Entry 21: 9 November
2002, 3:53am
Another neat pic from the NASA people: a cloudless
night view of the entire earth, obviously a mosaic of hundreds of pictures
taken over several months. (Click
here for the original
NASA web page, which will link you to a gigantic version of the picture
at left. If that picture's too big for you, you can get a smaller one
by clicking the above left picture.) Every one of those lights that
you see is a sign that humanity exists. Nice to know there are still several
large areas that mankind hasn't urbanized yet.
With a simple gif-animator program, I was also able to turn
the image into a sphere, to show how such a sunless, cloudless earth
would look spinning through space (program wouldn't let me change the
outline of the image from its original shape, hense the blackness on
both sides; just imagine a bunch of stars there). Click on the spinning
globe at above right for a larger image.
OK, I'm startin' to get tired of this. I realize most people
in those big cities of New York, Chicago & L.A. may think all Oklahomans
are a bunch of backwater yokels, and I'm just about fed up with the
way they're portraying us on
Friends.
First of all, our accents are not that pronounced; at least
not in the urban areas like Tulsa. I think we actually sound more like
Chicagoans than Houstans or Arkansans-who-buy-a-house-in-New-York-just-so-they-can-be-elected-to-the-Senate.
Secondly, we have strict smoking policies here, too: just ask
anybody forced to go outside in a driving January sleetstorm just to
light one up. In fact, some restaurants in the state have taken the
state Health Department to court for trying to make the rules
too
strict.
And lastly, I may not be able to speak for anyone else on this
one, Chandler, but I, who have lived in Tulsa all my life, have never
once uttered the word "y'all" (except for times like this when I say I
never say it.)
The show was go great last year; it's embarrasing that they
have to spend this year alienating a whole group of people, much the
same way Italian-Americans in New York are fuming at the way they're
being portrayed on "The Sopranos."
I'm not going to boycott the show, it is supposedly in its last
year, after all. And nobody in any official capacity ever asks me what
I watch, so it won't matter one way or the other. (Although much more
of this year's viewing has been with the sound down.) The second I
become an official Nielsen family, however,
Friends will not
be seen on my TV for the duration.
Entry 22: 14 November 2002, 6:04am
Well, it didn't take long for my Side Trips to
spinoff an entirely new subdomain. Taking my I-844 plan, as well as
a plan to assist Eric Stuve, the guy in charge of
OKRoads.com, I spent all last weekend
taking pictures of a bunch of street corners in Sapulpa and presto,
roads.tulok.net was born.
I'm really starting to get into the swing of this. I've already
come up with a new design for state highway markers (the plain, round shield
is just so bluh), which will be my in my next update on that site, I've
already made plans to go all around this part of the state during my vacation
next month and just snap pictures of highways. And for a very nice change
of pace, I'm actually having a lot of fun doing it. I just wish I knew a
more politically-correct term for 'roadgeek'. The closest thing my English/Latin
Dictionary would give me is
viagrapher, which if mispronouced would
suggest something TOTALLY different!
Anyway, I'm gonna try to constrain my road topics to that section
as much as possible, although I will mention it here whenever I make any
major updates there. And essays and long rants will still be duplicated
in Side Trips.
Oh, and a couple of unrelated follow-ups: the abused dog I mentioned
in Entry 20 was in so much unrecoverable pain that she had to be put
to sleep. And it shouldn't matter that it was "just a dog" and not a person:
it should still be treated as First Degree Murder.
And on much lighter notes:
What's New, Scooby-Doo has already
been picked up for a second season, while in prime time, junior-network
show
Smallville (one of the shows I don't
miss each week) came in third in the ratings this week, beating not only
ABC's stupid sitcoms, but Fox's supposedly-acclaimed
24
as well. Yay!
Entry 23: 15 November 2002, 6:35pm
A news report today said the Oklahoma Highway
Patrol is advising people to watch out for deer crossing the roadway,
as mating season has begun.
Now they tell me. I was out yesterday taking pictures for my
highway terminus gallery and saw
two deer crossing highway 151 just north of Keystone Dam. The deer were
moving, therefore so was the camera so excuse the blurriness, but at left
is a snap I got off of the second deer as it was crossing the road (don't
know how deer-chasing goes during mating season, but if it's anything like
the human variety I would assume this one's the male). Click on the picture
to see an expanded view, showing where the deer was with relation to the
road. Both were such beautiful creatures.
Ah, the best--and in my view, ONLY--way to shoot deer. With a
camera.
Entry 24: 23 November 2002, 6:42am
Sorry I've been away for so long, but I've been
spending most of my free time updating my road website, which I have just
retroactively rechristened "Roadklahoma!" Catchy, ain't it? Anyhoo, I've
taken pictures of just about every state highway endpoint that I can
get to in the few hours of sunlight I have remaining after I get up (currently
working a graveyard shift). Next week, however, my vacation starts, and
this entire quadrant of the state is fair game!
In the meantime, here's a pic I took on the way back from one of
my jaunts. A night shot of the Golden Driller (click on the pic for a
larger view). Why they decided to shine the main spotlight on that particular
part of his anatomy I'm scared to speculate.
Anyway, before football season gets away from us entirely, back
in Entry 1 I said that I'd get around to explaining how it's determined
which network gets which NFL games on Sunday afternoon. So, here we
go. It's really very simple:
--CBS is the primary network for the AFC, Fox for the NFC. Any
afternoon game between two AFC teams will be on CBS, between two NFC
games will be on Fox.
--If it is an interconference game, the network covering the conference
of the
visiting team gets the game. That way, for example, CBS
will get to cover 1-2 games at Texas Stadium, while Fox gets 1-2 games
in Foxboro.
--Every Thanksgiving Day the two games that are played involve
Dallas and Detroit, both playing at home. Since each network gets a game,
and both teams are in the NFC, one of the games will be against an NFC
team (carried by Fox), and the other game will be interconference (carried
by CBS).
--If both New York teams are playing on Sunday afternoon, one game
is played early, the other is played late. And the schedule is set up
so that each network is covering one of the games.
--And since the Giants and the Jets share a stadium, the only way
they can both have home games the same week is if they play on different
days (i.e., one Sunday, one Monday).
--If a game does not sell out within 72 hours of kickoff, the Blackout
Rule goes into effect and the game cannot be shown in the television
market where the game is being played (check my DMA Market Map, Entry
8). If the game can be seen locally, the network
not broadcasting
the game is not allowed to air another game in the same time period.
--Not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be, and still
makes sense: between the other NFL networks, ABC & ESPN, and their
prime time games, every team must appear at least once during the season.
--Since ESPN is a cable outlet, a local broadcast station in each
market the two teams are based is allowed to carry ESPN's feed of the
game, so that those without cable can watch it, too. (Subject, of course,
to blackout rules.)
And there you have it. More than you ever wanted to know about
how it's decided who gets to show what. (Except for how ABC & ESPN's
games are selected, and I'm not about to go into that one.)
Entry 25: 1 December 2002, 9:27pm
Apologies yet again, but I've been busy once more
with the road site. Vacation Road Trip Day 1 was spent last Friday taking
pictures of roads all over the extreme northeastern part of Oklahoma,
as well as a couple of spots in southeastern Kansas and southwestern Missouri.
However, near the end of my excursion, with only one more road to shoot
before the sun went down, the pick-up suddenly lost all acceleration.
The transmission was gone.
So there I was, about five miles west of Jay, which is about eighty
miles away from home. I was on the side of a winding country road, in
the middle of the woods, in the dark. The good news is that I had the foresight
to sign up with AAA last week, so I was able to get the truck towed back
home. The bad news: it still cost nearly $200 for the tow, and it was nearly
midnight before I got home.
So now all the money I had held back for these Vacation Road Trips
is gone, I've had to break into my savings just to have food money until
pay day, and any excursions I still take will be drastically curtailed,
as I don't trust the car too far away from home. Any more Road Trips taken
during this vacation are gonna be limited to this quadrant of the state
(north of I-40 & east of I-35). And given the area where I broke down,
I'm not gonna be too crazy about revisiting Grand Lake anytime soon.
The only blessing in disguise I can get out of this is that with
Day 2 postponed (after getting back so late Friday I didn't really feel
like going anywhere), I was able to watch college football Saturday.
Specifically, to watch my alma mater Oklahoma State Cowboys knock the OU
Sooners out of any chance for a national title for the second year in a
row. First time that OSU has ever beaten both Oklahoma AND Nebraska in the
same year. EVER! WOO-HOO!!!!!!
Well, this morning I hopped in the car (actually I walked; not
a good idea to hop down stairs, but you get the idea) and started a slightly-curtailed
Vacation Road Trip Day 2, primarily encompassing the Muskogee &
Lake Fort Gibson areas (will put those pics on the road site tomorrow).
When I left Tulsa this morning gas prices were at $1.12/gal, one of the
lowest prices in the nation. An even lower price is seen in the photo
above, taken Thanksgiving Eve at the Flying J Truck Stop at Admiral Pl
& 129th E Ave (their prices are usually about two cents below everyone
else in Tulsa). When I got back into Tulsa early this evening,
everybody
was at $1.10! Really surprised me that prices didn't go
back up about a dime early last week: they usually do, typically the Wednesday
before the holiday week (which would've been the 20th).
Let's see, what else... Oh, my shield redesign for the Oklahoma
State Highways has been posted to the
Shield Makeover site, the
site that gave me the idea to make my own design anyway. And before anybody
says anything, I know we don't have a State Highway 419. That's a discussion
for another day.
Different topic. Recently there have
been two new science/documentary-type shows popping up on television.
They have many similarities with each other, and one major difference.
--Both shows are on cable: "The Critical Eye" on the Discovery
Science Channel and an updated "In Search Of..." on the Sci-Fi Channel.
--Both are hosted by actors who played recurring characters on
The X-Files: William B. Davis (Cigarette-Smoking Man)
on 'CE', and Mitch Pileggi (Skinner) on 'ISO'.
--Both deal with four different topics during their hour, three
one-act segments and one two-act segment. The topics tend to deal with
unexplained mysteries, such as Stonehenge, the Loch Ness Monster, UFOs
and witchcraft.
--But whereas "In Search Of..." tries to keep the topics mysterious,
coming up with any explanation, including the impossible, "The Critical
Eye's" sole purpose is to debunk, and show just how ridiculous people
are in possibly believing such things.
Both shows got their hosts from the right program. Put side-to-side,
"In Search Of..." is Mulder, "The Critical Eye" is Scully!
Of the two, I think "The Critical Eye" is the better show, simply
because they don't even attempt to sugarcoat anything. If somebody's theory
is just plain stupid, they'll say so. And as much as I would like to like
"In Search Of...", I think the show worked better the way they did it
back in the seventies when Leonard Nimoy hosted, with one topic encompassing
the entire half-hour. Some of the topics they do, if they are indeed going
to try to build up the mystery, need more than just one or two segments.
On one recent episode they claimed to have solved the identity of D.B.
Cooper, but it was a very rushed segment. A big topic like that should've
been an entire episode by itself.
If you want to try these shows out for yourself, "The Critical
Eye" has its season finale Monday night, December 2nd, with replays Friday
afternoon, on the Discovery Science Channel. The Sci-Fi Channel will air
the entire past season of "In Search Of..." in marathon format the Sunday
before Christmas.
