CNN has a nice online section on urban sprawl and New Urbanism, using (naturally) Atlanta as an example of how bad sprawl can get. It’s made up of several pages, but this one featuring Jim Kunstler, the New Urbanism advocate I saw speak a couple weeks ago, is a good place to start.

Interactive webcam! This fellow has a 486 computer sitting near his desk. He’s got a quick-refresh webcam pointing at him. You type text in his webform, and his 486 talks to him. Pretty silly. I like silly.

New Mexico, my former home, with its puny five electoral votes, is this year a key battleground state. The story says that Bush and Gore are running neck and neck there, too. I’m surprised. Most New Mexicans I met would go out of their way to put down a Texan. Local legend has it that at the outbreak of the Civil War, the New Mexico territory waffled on the issue of leaving the Union. When Texas joined the Confederacy, the issue was decided. New Mexico would stay Union and fight Texas. Texas has officially invaded New Mexico on three occasions. When the official border surveys were drawn up, the survey team (Texans, supposedly) made a mistake, resulting in the state line being set a mile or so to far west (look closely at a map showing the common border with Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Notice that the western edge of Oklahoma and Texas don’t quite line up north/south. They were supposed to.). When I was moving away, there was a move afoot to petition the Federal Government to redraw the border as it should have been. It turns out that there are lucrative natural gas deposits right under the border, and the additional mile or so would mke a big difference on revenues. Also, there was a half-hearted movement in Texas to give the area around and including El Paso to New Mexico, as Texas was finding the area difficult to manage from far-away Austin. New Mexico’s reaction was “Ugh! No, thank you!” I think most people don’t realize just how different the entire Chihuahuan desert region is from the rest of the country. In El Paso once, at a McDonald’s downtown on the plaza, I had to order using the illiterate’s picture menu, because I couldn’t communicate with the counter staff. “Big Mac Value Meal” just wasn’t coming across, so we used the pictures to figure out what I wanted.

Mr. dead @ 32 can now die a happy man. He’s turned 32 this month, and he has had a stong feeling that he would die at the age of 32. I can only imagine the emotions he must be experiencing this month. I’ve had premonitions of his sort, but not as strong, and not with a date attached. Here’s hoping that his premonitions were figurative: having achieved his goal, attaining “Sal”, he has begun a new life. I like this idea… he won over Sal on his Birthday. He was dead when he hit 32, and now he’s alive. Mr. Dead @ 32, welcome to the land of the living!

MisterPants has found another gem: Milko Musik Maskin. This site is a Finnish pro-milk campaign where you can (if you have shockwave) compose a song with lyrics and music effects, create the music video, and have it all performed by a signing, dancing cow. Fantastic! Choose from Hårdrock, hip-hop, and disco. Moo. Moo moo moo!

A new (to the world) play by the late Monty Python member Graham Chapman opened last weekend at a small Atlanta theater, Dad’s Garage. Michael Palin and John Cleese served as advisors for the show. I must go see this.

A landowner outside town wants to recreate a European village on a large tract of farmland. He’s gotten all the correct government approval, has a wonderful set of plans drawn up, but, despite successful similar developments elsewhere, he’s having trouble finding a developer to actually build the place. I got to see the land during the Tour de Sprawl a few weeks ago, and I would love to live there. It looks like it’ll be priced outside my range, though.

While most of the surrounding area burned, Athens was spared from destruction during the Civil War. Two markers describe the battle that defended the town.

Last weekend, over 100 webloggers took photos throughout the day for 24 hours for a project titled BEHIND THE CURTAIN: a day in the life of webloggers. I participated, and here is my gallery. Enjoy!

I’m suffering through a hard drive failure in my laptop. Data’s been recovered, and now the reconstruction has begun. Updates to this page will wait until I’m through.