Waiting for Tropical Storm Hanna

So, the past 24 hours or so we've been waiting for this storm that kinda didn't happen.

Yesterday morning, I got off work. Pretty clear conditions. I stayed up for a while thinking something might happen early (I kind of had my facts wrong, too - it happens).

Finally get some sleep, but we wake up kinda early. Got maybe 4 hours sleep tops. Because we're still expecting this thing to happen sometime today.

Then we get the info that Hanna's supposed to make landfall at 2am around Wilmington (for those not from here, it's a coastal town near the NC/SC border) and at around 2am Sunday morning, it's supposed to be long gone, through Virginia. OK.

We go to the store for some stuff, thinking we were going to need to stock up and all that good stuff. The local Food Lion has these metal shutters over their windows, not real shutters but rather some kind of paneling they just threw up real ghetto-like. I wish I'd gotten pictures. Oh, and a sign that said "Yes we're open", one of those Coca-Cola banners smaller stores have. Epic fail for not saying "I assure you we're open" ("Clerks." reference). It didn't even need to be shoe polish on a bedsheet, just the words - would it be too much to ask? Oh well. We scored the bare necessities. You know... bread, milk, bologna, cheapo frozen pizzas, Whoppers (Hershey's, not Burger King's), etc.

We get home. Still no rain. It's a pretty nice day out. Hardly a cloud in the sky. And everyone's making like it's Hurricane Floyd (1999) all over again.

We decide to make it a movie night. First up was Layer Cake, a pretty good British gangster flick starring Daniel Craig (the recent James Bond) and Colm Meaney (best known as the transporter chief and handyman from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine). I love seeing Star Trek actors curse, drink, do drugs, or otherwise engage in behaviour they never would on a G/PG television program.

Then we watched WWE Friday Night SmackDown! on the DVR. Decent show, but it sucks Mick Foley's no longer on commentary, I loved his personal style. And that Edge is taking a break (read: Undertaker sent him to Hell at Summerslam), he always puts on a good show. Undertaker's uber-awesome dramatic entry was interrupted by a storm update, which of course we skipped because it was by then three hours outdated. We got treated to a pretty good match between MVP and Shelton Benjamin, two heels who usually put on good matches. Jeff Hardy's talents got wasted on a mostly worthless act they call "The Brian Kendrick". The guy's got talent, but in trying to build him as a heel, they just have him steal matches. Boring. Shelton Benjamin is a heel and still puts on good matches, but then he's established. Main event sucked - long story short, Triple H got punk'd by half the locker room. Boring. He still pinned Khali after a Pedigree. Oh, and there were a couple Diva matches.

Checked the weather again. Nothing too big, still pretty calm.

Next movie up, Ready to Rumble. SmackDown! didn't really fulfill our pro wrestling fix, so we watched this 90 minute ad for WCW (WWE's competition in the 90s which they now own). Pretty good movie along the lines of Joe Dirt. A couple of losers travel 3 hours to see a taping of WCW Monday Nitro only to see their hero lose his title, so they track him down and find out he's an even bigger loser than they are, but they don't give up, ultimately taking him to Las Vegas in an attempt to win his belt (and respect) back. It was better than I thought it would be at the start - and half an hour in. For a while it was looking pretty bad. I'm not sure if it gives a better or worse depiction of pro wrestling than exists in reality. I really need to read more books on the backstage politics and technical side; while I do enjoy watching as a fan, I'm much more interested in the production of the show. (Yes, I'd love to work for WWE - just as a tech guy though. Meeting some of the legends and superstars wouldn't be a bad bonus either.)

So anyway, movie ends and my wife pretty much declares the storm a no-show and heads to bed. And here I am, 6:30 in the morning, typing away the PG-side of the night's events. I'm hearing a bit of wind outside, but looking at wunderground.com's live radar, which is even better than what they show on TV (Google Maps with a live radar = pure win) and it looks like TS Hanna went farther inland than originally anticipated. It's probably pretty wet in Raleigh, and Greenville might be seeing some drippage, but it's still mostly dry here. We've had some light rain.

Here's a screenshot of wunderground's map, with some notes of my own.



The red circles is about where TS Hanna hit land, just south of Wilmington. I think technically the eye of the storm landed on our side of the border, but I'm not sure. Close enough anyway, and I'm sure Myrtle Beach (SC city/tourist trap just south of the border) got hit with some rainfall earlier. It actually hasn't reached Raleigh yet, but should any time now. The thin red lines are my guesses (from having watched it all night) as to where the worst of it will go. The red star (directly south of Washington) is approximately where we are. Chocowinity, NC - zip code 27817 - if you'd like to look it up.

We will get wet by the time it's passed us by, but it won't be as bad as we thought.

What we have to worry about is Hurricane Ike, which is right behind Hanna. Earlier I mentioned Hurricane Floyd, but people who were here when that hit said it wasn't even that bad, it's just that it too was right behind another hurricane, Dennis, so the one-two punch is what did the damage. We've got a tropical storm followed by a hurricane followed by a tropical storm (Josephine's the third one). And of course it all depends on what path they will follow when they reach us. Experts are almost certain it'll hit Florida, but the question is whether it will follow the Atlantic seaboard up and hit the Carolinas or continue through the Gulf and tear up the Gulf states. And then there's Josephine, can't forget about that one.

It's not too tough tracking the storms, really. You see these guys on TV and they sound so smart, but nowadays Joe Citizen has access to many of the same resources. You can use the more popular weather.com (The Weather Channel) but I find wunderground.com to be more direct, easier to get at the relevant information for a quick drive-by check. Or you can be a real nerd and check both. But tracking storms isn't the important part, preparing for them is. Both phones charged, we have water, we have food, we have flashlights. As long as we have power, we can watch the news or go online for information, but if we lose power, we have the Net on our phones. No live radar or any bells and whistles, but we can get basic info.

So to our friends and family, we're safe from Hanna, I think it's safe to say. Ike and Josephine though... we'll have to keep you posted on that. (And that strong wind I heard earlier is gone now.)

Last note: It's coming a little more to the east now, but rather than Raleigh getting the eye, I think it's going to pass through Wilson. Not too far off. Greenville isn't going to fare much worse than I initially thought, and we still look clear. But I'm only seeing the front band, or arm making a huge arc to the west, from Fayetteville through Chapel Hill and up into Richmond, VA. There should be a trailing band or arm that will probably slap us later in the day, but that should be weaker.

Gas station owner tip #42

Got high gas prices and want to bring in customers? Obscure your sign. They know they're getting f---ed in the a-- without a reacharound, but if they don't know just how high your prices are they might just stop anyway as opposed to getting discouraged and hope for slightly lower prices up the road. The Shell in Grimesland, NC has the vendor park in front of the prices like this:



See? Companies can work together to screw consumers. But hey, at least Shell doesn't buy its gas from the Middle East, so I know no part of my $43 and change is going to buy weapons to kill American troops. Go me. Oh, and the gas was $3.59 a gallon. Oh my bad. $3.59 and nine tenths.

Google makes a browser, but Zack & Miri Make a Porno

Just a few days ago, Google proved the rumours true. The rumours I speak of (as there are many surrounding the rainbow-coloured-logo'd Web giant) concern a Web browser to take on not only Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but Mozilla Firefox as well. That browser is here, it's called Google Chrome, and it's sexy as hell.

So why would Google, a longtime Firefox supporter, flip on Mozilla and begin competing with them? The answer is simple: $, £, €, ¥, you get the idea. If you're a fan of Google, as I am, you probably already know that they are the best at what they do, and if they're not, they're either working to improve or saving up to purchase their competition. Gmail thoroughly owns Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live Mail. Mapquest? The 90s called, they want their online maps back. Now in the 21st century, we use Google Earth. Forget mapping; we now use a virtual globe with satellite photos. And when Google Video failed, they up and bought YouTube.

All free.

So how do they pay for all this, their employees, and upkeep on their beautiful Mountain View, CA office? Advertising. That, and investments, but a big chunk of their money comes from advertisements. You run a search, and the results are preceded by sponsored results. You check your email, and ads similar to the content of the email is displayed. They have a massive database of ads to match keywords to, and sponsors want in. In a big way.

But if you use Firefox, you can block Google's ads and hide the sponsored search results, so you get the best Google has to offer while Google gets nothing for providing these great services.

Chrome is Google's answer to Firefox and the extensions that cut off their revenue. In exchange for giving up these conveniences, Chrome offers a very small and lightweight tabbed browser experience, which seems to load pages about twice as fast as Firefox 3. There's also this weird security feature that lets spyware and viruses through, but into some virtual space that is destroyed when you close the tab. Sounds scary and cool at the same time, but I don't visit sites that would install malware anyway. I wouldn't know where to begin with that.

If you use Firefox for whatever reason, especially if you don't block ads, you owe it to yourself to at least give Chrome a chance. It really is a nice browser.

And now for something completely different, Zack and Miri are making a porno! If those names mean nothing to you, how about Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen? Rogen you may know from Superbad or Knocked Up, and Kevin Smith is that sick writer/director behind Clerks., Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, and Clerks 2. He also plays Silent Bob in all of those but Jersey Girl. Rogen is Zack, and Miri is played by Elizabeth Banks. Early reports don't shine much hope into a possibility of screen time for Smith, but his comedy partners Jason Mewes (Jay) and Jeff Anderson (Randal) have parts.

The premise is pretty simple. Zack and Miri are lifelong platonic friends going to college who decide to make adult films to make ends meet. What else do you need to know? Oh yeah, do they do it, or is this another Hollywood cop-out (I'm lookin' RIGHT at you, Hostel)? Seth Rogen describes the film as filthy, but defends the use of nudity and sex in films. The MPAA slapped an NC-17 rating on it. Smith appealed without changing a thing, and it's getting an R rating, but just barely.

Google's Chrome is out now, but you're going to have to wait until Halloween to see Kevin Smith's Porno. Until then, you can check out the red-band trailer. You know how the "The following PREVIEW" card that flashes before every trailer has a green rating? Trailers are rated, too, but they only have two ratings. All Audiences, or green-band, is the most common by far. Restricted, or red-band, is very rare. You won't see them in theaters, as they almost always contain language, violence, or even nudity. Zack and Miri's trailer earns the red band for language alone.

Documenting my future arthritis

As I've probably mentioned, for her birthday this year I got Jen an Xbox 360 with Rock Band, and if you know me in real life, you've probably heard me talking about Rock Band, maybe watched a video on my phone or Nintendo DS showing the game in action.

Well, now you can follow my future progress on the game through ScoreHero. This site lets you record your score data for any song at any difficulty level with any number of players. 1-player means I got the score all on my own. 2-player (and up) would mean I had help, and the scoring doesn't tell who carried who and who stood on their own, so the data is not as revealing as to any one person's true skill.

That's not to say I'm good, by any means. Rock Band is clearly Jen's game, and she can whip my ass at it on any instrument. I can give her a run for her money on bass, but only because that's what I do. She can do all four - bass, lead guitar, drums, and vocals, and she's good at all four. My best song, by far - Say it Ain't So by Weezer. I am very close to getting... Well, I'd better explain Rock Band scoring.

Rock Band actually has four scores. First, a numeric score as any puzzle game does, usually this gets up in the thousands. The note highway has five tracks, each represented by a color. Green, red, yellow, blue, orange. Each track can contain a short note, just a light brick in the color of the track, or a long note, the same but with a glowing tail behind it (the tail can be real short or it can be a few screens long). I don't know the scoring of each brick, or if they're even worth the same amounts. Every ten, you get a higher multiplier. 2X means you get double the points, and it goes up to 4X for the vocalist, the drummer, and the lead guitarist - and 6X for the bassist. This means the bassist (that's me) can make each brick worth six times its normal value if I don't miss any. Sometimes, to throw you off a little, they'll give you a sequence of white bricks. You still hit them based on the road they're in and they give you Energy - but only if you hit every single one. The amount of Energy you get from a sequence depends, on both the song and the length of the sequence. Once you fill your energy tank up to half, you can deploy "Star Power" which doubles your multiplier. So a bassist can go up to 12X multiplier. Every 100 points becomes worth 1200 points. That's the points.

The second score is far simpler. It's a rating, five stars total. You start at zero and your points directly influence the rising through the ranks. If you do exceptionally well (99% and up) you can get five gold stars, often referred to as the six star rating. The third score is the percentage of notes you hit. A 100% score is referred to as a FC (Full Combo). In perspective, I can get the gold stars playing with a much better drummer (Jen, or her brother) but not on my own. My highest score at the time of this writing is 99%, on "Say it Ain't So". And the fourth score is the number of notes you hit in a row (your longest streak).

That said, here are JEN's ScoreHero songs...

The link will take you to her vocal solo career on Expert. If you look at the choices at the top, you can get it to show her other accomplishments. She has some of her drumming up there, and maybe one song on lead guitar. She mostly documents her vocalist stuff though.

Now here is MY ScoreHero page.

And this is me, on bass, on Expert. I only have Expert bass songs on ScoreHero for now. I'm only really interested in playing the bass, though I might try lead guitar. The drums are fun, but they're not really for me, and I'm worse than a cheap hack when it comes to the mic.

"Graciously documenting our future arthritis" is ScoreHero's motto, which is where I got the article title. Yeah, it's about right - after doing six or seven songs on bass, man, my wrist hurts.

Say what you will about Walmart, but...

Jen left me $10 and (later) told me I was to get milk, butter, cat food, and TP. I knew it wasn't enough, but I went to Walmart, and got all of it for $9.77.

While you can get some things on sale cheaper, overall I know it would have been more. For example, a 4-pack of Angel Soft single-roll. $1.18 at Walmart. At Food Lion, it's $1.49 and you can't get plain, it's only the kind with girly prints. (Which I don't mind, but it's rather silly they don't have plain.) Harris-Teeter, $1.79 (and I think they have plain).

I'm usually among the first to criticize Walmart for certain things, but when you're in a bind, they can be really helpful. (Granted, I may have actually spent more considering gas prices, but I don't have to fill up until we get paid again. None of the groceries could really be put off until we get paid.)

Wow, it's been almost 5 weeks since I've wrote anything up here. Damn... I'm gonna have to work on that.

Tips for happy living, June 2008

At work, there's this calendar with all these neat little "tips" for happier living for each month. I don't know if the calendar is put out by the Church (or which one, if so) but they're good tips, and I thought I'd share. If you do just one of these things, you'll probably be happier in general.

1. Don't stop the parade to pick up a dime.

2. Fill out customer comment cards.

3. Never miss an opportunity to go fishing with your father.

4. When a friend is in need, help him without him having to ask.

5. This year, visit two or three of your state parks.

6. Include a recent family photo when writing to a loved one.

7. Hold a child's hand when crossing the street.

8. When in doubt, smile.

I don't agree with some of these. The first one was obviously coined (pun fully intended) before gas prices quadrupled since Mr. Bush took office. As for the third one, I can't - my father passed away six years ago, but when we have kids, I'd love to take them fishing.

But some are good. I love filling out those customer comment cards. I figure if a business cares enough to want to know what their customers think, the customers ought to tell them what they think (good or bad). If you have something bad to say, use constructive criticism - if you just cuss them out on the card, they'll just toss it. And then what good did you do? As for family photos, I'm big on that. Holding a kid's hand as they cross the street? Usually kids don't like that (I remember, I didn't) but when crossing a street, it does wonders for their self-confidence. (So does darting out in traffic, and surviving - I remember that too - but also cars stopping for pedestrians and walking in front of them, it does do wonders, and it helps them to trust their parent, aunt/uncle, or guardian.)

Bad water leads to panic, charity

As you all know by now, I sleep all day, so if something "major" happens during the day, I don't usually hear about it until much later, which makes for some really interesting surprises.

So Wednesday night, I go grocery shopping, and I think I noticed the increased traffic. Not sure on that - Greenville can be pretty funny at times. But then I got to the supermarket, and that's when I noticed it. I like to shop at night on weeknights, because usually it's not as busy, but this Wednesday night might as well have been a Friday or Saturday night, or hell, a weekday around 6pm. It was slam packed.

It didn't take long to figure out what was going on. The first clue I got was, I overheard another customer asking an employee if they were giving away any more water. Giving away water? Indeed, the water shelves looked pretty bare - see the pic below - and the store had what looked like at least a dozen pallets of Deer Park 24-packs. What the hell?

Turns out E.Coli was found in the water, and all of Greenville was "infected" with this "bad water". Greenville Utilities has since rescinded their "boil water" alert as of this evening, which was a pretty quick cleanup if you ask me, but if they say the water is now safe, I believe them. (They're in enough hot water (if not legally, in public opinion) as it is, so rushing and botching the cleanup would be even worse.)


Water is all sold out at the 14th St. Harris-Teeter in Greenville, NC.

What I thought was more amazing, though, was that the same grocery store, local to North Carolina, shipped out two truckloads of water within an hour or so of the "epidemic" breaking out. Better yet, the water was to be given away, free of charge, to Greenville residents for whom tap water all of a sudden became unsafe. Read the press release here. Now of course, there are a few cynical ways to spin that, but it's much easier to assume that every now and then, a company does what seems to be the right thing as opposed to just looking at the bottom line. (Of course, they had a killer sale on those Deer Park 24-packs, $3.99 each, and they were flying off the shelves. But still.) I didn't even know they sent out a second load, but there it is on their website.

I don't know if any other stores gave away any water. I didn't even hear about this on the news (the local news only reported the bad water) so naturally I had to come up here and share the good news, since it's bad news that tends to get reported (and read) more.