Category: Uncategorized

So tonight I was watching Star Wars (nevermind that I’ve seen it countless times already), Luke’s flying down the trench, about to blow up the Death Star.

Luke turns off his targeting computer, when all of a sudden, there’s a knock on the door.

So I pause the movie to answer the door, politely blowing off some guy selling something or other. I sit back down and try to watch the rest of the movie, but I can’t.

The interruption just ruined the momentum. If it had happened at any other moment, I would have been fine. But even with Luke just seconds from saving the rebellion, I just couldn’t get into it.

I never thought Star Wars could be ruined, but there you go. Perfect timing, Mr. door-to-door salesman. The dark side is strong with you.

So today while walking home, I was quite alarmed upon seeing the following:

My first reaction was thinking we were on the precipice of the armageddon.  But after coming to my senses, I realized they’re trying to move some digital TV boxes to the remaining 2 percent of the American populace who aren’t ready for the transition.

Back in 1994, Michael Moore’s Michael Moore’s TV Nation (back when he was entertaining) had an episode where he featured crackpot groups that believed the end days were near.  One group predicted the world would end on September 15 (my birthday) of that year.  I was quite relieved that morning to wake up in my bed, rather than a flaming inferno.  Of course, later that morning, I read that Major League Baseball cancelled the World Series was cancelled, so maybe in a way, the crackpots were right.

Anyway, it’s a relief that CVS sign isn’t advertising the apocalypse. I’m not ready for the end of the world yet.

From Fox News:

Philadelphia’s primary mass transit agency is embarrassed about a discount pass it sold that features a picture of New York City.

The pass is marked with the logo for Philly Beer Week, a festival celebrating local breweries and taverns. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is selling the pass to discourage people from driving from one event to another during the festival.

A spokeswoman for the agency, Jerri Williams, says transit officials liked the look of the pass but didn’t realize the stock photo was of the wrong city.

I haven’t been to Philly in years, but I never thought it’s skyline resembled New York’s at all.  Guess it’s a good thing most of the people who would be using those passes won’t have full control of their faculties.

Winter, slumbering in the open air, wears on its smiling face a dream… of spring. Ciao. 

–Phil Connors, 2/2/1993

We’ve had a hellacious winter here in central Ohio.

It seems like there was no fall–back in October, the weather felt like it went from summer to freezing temperatures instantaneously.  And in the last few weeks, while it hasn’t piled up, it has felt like it’s snowed every day.

Well, yesterday, we were told, we’d get this huge storm- and for once, the weather people were right.  Had a few inches Tuesday morning, then a brief respite during the day.  But right around 5:00, it started snowing again, which turned to sleet, to freezing rain, and back to huge chunks of white death falling from the sky, which is where we are now.

When The Civee and I first woke up this morning, we figured we’d clean off our car and see how things were. Well, there was a slight problem- our front door wouldn’t open.  The door was frozen shut at the bottom.  After leaving through the other door, we started clearing the ice off our car, which went well until our scraper broke.  After that, we figured someone was trying to tell us something and here we are, looking out the window, watching these huge snowflakes keep falling.

Hi , i’m the webmaster of [redacted], and i see u’re website http://www.the-king-tom.com who’s had a PageRank of 0  and , i would know if u want to exchange a backlink with me ? .
If that’s okay , can u put this backlink on you’re homepage :
<a href=[redacted]’>[redacted]</a>
Thanks to give me you’re backlink and i put on my homepage ( PR 5 )
Excuse Me for my english , but i’m french.
Best Regard
Webmaster

-E-mail received earlier today from a French visitor

I know I haven’t posted in a while, but this is ridiculous.

It’s been 13 days since I’ve last written (and the last post was a collection of recipes rather than the usual intellectual highbrow thoughts presented here at the kingdom).  I’ve been thinking, but nothing has really inspired me–and I doubt people want to read me complaining about the cold.  But today, inspiration came to my e-mail box.

First, I received note that the one little bit of “marketing” I do for the Kingdom is set to expire at the end of the month.  It’s not that much, so I’ll pony up to re-sponsor the page of the Yankees’ greatest Japanese pitcher.  The only trick is remembering to do so.  I have two-and-a-half more weeks.

The second thing to hit my e-mail box is the e-mail I’ve included at the top of this post.  I’m not going to publish the guy’s name or Web site, but this guy in France wants to include the Kingdom as part of his directory of French Web sites.  Granted, if I were to write him an e-mail in French it would probably come out as bad as his did in English (and that’s with six years of French classes!).  Still, after seeing his site, I doubt it would help me with traffic and I’m fine with this site being read by the five people kind enough to visit whenever they do (thanks Mom!) and those who come here expecting something else.

So to those of you who visit, there will be more writing in the coming days, weeks and months (with Lost starting in less than 16 days, you can bet I’ll have something to write about).  And thanks for stopping by.