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I was wondering, does anyone have any recommendations for good sources of news on the internet? Specifically, local or national news. I've had a "My Yahoo" page set up for some time, that I use as a homepage, with news feeds from the Associated Press and Reuters. I liked that setup, but over time, the My Yahoo interface has gotten sort of bloated and I'm finding myself liking it less and less. For international news, I really love BBC News. They have real comprehensive coverage, and they also tend to cover world stories that I never hear much about anywhere else (except maybe NPR). I would love to find a site which had the same quality and depth of coverage, but focusing more on the United States specifically. NPR has a good site, but doesn't always include transcripts of its stories, just the audio, which require the NPR player application to listen to, and I can never seem to get it to work right. Even if I could, I'd rather just read than listen. I don't like Fox News and CNN's web pages very much. I don't really like Fox News's web page format, and it also has a pretty clear bias to one end of the political spectrum. CNN doesn't have such a clear bias, but it is incredibly sensational, with a lot of focus on pointless stories (like " Kid Rock Waffle House Fight Caught on Tape"). I also have some trouble getting CNN's videos to play nice with FlashBlocker. Reuters has a website, and it's not a bad source of news, but their stories are usually quite short and not particularly in-depth. The New York Times has its own bias, but even worse, its site and the Wall Street Journal require registration. The Cleveland TV stations have web pages, but they're not really that great, and in fact, Channel 3 sometimes puts stories up that don't even feature complete sentences or any kind of coherency. For the most local of news, the Stow Sentry has a reasonable site, but it looks like it was designed in 1998 and doesn't support RSS for reading it on a site like Bloglines. Which is, increasingly, where I read a lot of news. But it's still not any good for any kind of breaking stories. So have a I missed anything? Are there any other good sources for American national news, or for breaking news, on the internet? Tags: internet, news
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood:  curious
Current Music: none
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I'm surprised sometimes just how often people point out to me how long it's been since I've written. It's the good kind of surprised though, it's nice to think that anyone checks this regularly and likes reading it. And it's true that I have trouble keeping up with it sometimes. Part of the problem is that I find that, compared to when I was in school and working for the government, there are more aspects of my life that it would be irresponsible for me to write about on the internet. I can write about my job, but only in an indirect sense. And I wouldn't want to say anything (good or bad) about people I work with because there's a very good probability that could work its way back to me in some way. Besides that, I feel that whenever someone talks about their job, it's almost always incredibly boring to any other person. The fact that I'm not traveling around the country anymore also limits some of my usual writing subjects. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy about that though. So that leaves me with general thoughts, or things I do on weekends, because on weekdays I don't really do that much besides get up, go to work, and come home. There are exceptions of course, but generally on weeknights I just want to take advantage of the time I have. So if I have to choose between, say, going over to Mark's, having dinner with Gregg, or playing Final Fantasy Tactics A2, well, those usually beat out "sit down at the computer to write something". I am going to try and make more of an effort though. I think I may be letting my Livejournal slip away a bit from being an actual journal and instead being just a place for me to put up videos and internet links. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I know I'll still be doing a lot of that. But actually, maybe the thing that makes it the hardest is that I don't have anything to read on LiveJournal anymore. I may be told that I don't write enough, but if I go to a friend's Livejournal, I'm likely to just see an entire page spammed full of my entries. For me though, if I go to my friends page, there's almost nothing to read anymore. There are only two posts on my friends page right now. The most recent is from Carol, and it's a week old. The other is some Livejournal news crap. Dave last wrote a month ago. Marcie's one of my more prolific friends and she generally writes once a month. Carol and Beth are probably the two people I read the most, and it's been over a month since Beth wrote. As much as I write here, I actually like reading far more. I remember at one point I was reading so much on Livejournal that I would watch for my flashing indicator in the system tray whenever someone posted. Not that I'm demanding people write more or anything, but I really truly like hearing about people. I guess to some extent sites like Facebook have kind of taken that on, and of course I'm in pretty regular contact with the people around me already. Oh well, I guess that was very 2003. Nonetheless, I'm going to try and keep writing, even if it means more friends-only entries or something. If nothing else I think this is a good method of keeping my parents up-to-date about things going on in my life that aren't important enough to warrant phone call! current weather: Partly Cloudy, 76, Wind: NW 9 Tags: dave, livejournal
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood:  thoughtful
Current Music: none
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The rest of the final season of Battlestar Galactica doesn't start up again until January, which seems really far away. There may be some good news though... it looks like Caprica, the new prequel to BSG, may be starting up in the fall. There's a trailer, which you can see here. It takes place 51 years before the beginning of Battlestar Galactica and will even feature William Adama, as a child. I guess it will deal specifically with the creation of the Cylons, and will basically be a family drama, something more like "Dallas" than a traditional science-fiction action show. As much as I may love the science-fiction aspects of Battlestar it's the drama and great character development that keeps me interested, so I think this show could have potential. I'll just have to wait and see I guess! current weather: Mostly Cloudy, 74, Wind: calm, Rain today: 0.01"; A tiny thundershower came through around 6:00 pm Tags: bsg, caprica, tv
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood: curious
Current Music: Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles - Divine Bloodlines (Airwave Version)
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Well, I did it, this morning I traded in my beloved Protege for a new 2008 Mazda3:  Basically, once I had decided on the Mazda3 I just kept checking the dealer inventories for the specific model I wanted (a Mazda3 S Touring 5-door) with the options I wanted, or more specifically didn't want (I didn't want the moonroof package), and colors I wanted (silver, blue, light gray or sand, in that order). As of yesterday three dealerships around here had at least part of those. According to Mazda's website, Bass Mazda in Elyria had a perfect match as of last night, the exact model I wanted, in silver. So I called over there this morning to confirm that the car was there, then drove out there and bought it. The buying process wasn't so bad, although I will admit I did slip up in at least one area: revealing the intention to trade in before seeing a price. I know that's a no-no, but I was getting constantly asked and it just was too clear that I was lying that I wasn't sure that I wanted to trade it in. Why is that a mistake? Well, I was thrown off a bit at first because the price that I was offered was actually below what I had decided I would begin bargaining from (which was 5% over invoice). That was great, but then they offered me a good deal less on my trade in than I had hoped for. I had hoped for $2000, which was the Blue Book trade in value for my car assuming "good" condition. I'm willing to concede that "fair" may be a more accurate description of the Protege. If so, the deal wasn't quite as bad. They offered $1200, I insisted on $1500 and it ended up at $1400 after a bit. At any rate, it was good enough, because that managed to bring the effective price back to the point I wanted to bargain from, so at that point, I took it. It was a (relatively) painless process. Buying a car isn't exactly fun, but fortunately I was able to come right in, they had the car sitting out front for me, and it only took about three hours to go through the whole process. The last time I went to the Protege to pick up my last few things in the car, I have to admit, I felt really sad. I've had that car for 8 years! I love the new car though. It also feels particularly good to be mostly done with this whole process. Since I was out in Elyria, I stopped by Liz and Terry's and we went to the driving range for a bit. For some reason I discovered that if I plant my feet (rather than following through with my right foot) while swinging, I can hit the ball MUCH straighter and usually farther as well. I have no idea why, but it was working great! Now I want to get out and golf again sometime soon to try it out. Of course, it's also possible that it was because I was using Terry's clubs. But I don't think so. So anyway, it's been a very good day. I'm pretty tired though, I think a nap sounds really great right now... current weather: Mostly Cloudy/Hazy, 86, Wind: SW 9; It keeps looking like it's going to rain today but maybe it won't Tags: car, photos
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood:  accomplished
Current Music: none
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It seems like every time I go to Krieger's I'm pleasantly surprised by something. Today I discovered that they had lychee. I love lychee, and this is actually the first time I've had a chance to just eat the fruit straight (as opposed to being in my bubble tea or something). I really should go there more often, and in fact, today I pretty much resolved to go there every Wednesday and hit Giant Eagle on Saturday mornings. I've been eating nuts along with yogurt at lunch for the last couple of months, but Krieger's has a much better selection of nuts and trail mix varieties than Giant Eagle. For example, today I picked up some tamari-coated almonds and key lime-flavored peanuts. They also have more flavors of Stonyfield yogurt to choose from. Grandpa Wilson has decided not to purchase the Protege from me, which is just as well, because I didn't realize that he was looking to possibly use the car himself. I don't trust my car to shuttle me around at the moment, so I really don't trust it to shuttle around other members of my family. They're precious cargo. So I will be using it as a trade-in. I called the salesperson I took a test drive last week to find out when he would be available, but haven't heard back. I plan on going out to try and buy a car this Saturday if I don't hear anything by then. current weather: Partly Cloudy, 78, Wind: SW 5; Hotter today, 90 tomorrow Tags: car, food
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: I Am Jen - Voodoo
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