The knucklehead who smashed us is still unknown to us, and the fate of getting insurance to repair my car is doubtful at this point.
Inquiries to body shops have made initial guestimates of a cost higher than the vehicle is worth. With some online shopping to find a good deal, we came across this 2003 Toyota minivan, which, although I don’t like minivans, the size of the family warrants the upgrade.
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Destiny of the Daleks, one the lamest Dalek episodes episodes ever (and that’s saying a lot) has been announced for upcoming release. Ho hum, I’d rather see Horns of Nimon or Creature from the Pit.
The really great news is listed on the DVD extras list for that release:
Coming Soon – trail for forthcoming DVD boxset release of Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Sea Devils and Warriors of the Deep.
from BBC – Doctor Who – News => Davros Awakes!
Technorati Tags: Blog, Doctor Who, Dr Who, DVD
The Huffington Post => New “View†Co-Host Sherri Shepherd Doesn’t Know If World Is Flat
After declaring she didn’t “believe in evolution, period,†new “View†co-host Sherri Shepherd was asked if she thought the world was flat. Her response to moderator Whoopi Goldberg is in the clip…
Wonderful, this moron has a TV show.
Taking a position that putting food in her child’s mouth is more important than knowing if the Earth is round is a facile attempt at redirection. Surely it would be important to know if her child, in his quest for food, was going to fall off the edge of the Earth and be swallowed by the sea monsters that live at the bottom of the waterfall.
(p.s. Way to go Whoopi! Excellent job cutting right to the crap(head).)
Do you ever have on of those nights where everyone wants to go somewhere to dinner that you don’t want to go? I had one of those nights tonight, pity I didn’t put up a struggle.
We were returning from dinner, traveling south down 7th street. We were stopped by the traffic light that enters the VA hospital. We’d been there for at least 30 seconds when… WHAM!!!!, the car was smacked on the left, rear side. I had just enough wherewithal to keep my foot on the brake as I saw the vehicle that hit us careen off us and smack another car before coming to a rest at the other side of the intersection.
Both my kids, my wife and a friend were in the car. I wasn’t injured so my first response was to make sure everyone was alright and got out of the car. Everyone was alright, but James’ door (behind mine) was jammed shut. I got out and called 911.
As I got out, someone approached us and asked if the accident had just happened. He had been at the intersection a half mile north, and the same car that struck us had run the red light at 70+ miles an hour just moments before. I had the impression that he was really moving when he shot past, but really was in no position to be making objective observations.
Something that didn’t quite register in my brain: His car seemed to be in a different place than when I thought it stopped. The answer came soon enough, he’d tried to get away, but his right front wheel had been turned 90 degrees into the wheel well and he couldn’t move. he tried to escape on foot, but the police apprehended him.
He claimed that his brakes failed, but I’m sure that’s a lie. He ran a red light at high speed half a mile away, if that was because of his so-called brake problem, he should have coasted to a much slower speed, stopped or diverted himself into one of the empty parking lots or side streets before he reached us. It was clearly complete bullshit.
As for my car, I’m no expert, but I suspect it’s a total loss. The wheels on the left are completely shredded, and it seems like it is all bent out of shape. Frame damage is likely and it wouldn’t surprise me if the axles are damaged also.
Emergency services responded and looked us over a bit, particularly the kids, then gave them stuffed animals. That was quite nice of them and I think it made the standing around and waiting a lot more bearable for them.
After paperwork, the tow truck came to haul our wreck off to the impound yard, and we were left to get home somehow. They offered to call us a cab, but since were were only a short distance from home, we took the bus.
Kudos to the bus people. We all had exact change for the bus ride, but only in the form of dollar bills and quarters. As we got on the bus, the dollar bill collector was broken, so they let us ride for free. That surprised me, but it’s the right thing to do. It’s not right to strand people who rely on the bus just because the bus is broken down.
I’m sure I’ll have more on this later.
Update 9/19/2007: The whole incident keeps running through my head, and what my initial thoughts were just don’t seem to fit. I was completely stopped at a red light. My impression was that the light was just about to turn green, but hadn’t turned green yet.
That means that, either the black car should not have been in motion, as was my impression based on what I saw after the impact, or he was carried across the intersection by the impact.
The impact on my car was near the rear, on the left side. The impact on the black car was along the right side. I’m beginning to think this numbnuts who was driving was actually trying to squeeze between our two stopped cars in adjacent lanes.
Actually, the mark of 100% success of the upcoming changes is that no one will notice.
I’m in the process of migrating my 6 or so different domains onto a new hosting service, hostmonster.com. So far it’s working out that I’m paying less, getting more and the customer service (so far) has been great.
The biggest problem will be moving lonelocust.com over, primarily because it is the principal account for several of my other domains, like pizzalocust.com and fusionpatrol.com. Lone Locust is expiring first, but I’ve got to move the others first, and I’ve got to do it all within the next 25 days.
I’ve just completed the migration of Fusion Patrol with minimal downtime, and I’m hoping that bodes well for the others. Still, if you come to the site one day and the DNS entry isn’t found… just wait a bit, we’ll be back!
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Bad Astronomy Blog => Kent Hovind: creationist liar and evil, evil, evil
Kent Hovind is an evil creationist liar who is currently cooling his backside in prison, convicted for evading $840,000 in taxes. That’s the good news. It’s downhill from there.
His group, Creation Science Evangelism, has been on a pogrom — a jihad, if you will — taking down YouTube videos that reveal Hovind for what he is: an evil creationist liar. This group has been sending YouTube notices of copyright infringement, claiming that the anti-Hovind videos are using copyrighted material from Hovind himself.
No commentary, just annoyed that this man is still causing problems even from deep within his cell.
After few well-placed (or poorly-placed) darts in the door, it became necessary to rethink my new darts setup. A backboard was certainly in order – which forced me to move the board a little closer to the wall, and some dedicated lighting was necessary.
It looks so much like a fine-art piece now that I almost hate to throw darts at it.
Almost.
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A significant portion of my childhood was spent camping. My father loves camping. He has since before I was born. My parents went camping every available weekend. After I was born, the pace didn’t slow down, and as I grew up every school break was certain to be spent camping.
I’ve logged a lot of hours camping. I’ve been on camping trips that were two months long. I’ve camped in every state this side of Texas.
Nonetheless, when I moved out to go to university, my camping days mostly stopped. The span between trips went from being measured in weeks to being measured in years.
(more…)
I’ve been enjoying the Natwest ODI cricket series between England and India and decided that I needed to get more active.
My choices: See if I could join an Arizona Cricket league, or break out the darts board for the first time in 15 years,
The darts board won. I can’t see myself standing at the wicket waiting to be pummeled by a legspinner.
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It’s been a while since I blogged any paleontology news… Families: 260 Million years, and counting.
Reuters => Fossil shows parents doted 260 million years ago
LONDON (Reuters) – Parents have been doting over their offspring for a very, very long time, it seems. A South African fossil suggests pelycosaurs — intermediates between reptiles and mammals that lived in the Permian Period before the rise of dinosaurs — may have been caring parents 260 million years ago, scientists said on Wednesday.
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