I bet the reporter and camera operator for television station WIAT had mixed emotions when the story they were covering this week unexpectedly got more dramatic.
Clint Thornton was standing outside his front door, explaining to the news crew what happened as the tornado smashed into his home the night before.
As he was talking, a steady rain was falling on his badly damaged roof. Suddenly, it all caved in inside the house, just a few feet from where Thornton and the news crew were standing. Family members were in the house.
Luckily, nobody got hurt, and Thornton said the family will be OK because they're in God's hands.
As I said, the news crew must have had mixed emotions. On one hand, boy did they get a more dramatic story than they bargained for! That's always fun for a journalist.
On the other hand, they were in no mood to see people suffer or get hurt. I know first hand what it's like to be a journalist when people are caught in disasters. The victims want their story told, so they are more than happy to answer your questions.
But you still hate that these perfectly nice people have to go through this, when they clearly don't deserve it. In any event, Here's the video. Yikes:
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Dropkick Murphys Christmas Song and Video a Chaotic Glory
You might have seen my rant a few days ago about how I hate most Christmas songs. I noted there are some exceptions, and I found a new, awesome one.
The Dropkick Murphys have just released something called "The Seaons's Upon Us." a raucous tribute of sorts to family togetherness during the holidays.
Hat tip to Ryan Mercer for alerting this to me, via Facebook.
You can't listen to the song in its full glory without simultaneously watching its crazy, chaotic, but oddly familiar to my life video to the song.
Now you can watch it too!
Here it is:
The Dropkick Murphys have just released something called "The Seaons's Upon Us." a raucous tribute of sorts to family togetherness during the holidays.
Hat tip to Ryan Mercer for alerting this to me, via Facebook.
You can't listen to the song in its full glory without simultaneously watching its crazy, chaotic, but oddly familiar to my life video to the song.
Now you can watch it too!
Here it is:
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
More Frauds, Scams Confusion for Everybody Who Goes On Line, i.e. All of Us.
Seems every day, I see awful new ways were awful people screw up your life via computer.
Online scams are old hat. Now, the New York Times is reporting on "ransomware" in which creeps infect your PC with a virus that freezes up everything, except for the message they send, saying if you send them a bunch of money, they'll unfreeze the thing.
Of course, they don't unfreeze the computer when victims send the money, but people try anyway, and the criminals get the money.
Most of the criminals seem to be those shadowy overseas figures you always hear about, usually from Eastern Europe. I imagine prosecuting these creeps isn't going to happen too often. I guess all you can wish for is karma.
The stolen money isn't the worst of it. Basically, when this happens, you have to call in an expert to rid your computer of the virus. And in doing so, the expert has to wipe away all your files. I guess this will encourage me to back up stuff, won't it?"
Things really have gone beyond the Nigerian money scams, haven't they?
In a much less serious bit of Internet weirdness, many people on Facebook are saying they are on the social networking site as having "liked" a company or cause and they insist they have done no such thing, according to Bernard Meisler at readwrite.com
There's some nonsensical likes, according to Meisler. A liberal supposedly liked Mitt Romney, an opponent of big box retailers is purported to have liked Walmart, and a vegetarian liked McDonald's.
Even dead people on Facebook are reported to be "liking" things. Really, how many dead people shop or order things through Amazon.com?
My understanding is Facebook "likes" can make money for whoever is liked, and that could tempt people into finding fraudulent ways to get liked.
I really, really unlike all of this.
Meisler links to an October Business Insider piece that suggests if you reference a URL on your Facebook page, that might translate to a like, even if you were hating on whatever was in the Web site whose URL you referenced.
Facebook cracked down on fake likes earlier this autumn, but the problem seems to persist.
Facebook insists that people are probably liking things by accident as they fumble with the wrong buttons on their tiny smartphones, Meisler writes. The dead people liking things are probably a function of them hitting like buttons before they died, and the likes subsequently show up post mortem.
Meisler said maybe Facebook isn't doing this. It could be the retailers found a way to have their products, services or people liked by people who had no idea somebody was liking something on their behalf. Or a third party is selling the fake likes, Meisler speculates.
The bottom line is, it's more true than ever that many of us really don't know what we like.
Online scams are old hat. Now, the New York Times is reporting on "ransomware" in which creeps infect your PC with a virus that freezes up everything, except for the message they send, saying if you send them a bunch of money, they'll unfreeze the thing.
Of course, they don't unfreeze the computer when victims send the money, but people try anyway, and the criminals get the money.
Most of the criminals seem to be those shadowy overseas figures you always hear about, usually from Eastern Europe. I imagine prosecuting these creeps isn't going to happen too often. I guess all you can wish for is karma.
The stolen money isn't the worst of it. Basically, when this happens, you have to call in an expert to rid your computer of the virus. And in doing so, the expert has to wipe away all your files. I guess this will encourage me to back up stuff, won't it?"
Things really have gone beyond the Nigerian money scams, haven't they?
In a much less serious bit of Internet weirdness, many people on Facebook are saying they are on the social networking site as having "liked" a company or cause and they insist they have done no such thing, according to Bernard Meisler at readwrite.com
There's some nonsensical likes, according to Meisler. A liberal supposedly liked Mitt Romney, an opponent of big box retailers is purported to have liked Walmart, and a vegetarian liked McDonald's.
Even dead people on Facebook are reported to be "liking" things. Really, how many dead people shop or order things through Amazon.com?
My understanding is Facebook "likes" can make money for whoever is liked, and that could tempt people into finding fraudulent ways to get liked.
I really, really unlike all of this.
Meisler links to an October Business Insider piece that suggests if you reference a URL on your Facebook page, that might translate to a like, even if you were hating on whatever was in the Web site whose URL you referenced.
Facebook cracked down on fake likes earlier this autumn, but the problem seems to persist.
Facebook insists that people are probably liking things by accident as they fumble with the wrong buttons on their tiny smartphones, Meisler writes. The dead people liking things are probably a function of them hitting like buttons before they died, and the likes subsequently show up post mortem.
Meisler said maybe Facebook isn't doing this. It could be the retailers found a way to have their products, services or people liked by people who had no idea somebody was liking something on their behalf. Or a third party is selling the fake likes, Meisler speculates.
The bottom line is, it's more true than ever that many of us really don't know what we like.
Oddly Compelling Annual Google YouTube Year in Review
Once again, Google has put out its annual Zeitgeist video, which races through some of the most important, or telling, or memorable moments of the year.
It sounds like an exercise in self-congratulations by Google, and it probably is, but the video is also oddly moving. I thought so, too, in 2011 and posted their video last December.
So, I'll make it a tradition and post the 2012 version. It does show what a hugely complex web society and humanity are:
It sounds like an exercise in self-congratulations by Google, and it probably is, but the video is also oddly moving. I thought so, too, in 2011 and posted their video last December.
So, I'll make it a tradition and post the 2012 version. It does show what a hugely complex web society and humanity are:
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Just-Married Gay Couples in Seattle are Charmers!
Photographer Matt Stopera of Buzzfeed documenting the rush of gay couples getting married in Seattle after Washington legalized same sex marriage in the past week. He had an absolutely great idea.
He asked the many couples arriving to get married to write in a notebook how long they'd been together. Then, each party in the couple was asked to write in the notebooks their favorite things about their new spouses, then display the message for Stopera.
(For the record, if somebody asked me to do the same when I married Jeff in August, it would have been hard for me to decide which of his many qualities is best, but I probably would have chosen his deep compassion and kindness)
Anyway, Stopera's photographs of the marriages in Seattle are absolutely charming and have had me smiling all day.
I loved how most of the reasons the couples gave either involved a sense of humor, or references to love and devotion.
And for those who think gay marriage is so sinful and awful, the reasons people gave for loving their new wives and husbands in Seattle were the same the best reasons straight couples love each other.
Which isn't surprising.
When love blooms in any way, shape or form, just stand back and let it grow. We're all the better for it.
 |
| This couple had been together 23 years before being able to marry in Seattle the other day. |
He asked the many couples arriving to get married to write in a notebook how long they'd been together. Then, each party in the couple was asked to write in the notebooks their favorite things about their new spouses, then display the message for Stopera.
(For the record, if somebody asked me to do the same when I married Jeff in August, it would have been hard for me to decide which of his many qualities is best, but I probably would have chosen his deep compassion and kindness)
Anyway, Stopera's photographs of the marriages in Seattle are absolutely charming and have had me smiling all day.
I loved how most of the reasons the couples gave either involved a sense of humor, or references to love and devotion.
 |
| This couple was together three years before marrying in Washington State the other day |
And for those who think gay marriage is so sinful and awful, the reasons people gave for loving their new wives and husbands in Seattle were the same the best reasons straight couples love each other.
Which isn't surprising.
When love blooms in any way, shape or form, just stand back and let it grow. We're all the better for it.
Weather Geek Videos This Week Are Pretty Stunning
The weather here where I live in Vermont hasn't been especially frightful, to be honest, but there's a lot of scary, and wild weather action going on elsewhere on the globe the past couple of days.
We had that awful typhoon in the Phillipines that killed more than 500 people, and we had killer tornadoes in very odd places like New Zealand and Italy.
I'm at once fascinated by extreme weather, and unsettled by it. You have to ask, how much of it has to do with global warming, and how much of it is just normal stuff.
I found a couple videos on the Weathermatrix Facebook page this week that are probably just examples of wild, but not unprecedented weather, but still amazing to watch. The first is a timelapse of a two-foot snowstorm in Croatia this week.
The next is a video taken Monday of driving down a Florida highway in stormy weather. Look at what comes from behind the trees as they're going along. Yikes!
We had that awful typhoon in the Phillipines that killed more than 500 people, and we had killer tornadoes in very odd places like New Zealand and Italy.
I'm at once fascinated by extreme weather, and unsettled by it. You have to ask, how much of it has to do with global warming, and how much of it is just normal stuff.
I found a couple videos on the Weathermatrix Facebook page this week that are probably just examples of wild, but not unprecedented weather, but still amazing to watch. The first is a timelapse of a two-foot snowstorm in Croatia this week.
The next is a video taken Monday of driving down a Florida highway in stormy weather. Look at what comes from behind the trees as they're going along. Yikes!
Monday, December 10, 2012
"Fat Girls" at Restaurant Understandably Outraged, Eatery Mortified
Way back when, I used to be a waiter. I'd have to keep track of receipts so I'd write something on them that described what the customer looked like, so I can get the right check to the right person.
I was smart enough to take pains to be as neutral as possible, so there'd be no chance the customer could see something to annoy them. Usually that would involve figuring out their first name, and using that.
If the names were unavailable, I'd say, "Woman with black sweater," or "man with blue tie"
Other people aren't that smart, apparently. At a restaurant called Chilly D's Sports Lounge in the Cameo Club Casino, in Stockton, Calif., an employee named Jeff wrote down on the check "Fat Girls" to describe the customers.
The so-called Fat Girls got the check, with the "Fat Girls" listed on it, and they, quite reasonably are outraged by the check.
A manager with a :"smirk" offered them a 25 percent discount, then a 50 percent discount, say the customers, but that didn't placate them.
Jeff has apparently been been fired. But now more than ever, a rogue employee like Jeff can really screw up the reputation of a business.
It's scary. It used to be in the dinosaur era before Twitter that the customers would have told a few of their friends about the bad experience and the restaurant would have lost a few sales.
Now this whole thing has gone viral, and the owners of the business are mortified. It sounds like they're sincere and are really feel horrible that the customers were treated this way. The put out the following message on Facebook:
"We are just as appalled at what happened to these ladies and this employee has been immediately terminated. We are a family run business and...
I was smart enough to take pains to be as neutral as possible, so there'd be no chance the customer could see something to annoy them. Usually that would involve figuring out their first name, and using that.
 |
| The offending check at a California restaurant |
If the names were unavailable, I'd say, "Woman with black sweater," or "man with blue tie"
Other people aren't that smart, apparently. At a restaurant called Chilly D's Sports Lounge in the Cameo Club Casino, in Stockton, Calif., an employee named Jeff wrote down on the check "Fat Girls" to describe the customers.
The so-called Fat Girls got the check, with the "Fat Girls" listed on it, and they, quite reasonably are outraged by the check.
A manager with a :"smirk" offered them a 25 percent discount, then a 50 percent discount, say the customers, but that didn't placate them.
Jeff has apparently been been fired. But now more than ever, a rogue employee like Jeff can really screw up the reputation of a business.
It's scary. It used to be in the dinosaur era before Twitter that the customers would have told a few of their friends about the bad experience and the restaurant would have lost a few sales.
Now this whole thing has gone viral, and the owners of the business are mortified. It sounds like they're sincere and are really feel horrible that the customers were treated this way. The put out the following message on Facebook:
"We are just as appalled at what happened to these ladies and this employee has been immediately terminated. We are a family run business and...
strive to make our customers feel welcomed and appreciated.
My family is embarrassed and we are holding a full staff meeting to re-train all of our remaining employees so that this never happens again. In no manner do we want to be associated with this type of behavior and it is devastating that one persons behavior has reflected on our family's establishment.
My hope is, that we can rectify the situation by taking immediate action with this employee and by extending our most sincere apologies to these ladies and anyone that has been affected by this situation. I completely understand why they were hurt by what was written on their receipt and that type of treatment isn't tolerated."
Of course, the owners can't win. The Facebook apology prompted a big flame war among people debating, rudely, whether more people should have been fired, whether the owners were sincere, whether the women deserved to be called fat. (Really!!) and on and on.
I don't know if any publicity is good publicity, but I'm sure the people who operate this restaurant just want this nightmare to be over.
My family is embarrassed and we are holding a full staff meeting to re-train all of our remaining employees so that this never happens again. In no manner do we want to be associated with this type of behavior and it is devastating that one persons behavior has reflected on our family's establishment.
My hope is, that we can rectify the situation by taking immediate action with this employee and by extending our most sincere apologies to these ladies and anyone that has been affected by this situation. I completely understand why they were hurt by what was written on their receipt and that type of treatment isn't tolerated."
Of course, the owners can't win. The Facebook apology prompted a big flame war among people debating, rudely, whether more people should have been fired, whether the owners were sincere, whether the women deserved to be called fat. (Really!!) and on and on.
I don't know if any publicity is good publicity, but I'm sure the people who operate this restaurant just want this nightmare to be over.
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