here and now it seems really cool, well to me anyway. Especially when I’m MSN-ing people back home and they’re asking how I’m settling and how life is and all that stuff, well except last night when Scott pointed out From Autumn To Ashes are rolling into Glasgow at the end of February… That kind of pissed me off as it’s a band I’ve been wanting to see for ages, but I can say with a certain smugness that they’re playing The Tabernacle in Atlana a week or so before the Glasgow show, which pissed him off as much as his news pissed me off before I found out my news which pissed him off etc. etc. etc.
Now to stick it in even further I’ve got to get a ticket for the Atlanta show and figure out how to get to and from The Tabernacle… And produce photographic evidence to piss him off even more.
Much planning and plotting is required here…
This little tidbit comes courtesy of Tractorgirl… And it’s both whimsical and disturbing at the same time.
US father names son “Version 2.0″
Yep, you read that right…
A proud US father and self-confessed engineering “geek” has named his son after a computer software term.
Jon Blake Cusack, from Holland, Michigan, told local newspapers the US practice of adding “Junior” or “II” after a boy’s name was too common.
So, when his son was born last week, he decided on the name Jon Blake Cusack 2.0, as if he were a software upgrade.
It’s different… I’ll give him that, but the best bit is
He is already planning for his son’s future.
“If he has a child, he could name it 3.0,” he said.
“The first [1.0] would have major revisions, then we have 2.0 and 3.0.”
Yes… I can see that happening.
Inspired by the recent post on R80o I’m kinda undecided as to whether Renée Zellweger is, in fact, hot or not…
Yes, this is what takes up a small piece of my day, which actresses are hot…. Or not…
Those who are are as follows (in my opinion) Kirsten Dunst and Kate Winslet. But Renée Zellweger kinds jumps inbetween the category depending which movie she is in… Let me demonstrate
As you can see… On one hand we have “Bridget Jones Renée” with a full figure and on the other hand we have “Down With Love/Cold Mountain Renée” who looks like she’d break in a strong breeze. It’s really hard to decide which catergory to keep her in… Personally I think she was pretty damn hot in Empire Records and Jerry Maguire but again, this is only my opinion, feel free to shoot me down if you so wish…
Of course, if I was Jack White I’d choose Meg over Renée any day of the week, but I’m not it that position to do so, much to my chargrin.
You like?
I though I’d lost this new look, but luckily a few files were still on my server so for the last 12 hours I went through everything with the virtual equivalent of a fine tooth comb and cleaned it all up and finally finished what I started some 2 weeks ago.
I think it’s much nicer, but then anything is much nicer than the old b2 default template, so it makes this place my own at last.
Before you ask, yes, it looks a bit unaligned in Internet Explorer, but it looks great in Mozilla Firebird and seeing as that’s the browser I use mostly, get used to it. If I can find a way to realign in IE I will, but until then it’s just cosmetic differences.
Never, ever underestimate the power of begging as I storm into the last 8 of the BlogMadness tournament, which is about 2 rounds further than I thought I would get, so thank you all, thank you, thank you… Well at least I didn’t burst into tears Sally Field “you really love me” style (that’s reserved incase I win).
So it’s February 2nd, that can only mean one thing!
IT’S GROUNDHOG DAY!!! Rise and shine, campers, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cooooold out there today. Punxsutawney Phil, The Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators and Weather Prophet Extraordinary saw his shadow though, cursing us to a further 6 weeks of winter, but if winter is anything like the weather we had this weekend, bring it on.
It’s also the day after the Super Bowl.
Can the Patriots only win Super Bowls with the last kick of the game? Unfortunatley I wasn’t feeling so well and ended up missing the second half due to me sleeping soundly in bed, which kinda sucked. I think the excitement of seeing Janet Jackson’s boob at half time was too much for me… The only bad thing about the Bowl was CBS’ HD feed sucked ass, jumping all over the place and cutting out sound here and there at random.
But YAY! GO PATS!
Super Bowl Sunday to be more precise…
It’s been a nice sunny, relaxing weekend so far… We sat out on the back deck playing Uno for about 4 hours before retiring to the garage to shoot some pool.
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If only all days was as nice as this. So seeing as I have NOTHING to blog about, here’s a panorama of the neighbourhood on a sunny Sunday morning.
The new Mozilla browser release has been, well, released… Say hello to Mozilla Firefox 0.8 and so far looks a bit better than the old Firebird 0.7 release, but what’s with the name change? Will Thunerbird 0.6 become Thundercats?
I can only hope…
In completely unrelated news, we visited North and South Carolina yesterday, which was a long day, a long long day… But hey, it’s 2 new states on the list. I’m also hoping to add Oregon to that soon as I’m playing with the idea of visiting Tiffany for her birthday in a couple of weeks time.