Month: November 2003

Dubya has arrived in Blighty. George, old buddy, you can run, but you can’t hide.

“Clad in his trademark T-shirt, open vest and beat-up felt hat with upturned brim (a hat Carney paid $5 for in 1935 while still in high school) he became one of the most enduring second-bananas in TV history.” The LA Times remembers Art Carney

“This is another in a long line in historic events in Tempe, going all the back to Pope John Paul II’s visit to the Super Bowl,” proclaimed Neil Giuliano, mayor of Tempe, Arizona, in announcing that a presidential debate would take place there next year. Hmmm, the Pope went to the Super Bowl? I think I must have missed the game that year. Or maybe he came out during the half-time show. I never watch that.

It’s Bonfire Night here in England, and outside it sounds like Baghdad on a good night. Fireworks are completely legal here, and you can buy them literally everywhere, from the local supermarket to the corner shop. And I don’t mean sparklers and small firecrackers. You can get some serious ordnance. But now the government is planning, finally, on regulating fireworks, sort of.

I love fireworks, spent many summers of my youth dodging the Grayslake Police and setting off homemade fireworks that the IRA would have been proud to have owned. But even I have to admit that the situation here is totally insane. Guess I’m just getting old.

It only took them a month, but Apple finally managed to get me a replacement for a faulty power adapter for the Airport Extreme Base Station. Plug it in, lights blink, and we’re wireless again. Didn’t even have to do any reconfiguring (well, not much anyway).

The recent solar storm activity has resulted in some spectacular light shows visible as far south as Florida. Nasa has been collecting photos of the aurora from around the world for the benefit of those of us who live in places where it is usually overcast. We’ll be out there looking north if and when we get a clear night.

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I will never forget seeing the Northern Lights while on a canoe trip in the Quetico. We paddled all night one night just to watch them. I’d give anything to see them again.