HDTV: How Did John Kerry Look?

No matter your political persuasion, HDTV changes things in visual world. Do we really want these folks this up close and personal?

Apple v. Real 

Someone's posted my thoughts on this controversy. I'm currently evaluating mp3 players and I'm more convinced than ever that I won't be buying an iPod.  Also, read part two just posted.

Kirk & Spock: A Growing Ad Comedy Team (Quicktime required)

Want to see others in this series of Nimoy supplanting Shatner at Priceline, check it out.

Maryland Mystery Animal 'Seen' All Over The WorldWhat do you think this blue creature is? I'm going with Chupacabra.

PC Won't Boot

Fred Langa's List shared this with everyone this week. PC's need to breathe just like people. Join PC's for cleaner air! Or just read a few tips.

Come on baby, Run (Over) Linsipire

Alright, I thought it was worth posting this slaughter to a classic rock tune. What a cheap video, full of cheap shots for a lame product. Get a real OS, Windows XP! Future picture of stable Linspire system coming soon!

Verizon 'Fios': 15-Mbit/s Downloads For $44.95/Mo.

When does this get to my home??!!

Terror in the Skies, Again? - WomensWallStreet

What do you think? This is worth reading the whole story.

Scotland on Sunday - Entertainment - TV of the future will be the end of DVD, claims Microsoft founder

I don't think Bill is right, do you? There are too many bricks & mortar operations reliant on shiny little discs. Will they be DVDs as we know them or a package with a little multi-terabyte HD-hologram virtual immersion medium? Only time will tell.

Sickness make the Hawk's postings very few...will be well soon.

TECH TIME: 50 Coolest Websites: Complete List

It's usually nice to see a list like this once in a while to see if you're missing something. It'll take me some time to work through it so comment on your favorites.

MSNBC - Beyond Buffy: State of sci-fi on TV

Now some, like myself, would even question placing "Buffy", a horror genre series, in with Sci-Fi but that's another discussion. For now, I'm looking forward to Stargate: Atlantis, The 4400, Doctor Who, EarthSea, Justice League: Unlimited and of course, Star Trek: Enterprise. All this criticism over Enterprise is so much hot air it's not even funny. All the Star Trek series hit their stride by Season 3 and this one is no exception. Can't wait to see what they deliver this year.

Will the Hawk Vote for Kerry?

Normally the Hawk doesn't blog about politics. Theology, yes. Ethics, yes. But not politics. But this bird couldn't pass up the opportunity to share one reason to vote against the Kerry.

MSNBC - Newspapers: The Un-Funny Pages

Columbia, SC's own State newspaper is owned by Knight Ridder. Sounds like the comics may be endangered.

N.H. proposal would tax chat rooms

Web mail, instant messaging and wireless Internet are also included in the proposal. This is so ridiculous, it's hard to believe. Why not tax per website visited by a user? This needs to die a quick death. Save us from stupidity!

Train wreck update with picture and video

Updated story on the train wreck which delayed us traveling from St. Louis. There is a picture here and right now (7-10) there is video footage worth watching of the event as reported by local news

Penguins in the exhibit at the St. Louis zoo. 

We're home! Around 7:30pm we got back. Stopped by Saluda, NC, where my wife's family has had a shack for generations. It was Coon Dog Day so we didn't get to go down the main road.

A fitting conclusion for our visit to St. Louis. 

Americans kick a habit: Reading

I've known this for a long time. Perhaps most significant to me is that this survey is looking at pleasure reading. Non-pleasure, reading done voluntarily, not for work or school, is something around 12% (when last I checked). The decline of reading in general is truly alarming. Public discourse and debate is watered down. Education declines. And emotionalism as a common method of interacting, whether born out physically in a rise in violence or broken families, is resulting. The visual medium, for the most part bound to TV watching, has accelerated this slide. The future looks even grimmer.

If you want to explore this more, Neil Postman enlightened us about this 18 years ago in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse In the Age of Show Business. It is a profound book about the impact of the visual medium on the way we think. It is a "must read" on my all-time book list. But you do have to READ it.

Train Derailment Closes Interstate

Day One of the trip home was a nightmare. This incident required routing of traffic off the interstate into small towns and back. It took us 3 hours to go 40 miles. Not good when you plan a trip to be 3 hours shorter. Oh well, we've stopped in Lebanon, TN. Another full day tomorrow, but hopefully not that full.

StopnDrop Auctions

Don't have time to E-bay yourself...no problem in St. Louis.

Went back to Union Station today. The goal was to see the fountain and the Hyatt Regency attached to the station. It was worth it. Very much like a cathedral inside. Quite amazing. Also visited Borders and Whole Foods (see earlier post). My brother treated the family to Qdoba's for Mexican and we had homemade ice cream to top it all off. Wow! We hit the road tomorrow after all of this, too. It's been a quick week.

AP Wire | 07/08/2004 | Bald People Eat Free at Calif. Eatery

Sounds fair to me. 'Nuff said.

WeatherBug fights the storm of spyware and adware

Is this software really safe? Or is this marketing hype? Well, we'll see. I decided I would take the plunge in a controlled manner and see how I fair. So far, I made the right choices to avoid spyware but if you didn't know what you were doing or your mouse slips onto advertising, you're toast. We'll see how the experiment goes.

This Spoof Ain't Funny

You aren't safe if you've switched. So all the claims to switch now required you to reload your *NEW* browser once updated. I'm sure all the enterprises fed up with IE vulnerabilities have a strategy for updating no matter what...like MUS (Mozilla Update Service) and OUS (Opera Update Service).

Fast Company | The Anarchist's Cookbook

He loves Lord of the Rings (think Strider) and he's models some of his management after Star Trek. Oh, and he's the CEO of Whole Foods, the largest organic- and natural-foods grocer in the country. Worth reading about some of their ideas and how is growing his business.

Sidenote to John Mackey--My wife loves organic shopping and wishes you'd decide to locate one in Irmo, SC. Here's one vote for expansion in our neck of the woods.

Recluse count holding steady at 2. 24 hours, recluse-free!

Today we visited the St. Louis Arch on our visit here. What an impressive feat of engineering. There was tons of stuff to see in the museum area, if you don't have little children. Very impressive. Also, we strolled through Union Station downtown. It's like a mall now but was once a thriving train station. They have letters posted with people's memories of the station and variety of train memorabilia throughout. So much to see, we may go hang out there for a little while tomorrow. You can also enjoy a variety of dinner rides on a train the leaves from there, hosted by RailCruise America. You can even schedule one their Murder mystery cruises.

We road past another museum, City Museum, which had amazing places for kids to crawl up through and around outside. There was a airframe plane, a fire engine and a school bus perched on one corner of the building. Definite attention grabber. And the website captures some of this amazing stuff. We didn't stop with our younger kids. They'll appreciate it when they're older.

Recluse spider count since arrival: 2

ZDNet AnchorDesk: Hey, Verizon, you call this service?

I recently signed up with Verizon and was dismayed to read this little story which reminds us that most customer service has a long way to go to figure out why they're called "customer" and "service". I have a ton of tales about other companies but I can say, just like in this little story, the best advice is bump it up until you get reasonable satisfaction. I run in circles where we do our due diligence and then e-mail everyone up the food chain regarding our issue. In EVERY instance, we've been successful at some level. So, next time you need help, just let your fingers do the talking.

Saint Louis Zoo

Visited the zoo for about 4 hours today. Lots of cool (literally) stuff. It was 45 degrees in the Penguin/Puffin complex. And you could almost touch them. There was a great Cypress Swamp bird area and excellent Sea Lion show. Cost for general zoo admittance...free! Some of the activities cost. Very nice and the kids loved it! A definite visit if you're here.

Big storm tonight in St. Louis. Blew down one of my brother's trees next to the house. Hail, 70mph wind, 2-3inches of rain. And what lightning! A rainbow came out afterward to top it off. What an evening!

AtomFilms - Star Wars Help Desk

Take Star Wars, a dash of Star Trek and Tech Support and you get this!

Pestpatrol - Welcome to the Center for Pest Research

Tracking down that pesky spyware, an updated database is now available.

Brown Recluse Spider

St. Louis is allegedly the capital for these little guys/gals. Our running count is 1 so far. My wife killed one last night. They are bigger than you'd think. Definately not tiny spider size. Notice they're out of range of SC. And that's a good thing. Read on....

Windsor Crossing

Had a great service July 4th at my brother's church. Great use of video/music to focus our attention on the Almighty.

Spider-Man vs. True Spider Superpowers

Spiderman 2 opened. Haven't been yet but this will set the record straight about spidey super powers...

Patrick Norton leaves G4Techtv

I guess it was inevitable with all the change at TechTV that Patrick would be next after Leo. I didn't always agree but his presence was a continuous thread of stability. It is a sad day...

Microsoft posts work-around for IE flaw - News - ZDNet

If you haven't patched, you need to. If you think using Mozilla Firefox will solve all your problems, you may need to reload it each time there is a patch. Nothing's perfect.

Parade History

Learned about this parade they hold in St. Louis. It's kind of a Mardi Gras thing. We didn't go but heard about it. Oh, and the fair going on downtown ushered us in with an Air Show during our crossing of the Mississippi by the Arch. Very cool!

Well, we're here in St. Louis, learning about the city and enjoying our vacation. It seems appropriate to hear from the Hawk's Nest since I haven't posted in a LONG while. Well, the famine is over for now. Enjoy!

Lady Liberty Fireworks

Happy July 4th!! Make your own fireworks!