Very sad news — John Peel, Radio 1’s veteran DJ since the station’s launch in 1967 (a year before I was born!) died of a heart attack in Cuzco, Peru today.
Pretty much anyone that ever listened to music radio in the UK over the last 30-odd years knew and loved the sound of John Peel’s voice, and his eclectic taste in music.
He will be greatly missed.
Because blood is thinner than oil!
The BBC News website has a great interactive infographic about the U.S. election; it’s an interactive map showing American voting patterns state by state.
I found the map of past elections, which adds an interactive timeline to the map, particularly fascinating; I never knew that Richard Nixon gained 520 of the total 538 Electoral College votes, winning in every single state except Massachusetts in 1972, for example, or that Reagan was returned with 525 votes in 1984, elected by every single state except Minnesota.
The best year for the Democrats, however, was 1964, when Lyndon Johnson was elected with 486 of the votes.
This is funny — the Lone Star Iconoclast, the local newspaper in Bush’s home town of Crawford, Texas, with a print circulation of approximately 900, has caused something of a kerfuffle by endorsing John Kerry! Apparently readership has plummeted, but the editors are receiving letters of support from all over the World.
I just spent entirely too much time reading stuff on a site called Rocketpack Magazine.
On a related note — whatever happened to the Utopian Dream where everyone would have a personal jet-pack by the year 2000?
I went to an posh office in midtown Manhattan today, to participate in a focus group about Earthlink, my cable Internet service provider (who I’m generally very happy with, by the way). Since I’m not working right now, I could easily spare a couple of hours between 6-8pm for $100, and besides which, I was curious to see how they would facilitate such a meeting.
However, there was some kind of administrative mix-up, because my name wasn’t on the list at the front desk, despite the fact that I confirmed by telephone on more than one occasion. They told me to take a seat and wait anyway, so I helped myself to the free coffee and sat down with a magazine.
Around 6pm, someone came out and called out some names, but my name wasn’t on the list, so I continued waiting in the reception area. 5 minutes later, the receptionist called me over and gave me a $100 bill, and said they wouldn’t need me after all!
So, I was paid a ton to sit around in a waiting area drinking coffee and reading a magazine for 15 minutes. I think that has to count as the easiest $100 I ever made.
So I finally decided to use one of the standard Blogger templates, rather than the painstakingly hand-crafted (and not-especially-well-designed) one that made my Blog look like it was part of my main website, both because I couldn’t get the comments thing to work properly, and because I’ve finally acknowledged that light text on a black background really isn’t as easy to read.
I just activated Blogger’s comments feature, which should allow people to rant back at me should they feel the urge. This test post should have a comment link below…
This is obviously not the most effective forum for a message to direct mail marketers, but I feel the need to vent:
I will NEVER pay an annual fee for a credit card, no matter how many free goddamn airmiles you give me!