Cold hard cash
Cold hard cash
Today the House of Representatives passed a bill to authorize the creation of a new one dollar coin. This coin will be a little different from the last two attempts, the ill-fated Susan B. Anthony dollar and the largely ignored Sacajawea dollar of 1999. Perhaps the third time will be the charm, since these new coins will follow the pattern of the very successful State Quarters series. The new coins will be released four per year starting in 2007. They will feature the visages of each President of the United States from Washington until the current President in the final run of the coins in 2018.
More information is available at CNN.
Atom feed
Ch-ch-ch-changes
I'll eventually get this site working correctly in Firefox. Until then, you may wish to use the XML feed: http://dgsiii.blogspot.com/atom.xml. It is Atom formatted rather than RSS, but should work with most newsreaders. You can also syndicate it to your site, livejournal or whatever.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out this primer.
The adult mouth has...
An adult human has 31 teeth
This human, that is. The occasional hearing loss I mentioned several weeks ago appears to have been the symptom of a very unhappy wisdom tooth. I visited Dr. Wilson this morning to take a peek at it. He took a look after a thorough cleaning by Sue the hygienist, and told me he'd like to take it out. Before I knew it, my mouth was numb and I was explaining to Alicia that she'd have to hang out in the waiting room a little longer while so they could pull the tooth. She seemed more surprised than I was. I returned to the little exam room, got all the gory details on what could possibly go wrong with the procedure, and gave the nod to get it over with. Three minutes later I was clamping down on a piece of gauze. Twelve hours after that, I'm struggling to wrap a blog entry while 15mg of hydrocodone is tickling my opoid receptors. Beats the hell out of hurting. Now I go back to bed so I can wake up and see if I can handle working tomorrow.
A small favor
A small favor
Hello to you, lovely person currently reading my weblog. I would like to ask a small favor from you. Could you help me with something? This is somewhat complicated, but my sister's boyfriend's sister in beautiful Puerto de Acajutla, El Salvador is in a competition; an online beauty contest to become Miss Acajutlaonline. Her name is Iris, and she hasn't received nearly as many votes as she deserves. It would be awfully nice if you could take a moment to vote for Iris. I'm sure she'd be most appreciative.
Cinematic Disappointment
Dungeons and Dragons - The Movie
On the RTSFS e-mail list, we've been discussing television and film disappointments in the realm of speculative fiction.
This was my contribution:I was terribly disappointed by the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Movie-goers 'round the world still cringe when remembering Jeremy Irons' rediculous jibbering coupled with his seizure-like hand gestures. Also, who can forget Jar-Jar Snails, or Mister Blue-Lips uttering as seriously as possible, "Give. Me. The Rod."
Actually, I think I might watch it again sometime soon-- I could use a laugh.
A fanboy moment
A Fanboy Moment
Around lunchtime on Monday I was looking for information on that night's episode of CSI Miami. TV Tome didn't have anything, so I stopped by CSI Files to see if they had what I needed. Not only did I find a brief description of the episode du jour, I also found a link to Calleigh Duquesne actress Emily Procter's website. Her character is my favorite in the series, and I happily clicked on the link. I learned from her bio that she is a Raleigh native and ECU graduate. I sipped my iced tea thoughtfully, then clicked on the "contact" link-- I just had to say hello. To my surprise, Ms. Procter responded almost immediately. She sent a brief but charming reply, which resulted in a few moments of utter fanboy bliss.
GreenZap
GreenZap not a hoax?
I received this email from GreenZap today:Dear Donald,
As you probably know, we have been diligently working on setting up systems to
manage the amount of traffic that GreenZap is getting and is expected to get.
Rather than install a temporary solution, Dell and Cisco are assisting us in
building a very robust, expandable system to grow as our community does. As a
result, it has taken a little more time than initially expected.
We expect the final pieces of our systems to be completed by tomorrow, at which
time we will make the site available.
Once available, you will notice some additions, including (i) a contact us page,
(ii) an FAQ section and (iii) an area for news and recent press releases.
We appreciate your patience and look forward to servicing you.
Have a Zappy day!
By request...
By request, Alicia Springfield
Alicia was asked to design the flower arrangements for the UNC Tar Heels Mens Basketball Banquet. Two of the fourteen centerpieces she created are visible in the background in at least one of the official photos at tarheelblue.com Also, several of my coworkers reported seeing them during the telecast. Just in case you missed them, here is a closer look at the prototype design at one of the work tables at the shop:
The Wounded
The Wounded
Yesterday at school Emma was hurt on the playground. She missed a rung on the monkey bars and fell face-first into the gravel. We have kept a close watch on her for any change in symptoms and she appears to have a minor concussion, but she claims to be just fine. After waiting all year for her turn, this is her week to be the "pledge leader" in school; the child that leads all the others in the Pledge of Allegiance, and not even a blow to the head is going to keep her from this very important duty.
Here she is, showing off her battle scars:
Updates
Updates
-The Caller is still calling, and it appears that it goes by Daylight Saving Time
-Megadeth is going on the festival circuit this summer, with a new creation called "Gigantour."
-The Tar Heels are the national champions!
-The Pope is dead.
-Terry Schiavo's body joins her mind, fifteen years later. Eating disorders are bad, mmmkay?
-The Pope is still dead, no new Pope yet!
-New PayPal like service is coming soon. If you feel like reading my schill about it, see this post's comments.