2812
09

10 years, 100000 miles

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My car has been approaching a milestone for the past few weeks and last night we “turned over” the odometer at 100,00 miles.  Of course, my digital odometer has seven digits so I really just added a glowing “1” to the left side, but I found it pretty momentous.

This is the first new car I’ve ever purchased, and I’ve driven nearly every one of those miles.  I don’t know if I’ll ever drive it across the country like I’ve wanted to, but it’s seen no less than 15 U.S. states over the years.  It’s slid across highways during blizzards, leaving me to spend the night is strange cities like Pompton Plains, New Jersey. It’s made appearances in parades.  It’s also been driven into a few times doing varying degrees of damage to both the fenders and myself, but it’s still running strong.  After watching the odometer for weeks, Angie and I took a few photos to celebrate our old friend.


2512
09

A very distracting time of year

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I haven’t been the most frequent poster on MLD lately, but I do want to take some time to wish everyone a Merry Happy from myself and the rest of the MLD writing team  🙂  Enjoy some of my recent Lensbaby Fisheye shenanigans, on what I hope is at least a day you don’t have to work!  MLD_Christmas

1812
09

Sixers get past six wins!

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sixersWhat a treat for the end of the week!  The Sixers played the Boston Celtics on the road tonight at the TD Garden and came away with a one-point win in the last 23 seconds of the game.  This is clearly the Sixers biggest win of the season.  Hell, they only had six wins going in.  This was the first to come against a team with a winning record, and not only are the Celtics over .500, they have the best record in the NBA and came in with an 11-game winning streak.  I’m not saying this is anything more than one win, but what a fun win.  I’d say that merits a post.

1712
09

Do They Know It’s Christmas?

Posted by under *like, Comics, Miscellany, Movies | Leave a Comment |

Well, it’s the week before Christmas and all through the house… I don’t actually have a rhyme to go with that… Bottom line, I’m spending the weekend in sunny (or cloudy and rainy but still distinctly warmer and nicer) Florida. Heck, there’s a winter storm warning in effect at home for tomorrow night. Suckers.

Why do they even pretend to celebrate Christmas down here?

At home, they’re predicting a white Christmas. Down here they’re putting lights on palm trees.

Anyway, I took a break from the Operations Management final that I’ve been working on unsuccessfully for the last six days to join my wife for a trip to Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure today. Since Pete is such a huge Marvel fan, I spent the day harassing him with photos from the park’s Marvel Island. Pete suggested that I should be posting the photos here as well to share them with the world. So since I’ve been too buried with school work the last few months to post much, I figured that sounded like as good of a way to jump back into it as any.

So we’ll start with the scene when we arrived at Islands of Adventure this morning.

The lack of people suggested to us that we had slept through the Apocalypse overnight.

The lack of people suggested to us that we had slept through the Apocalypse overnight and luckily survived.

While uncertain about the fate of the rest of the world, we headed over to the Spider-man 3D ride where the line was unbearably long.

Actually, it was just us and Doctor Octopus.

Actually, it was just us and Doctor Octopus.

We rode the Spider-man ride that seats 12 or 18 people alone. Just the two of us. It was so romantic until the fires and spinning started.

That was the highlight of the Marvel section of the park until I reached the gift shop and saw this.

Psycho is right.

Psycho is right.

I have no interest in the Punisher. None. But that bobble head might be the greatest piece of Marvel merchandising I’ve ever seen. It’s better than all three of his movies combined… (and I’ve only seen two of them.)

I soon realized that there was a whole line of Marvel products in this awesomely cute style. Here are some highlights.

Amazing.

Amazing.

Spirited.

Spirited.

Unpredicatable.

Unpredicatable.

ALL American

All American.

Seeing the Hulk pin made me sad as they didn’t have a larger Hulk bobble head to go with the line, but they at least did design work on him. As it is, I may end up picking up a Captain America for me and Spider-man for Pete but I wish I was coming home with a Hulk as well.

HogwartsHogwartsThe final couple of photos I’ll share with you tonight are below. While I’m not a huge fan of the Harry Potter movies, I know some people freak out for them. Well, you may have seen ads lately for Universal’s upcoming Harry Potter attraction as they have been airing incessantly on television. Here’s a sneak peak at the still under construction Hogwarts school. I believe it’s set to open in the Spring.

That’s it for today. Maybe tomorrow I’ll share photos of manatees and gators.

1612
09

Music today

Posted by under *mixed, Music, Technology | Join The Discussion |

It’s no secret that record stores have disappeared and the ones that are left probably don’t have much time. While digital distribution and music downloading (legally of course) is something I’m a big proponent of, it’s just not always the right solution for me. If I want to buy a song, or preview an album, or even just get information on a band, iTunes is the only place I turn at this point. However, if I want to buy an album (the whole thing, not just one or two songs), I’m still buying the CD. I need to have something tangible if I’m going to commit to music on that level. I want to see the way the artwork and packaging are designed, I want to see what the CD actually looks like. Of course, it only comes out of the packaging once, goes into my computer and becomes a series of ethereal ones and zeroes like everything else, but that doesn’t mean I want to simply download it.

The disappearance of music stores creates another type of problem for me in that most of what I listen to seems to fall through the cracks. It’s primarily bands that are not big enough to be carried by a big chain store and not special enough for a speciality shop. The most recent example is the new Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine album. After calling half a dozen music stores in the city, I found one store that had it – Main Street Music in Manayunk. Upon going there to pick it up, I was told they had one copy – used. Meaning that someone bought it, ripped it, and sold it within 2 weeks of its release. This may happen a lot, but I don’t know that it helps stores stay in business. I’m fairly certain I don’t agree with it. Sure, there’s a chance that someone just didn’t like the album and had a chance to divest themselves of it, but I’ll never know.

All I do know is that I intend to keep supporting the CD format until the bitter end, in approximately 3 years 5 days and 11 minutes.