As you probably noticed, I have finally changed the header up there from good ol’ Chloe wielding her gun to a Shaun of the Dead theme. I dig it quite a bit. Speaking of 24, get used to not having it around. Apparently, we shouldn’t expect it before 2009. Even when it does come back, co-creator, conservative, and author of the “5th grade Michael Moore logic” line Joel Surnow has jumped ship. This, as is the case with any 24 news I’ve relayed to you in the past two years, does not bode well.

-MPAW

  

I’ve finally isolated the problem with my blog format issues, so now not only can you see the sidebar, but you can actually read the posts without your eyes being burned out by that ugly black/red/white theme. Episode 6.5 of 24 is on tonight so you can expect the random thoughts sometime tomorrow afternoon. Enjoy the Power Hour!

-MPAW

  

You may notice that the blog looks really different right now.  Well, that’s because this is the only template that I could find that I somewhat like that formats correctly for me.  At some point, I will actually have time to troubleshoot this and figure out why none of these templates that I actually like are working anymore.  Until then, you will have to endure this monstrosity.

Peace,

-MPAW

  

I randomly found this link today that I made months ago in a post strangely saved under a title about The Format. It’s still funny, just not quite as ahead of the curve as I imagine it might have been if I posted it when I originally made it.

YouTube: The only reason I know who Zidane is

By the way, sorry about the weird formatting error in the side bar. Right now, it’s priority about #48 on my list of things to do so expect it to be fixed around the time that I get the 2007 photo gallery online. Especially since I’m very proned to ignoring the list altogether and just watching Reel Big Fish live DVDs (speaking of being about a decade behind the times.  Hip, hip, huzzah for late nineties music trends!)

Hey! Nine days until Penn State football starts again!

I ate alligator and kangaroo last week.

That is all.

Hooray for streams of consciousness!

That is all.

-MPAW

  

I grew up most of my life thinking that New Jersey drivers were the worst in the country.  That was before I moved to Maryland I realized the horrible truth – this state has the most hideously braindead drivers I have ever encountered.  First off, I should say I have never driven in New York, Massachusetts, or California so I can’t judge conclusively (although just being a passenger in Boston was terrifying).  I have driven in the following states: Pennsylvania (eastern and western sides - and yes, there’s a difference), New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.  Driving in Maryland is by far the worst experience I’ve had and to calm my ever-growing road rage (so I don’t end up like this guy), I’m going to give you my list of why driving in Maryland is the worst experience:

1. There is no passing lane.  Just two lanes of cars going the same speed (5 miles per hour under the speed limit).


2. There are no shoulders anywhere.  Meaning, if someone decides to make a left hand turn into the local biker bar, the traffic will back up for half a mile leaving you with the choice of driving into huge pot holes and wrecking your car (especially if you are one of the 5 people in the area who aren’t driving a ginormous pick-up truck) and waiting for 2 minutes while the person backing up traffic waits for a 20 second break in traffic to make his painfully slow left-hand turn.


3. Unless you are on an interstate, the “highways” are either one lane or have traffic lights every twenty feet.  Every road is a windey, back road.


4. It is important for a Maryland driver to go at least 5 miles per hour under the speed limit, especially when the speed limit is 25 miles per hour on a long, straight road.


5. It takes the typical Marylander about 3 seconds to notice when a red light turn green.  It then takes that driver about 5 seconds to make a left-hand turn.


6. Turn signals are about as common on Maryland roads as horses.  If a turn signal goes on, it stays on.


7. All Marylanders brake when aproaching a traffic light no matter what color it is.  True story: I once was behind a driver that came to a full and complete stop at a light that was literally green the entire time it was in my sight.  I have never seen a Maryland driver hustle to make it through a yellow light, preferring instead to slam on their brakes.


8. When parking, the Maryland driver has yet to discover “the pull through,” instead usually choosing to block traffic for 30 seconds while he backs up into a parking space.  And yes, I’ve actually seen this done in spots that had available pull throughs.


9. When making a turn on red, the Maryland driver will wait a good 2 full seconds after an opening in traffic has started to begin pulling out and cutting off the next car.


10. A quarter inch of snow?  Hell, any precipitation whatsoever?  Forget about it.  They go nuts.


11. They all do what I like to call the “Maryland Meander.”  Meaning, they have absolutely no concept of where the lines are in roads.  Virtually every time I’m on I-83 driving south there is some clown driving in both lanes, making it impossible to pass.

Of course, driving in Pennsylvania isn’t perfect but rarely did I ever get as pissed off as I seem to get on a daily basis down here.  The one up side is the quality of roads, but I’d rather get to my destination quickly on a crappy road then have a smooth ride and take 45 minutes to travel 10 miles.

I also found this excerpt from an article that completely rips on Baltimore (most of it I think is unfair, but is spot on in this paragraph):

Speaking of traffic violations, anyone who’s ever driven through Maryland on a major highway has probably seen more brake lights than you’d spot at senior-citizen discount day at the local Stop & Shop. The thought process of your average Maryland driver: ‘Eek, someone’s merging onto the highway; I better hit my brakes. Oh! there’s an accident on the other side of the road; I better hit my brakes and gawk. Ahh, police car; I better slow down to 45 miles per hour in a 65 zone, even though I was only going 60 to begin with.’ Forget any entries to the Beltway: People drive the same route everyday and they know their 695 exit is a left exit, but here they are, in the far right lane. Blinkers: Why bother? ‘Those no-turn-on-red signs be damned: Aren’t all turns made on red? Red? Oh, that light was red? Hm, well, eight cars are going to go through, anyway. Oh, I’m blocking the box. Isn’t that what all of the space in the middle of the intersection is for, my car? ‘

I guess the bottom line is that I’d rather be behind a New Jersey driver and in front of a Maryland driver.  In neither situation would I be in close proximity with their vehicles for very long. 

-MPAW

  

Sorry for the downtime. I don’t know what happened here, but as you can see I’m up and rolling after a Wordpress upgrade. I’m actually kind of glad it happened because I really like the new software. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can see any difference on your end, but back here where I’m typing this it’s very pretty. Have a good weekend.

-MPAW

PS - Thanks to everyone who alerted me to the problem.  I actually found out about it before you, but I didn’t have time to fix it until now.

  

Well, it may be a little late, but at least I beat my time from last year. I finished the official 2005 photo gallery, so check it out! You can do so by clicking here and then going to the bottom of the page to select “Gallery XXI: 2005.” Enjoy!

-MPAW

PS - In the strange occurance that you’ve actually been to that page before, you may have to click refresh to see the update.

  

Just when I needed my faith in sports lifted comes the story of the autistic high school boy that scored 20 points in 4 minutes. Watch the story in the link below. I don’t have anything to say except that it’s quite touching.

YouTube

-MPAW

  

Peggy Noonan wrote the most depressing article ever today. I think it’s a tad over the top (particularly for someone who wrote speeches for the greatest optimist of all – Ronald Reagan). Still, somehow she taps into something that I know I have tucked inside some corner of my mind – the nagging feeling that we’re heading towards some disastrous eventuality. Maybe every generation goes through this, but it just seems like burden after burden is being piled on our shoulders. Maybe at the height of the Cold War did we have a somewhat similar mind frame, but even then I don’t think they had as much to worry about as we do. Here’s an excerpt:

I think there is an unspoken subtext in our national political culture right now. In fact I think it’s a subtext to our society. I think that a lot of people are carrying around in their heads, unarticulated and even in some cases unnoticed, a sense that the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. That in some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can’t be fixed, or won’t be fixed any time soon . . .

I’m not talking about “Plamegate.” As I write no indictments have come up. I’m not talking about “Miers.” I mean . . . the whole ball of wax. Everything. Cloning, nuts with nukes, epidemics; the growing knowledge that there’s no such thing as homeland security; the fact that we’re leaving our kids with a bill no one can pay. A sense of unreality in our courts so deep that they think they can seize grandma’s house to build a strip mall; our media institutions imploding—the spectacle of a great American newspaper, the New York Times, hurtling off its own tracks, as did CBS. The fear of parents that their children will wind up disturbed, and their souls actually imperiled, by the popular culture in which we are raising them. Senators who seem owned by someone, actually owned, by an interest group or a financial entity. Great churches that have lost all sense of mission, and all authority. Do you have confidence in the CIA? The FBI? I didn’t think so.

But this recounting doesn’t quite get me to what I mean. I mean I believe there’s a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming.

I recommend reading the whole article because the above only scratches the surface:

OpinionJournal.com: A Separate Peace

I’d be curious to see how many of us are secretly feeling this way. I know I have off and on, but with more regularity recently, for the past five years. Maybe it’s just the Christian eschatological instincts kicking in.

-MPAW

  

This video is pretty interesting. It’s about how troops stationed in New Orleans are having strange encounters with spirits and laughing demon-children. It looks like they’re actually doing little exorcisms there.

CBS 5: Soldiers Spooked by New Orleans Spirits

I’m not an easily spooked kinda guy. I can usually watch most horror movies out the butt and it won’t phase me (although I’m not above giving in to a cheap scare), but show me The Exorcist or something demonic and I’ll cry like a little girl. I guess things we don’t understand are just inherently more scary. Of course, I also happen to believe in the “spiritual” so maybe that somehow makes it more real than slashers . . . which are apparently a figment of my imagination. OK, my logic is breaking down due to a probable Nyquil overdose. If I wake up in the morning maybe I’ll have something more substantive for you.

-MPAW

  

Remember

  

Foamy is ranting again and he actually hits on some very good points about legal and illegal drug use. It’s sad that a humor flash web site makes more sense than Tom Cruise does on the matter. Oh, and if you’re a Foamy virgin and you’re sensitive about such things, beware of adult verbiage.

IllWillPress.com: Drugs in your Head

-MPAW

  

. . . for the lack of updates lately. I have been spending time restoring the blog archives if you care for a blast from the past. Of course, if the freakin’ Iraqis would settle on a Constitution, I’d have plenty to talk about. Maybe I’ll just have to start talking about the draft because I got PLENTY on my mind about that. Anyway, expect more bloggery coming your way soon with the Constitution news and the Roberts confirmation hearings around the corner.

-MPAW

  

End of the world update:

Guess which one is real.

BBC News: Japanese develop ‘female’ android

-MPAW

  

I’ve honestly been meaning to make the 2004 photo gallery since December 2004 and just haven’t been able to finish it. In fact, I’ve been in South Africa on hiatus because I just didn’t feel that my work on the captions were up to the high standards I set for myself in past galleries. Anyway, without further adieu, you can reach the official Mike Ward 2004 Photo Gallery here. Below are the main contents:

January 2 – Cabella’s
January 7 – Phantom’s Game
February 1 – Lady Lion’s Game
February 7 – Snowtubing
February 9 – Parkway Plaza Secret Santa
February 22 – THON
March 19 – St Patrick’s Day 2004
March 27 – Just a really bad picture of me
April 7 – Michelle Takes a Shot of JD
April 15 – Ann Coulter
April 21 – Reel Big Fish at the Crowbar
April 24 – Blue/White Game
April 26 – IST 440Wasted Bar Tour
April 27 – Final CSF
April 28 – Senior Send-Off
May 2 – Playing in the Rain
May 4 – Parkway Cookout
May 5 – Cinco de Mayo
May 5 – PSU Building Tour
May 13 – IST Bar Tour
May 11 – Moving
May 15 – Graduation Day
May 24 – June 14 – Europe
July 24 – State College Brew Expo
August 22 – Oriole Game
September 3 – PSU Game
September 18 – Grandparents 50th Anniversary
September 21 – Sinkhole
October 1 – Bush’s Rally in the Valley
November 14 – Washington DC
November 28 – Bethlehem, PA
December 11 – Evil Monkey Bar Tour
December 20 – Ward Family Christmas
December 23 – Yuengling Tour

-MPAW

  

Sixteen percent of all studies turn out to be contradicted by future studies, says this study:

StarTribune.com: New study: 16% of studies contradicted by studies

I believe it. Anybody remember the days when they said milk causes cancer?

HT: RS.org

-MPAW

  

Keeping in mind that WorldNetDaily has virtually no credibility on this sort of thing, they are reporting that al Qaeda has a plan to detonate 40 nuclear weapons in the United States simultaneously as a “final blow” to bring us to our knees. If you care to read what is probably rubbish, you can do so here:

WND: Al-Qaida nukes already in U.S.

I post this not because I believe the story (WND’s specialty is predicting imminent attacks that never actually occur), but because since 9/11 I’ve wondered why there hasn’t been a follow-up attack here in the States. The aftermath of September 11 could not have possibly ended up the way the terrorists wanted. It woke us up to the reality that we’ve been at war for years and we fought back for the first time. I think al Qaeda realizes that a subsequent attack would only increase the retribution. If a single nuclear bomb goes off in the U.S., it would probably mean an all-out invasion of every dangerous Middle Eastern country. If multiple bombs go off (as is suggested in the WND article), then it would mean we turn the Middle East to glass. It would annihilate the people in the region, and the ones that survived could say goodbye to Mecca. Oh yeah, it would probably mark the end of human civilization as we know it too, but no use worrying about that.

Anyway, I guess my point is I don’t understand why al-Qaeda doesn’t blow up a school or something just to show they still got it. I think the only possible explanations are that it’s either not spectacular enough and they’re planning something huge or their strategy is to nip at our heels every couple years or so and slowly drain our blood, making us the proverbial frog in boiling water. The third possibility, of course, is that our intelligence is so great that we’re stopping these attacks, but who really has that confidence in our intelligence agencies?

-MPAW

  

Mmmmm. We likeses the taters with the meatses, stupid, fat hobbit.

  

Yesterday, I bought a new car. Huzzah!

-MPAW

  

Mike Ward’s 1994 Toyota Corolla was pronounced dead yesterday from a broken radiator. It’s financial feeding tube needed for survival was pulled due to the family’s unwillingness to spend over $500 to fix a car which was 11 years old and had over 160,000 miles. “The Red Pill” (as it was lamely called once in an attempt to create a nickname as catchy as “The Fridge”) had been Mike’s travelling companion for almost six years beginning during his senior year of high school. It was purchased after The Fridge was totalled by some lunatic on the European side of the road. The car had been Mike’s accomplice for the Senior prom, carpools to baseball practice, numerous roadtrips to Baltimore (on the first one it hit it’s 100,000th mile), commutes to Penn State Lehigh Valley, a Rally for America, daily commutes to Aberdeen Proving Grounds, monthly meetings in Washington D.C., an uncountable number of solo and group sing-along sessions, and perhaps it’s greatest achievement – a spring break roadtrip to Florida and back. It died with a Godzilla cupholder from 1998 still in it’s trunk. It will be sorely missed. In lieu of flowers, please send money towards it’s replacement, which will be sought out tomorrow.
-MPAW