The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Science & Nature => Topic started by: pmcd9 on September 11, 2008, 04:23:01 pm
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Or Hurricane Ike Turner (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/2847863045/)
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Different headspaces man. Somebody says "Ike," I think "Eisenhower."
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Different headspaces man. Somebody says "Ike," I think "Eisenhower."
Me too, but I fuck*ng love music. Then again I was a history major who "specialized" in Cold War politics.
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See, I thought of the little brother on South Park.
"Kick the hurricane!" "No, don' kick da hurcayn!"
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I too keep picturing ike turner hurling towards Houston on a coke binge.
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So are you really not evacuating, Paul? What about about all that "certain death" jazz the Weather Service is sending out? Remember to hold your camera above the water, whatever you do.
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I'm sticking. I live 60 miles from the coast for one thing. The storm will have subsided considerably by the time it gets to me. Still hurricane strength maybe, but weakening. I'll try to keep dry.
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We'll get pics right?
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So the gas is already up 20 cents, 50 cents, a dollar a gallon, before anything even happens? This is why gas will always be expensive, because we're morons who hear a man fart in the woods and start screaming "What'll it do to the gas? Fill it up now!"
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Hurricanes suck.
I've mentioned this before, but they suck.
Don't be in a hurricane, people. Riding it out is not a fun option. I know Paul won't see this for about a week or so, but yeah. If a hurricane is going to be in a place, make all efforts to not be in that place. That place will be full of wind and rain for about 36 hours, and then it will not have power, and that's if you're lucky.
Stay dry, man.
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I lost power last night about 2:30 (along with most of Houston), but my friend Amy has power. Clean living on her part. I am at her house now surfing the web and eating an omlette.
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I lost power last night about 2:30 (along with most of Houston), but my friend Amy has power. Clean living on her part. I am at her house now surfing the web and eating an omlette.
Wow, it sounds like the only way this could've worked out better for you was if you were eating Amy.
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The Hurricane gave me a chance to watch people go ape shit. Sheetz was the last gas station in town to update their gas prices, so there was a line down the street to get gas at 3.60 before it went to 4.09 this morning. I guess people learned their lesson after gas shot to near $5 after Katrina.
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Yesterday I heard that wholesale prices were up to $4.85. When I drove to the farmers' market this morning I passed my regular Hess and it was still at $3.55 but on my way home, less than an hour later it was up a dime.
What's funny to me is that the stations that are normally huge rip-offs are going to have a brief period where they're actually reasonable. Like there's an Exxon by me that was charging like $3.69 last week, way over everybody else nearby, but I'm sure by now $3.69 is a bargain.
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Paul, I'm glad you are OK.
I was on the phone with my mom and she said Texas was getting hit pretty bad, and all I thought was "Paul!"
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Yeah, I held off on sitting in the lines and filling up because I figured whatever supply line problems that developed would be temporarily resolved by Monday, when we'll have to fill up again. I'm still holding out hope. If not, maybe I can talk my boss into letting me work from home for a couple of days as a gas conservation effort.
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Glad to hear you're all right, Paul.
News reports on Friday said that gas was over $5/gal on the north end of Raleigh, but I stumbled upon gas for $3.68 early in the day. They were asking people to limit themselves to 10 gallons, but that was OK with me. I live near enough to everything that I only fill up my tank about every ten days. I should have enough to get through until it comes back down under $4. In some parts of town, it's already close to that.
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We heard all the "ZOMG the gas is vanishing fill up yr tanks now!!!!1111!!!!!oneoneone" messages on Friday, and I chose to wait. We had 3/4 of a tank. Drove past all the $4.19s, $4.39s... filled up eventually on Monday night at $3.79 and was still a little pissy I couldn't hold out for it to come down a little more.
Seriously, though, if there's anyone out there who STILL doesn't feel like our dependency on gas is our nation's #1 weakness, let me know so I can come to your house and break your legs.
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I'm pretty sure I am going to buy a bike.
Yep. Bike. Bike and the metro. I am glad that I have no responsibilities which require me to go anyplace not available by those two means.
...also my brother totaled our car, so I won't have the option to drive when I'm home either.
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Bike and public transport have worked well for me so far. That said my house mate has a car so we take that when we go grocery shopping or similar (which I feel a bit of a heel about) but that's basically the only time I'm in a car these days, living close to the city totally rocks.
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Yeah, well. I lived IN the city for six years, and I still had to drive everywhere. I was four miles from downtown and couldn't walk or bike to the grocery store. I lived 500 yards from a bus stop, but the public transportation in this town is so shitty that it doesn't actually go anywhere you'd want to. I occasionally took the bus home from work in the afternoons when we were both working and only had one car, but it was an 8 minute commute by car and a 45 minute bus ride with 1 transfer. No contest if you have the option.
I drive 70% less now that I live in the suburbs. I still have to drive almost everywhere I go, but at least the places I go most regularly are near my house. This town is pretty good about mixed-use development, and though I could theoretically walk to the grocery store, I never have. (Not with two kids!)
I have walked to the farmer's market, though, which makes me feel double crunchy.
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In Charlotte, 90% of the bus lines run into Uptown. I once tried to figure out how I could ride the bus to work, and learned that the best route required me to leave at 6:00, and got me a mile away from work about 20 minutes after the latest time I'm allowed to arrive. The ride back would get me home around 7:30. The 10% of the other routes run to the light rail, which runs... Uptown.
They say it's because Uptown is the center of it all, and there's no denying that, but Charlotte is so sprawled that it's possible to live in the city for years and never find a reason to go into the center of it all. Our favorite restaurants are south of the city, in Pineville. Our work is to the west of the city. Our favorite shopping is in Concord, which as the crow flies we would go right through Uptown to get to, but with the ring of I-485, we divert ourselves around the city to get there.
I think part of our problem is that we've got too much room. With the possible exception of the Philadelphia-New York-Boston corridor, there's lots of room for cities to build out. The lebensraum makes efficient public transit difficult to achieve, because we're all going in different directions.
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Yeah I couldn't do just public transport, I actually have to leave my house about 20 minutes earlier if I want to get to work by bus than if I ride. Brisbane has pretty decent public transport though, it used to be that you basically had to go into the city and then out again to get from one suburb to the next but they're slowly interconnecting and it's getting a lot better. Also the no kids thing helps.
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When we lived in Evanston, we only needed a car if we wanted or needed to go to another town.
We could walk to movies and restaurants, shopping and both the CTA and Metra trains.
I miss being able to meet almost all of my life's needs on foot. That was a pretty nice place to live.
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About the closest place I could catch any form of public transportation would be my office, so that'd kind of defeat the purpose I guess.
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It's nine days later and I still don't have power. It's really starting to suck. School started up again today so that's cool. I have a generator, but it's a pain in the ass and my internet isn't working anyway so I am here at the coffee shop writing this letter to you.
But I'm doing fine. Just getting tired of no electricity. Don't know when it's coming back. Soon I hope.
I took some pictures... (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/sets/72157607256865058/)
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I took some pictures... (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmcd9/sets/72157607256865058/)
No way.
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I saw this (http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3145/2874621836_2420c1f7e6.jpg?v=0) and thought, "Damn, dude must have been struggling to have his numbers come out all squiggly like that."
Didn't dawn on me that a man might want to digitally alter a picture of his SSN. I'm not firing on all cylinders today.
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"I'll always remember that time I tried to write on my arm with a water-soluble marker in a hurricane."