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Depeche Mode singer has cancer

One last thing for today. Sorry that it’s a bit of sad news…

LONDON (AFP) — Depeche Mode frontman David Gahan has had a malignant tumour removed from his bladder, the British band said Thursday, announcing plans to resume a European tour interrupted by the health scare.

One of Britain’s most successful and longest-lived bands, Depeche Mode cancelled a string of concerts this month after Gahan was rushed to hospital on May 12, shortly before going on stage in Greece.

The problem was announced as a severe bout of gastroenteritis at the time, but Thursday’s statement revealed the more serious condition discovered after tests.

Get well soon, David!

via AFP: Depeche Mode singer has tumour removed.

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Wachovia branch closed; failed to pay taxes

Are these the people you want managing your money???

Shoemakersville residents no longer have to wonder why their beloved bank, the only one in town, closed in April.

The building at 455 Main St. stands empty because Wachovia Corp. didn’t pay its 2006 municipal and county property taxes or its 2008 Hamburg School District taxes, according to Berks County Treasurer Nelson H. Long.

The corporation, operating under the name Meridian Properties Inc., lost the building in a tax sale Sept. 24, 2008, according to records in the Berks County Tax Claim Bureau.

Despite numerous phone calls, certified letters and even a sheriff’s notification, Wachovia failed to pay $9,600 in delinquent taxes and penalties, Long said.

Even if Wachovia wanted to close the branch (as they claim), why would they let the property be seized and sold for $16,900 when the property is worth $240,000??

via Tax woes spurred closing of Shoemakersville bank.

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Bob to sell the Bobs?

One of the worst-kept secrets of the NBA has finally been made public: Bob Johnson wants to sell the Charlotte Bobcats.

This post over at the QC Sports Blog lays it out better than any local news site I’ve seen. You should read it for yourself, but here’s the short version: Johnson has gone from a billionaire to a $500 millionaire in the past couple of years. He has made it perfectly clear that he owns the Bobcats as a business investment, not from any passion for the game or the people of Charlotte. And now that he is hemorrhaging money, he needs to get rid of the team ASAP.

The “good news” for the city (if you want to call it that), is that an NBA team will remain here no matter what. The contract the Johnson signed with the city includes a $200 million penalty if the team tries to leave before 2010, and a $150 million penalty until 2015 (read more here). So whoever buys the Bobs will either keep them here or pay a penalty (worth almost as much as the team itself) to move them.

So – who will the new owner be? Right now, the trendy pick is currently minority owner Michael Jordan, although this comes with its own set of baggage. We don’t know if Jordan has the finances to pull it off, much less if he’s even interested in buying the team outright. Plus, there was that whole “gambling thing” a few years back, and we don’t know if the NBA will allow an admitted gambler to buy a team. Plus, Jordan is reluctant to mingle with fans, something a good owner would do.

I don’t know… but I do agree with the blog that whoever ends up with the Bobs out to rename the team. Johnson’s ownership has been a joke, and it’s an insult to the people of Charlotte to keep Johnson’s name with the team.

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Ashes to Ashes: Season 2, Episode 6

Sorry for the delay in posting this – I had computer troubles on Tuesday!

This episode kicks off with Alex and Gene chasing a suspect through a “fun run”. As Gene accelerates to catch the bad guy, Alex slows down. Suddenly the street is empty, and she can hear Molly’s voice asking for her. She has a vision of herself being led through the street (towards surgery) on a gurney. She becomes very woozy and starts to sit in the street, but she’s suddenly jarred back to reality as people in costumes jog by her. Gene calls her over to attend to the suspect he has nabbed… only the suspect attempts to get away by jumping over a wall that was a little taller than he had perhaps thought. As the two carry “Heroin Harry” off to jail, Alex looks around at the beautiful little section of London that they’re in:

Alex: “You know, you forget sometimes, how beautiful London can be… the architecture, the canals….”
Gene: “… dead body floating along…”
Alex: “You really have no poetry in your soul at all do you?”
Gene: “No. That dead body, there… look.”

At the morgue, the medical examiner reveals that the body had little water in the lungs, indicating that the man died before hitting the water, probably from blunt trauma to the head. The ME also points out some bizarre scars on the man’s arm, which Ray immediately blames on Satanists. Later on, Chris finds a missing persons report for one Colin Mitchell. Gene looks at the report, then sends Chris and Ray to talk to the man’s wife, while he and Alex go and talk to the man’s father. Gene reminds them that this is a murder investigation, and to keep any information leaked to the wife to as minimum. Before heading out, Shaz asks Chris for a wedding date. Chris evades her.

Continue reading “Ashes to Ashes: Season 2, Episode 6”

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-05-24

  • OMG! Tony Kornhole is GONE from MNF!!! #
  • Woot! Go Pens! #
  • bittorrent #
  • Dammit! #
  • Damn you, TwitterTools! #
  • Off to MSFT here in CLT to learn about Windows 7… and eat Hawaiian pizza! 🙂 #
  • Woot! Go Pens! #
  • OMG! One of the kittenens came back! #
  • Off to a wedding… #
  • Penguins are up 3-0! What up, Hurricanes? #

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COOL APPS: Taskbar Shuffle

From the “why isn’t this built in to Windows already?” department:

Taskbar Shuffle is a small, free program that lets you move not just items on the taskbar, but icons in the system tray (by the clock) as well. It also has a few grouping tweaks and also allows you to close taskbar items with a middle-click.

I’m only reporting about this now because the author only recently released a version that works on x64 Vista. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now, and I just love it.

Read more about it (or download it) here.

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SN picks the best football rivalries

Vinnie Iyer of the Sporting News has picked his Top 10 rivalries in the NFL. Take a wild guess which matchup took the top spot:

1. Baltimore Ravens vs. Pittsburgh Steelers

In retirement, John Madden didn’t leave us with enough onomatopoeia to describe all the hard-hitting, head-snapping, clock-cleaning and slobber-knocking that happens when Baltimore and Pittsburgh trade blows. The NFL’s most visceral rivalry isn’t for the faint of heart, stomach, mind or body. This is physical football at its best.

The defenses fly around smacking everything, but the offenses also have enough tough personalities to stand up and fight for every extra yard. Two players who come to mind immediately are Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward.

The teams clearly are the class of the AFC North, and playing each other three times a season might become a habit.

I hate hate hate the Bawlmerr fucking Ravens, and nothing makes me happier than watching us beat the snot out of them. But I’ve gotta admit – these games bring out the best (or worst, depending on your view) of these teams. Any time the Steelers play the Ratbirds you know it’s gonna be a old-fashioned “street fight” kind of game. Last year, Mike Tomlin said even a scrimmage between these two teams would be a big deal, and you know what? He’s right. If you like your football to be like the 12th round of a heavyweight boxing match… then the Steelers\Ravens is for you.

I’m not sure about some of his other picks, though. “Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys”… when was the last time that was relevant at all? “Atlanta Falcons vs. Carolina Panthers”… I hate to break it to you, Vinnie, but the Falcons main rival always has been (and always will be) the New Orleans ‘Aints.

via Yahoo! Sports.

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Bittorrent Alternatives Revisited

Back in December, I posted this article about using “content blogs” instead of Bittorrent to download your favorite movies and TV shows.

To recap, “content blogs” use blogging software (like WordPress) to post links to movies and TV shows that are hosted on public file-sharing sites like RapidShare and Megaupload. This has several advantages over using Bittorrent.

For starters, it doesn’t require any specialized software, only a web browser.

Secondly, it’s safer, since you’re only making one connection to a public web site, as opposed to hundreds of connections to random strangers’ computers (and possibly computers owned by the Music Police).

Lastly, using content blogs saves you bandwidth because you only have to download the file in question, not share it out to everyone else. You see, Bittorrent chops a file into a bunch of pieces, and once you’ve downloaded a few pieces your computer starts sharing them out with other users. This is what makes Bittorrent so fast – you’ve not downloading a file from just one person, you’re downloading it from dozens of other people. Most private Bittorrent trackers require you to maintain an upload:download ratio of 1.0 or higher, which means that a 350MB TV episode actually costs you 700MB of bandwidth with Bittorrent.

It’s this last thing I wanted to talk about today. My router runs Tomato, an open-source firmware replacement for the Linksys WRT54G-L router. Part of Tomato’s feature set is the ability to track the amount of bandwidth used. After a few months of using content blogs as much as possible, I can report some rather stunning news: my weekly bandwidth consumption has dropped from 33-36GB/week to 10-12GB/week. That’s simply stunning. While it is true that I’m not downloading as much stuff as I used to, I’m still downloading around 17 shows a week. To go from running through Time Warner’s proposed 40GB cap in just over 8 days to making it last almost an entire month is simply amazing… and will hopefully keep TWC off my back.

I also wanted to give you some links to other content blogs. I’ve downloaded stuff from all of these places, and can vouch for them (keep in mind that any link posted in a “Commenst” section could come from anyone, and they occasioanlly have fakes or viruses there):

Releaselog (still my fave!)
SceneDDL (British site; has a lot of UK TV)
ZeroSec
Netloaded
Scene Source
Scene Releases

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Ashes to Ashes: Season 2, episode 5

I don’t know what to think about this episode of Ashes to Ashes. On the one hand, the “crime of the week” was pretty mundane; on the other, the people the crime happened to were interesting… plus, we finally meet Creepy Doctor! Read on, folks!

This week’s episode kicks off with Alex sleeping on her sofa, with the TV blasting static in the background. The TV suddenly switches to a children’s show, and Orville the Duck (see “Other Stuff” section, below) says that he’s worried about Alex because he thinks she’s going to die. Keith tells Orville told that Alex isn’t going to die because she’s at the hospital, and when she arrived there were two bouquets of flowers waiting for her.  The screen suddenly goes back to static, and Alex hits the TV, trying to get the show back.

We next see an amusing throwaway scene: Gene and the gang are in the Quattro, chasing a panel truck with French markings. The driver of the truck finally pulls over, and the gang gets out. Gene tells Chris to go and hassle the driver. While Chris has the man looking for paperwork, Ray and Gene open the trunk of the Quattro and pull a man out. The man’s hands are tied and there’s tape over his mouth. Gene and Ray take him to the back of the truck, where they open the back door and toss him in. “Now go and be a pain in the derriere to the gendarmerie!”, Gene says.

Back in the car, Alex lectures the rest of the gang on what amounts to an illegal kidnapping, then proceeds to lecture Chris about smoking. Ray, who has been reading the newspaper, complains about the “anti-police” headlines that have been all over the place lately. Gene says that he wishes the reporters would find someone else to pick on. Chris thinks it should be mimes. Ray says that a kid spit in his face that morning because he was a cop. Viv then comes over the radio, taking about a burglary at 2 Stanley Road. Gene tells Viv to give it to some uniformed cops, but Alex suddenly becomes quite animated and demands that they go investigate. Gene asks why they should go, and Alex says that “it’s Pete’s dad!” When Gene asks who Pete is, Alex says he is Molly’s father, and that they’ve got to get to the Drakes. Gene wonders if they “have the misfortune” to be related to Alex. Alex says that “it’s going to be weird”, to which Gene quips “that’ll make a nice change”.

Continue reading “Ashes to Ashes: Season 2, episode 5”