New Year's Barrage
First off, a couple of thank you's to pass along. Thanks to Jason Parchert for his holiday gig in Reynolds. Good to see you, and thanks to Alycia for meeting up with us there.
Thanks to Jason Lindstrom and his new band, Short Lived Fun, for a fun New Year's Eve show. Sorry we couldn't stick around longer as you guys were a lot of fun to watch.
Thanks to all our friends and family whom we were able to catch up with. It was good to see Tom one more time before he ships out to Iraq. Good luck to all you guys with your urban warfare training.
One last shout to my sister Belinda for pointing us to Potbelly Sandwich Works at Midway Airport. Fantastic pickles as recommended and the sandwiches were equally delicious. I strongly recommend you find one of these restaurants if you are in one of the chain's markets.
And now on to the ranting.
One of the (dis)advantages on the old home being close to Iowa is the bludgeoning the state gets every time there is a presidential election. I got to see a lot of the political ads while we were home and I can honestly say that I absolutely do not get why people like Howard Dean. The guy came off as a pompous ass the first time I saw him and it hasn't got any better. Granted, if that's all that gets offered to vote for in November I'll grudgingly do it, but people, let's try to find a better candidate please.
Speaking of egocentric people who fly off the handle with little provocation, I have some articles related to our dictator-in-chief. A tongue-in-cheek article from the Seattle PI attempts to explain the president's high popularity rates. I tend to think this article is true for the most part. MoveOn.org is hosting a contest for anti-Bush political ads. The top 15 entries are currently online at Bush in 30 Seconds. I can't say I agree with all of them, and am usually skeptical about anything involving Michael Moore, but it looks like this is quickly becoming an "enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend" kind of year.
In other administration news, the Labor Department is offering employers tips on how to not pay their employee's overtime. But remember, they aren't necessarily working hand in hand with big corporations. Right.
Slate tackles the whole outing of a CIA agent incident from last year, suggesting John Ashcroft is playing a shell game to protect Karl Rove, among others.
Another Slate snippet questions why the First Lady would willingly want to make her husband look stupid.
But hey, its not all bad news here. I've been following the Spirit landing on Mars and gladly link you to the NASA site covering the mission.
Australian figures show that music downloads do not seem to be affecting actual record sales. I think, and have always said, that the RIAA is trying to cast the blame from the fact that current pop music in America just overall stinks. Granted, I don't listen to almost any of it myself, but maybe if we find some musicians with actual talent the industry wouldn't be in its current position of suing children and old people to excuse away poor product.
Wired has come up with 101 ways to save the internet. Fun read if you follow the industry like I do.
To finish things off, Slate attempts to find the silver lining in the whole mad cow incident. I'm still going to stay away from beef for a couple more weeks. Better safe than sorry and all that.
The Galva News has been really cool about offering to provide pics from some of their articles (many of which I really have to start scanning and putting up on the unit page). Here is one from a profile of Tom in last week's edition.
