Tony’s Journal

I had to read this story about three times and I still don’t think I understand it. I know that it involves a hickly portion of NC, a stolen ambulance, an expired six-point buck riding in the back, and a comparison to them Duke boys.

To reduce the equation further:

Freak from Florida + Hickly NC = This.

The ambulance was stolen before 7 a.m. Sunday from a Davidson County emergency medical service south of Rockingham County. It was sporadically chased as it traveled through three rural North Carolina counties and one in southern Virginia. Eventually, its tires were punctured and it wound up in a ditch late in the morning.

At one point authorities chased it through a field.

“It was a little like the Duke boys out there, I understand,” said Pearson.

But the dead deer with an IV made it weird

Tags: Just a link, News by Tony
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Wow, it’s finally been done. Someone has captured images of a live giant squid. I think most people assumed this had already been done, but the only ones that had ever been seen were dead, washed up ashore.

A year or so ago, I watched a TV show about the search for the giant squid. Scientists were so desparate to see a live giant squid that they were taking big samples of water from a precise depth and then painstakingly searching the water sample for tiny baby giant squid. They never saw one. They came close, but no cigar — they did find baby squid, but there are a lot of squid species out there.

So it’s very exciting that the first one captured on film is actually giant.

In a First, Camera Catches Live Giant Squid

Tags: Just a link, Nerd Stuff, News by Tony
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I have gotten some questions regarding the cleaning-out of my photo gallery. Here’s what’s up.

About three months ago, I decided that I should back up my photos to DVD, just in case of hard drive failure. All my memories would be gone if that happened. So I did, I backed everything up. They barely fit on two DVDs.

Two weeks later, the hard drive died, corrupting all the photos. I lost everything from those two weeks, which included a great picture of me and my little brother, and the photos from the night we got hammered and played Cranium. A sad loss, but still — man am I glad I made that backup.

So i reformatted the hard drive. The hard drive is not dead, but is having some weird issue. I can browse my photos directly on the DVD, no problems. I can copy them to the hard drive. But somehow, a good 1/4 of the photos get corrupted somehow in the transfer. I have no clue what is up with that, chkdsk reports no problems with the hard drive, but it happens.

So I’m gonna get an external hard drive, and I’m gonna put the photos on there. I need more hard drive space anyway. That will happen sometime next week probably. Once I have done that, I’ll copy the DVDs to the new hard drive, and reupload to my Gallery.

None of this explains why my online Gallery is empty. Here is something that does: I screwed up the upgrade to Gallery2. I could reupload now, but I don’t want to do it directly from DVD. So I’m just gonna wait. You’re not missing much.

Tags: General Thoughts, Nerd Stuff by Tony
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The Skins won in dramatic fashion over the hated Cowboys last Monday night! I couldn’t believe it. For about 2 1/2 hours, Billy and I were moaning and rolling around on the floor in agony like we had been riddled with shrapnel. The Skins could do no right, and were losing 13-0, but with 4 minutes left in the game, and with the fact that the Skins were completely inept on offense, it may as well have been 50-0.

And then! Miracles from above. Mark Brunell managed to hit Santana Moss for a long TD, and then another one, and then Clinton Portis was dousing Joe Gibbs with the water bucket, and the Skins had somehow Lazarused themselves into a 14-13 victory.

So now the Skins, suck though their offense does, are now 2-0, and they have this weekend off.

It is fortunate that my favorite NFL team is doing well, because I don’t really want to think about college football anymore.

But how ’bout them Skins?

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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I went to the dentist today. I previously last saw a dentist in 1998. And yet, I don’t seem to have any problems. They took x-rays, which told me a few things.

First of all, my wisdom teeth are not much of a problem. My upper ones look normal. My bottom ones. . . on one side, the tooth is at a 45° angle but is not bothering its neighbor.

On the other side, the tooth is laying parallel to my jaw, like on the bottom left of this picture, except it’s also not disturbing its neighbor. So it looks funny, but it’s okay, and the dentist says it should continue to be fine. I sure as hell hope it continues to be fine, because it would be a bad surgery — there is bone between that tooth and sweet freedom.

Another thing the x-rays picked up was a lack of cavities. What a relief! I guess I brush well. I didn’t get a cleaning because I told them that I think I have a heart murmur, and that can cause problems, so they can’t do a cleaning until I know one way or the other. It’s okay though. According to the dentist, my teeth accumulated less tartar in seven years than his teeth do in seven weeks. Apparently it has a lot to do with biology and genetics, more so than maintenance. I didn’t know that.

The dentist also told me I look like Jimmy Fallon. I chose to take that as a compliment. Perhaps my hair was adorably mussed this morning.

Now, if my mannerisms reminded him of Jimmy Fallon, that would mean that I am the kind of guy who would suck at being on a show where you’re supposed to be able to say funny things with a straight face — like, I dunno. . . Saturday Night Live.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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The NHL is back! Friday night I went with Rob to see the Canes-Capitals exhibition game in the absolute first NHL game since the lockout last year. Rob’s parents gave us the seats, and man were they good. Third row. The Canes beat the hell out of the Caps, 6-0.

On Sunday, there was the Caniac Carnival, sort of a ‘welcome back’ celebration for the fans, thrown by the Canes. I had stayed up late the night before watching State roll it up on Eastern Kentucky, and subsequently watching Wisconsin steamroll UNC on TV. But my folks had gone over to the Carnival early and got tickets — prime ones, too. Sec 119, Row K, so 11th row on the blue line. Awesome seats. And they had a spare, so they called me up and I went with them. Also, they got tickets for the autograph sessions. I got Stillman, Vrbata, Andew Ladd, Matt Cullen, Estrada (wtf Ponch) and a couple others on a pennant. I got Justin Williams’s autograph for my brother on my game ticket from the Caps game. And I got Brind’Amour, Commodore, and Jesse Boulerice to sign my hat.

Strangely enough, the bigger stars seemed to be the friendliest. Commodore, Williams, Stillman, and Boulerice were the best. I found this strange since Boulerice’s job is basically to commit battery while on ice skates. Brind’Amour was very friendly indeed, which is nice to see. The only off-ice things I know about him are that he lives very close to my parents, and that he just got divorced from his wife. Not really small-talk material. But anyway, they were as friendly as one can expect from pro athletes.

The guys signing autographs were that day’s healthy scratches, so we got to see a few of the lesser-known Canes on the ice, along with a couple real NHL players like Eric Cole, Martin Gerber, and Eric Staal. The Panthers were the opponent that day, and had quite a few names that I recalled from the pre-lockout days, like Stumpel and Gratton. Anyway, the Panthers were a much better team than the Caps had been, and the game ended in a 4-4 tie. The Panthers won in the shootout. Oh well. It’s just nice to see hockey back.

Total, on the weekend, that’s 10 times I got to see the Nature Boy style and profile up on the Jumbotron. “That’s another Carolina Hurricanes goal! WOOOOOOO! WOO WOOOOO!” And 10 times I howled along with him.

And tomorrow night, hopefully will again. My dad’s out of town, so he gave me his tickets, and I am gonna return the favor to Rob. We both have parents who are bigger hockey fans than we are, I guess. Maybe just richer.

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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So this Hurricane Ophelia is in effect, and it is tearing up the beaches. The nice thing about it is that Justin’s dad’s beach house will be oceanfront by next week.

I don’t know why there isn’t a lot of news or warnings about flooding, since this storm is dumping water like all hell, and she ain’t moving very fast, either. (She moves at three miles per hour? I can outwalk the bitch.) For an area that got pummeled by Floyd, you’d think there would be a lot of concern about flooding again with this one. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Thought: In light of the fact that the very name “Ophelia” evokes drowning, does anyone think it is maybe in poor taste to put Ophelia on the list of hurricane names?

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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So apparently some people have been using their FEMA debit card to stock up on Louis Vuitton purses. I hope those dumb bitches enjoy carrying around all their nothing.

See, what brings this full circle is the fact that Kanye is a Louis Vuitton whore himself. Kanye is really starting to annoy me. It’s a shame his music is so catchy.

Lavish tastes of card-carrying lowlifes

Tags: Just a link, News by Tony
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I imagine that if I had been appointed for a job I had no idea how to do, and was completely inept at, I’d probably end up resigning too. Why this clown was head of FEMA in the first place, I do not know. I mean, I know why — he knows people — but I don’t know how that was allowed to happen.

FEMA Director Brown Resigns

Tags: Just a link, News by Tony
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I wonder how pissed Keyshawn is that T.O. has come along and out-Keyshawned him.

I am guessing somewhere between “very” and “extremely.”

Tags: General Thoughts by Tony
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