Apart from five years in Cleveland, two in Florida and three months in Texas I’ve lived in the greater Knoxville area my entire life. From Claxton, to Louisville and finally here in Oak Ridge my footprints have generally fallen in a thirty mile radius centered right in the middle of the Tennessee Valley.

As a native I thought I knew most of what there was to know about my beloved home. I was mistaken.

Here are some recently discovered items about my part of the world:

• Prior to 1942 the area known as Oak Ridge was made up of seven communities, all of which were destroyed during the development of Clinton Engineering Works and later The Manhattan Project. Until this week I’d assumed the destruction had been complete. While reading wikipedia articles Tuesday night I discovered that there is still a church in what was the Wheat Community that was standing prior to 1942. The George Jones Memorial Baptist Church was founding in 1901. I’m planning a visit and will post photos.
• Rocky Top is a real place. Located on the Appalachian Trail and one of the peaks of Thunderhead Mountain, Rocky Top is the lowest of the three peaks at 5400 feet.  I will be checking this out as well.

That’s it. Have a good week kids.

Sort of…I guess.  Whatever. Don’t force your days of the week on me.

• I found a site called iloveyoumorethanblank.com.  Here are some favorites:
  I love you more than…

• …you love being popular.
• …I love my ex.
• Golden Girls
• Mr. T pities fools

• I’m still torn on family guy but this is funny.
• And while it’s normally not funny at all, Lio was brilliant today. I put the comic after the jump, just to be obnoxious.

Continue Reading »

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since my last post.  I was doing so well!

Here’s a Sunday Sampler…cause I’m lazy.

• David Sop has some great baby handling tips that are posted here.
• Dan Quayle has a reputation for being a moron thanks to a disrespectful punk kid at a grade school. He didn’t however quip that he’d wished he’d studied Latin in school so he could have spoken to people on his tour of South America.  Check out the true story of how this came to be (boring) and some actual Dan Quayle quotes that helpe’d him solidify his reputation for being an idiot.
• As long as we’re talking about Latin, check out the Handy Latin page over at the MIT website.

That’s it kids. I promise I’ll do better. I’m also posting over at the other site too.

I know I’ve been no more reliable about posting these days, other than short rants about how I’m trying to upgrade the software. Anyway…

While poking around the web tonight I discovered a web comic written by comedian Scott Meyer, Basic Instructions. Like most of the humor I point out, it is pretty dry stuff. I can’t say everyone will like it.

Here are a few some I really enjoyed.

• How to introduce people
• How to customize your cellphone
• How to deal with someone who doesn’t like you
• How to get the most entertainment from your video game dollar
• How to recognize a bad idea
• How to reveal a shocking truth to someone who is not ready for the truth
• How to counter the old “there’s something on your shirt” trick
• How to tell your spouse about your day
• How to exhibit good form
• How to avoid a pointless argument
• How to wrap a gift
• How to shake hands
• How to talk to a new parent
• How to discuss popular music
• How to find a job that suits your interests

Wow. I just did a check and it was April the last time we had a Sunday Sampler…that’s April of 2007. Wow.

So I got the Internet at the house which is why, all of sudden, there have been posts again. I’m going to try to get the Sampler going, though I’ve learned not to make promises when it comes to posting.

• Bunnies are by far the cutest thing ever spilled on the highway. You can find more here.
• I’d never even heard of sea organs before I found this site. Apparently they’re all over the world. I guess this is the price I pay for living in East Tennessee instead of such lovely places as Croatia or the UK. (SFO has one too but I can’t even joke about living in the city by the bay.)
• If you’re okay with a bit of language and a lot of passive aggression then check out this site. (Some posts are NSFW. If your IT department is militant about catching people surfing inappropriate websites you might want to steer clear of this one.

Thats it. Check back to see if I have the devotion to keep this up another week.

Just so Mel doesn’t think her nagging isn’t falling on deaf ears, here’s a post.

Kurt Vonnegut is dead.  For those of you who read him in high school, he wasn’t as great as you remember him.  For those that read him after, I’m sure you find his death to be nothing more than a footnote.

What the heck is going on in Virginia?

My nephew watched Bugs Life and picked up the ‘you’re fired’ thing Tuck and Roll do when the flea fires them from the circus.  He’s also associated the term with people actually loosing their jobs and has learned that people say “you’ll find a better job” to people who’ve suffered this misfortue.  The other day he was in a McDonalds and looked at the manager and said “You’re fired! But don’t worry, you’ll find a better job.”

I went to my first Widespread Panic show.  I got to hear some favorites; Down, Big Whooly Mammoth, Immitation Leather Shoes and Pigeons.  I also had to suffer through Casa del Grillo and the obligitory Drums.

It was a two night show and I only went on the second night.   I missed Tall Boy, Little Lilly, Climb to Safety and my personal friggin favorite, Nobody’s Loss.  I’m going to buy the show.

We also were able to walk the lot after the show so I got nearly the whole experience.  It was a good first show, a good show by all standards I’m told.

Oh, I also need to mention Johnny Hart died.  He did the Wizard of Id and BC comic strips.  BC was good stuff, Wizard of Id was hit or miss.

So that’s it.  I’ll try to do better about posting.

This week’s sampler is all about cartoons. I hope you enjoy it.

• AllSimps.com has what appears to be a complete collection of Simpsons Episodes. Though they say they don’t host the files, I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before they get the dreaded cease and desist letter. I just finished watching one of my all time favorite episodes, Catch ‘em if You Can, from season fifteen. Here are a few favorite lines.

Bart: Wicca is just a Hollywood Fad.
Lisa: That’s kabbalah jerk!

Here’s another:

“Take a hike you Shatner stealing Mexico touchers.” – Canadian Coast Guard to US Coast Guard.

• This site has a very impressive collection of quotes from the Tick animated series that used to air on Comedy Central. You can find entire episodes without too much effort on YouTube or Google Video. Some favorites quotes:

Gravity is a harsh mistress.

You’re not going crazy. You’re going sane in a crazy world!

I’m betting that I’m just abnormal enough to survive.

Well once again we find that clowning and anarchy don’t mix.

Y’know, evil comes in many forms, whether it be a man-eating cow or Joseph Stalin, but you can’t let the package hide the pudding! Evil is just plain bad! You don’t cotton to it. You gotta smack it in the nose with the rolled-up newspapaer of justice! Bad dog! Bad dog! And you don’t do it for money. No! You do it for love! You know, I’ve learned something this week… on justice and on friendship, there is no price. But there are established credit limits.

You know, come to think of it, I’m not afraid of ants. I never was. It’s just when they all come running out of a lady’s pants like that… yech, creepy. And isn’t sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you’re good and crazy, ooh ooh ooh, the sky is the limit!

Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure, maybe not today, or even yesterday. But once! Babies, chum: tiny, dimpled, fleshy mirrors of our us-ness, that we parents hurl into the future, like leathery footballs of hope! And you’ve got to get a good spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception!

That’s it for this week.

It may be late in the day but it’s still Sunday. My day was sort of hijacked but it was all good.

• With Pluto not being a planet anymore, NASA has added some rock out past the degraded block of ice as our new ninth planet. The new planet was originally dubbed 2003 UB313 but has been renamed Eris after the Greek goddess of discord, which oddly has caused more discord.
• The Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai is once nice place.? I do find it a bit funny that they offer specials for Ramadan.

Not a lot this week.? Sorry.? I’ll do better next week.

….Rocky Top! You’ll always be…

Oh, sorry, didn’t see that you’d arrived.? I’m still riding high on the Vols big win over Cal yesterday.? Go Vols!

• NOTCOT.org has a very simple design hundreds upon hundreds of interesting links to share.? I spent hours on the site.
• Guerrilla artist (vandal) Banksy has taken aim at Paris Hilton and her new ‘album’, replacing copies of the disc with his own creation.? He’s changed the artwork, the tracks and even the liner notes.? Here’s the article from the Independent Online.
• Coming up on the big 5 year anniversay of 9-11.? Here are some photos that remind us exactally what happened without any politics or conspiracy theories to get in the way.
• And finally, someone has asked that the letter mentioned in this post be explained for non-English Majors, trivia buffs or Czechs.? Gregor Samsa would be the main character in Kafka’s Metamorphisis.? He turned into a bug.

And finally I would like to extend an invitation for submissions for the Sunday Sampler.? My internet availability is about to change a bit and I won’t be able to spend nearly as much time searching the web for good links and stories.

Sorry this is so late.? I spent the day in Cleveland for E’s birthday party.? I miss Cleveland.

• This was from this week’s comics. Oh man did I laugh.
• Kids 4 Truth is a creationist group headed by Bob Roberts.? It’s goal is to teach children the Biblical view of the Earth’s orgins.? They’ve produced a very entertaining movie on the subject.? Very well done.
• It has been a while since we’ve posted a Lego item.? Ueba.net has a very impressive Venice model.
• Sweman is an urban art (reads: graffiti) project by the German (?) artist Sweza.? Using posters created in studio Sweza places the life-size silhouettes in odd places on buildings around Berlin.? Very cool.
• Finally a short film by Quiet Library and Switch Pictures called Perfectly Aligned is well worth a watch.

Thats it for now kids.? Hopefully I’ll have a week worth blogging about.