As hard as it might be to believe, the PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES WON THE WORLD SERIES!!! After waiting through 28 years and then a 46 hour rain delay, Phillies fans finally have a reason to smile!

Congrats to the Phillies!

I realize this photo is just a random frame grab and they often look funny, but I have many conversations (none of which are broadcast on national TV) and my tongue isn’t usually hanging out of my mouth at any point.

Oh well, at least it’s nice to see McCain finally getting a laugh after his running mate, Palin, has given us all so much to laugh at over the past few weeks.

Fall is finally here and Oktoberfest has begun in Munich. Even though I’m not a beer drinker, it’s a fun fall tradition and who could say no to a huge plate of traditional Bavarian food! I’ve never been to Munich, but you can check out the photos from when we went to Oktoberfest at the (now closed) Hofbrauhaus.

Then take a look at the real thing coutesy of Yahoo! News.

What sites am I following to keep up with the Olympics? Mainly, I’m checking out www.nbcolympics.com. Besides Olympic news and updates, it also features a huge amount of streaming video. I’d rather be watching it on TV in HD, but it’s a good way to catch on random and more obscure events.

I’ve also been checking in on the official Olympic site at www.beijing2008.cn. It might not be accessible from some places because one of the side effects of the Olympics being in China is that the official site is in the .cn domain. The Chinese domain is blocked on some networks because a lot of hacking and attacks tend to come out of China.

Political, environmental and security concerns aside, the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics are officially underway. The opening ceremony was unlike any other. The scale of it was above and beyond a normal opening cermony. China has a lot to prove with these Olympics and they are certainly trying hard.

The ceremony was very impressive. I thought parts were a little boring, but the technology involved was very impressive. The 2008 drummers all drumming was really striking. Though, I thought the funniest thing about it all was that the drummers were told to smile so they seemed less intimidating. (I didn’t actaully see many smiling, and frankly they were quite intimidating!)

I’ve always been a huge fan of the Olympics. I like the winter games the best, but I follow the summer games too. This year as the Beijing Summer Olympics get ready to start (Technically they already started, but I’ll skip the confusion of the time difference.) I have to point out that no the fun and excitement of the Olympics are tempered by the problems that could dampen these Olympics.

As you can see in the picture, smog and pollution cloud the skies. There have already been complaints of the press not getting the unfettered internet access that they were promised. I’m sure there will be plenty of protests throughout the games.

I’m not sure what prompted the IOC to decide giving the 2008 Summer Games to China was good idea, but hopefully it will end well. I’m not getting my hope up though.

There are so many ways to make free money in this world. Unfortunately, I never think of them first. I say this because a guy in New Zealand tried to sell his soul on an online auction site. After the site said he couldn’t continue the auction, the owner of the Hell Pizza chain offered to buy it for $3800! ($NZ5001) The deed of ownership will be hanging in one of their stores.

Check out the whole story on CNN. And by the way, if you want to make an offer on my soul, let me know. I’ll give you a good deal!

Whether you agree or disagree with the opinions of these people that are protesting the presence of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, you have to check out the pink protest sign on the right side of the photo. For those of you who don’t know HTML, that’s a close tag, like what you’d put at the end of a war. haha

Clicking the photo will take you to Flickr, but you can see even more of this great photographer’s stuff at Daily Dose of Imagery.

Every so often you find a website that is absolutely hilarious. Maybe it’s the stress, but I couldn’t stop laughing at this site. It’s got a crazy long URL (www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com). You’ll no longer need to wonder how many 5 year olds you can defend yourself against. I went to a birthday party for a five year old yesterday. I felt very comfortable knowing that if they rose up, I could’ve fended them off!

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I like the cold weather. I enjoy getting all bundled up and going out in sub-freezing weather. Sometimes I don’t even get bundled up.

However, even I have a limit. After reading this interesting article about Yakutsk, a city in Siberia, I’m pretty sure it’s WAY past my limit!

Read the piece in The Independent.

When you you hear about Cheyenne Mountain Complex, you probably think about a super secure military facility, men & women of our Armed Forces protecting us from attack from the sky, and maybe even the TV show Stargate SG-1 (a personal favorite of mine).

On this special day every year, the men and women of NORAD that serve 2400 feet under the ground add a very special mission to their other critical tasks.

As they have for the 52 years, NORAD will follow Santa Claus on his flight around the world. This year it’s greatly enhanced by teaming up with Google Earth to make it fun and educational. (But mainly fun!)

Track Santa at noradsanta.org.

My little website reached another milestone today. I received my one-hundred thousandth piece of comment spam.

Spam is a problem on the Internet. I’ll give you a minute while you recover from that shocking revelation. If you think spam in your inbox is annoying, you should try dealing with comment spam on a blog. I get thousands of them per day. It is debilitating because you can’t possibly find any real message in the pile of crap. Thanks to Akismet spam filtering software, it’s more of an amusement than an annoyance.

What I wonder is why they bother. This blog isn’t exactly the most popular on the web and no comments get posted without moderation. So of the 100,256 comments that have been caught so far, ZERO have been seen by any human being. Oh well, if it gives them something to do instead of e-mailing me viagra ads and bank scams, then maybe it’s a good thing.

And in case you’re wondering, 44 more pieces of spam were caught in the time it took me to write this.

In the past I’ve mentioned Scott & Casey, the great radio show that used to be on NJ 101.5. They were replaced with Carton and Rossi, a really terrible show. I never liked Craig Carton when he was on WIP an liked him less when he came to NJ 101.5.  So, I was excited when I saw the news this morning that he had been chosen to replace Don Imus on WFAN in NYC. I figured odds are pretty good that his replacement would be someone better.

Well, imagine my excitement when I looked at 101.5′s website and saw that his replacement is none other than the guy who he replaced a few years ago, Casey Bartholomew! Casey obviously is the Casey of Scott and Casey. It remains to be seen how good the show will be with Ray Rossi still there, but I’ve never heard Rossi without Carton so it’s possible he’ll be good with Casey and without Carton’s obnoxious antics.

Where’s Scott, you may ask? I’m still hoping he winds up with Casey, but he’s currently posting content on scotthasick.com.

There’s also more discussion at scottandcasey.net.

Yesterday the guy who got me interested in technology passed away. Mr. Wizard, whose real name was actually Don Herbert, created and starred in a show in the 1950′s called Watch Mr. Wizard. That show went off the air more than a decade before I was born.

If you grew up in the 1980′s, you more than likely grew up with your eyes glued to the only TV channel for kids, Nickelodeon. Most people loved Nickelodeon for You Can’t Do That on Television. However, I was way more excited when 1983 rolled around and Mr. Wizard returned to TV on Mr. Wizard’s World. Sure it was kind of campy and those kids were just a little too excited about helping out Mr. Wizard with his experiments, but at the the time, I would have given ANYTHING to be one of those kids!

Mr. Wizard had a way of making science make sense by using everyday household items with the random really cool items thrown in like a Jacob’s Ladder, a Van de Graaf generator or even a computer with a black and green screen that ran BASIC!

You can learn much more about the man who inspired so many kids at his website www.mrwizardstudios.com. You can even purchase DVD’s of his shows on the website. I’m tempted to order them all.

Hmm, looks like I might have to rewrite that book report I did in third grade. They’re digging up Harry Houdini’s body to see if he was murdered. Apparently it’s possible he didn’t die from a blow to the stomach like everyone thought.

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