buried treasures and more

You might have heard the story of the guys who were digging in their back yard and found a bunch of old money and such? Of course it sounded a little fishy (in hindsight ALOT fishy) but you were willing to maybe believe, weren't you? Well believe no more... those doofuses didn't find it... they just stole it on a job site. You see these geniuses are roofers and decided to make up the buried treasure story. Why not just keep quiet and not attract all the attention they got? Well, because they're stupid... when they could have just shown up to an Antiques Roadshow with a little bit of the loot? who knows... stunningly idiotic.

woodpecker redux

So a few years ago i wrote (on my older bitterspider.com site) about the supposedly extinct ivory billed woodpecker. I wrote about how i wanted to go to the Louisiana bayous and take a camera and hope to get extremely lucky. Well, i made it to Louisiana and its bayous but I never had the opportunity to look for it... which seems to be a good thing because apparently i would have been a few hundred miles to far south. The AP is reporting sightings in Arkansas. It's always cool to hear that an animal might not be extinct... gives ya hope somehow.

richest zips

Check out the richest zip codes in america (if you don't like reading here is the list by itself). Anyways, I'm willing to bet none of them are your zip code. Not surprisingly, the top 4 are all in California: just south of San Fran (Atherton), just north of San Diego (Rancho Santa Fe), and just north (Montecito) and just south (Newport Beach) of LA. California actually has 18 of the top 30. New York has 3 zips in the top 30 all within about an hour of NYC (one being Tribeca, in Manhattan). Connecticut and New Jersey each have 2 zips, again all near NYC. Nevada's 2 zips are both along Lake Tahoe. And finally my surprise of them all: the great state of Maryland has 2 zip codes: Gibson Island, a gated island on the Chesapeake just north of Annapolis; and Stevenson, a northwest suburb of Baltimore. I'ld have never guessed.

(And in case you are counting and wondering the zip I left out of the top 30 is in Miami Beach, FL)

ummm yeah...

so if you are squemish, you might want to stop reading right about now.

now, since you are still reading don't say i didn't warn you: check out this "body modification" called corset piercing. it's kinda hard to explain... so i'll let the pics do the explaining. i dunno why it intrigues me, it just does. its a cool look if not exactly pleasant to look at...

dolly sods

so just in case you didn't believe that i went to dolly sods, west virginia... the proof is in nick's photos from the trip.

a quick run through of the trip to explain the pics: drove there friday afternoon. car camped that night at primative (ie. hole in the ground toilet and muddy well water) campground. woke up sat morning (thats the pick of my head coming out of the tent). got a flat tire that morning. put donut on car and tried to make it back to town. donut went flat. got stuck in the middle of nowhere with 2 flat tire and no working cell phone. amazingly got a ride back into town with busted tire, got a new tire. even more amazingly finagled (thanks to pamela) a ride back to the van. finally got on the trail and had an abbreviated, yet awesome, hike.

the simpsons...

(from forevergeek) check out a real life version of the simpsons house. its cool, but makes me think of something that would really suck unless done exactly right... a live action simpsons movie.

yeah... very questionable...

free stuff

its that time of year again... ben and jerry is giving away a free scoop of ice cream today from 12-8. if you live in the dc area (or an area with an equally nice day) this couldnt have been timed better.

back in the saddle again

you would think i was busy or something, considering i havent said a word in almost a week. anyways im headed to dolly sods this weekend so im surely not posting at least until sunday night.

my happiest moment on thursday? well attending the Nationals win on opening night of course... a little behind it was finding out about yahoo's new beta news site. (thanks once again to ForeverGeek.com) i might have said it before, but ill repeat it... i love reading yahoo and google's news feeds and something new is always exciting. ill tell you if there's anything that stands out.

maps and maps and more

remember that cool new feature for google's map service? well someone just made it way cooler by combining it with the craig's list for real estate rental and sales. Check it out, it's seriously awesome.

have a seat

So if you've ever booked a flight online, you might have done it on a site that allows you to pick your seat. It was a nice feature, but SeatGuru.com is now making it an awesome feature. The site tells you which are the best seats on practically every airline's planes. For instance, one thing i learned was that on all jetBlue planes the seats in rows behind the wings have an extra 2 inches of legroom... good to know. (thanks ForeverGeek.com)

oh and on a side note... i'ld like to introduce you to your first place Washington Nationals.

Mona Lisa, men have named you

If you had been to the Louvre in the past you of course went to see what is arguably the most famous piece of art in the world, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. And if you were like me you were probably severely disappointed. It was pretty small and displayed in rather common and (understandibly) crowded room. To make matters worse it sat at least 3 or 4 feet deep into the wall in a dark climate controlled booth. An excellent way to protect her, but not exactly the best viewing circumstances.

But it seems that has changed now. She has a new 'sitting' place at the Louvre. And it looks like she's much more viewable now.

i'm in!

Online registration for the 2005 Marine Corp Marathon begins today. This is a popular marathon and it fills up quick, so if you had planned on it... register now!

I've registered, paid the $85 fee (plus $4.95 service charge), and am currently lightly running. That is to say, I'm only running about 15-20 minutes every other day. Which is not marathon training, but I'll get to a decent pace by the end of this month... i'll update my progress later this month.

the coming glory of the olives

Pope John Paul the Great (I definitely agree with calling him this) will be buried on the same day as a solar eclipse. This fits in perfectly if you believe in St. Malachy's Prophecy of the Popes. (The entire prophecy list can be seen here)

maps galore

so google adding satellite photos to their map service is the big news in blogland. but i still prefer microsoft's terraserver because its resolution is much better (at least half a meter in big cities), and it doesnt cost you anything (unlike google's awesome keyhole program, which is free for 7 days but then $30 to keep running).

it is nice that you can toggle back and forth from map and sat image, and that you can click and drag the image... but just checkout the difference in resolution in these photos of the washington monument from google (you'll have to zoom in once to get the closest image) and terraserver.

vegas baby, vegas!

so i saw sin city, and i'm just not as into it as everyone seems to be. it's not bad, but it's just not that good. the cinematography is very true to its comic book roots, which is actually pretty interesting. but the plot is rather mundane... oh well, i must be getting old or something.

Do not be afraid...

I was christened Juan Pablo on the 30th of October in 1976. Slighty less than 2 years later Pope John Paul I succeeded Pope Paul VI. Then only 8 days after my second birthday John Paul I died, and as a tribute to him the suceeding Pope Karol Wojtyła took the name John Paul II. It has never been lost on me that we share this name.

You are probably aware that the Supreme Pontiff passed away today, April 2nd. There is very little I can say to explain my feelings aside from saying that this world has lost a true father today.