In my years of activity on the internet, I've encountered thousands of profile pages on hundreds of websites of all kinds, all of which spell out the person's hobbies, interests, and other information. It's how we get to know each other online, and while the format of a profile page varies greatly ...

It's Superbowl Sunday, and everyone's crowding around the largest available TV for the big game. If you're watching it because you're a fan of American football, fantastic. I'm not here to rain on your parade, and while I don't understand the appeal myself, I'm not writing this to attack football....

Edit: Since the original writing of this article, there has been a change to the Harrisonburg City tax stickers. Specifically, as of the 2012 tax year, the stickers are no longer required. Instead, they've been replaced with a local registration fee, which is even more ridiculous; instead of payi...

BELLEVUE, Pa. -- A local community will remain a dry town until at least 2011. The town of Bellevue fell short of the required number of signatures needed to place a referendum question regarding community alcohol sales on the spring primary ballot. The question would have asked residents if...

[ Click for Article ] Once again, Harrisonburg utterly fails at city planning. This is getting really old. In an effort to turn every square foot of undeveloped land into high-density townhouses/apartments, the city let a developer pretty much go nuts with a section of land that isn't very ea...

In my last post about VDOT, I railed the agency for cutting back pretty much all rural services and rest areas because of a budget screw-up that left them billions of dollars short of what they needed/expected. I wasn't able to actually find any information on why they screwed up their budget, but ...

[ Click for Article ] Thanks to a state budget screw-up, Virginia is planning to close a ton of rest areas on its interstate highways to save money, including all but two along Interstate 81, the northern and southern welcome centers. Which means that there'll be over 320 miles of I-81 with no g...

I always thought that Virginia would be one of the last states in the US to get a state-wide ban on smoking in restaurants/public places. This is one of the most tobacco-friendly states (that produces a huge amount of it), where several big tobacco companies are based, and it's always been behind t...

Awhile back, I heard that cellphone companies were going to start offering personal coverage extenders to be installed in one's home, to enhance their networks for users who have difficulty getting decent signal strength in their house/apartment. In theory, this should be really easy to sell; you g...

I've made no secret of the fact that I loathe text messaging via cellphones. I have a number of reasons for this, but one of my biggest reasons is the pricing scams used by cell providers for these things. And this article on DSL reports reminded me of it. We've frequently discussed how SMS/MMS...

While driving up to Syme's house this evening, for Obama's Inauguration, I flipped on my radio to listen to Virginia State Police, figuring it'd be interesting tonight. Unfortunately, they were fairly over-staffed at that time, so not much to listen to - 6 patrol cars responded to a vehicle "drivin...

A favorite comedian of mine recently posted an article on his blog about a trip he took to Australia, and a passenger on the plane. The article is a touch on the vulgar side, so I won't copy/paste the text here, but I highly recommend reading it. The short version is that, on his flight, he was ...

Hello again! As some of you may remember, I prepared a weapon guide for UT:GOTY, and it was quite well-received by other members of my LAN groups. While I still love the old UT, most people want to play UT:2004 instead. So, now that I've gained adequate proficiency in UT:2004, this is my weapons ...

In America, the commercial radio industry has undergone a major reformation in recent years. What was once a diverse mass communications medium with hundreds of small, locally-owned business is now almost exclusively controlled by just a few major corporations. Why the sudden change?

Yesterday, my 14-year-old sister brought home a video & curriculum from her Family Life class (which is sex ed, for those of you who didn’t grow up in Virginia’s public school system). According to the accompanying letter, it’s something for the whole family to review and go over with her. So,...

One of the appeals of Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition is the wide variety of weaponry it provides. Unfortunately, with such a variety available, choosing the right gun for a given situation can be difficult, so I've prepared this description of each gun, and its ideal usage. Each one is ...

In the political simulation I used to participate in, we recently had a debate about whether recall elections should be allowed on the national level. Reproduced below is my opening argument for that debate. The thing that worries me the most about the California recall controversy is not the fac...

In the local newspaper for Harrisonburg, VA, I've noticed that at least once a month, their editorial staff members run a column called "Random Thoughts". This column consists of several items which are not long enough to write an entire article about, combining them into one larger article. I ran i...

A trip to the beach usually brings visions of sand, sun, and a blissful vacation experience. Something about the waves crashing on the smooth beach creates a rather care-free environment, where the biggest concern is how high to make the sandcastle. Yet amid this tranquility lurks a silent danger. N...

Independence Day is near in the US, a day when we celebrate our war of freedom from Great Britain over 200 years ago. This is a time when everyone talks about being patriotic. We should wave little flags and talk about how great our country is, how great republicans are, how great the government is,...

In my travels, I have seen many different driving styles. There are those who always obey the laws of the road, staying within the posted speed limit and never revert to using profanity against their fellow drivers, tempting as it may be. There are those who are self-described as "average" drivers, ...