rain day [amy]

It rains here a lot in August. One moment it's sunny and hot, and the next it's pouring and hot. It's actually nice because the rain kills the humidity for awhile. Most people go out in shorts and tank tops every day during the summer, regardless of the weather, and then rush to their cars when the rain starts to come down. Today was the first time I've ever heard the rain while inside a Target-- at first it sounds like some kind of mechanical problem, and then it's like oh yeah, WEATHER.

This is my street on a rainy day



It's Lake Ashley Avenue. It's kind of fun to watch cars go through it. Makes driving more like an adventure. Or rafting.

The internet is back after a 24 hr hiatus. All is well.

Insects are much more robust here, probably because there is some semblance of an ecosystem left here:



For scale purposes, it's sitting on a 2x4, and that's my thumb at the bottom. Okay, so they're not like southeast-asian-sized or antyhing, but that's way big for my city slicker sensibilities. The roaches here ("Palmetto bugs") are about the same size.... so far we've only had 2 inside, and both have been destroyed. According to our lease, "Palmetto bugs are an integral part of life in Charleston and may not be effectively eradicated from interiors" Super! But the way I see it, it's not a bed bug, so really everything is a-ok. Seriously, I'm really relieved that they're not here.

...

Best adjective of the day:

Life in a New Land [amy]

I'm in Charleston now, a few first-impression observations:

-I never knew what humidity was until a few days ago
-People are more polite here
-The good guys and the bad guys in the civil war are different here
-My apartment is gigantic (It would be cool if I had this place for longer than 4 months, and then I would actually bother to furnish it)

The main thing that started to hit me this morning is my bay area hubris that I could live without a car here. (I'm still going to try it though) I met my classmates for the first time today, and I'm the only one without vehicle, which actually surprised me, but maybe it shouldn't have. This morning we got assignments for intern-interviews , and two of my interviews are out in cuts-ville, and I'm not so sure about riding my bike all the way out there. The first person I interviewed with said to not even bother trying, but a professor told me it was doable. I guess I'll see. I can get to school on foot, and to the grocery store on bike, so it's all good.

More to come hopefully.

Starting slow [Liam]

From Google News this morning

You've probably already seen this website before, but it seems they've added a few more words over the past few months.

Miss California hopeful [amy]

Miss Fresno County wins for best "Fun Facts" this year:

1.Is part of a competitive barbershop quartet.
2.Can sing the first line of Ice Ice Baby in Hmong.

Though for the second one, I really hope it's something along the lines of "yo vip let's kick it" rather than "ice ice baby" or even "dunn dunn dunn dun dun dun dunn" in Hmong.

I will be rooting for Miss Fresno County this year.

Nominee for Best Crime Scene Photo [Ben]

There was a particularly enjoyable, short-lived series around here that featured gangsta-ass animals making mockery of Homo Sapiens' purported evolutionary superiority. This doesn't really top the vindictive, funeral-crashing ninja baboon that we covered previously, but it does come with excellently macabre bonus photo included:

Jumping eagle ray kills boater off Florida Keys

MIAMI -- An eagle ray leaped onto a boat off the Florida Keys Thursday and stabbed a woman with its barb, knocking her to the deck and killing her, a Florida wildlife investigator said.


(photo credit: Mark Coleman/Reuters)

All you need to know about the modern Republican party [Ben]

From the Washington Post:

The House last night approved one of the most significant changes to its ethics rules in decades, creating for the first time an independent panel empowered to initiate investigations of alleged misconduct by members of the chamber...

The final vote, 229 to 182, belied the measure's controversy in the House; 159 Republicans and 23 Democrats opposed it. Even with two House members under indictment, two others sent to prison, and several others under federal investigation, nearly half the House did not want to submit the body to the scrutiny of a panel not under its control...

Three members will be named by the House speaker, and the other three would be selected by the minority leader.

But the panel will be weaker than some watchdog groups had hoped. An ethics review can be started only if a Democratic appointee and a Republican appointee agree to do so.

The new ethics office will have a staff but lacks subpoena power...

the new panel may actually weaken ethics enforcement, if the ethics committee cedes its investigative duties to a body without subpoena powers.

The bill calls for an independent panel whose members are appointed in equal numbers by both parties. The panel has no subpoena power. An ethics review would ONLY be started if at least one appointee from each party agreed it was warranted.

And YET, 159 out of 198 Republicans voted against the bill. The panel is totally toothless and still they're terrified someone might take a peek behind the curtain. Hey assholes, get your hands out of the damned cookie jar.

Brog2! A threat to China! and the... USAF? [Ben]

Apparently Brog2's trenchant analysis of political and military issues poses a threat to the people of China as well as our own Air Force. As you may recall from a previously linked article, behind the Great Firewall, all sites on the Blogger network are inaccessible.

Apparently the USAF was just as impressed as Brog2 by the Chinese government's erection of subtle barriers to potentially seditious information as they've instituted some of Beijing's policies without alteration:

AFNOC has imposed bans on all sites with "blog" in their URLs, thus cutting off any sites hosted by Blogspot. Other blogs, and sites in general, are blocked based on content reviews performed at the base, command and AFNOC level ...

The idea isn't to keep airmen in the dark -- they can still access news sources that are "primary, official-use sources," said Maj. Henry Schott, A5 for Air Force Network Operations. "Basically ... if it's a place like The New York Times, an established, reputable media outlet, then it's fairly cut and dry that that's a good source, an authorized source," he said ...

There's a chance that since Brog2.com is self-hosted, and we've subtly avoided the "Blog" label in our URL, we may have side-stepped the wizards at the Air Force's censorship command for now. I've been talking to Liam about a redesign, but now I think it might be best to stick with the current theme and its vaguely Asian pastiche. With the USAF's newly acquired Chinese sensibilities and all, we might be able to continue slipping under the radar and retain our wide following among airmen.

Garfield minus Garfield [Ben]

This is some straight genius. Scroll through to the older ones, they start getting more poignant.

Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?
Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.

h/t Daring Fireball