SoloShootsFirst dot com

Had a couple unrelated thoughts this afternoon after discussing a point or two with different people– interested to hear from others on either or both:

1. Why do you think it is that couples tend to hang out with other couples?  You don’t seem to see a couple with a “third wheel” that often, or, just for example, maybe a couple with a pair of un-coupled friends.  I mean, it happens, sure, but why do you think “another couple” would be a couple’s first choice for partners at a social engagement?  What makes that better than one of these other scenarios?
2. The way that people get information seems to shift more and more toward non-traditional means within cyberspace (pseudo-reporting/opinion pieces through blogs being one example).  I wonder if there’s any verifiable evidence that average Internet users are shying away from traditional news mediums, and, if so, I wonder if and when there will ever be a backlash where someone starts saying, “What the hell does this guy know?  That’s just an opinion…”  Maybe it comes out of time and experience, or maybe there has been a slow and steady shift, but journalism seems to be more subjective than ever.  I’m wondering, when is the backlash due to happen, and is there any way we can speed it up?

Carry on with your weekend.  I have 64 minutes to go.

There are a lot of things that I will not miss at all about living in this apartment.  The astronomical energy costs during the winter are probably number one.  The water that takes at least 2 or 3 minutes to heat up (and sometimes quite a bit more) is another.  There’s also this ridiculous issue of hardware with my cable.

Back in February or March I started to notice a major upload-speed issue, and I had to have a tech come out to install some signal dampening device on the modem.  Then about 2 weeks ago, my connection went down, completely, and I was only able to get back online by removing that device.  Well, today it is virtually impossible to get connected to my house.  I waited around 4 minutes for my website to load, and retrieving email is more or less impossible.

Don’t know why I’m ranting about this, since no one is going to be able to read this entry today anyway.  But yeah, I’m looking forward to living somewhere where they’ve had cable before, and probably have the whole neighborhood network regulated a bit better.

Just 33 days left til moving day…

Back to work after a long weekend.  Glad that I’m only in for a half-day today…

I’ve had some inquiries, and just wanted to let any curious parties know right off the bat– nothing particularly exciting happened over the weekend.  Had a pleasant time in the Apostle Islands region and that was it.  Madeline Island is nice.  The weather was pretty good.  It rained a bit on Sunday, but wasn’t too big of a deal.  Kayaking was fun.  I’d like to do it again.

Michelle and I are going to go to the Brewers game on Wednesday; they extended that $10 outfield loge special for an extra day and we managed to get 2 seats together.

I am enjoyed this New Scientist feed, and I have to thank David Q. Schrubbe for sending me its links a number of times and getting me keyed in there…

Anyway, I read a story today about a study to investigate how knowledge about global warming effects a person’s perception of the phenomenon. The finding was that more knowledgeable Democrats were more concerned, and more knowledgeable Republicans were less concerned.

I mention it just because this echoes my experience trying to talk about the subject to a T. What I don’t understand, and what I wish some conservative die-hard could tell me is: if climate change is, as you like to believe, some sort of liberal conspiracy invented by Al Gore (much like the Internet), then… what would be the POINT of that? All these scientists doing all this research, taking all these core samples, compiling all this data– how exactly does this advance some perceived liberal agenda to trash capitalism and take away everyone’s guns?

And I realize that I might’ve mentioned this before, but no one ever came back to me with an answer.

On a completely different side note, this will likely be the last post for me until after Memorial Day. Michelle and I are headed up to Bayfield and Madeline Island for a long weekend. Hope you enjoy yours; weather’s supposed to be phenomenal in Milwaukee…