Chuck Norris is now an op-ed commentator for WorldNetDaily.
And he's a pretty engaging writer. In his first column he addresses the "Chuck Norris facts" craze that's been on the Internet lately.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Well this night just keeps getting better and better...
Something just literally landed in my lap that I've spent the past twenty years looking for.
One more key toward unlocking everything.
Snapshots from the field: putting out signs
Taken this past Friday afternoon by Lisa, while we were putting out signs. This was taken at the end of my aunt's driveway.They're starting to spread like fungus all across Rockingham County. And more will go up tomorrow...
TONIGHT: Candidates Forum: Round 1
Right now I'm finishing up getting prepped for tonight's first public forum for school board candidates, being held between 6 and 8 at Rockingham Middle School and sponsored by the North Carolina Association of Educators. The task of the hour is polishing up my opening and closing statements. Every possible question that might be asked has been going through my brain during the past few days and I think I've got everything accounted for... but with about 12 candidates (that I know are coming) and only two hours to hear them all, I've no idea how many I might get asked.
And after that comes getting ready for tomorrow night's lived televised forum. If I can get past the next few days of forums and putting signs out, I'll be completely confident that I've done everything possible so far as my part in this election goes. Then we'll see what happens November 7th. In the meantime, I'll post a full report after tonight's events.
EDIT 9:36 PM EST: Back from the candidates forum. Considering this was the first political thing like this that I've ever done, I think it went rather well. Here's a pic that Lisa took just before things got started...
Those are my fellow candidates Reida Drum on the left, Steve Smith behind me and Lori Booth McKinney on the right.
Once things kicked off each candidate had one minute to give an introduction. This was followed by six questions, the starting order dancing around among the 12 candidates that were on stage. The fifth question landed on me to give the first answer: something about what would we do to improve relations among the school board and various individuals and agencies in the county. I thought it was pretty vague, but I gave as honest an answer as I could. Don't think anybody liked that one very much. One question that got asked was about whether we support this bill in the state General Assembly that would give local school boards the right to tax. I was the third one to get the mike and the first word out of my mouth was a good deep "No." I then went on to say that taxation is the worst power given government and it doesn't need that anymore. "These are good people on the school board. If I get elected on the board, with these good people, I'm telling you: don't trust us! Don't give us that power!" It was an answer that evoked quite a bit of laughter... but I think it may have impressed some people too. But that really is how I believe: give the power to tax to any group of people, no matter how well-meaning they are, and the temptation to abuse it is just going to manifest itself in time.
Well anyway, I feel pretty good about tonight. Now just gotta get tanned, rested and ready for tomorrow night: the live televised candidates forum. What will happen? Stay tuned!
(p.s.: thanks to Sam at Strader's Shoes for fixing me up real good for tonight's event. I forsook my usual boots tonight for the first real dress shoes I've bought in at least ten years :-)
Monday, October 23, 2006
200,000 visits
Remember the days when every time this blog reached another 10,000 visitors, that it was time to celebrate? Such an innocent and carefree time it was. I'd thought that it was going to make 60,000 by Thanksgiving: remember that it had a little over 54,000 hits less than a week ago. Well, in the past couple of hours The Knight Shift got its 200,000th visitor (the counter right now actually says 203,549). If it keeps this up the meter might be breaking the one million mark by Halloween. Does Site Meter even allow for a seven-digit meter? We may find out soon :-) Thanks to everyone for visiting my humble lil' blog.
Bollywood "Thriller"
The Michael Jackson of the Indian subcontinent performs Bollywood's version of "Thriller"...
Friday, October 20, 2006
"The Girl in the Fireplace": Tonight's DOCTOR WHO is some of the best recent TV ever
American fans of Doctor Who - the ones who haven't been downloading via torrent the newer episodes after they've run in Britain - are in for quite a treat tonight when Season 2 (or 28, like I've said before depending on whether you're reckoning this per the original series) continues on the Sci-Fi Channel. Tonight is when "The Girl in the Fireplace" broadcasts, and this is quite simply one of the most beautiful episodes of television that I can remember out of anything from the medium in the past few years. I don't want to give too much away about this one: it really is best left to be appreciated with as little spoilerage as possible. It's NOT the typical Doctor Who episode by any means though, and you can sort of pick up on that from the episode's very first scene. All I'll say is that this is the best performance as the Doctor that David Tennant has given during his tenure in the role so far, and that Mickey (Noel Clarke) is sporting the coolest-looking shirt that has ever been seen on Doctor Who during the entire history of the show. Just an absolute delight of a show this evening: I'd give it six out of five stars. Even if you're not usually a fan of Doctor Who I think it's safe to say this is one that you'll certainly enjoy.
Records smashed again: The Knight Shift's biggest day yet
Just before the midnight reset this blog's counter registered 61,718 visits in the 24-hour period that was Thursday October 19th. That's way more than the total number of visits in the past almost-three years since the blog first went up until Wednesday evening when this site got noticed by a few big outlets like Digg, Neatorama and the Coast to Coast with George Noory site. By the end of the day there had been 127,440 visits since inception... well on the way toward 200,000 though I doubt it'll be awhile - if ever - before I have something else happen like the past few days. Still, the extra exposure has been a lot of fun and I'm glad for the "new business".
Thursday, October 19, 2006
One Hundred Thousand
In the last little while (while I wasn't looking) this blog - a lot faster than I'd ever expected - hit the 100,000 visits mark. Right now it's showing 101,706 total hits and 35,984 since the daily counter reset at midnight this morning. And a little over 24 hours ago this place had registered about 54,000 total visits since I installed the counter almost three years ago.
So this blog is now in the coveted Six-Figures Club. Yay!!! Let's celebrate! Go out and buy a candy bar and pretend I got it for you :-)
Trailer for TORCHWOOD
This coming Sunday night the new sci-fi show Torchwood will debut on BBC Three over in Great Britain. This is the spin-off from Doctor Who that's been alluded to on that show since the end of Eccleston's season. Torchwood is going to feature that wacky Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) who accompanied the Ninth Doctor on a few adventures, this time stranded in modern-day England working with the ultra-secret Torchwood Institute. I've been wondering for awhile about what this is going to be like, but just going by the trailer it looks rather promising. Anyway, here's a peek at Torchwood...
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Highest-traffic day in The Knight Shift history! This blog makes the front page of Coast to Coast and Digg!
I am... seriously wog-boggled by this day.
At 3:30 PM today I reported that 1,724 people had visited this blog since midnight: way over the usual number of about a hundred visits to the site daily.
Well, it's now a little before midnight and the needle not only got pegged, it tore completely off the dashboard.
With about a half-hour before midnight to go, this site has registered 8,773 visits today, and at the rate its going now the blog is picking up another about another 100 visitors every minute. I'll try to post the final tally before the daily counter resets at midnight.
Why is this blog being so blessed with visitors in the past little while? Well, my lil' post last year about ghost photographs has inexplicably gotten picked up by quite a few outlets today. Including... wait for it... the front page of the Coast to Coast with George Noory website!
And Digg found it too, where the article has gotten (at last count) 443 "diggs".
I dunno what to say guys, honestly. This is the most single-day traffic that my humble lil' blog has ever received. I'm feeling profoundly shocked and immensely humbled that this site has gotten so many people's attention (and for something not even really controversial, LOL). Thanks to everyone who's linked to this page today. And to all the newcomers: please stick around! I'm just a guy who's interested in quite a few things and I try to share those in a unique and engaging way. And I'm always trying to post good and fresh material (some of it I've made on my own) for you to enjoy. Thanks for being here!
Okay well that said, it's a little before midnight as I prepare to hit the "Publish" button. Let's see how far this goes before the daily counter reset...
EDIT 11:45 PM EST: While I was writing all of that the meter hit 9,725 visits today.
EDIT 11:48 PM EST: 10,003 visits today.
EDIT 11:55 PM EST: 10,585 visits now.
EDIT 11:57 PM EST: 10,716 visits.
EDIT 12:01 AM EST 10/19/2006: Well, the last count I was able to get before the meter reset itself at midnight was 10,939 for October 18, 2006. And in the minute or so since I started typing this the new day has racked up 133 new visits. I'm going to stop right there for the night but I'll check back in the morning and throughout the day during work at the station. Again, I'm floored by this. Earlier today my meter was sitting at about 54,000 and I was wondering how long would it take for it to reach the next 10,000 milestone. Heh-heh... only took a few hours... and it ain't stopping yet!! Thanks to everyone who made this a record day and me a happy blogger :-)
The second campaign commercial
Watch that meter fly!
My website meter says that I'm currently getting an average of 78 readers per day. That fluctuates often depending on what I've posted here. Well, as of this moment today I've received 1,724 visits! With 215 in the past hour. At first I thought it was a fluke but apparently not: The good folks at Neatorama alerted readers to my feature a year ago about the top ten best ghost photos ever and people are flocking to see it from their link. So here's a hearty hello to everyone finding their way to this blog from Neatorama!
Just finished the second commercial
Filming took place during about 2 hours this afternoon and I've been working on it ever since getting back. Figure seven hours of work with this one, compared to 45 hours on that other... thing. It'll get posted here sometime tomorrow provided some associates sign off on it with their approval (what you think I don't have a campaign staff or somethin'...?) Didn't intend for the second commercial to be the way it turned out but the nature of the first one sort of begged for it. But, I like it.
More tomorrow.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
"You are here"
This is the Astronomy Picture of the Day for October 16, 2006 as posted by NASA (click to enlarge)...
Here's the explanation from the page...
Here's the explanation from the page...
Explanation: In the shadow of Saturn, unexpected wonders appear. The robotic Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn recently drifted in giant planet's shadow for about 12 hours and looked back toward the eclipsed Sun. Cassini saw a view unlike any other. First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn and slightly scattering sunlight, in the above exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the above image. Visible in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus, and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, visible on the image left just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.So you see that "star" that's on the left above the really bright rings? That tiny little dot? That's where you and I are, my friend. That small dot contains all the history and hopes and dreams and everything else from the entire span of humanity.
This is as humbling a photo as I've ever seen. Really puts things in proper perspective, doesn't it?
Sunday, October 15, 2006
My first time watching live professional 'rasslin
Yesterday was... different at work. All day Reidsville was having its annual Antique Alley Street Festival, so practically everyone employed at the station was busy doing something either live on the street or back in the studio. I figure that a lot of the other school board candidates probably took the opportunity to do some campaigning but I had to miss out 'cuz of work... but that's okay 'cuz I've never been all that comfortable with working an event like that anyway. People and their families come to something like the Street Festival to have fun and get away from the real-life stuff for a few hours: I wouldn't want to be someone who goes and confronts them with it at something like that. But, that's just me. I had a good time all the same working the Street Festival at the station.
And then came last night...
In a building around the corner and down the street from the station, the AIWF Wrestling crew were setting up the ring and everything to do a bunch of pro wrestling matchups. This was the first night that we were taping the matches for AIWF's new television show, so we had to move a lot of equipment from the station and locations from the festival into the building and get everything set up. Admission was $5 with drinks and popcorn each going for a dollar: guess who wound up being the guy running the makeshift box office? Yup, yours truly :-) Quite a few people - I'd say over a hundred easily - came to watch the pro wrestling. And I've seen it tons of times on television over the year but this was the first time I'd seen it live and up close.
How was it? Well... the people who paid to see it were definitely entertained. But for the first time I realized how much that pro wrestling really is a sport about theatrics and slick acrobatics. Gotta admit that these are a pretty colorful bunch of guys - with names like Gemini and Butch Steel and East Coast Bodily Harm - who go all-out to give the audience a good show. I was more impressed with their skill in the ring to seemingly do so many dangerous stunts without anyone really getting hurt or injured. I would never try to do something like what these guys were doing... but I have to admire the way they executed it all, even though more than a few times it was pretty obvious that they weren't even really hitting each other. And then to see a wrestler talking trash into the camera about another one during the show but later see them hanging out with each other like they were good drinking buddies...
I think I'm finally starting to understand pro wrestling's appeal, even though some of its fans will admit that it's not an "authentic" sporting event: people love to watch good guys and bad guys fight it out. Even if they're fake good guys and bad guys (but from what I saw of them before and after the show they're all a decent and fun bunch of people) it's that whole thing about being able to see the world in the basest terms of black and white and pick sides. Which is maybe why I didn't enjoy it as much as most of the people last night: because I've come to a point in my life where I can't see other people in terms of black/white but instead have realized that it's really a myriad shades of gray. I sort of regret that, because the people last night - including just about all of my co-workers - really were having a good time watching this, and it was something that I couldn't make myself appreciate on the same level.
But, it was the first time that I'd seen pro wrestling being done live, and so I'm probably always going to remember all the craziness that happened last night for as long as I live. I gotta admit: it was certainly a different way to work a Saturday night than just being in the studio and hitting "play" for Inside the Game or Home Team.
Friday, October 13, 2006
HOW could I forget the new DOCTOR WHO tonight?
"Hello Sarah-Jane.""Oh my God... I'm the tin dog!"
"You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can't spend the rest of my life with you... that's the curse of the Time Lord."
"I saw things you wouldn't believe..."
"We are in a car!"
"You good dog."
"You need a Smith on board!"
"Say it please! This time... say it."
Darn... tonight is when America get another new episode of Doctor Who on the Sci-Fi Channel and I completely forgot about it. And I am really kicking myself because this is by far one of the best episodes of the revitalized series.
(Yah I'm one of those die-hard Who fans that downloads the bootlegs from England right after they run there... if there's any better use for bit-torrent I've yet to find it :-)
It'll probably be rerun throughout the weekend though, but tonight brought us "School Reunion". After almost a quarter-century since we last saw her in the special "The Five Doctors", Sarah-Jane Smith returns! And like I said when I first reviewed this episode, Elisabeth Sladen is as beautiful as ever. The Doctor (David Tennant) has conveniently become a substitute teacher at a school where a lot of weird things are happening. With Rose (Billie Piper) stationed in the kitchen and Mickey (Noel Clarke) trying to hack some top-secret info - and there's that "Torchwood" thing again - the trio is trying to get to the bottom of things. Meanwhile the headmaster of the school - evilly played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Anthony Stewart Head - is leading reporter Sarah-Jane Smith around the school, but she thinks there's something amiss in this place too. And later that night while searching the grounds, Sarah-Jane is confronted with the sight of a certain familiar blue police box...
The reunion of Sarah-Jane - perhaps the most beloved companion in the history of the show - with the Doctor is handled exquisitely. And Sarah-Jane isn't the only one making a comeback: in her car she's got K-9 the robot dog... and after the Doctor makes a few repairs K-9 still has John Leeson's voice! Plenty of references to old-school Who and lot of humor in this episode. And more than the usual amount of heartbreak. There is some really terrific - and sad - dialogue at work here. I thought the scene just before K-9's "last stand" was handled exceptionally well: even if you had never seen K-9 before tonight, you really got the sense that he and the Doctor had a great relationship back in the day. Also well directed is the final scene between the Doctor and Sarah-Jane... which finally brings her the closure that she didn't get when Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor left her back on Earth more than thirty years ago.
Watch it if you possibly can this weekend on the Sci-Fi Channel, or just do what I did and download "School Reunion": this one's a definite Doctor Who classic.
