Lynchburg, VA
The following is an actual conversation that took place some time in February of this year at Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. Imagine me sitting in an unfamiliar office next to a lit, scented candle working on my computer. Much like I am right now.
Unknown Man: “Oh, hello. How are you?”
Me: “Good”
Unknown Man: “Getting the office smelling good for the Dr.?”
Me: “Okay.”
Unknown Man: “Have a good day”
Me: “You too.”
(15 minutes later…)
Different Unknown Man: “Oh, hello.”
Me: “Hi.”
Different Unknown Man: “Who are you?”
Me: “Brody. Who are you?”
Different Unknown Man: “I’m Jerry Falwell. This is my office.”
Me: “Should I leave?”
Jerry Falwell: “Well, I guess I could have my meeting somewhere else.”
Me: “Okay.”
I wonder if the books with his pictures on them should have given me a clue?
"What?!"
(CNSNews.com) – A Kansas-based group that says “God hates fags” plans to picket the funerals of the Amish girls killed by a disturbed man in Lancaster County, Pa.
The Westboro Baptist Church — described as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League — has made a name for itself by picketing the funerals of U.S. troops killed in Iraq. The troops are dying as punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality, the group says.
The Westboro group says the Amish school girls were “killed by a madman in punishment for Gov. Ed Rendell’s blasphemous sins against Westboro Baptist Church.
“Gov. Ed Rendell — speaking and acting in his official capacity to bind the State of Pennsylvania — slandered and mocked and ridiculed and condemned Westboro Baptist Church on national Fox TV,” the group says on its website.
“Rendell also revealed a conspiracy to employ the State’s police powers to destroy WBC in order to silence WBC’s Gospel message. Co-conspirators identified by Rendell included state officials, citizens, lawyers, legislators and media,” the website says.
Westboro Baptist Church said it is “continuing to pray for even worse punishment upon Pennsylvania.”
Shaun’s Guitar For Sale
Shaun Groves is selling his very first guitar on ebay. Here’s what he has to say about it.
“I learned how to play on it. Took it to college and played my first gig ever at Common Grounds Coffeehouse in Waco, Tx on it. I wrote all the songs on my first record with it, played it at the showcase for Rocketown Records that got me signed, and used it on the first dozen or so gigs I did that first year as a signed artist.”
If you’re interested go HERE and bid lots of money for it.
Baltimore, MD (Part 2)
We are at the First Mariner Arena in Baltimore today. I was able to stand on the very stage that on September 13th 1964, The Beatles played on during their first American tour. It was the first show ever in this building, and tickets were $3.75 a person.
There is still some debate as if there was a “secret” show here the night before the famous Ed Sullivan Show, but I have been unable to find anything supporting that.
Take that Hasselhoff.
Baltimore, MD
Home Of The Hoff[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJQVlVHsFF8]
That’s right, this international super-star, David Hasselhoff was born right here in lovely Baltimore, Maryland. Hasselhoff known for his awesome role in Baywatch as well as crime stopper Michael Knight, in the 1980′s smash hit Knight Rider, before becoming an international music pop-star.
And while we are on the subject (not really, but kind of) of crime, check out these nice little facts about Baltimore.
City Crime Rankings ranks Baltimore second only to Detroit among the most dangerous American cities over 500,000 in population. According to crime statistics there were 269 murders in Baltimore in 2005. Though this is significantly lower than the record-high 353 murders in 1993, the murder rate in Baltimore is nearly seven times the national rate, six times the rate of New York City, and three times the rate of Los Angeles.
In addition, other categories of crime in Baltimore have also been declining, although overall crime rates are still high compared to the national average. The rate of forcible rapes has fallen below the national average in recent years; however, Baltimore still has much higher-than-average rates of aggravated assault, burglary, robbery, and theft and a local news survey, though unscientific, recorded that over 75% of respondents felt that Baltimore City is no safer.
Where’s Michael Knight when you really need him?
Norfolk, VA
Born: 3 April 1942
Birthplace: Norfolk, Virginia
Best Known As: Mr. Las Vegas
Newton’s big hit “Danke Schoen” was released in 1963, when the singer was 21, and established him as a fresh-faced tenor and heartthrob. Later Newton grew to be a fixture in his adopted hometown of Las Vegas, where he became a symbol of the city’s particular style of old-fashioned glitzy entertainment. In the 1990s (like Robert Goulet and William Shatner) he became an icon of kitsch, spoofing his own slick image in movies and TV commercials. In 1999 Newton signed a 10-year performance contract with the Stardust Hotel on the Las Vegas strip.
Newton raises Arabian horses and is a practiced martial artist… He had a long-running public feud with TV host Johnny Carson… In 2001 Newton replaced comedian Bob Hope as the chairman of the USO Celebrity Circle, charged with leading tours to entertain American troops overseas.
(You know you want to) Read More
Back On The Bus
Well, we are back in action. The tour is officially back on, and we are headed to Norfolk, VA tonight. Everyone is healthy, from what I understand, and I’m sure all prayers and thoughts are appreciated. I know my mortgage company appreciates prayers for the continuation of the tour. The four shows that we missed have been postponed for the end of November.
Stay tuned for you regularly scheduled random facts of American cities.
"…Helped Cement…"
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Americans John C. Mather and George F. Smoot have won the 2006 Nobel Prize in physics for work that helped cement the big-bang theory of the universe.
Mather, 60, works at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and Smoot, 61, works at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.
Their work was based on measurements done with the help of the NASA-launched COBE satellite in 1989. They were able to observe the universe in its early stages about 380,000 years after it was born. Ripples in the light they detected also helped demonstrate how galaxies came together over time.
“The very detailed observations that the laureates have carried out from the COBE satellite have played a major role in the development of modern cosmology into a precise science,” the academy said in its citation.
This Made Me Laugh
Weird Al – White And Nerdy
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzGYO447fU8]
We all thought Weird Al’s days were over… that was before this little number.
"A" Giant Waste Of Time.
HOUSTON — It’s one small word for astronaut Neil Armstrong, one giant revision for grammar sticklers everywhere.
An Australian computer programmer says he found the missing “a” from Armstrong’s famous first words from the moon in 1969, when the world heard the phrase, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
The story was reported in Saturday’s editions of the Houston Chronicle.
Some historians and critics have dogged Armstrong for not saying the more dramatic and grammatically correct, “One small step for a man …” in the version he transmitted to NASA’s Mission Control. Without the missing “a,” Armstrong essentially said, “One small step for mankind, one giant leap for mankind.”
The famous astronaut has maintained he intended to say it properly and believes he did. Thanks to some high-tech sound-editing software, computer programmer Peter Shann Ford might have proved Armstrong right.
Ford said he downloaded the audio recording of Armstrong’s words from a NASA website and analyzed the statement with software that allows disabled people to communicate through computers using their nerve impulses.
In a graphical representation of the famous phrase, Ford said he found evidence that the missing “a” was spoken and transmitted to NASA.
“I have reviewed the data and Peter Ford’s analysis of it, and I find the technology interesting and useful,” Armstrong said in a statement. “I also find his conclusion persuasive. Persuasive is the appropriate word.”
