Is High Speed Rail a Good Thing?

Pandora's box is actually a large jar carried by Pandora that, when opened by her, unleashed many terrible things on mankind – ills, toils and sickness – and hope. Contrary to popular belief, in the original story, Pandora's "box" was not actually a box at all, but rather a jar. Hence, the historically correct term would be "Pandora's jar"

But this has absolutely nothing to do with my blog.
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So you all know I'm pissed at DIRECT TV for taking away my good stations on Sirius/XM and I let them know about it. Their response was that they were sorry "XM" caused me to be mad at them.

OK!

ANYWAY - I continued to complain in a popular Golf Forum (85,000 members) and a guy asked if I had ever used Pandora. I replied I still had all my hair and my memory was decent (although I did find out yesterday while I cozyed up to my favorite urinal my zipper was already open which explained few things . . I thought I was just having a particularly dashing day but perhaps it was my zipper).

ANYWAY - In Pandora you enter a song or group and it searches and creates a "station" with "like" music. The first thing I tried was Pink Floyd (1st thing that popped into my head) and Dark Side was played, then Led Zepplin then Beatles . . . SWEET so then I typed in Shostakovitch and something by my buddy Dimtri was played (oddly his good stuff was written at about the same time Dillinger was around Columbus), next was some other Russian Composer.  COOL!!  

I tried " Disturbed" and I found a new button "Why did we pick this song?" so I clicked on it "We're playing this track because it features hard rock roots , a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rhythmic syncopation, repetitive melodic phrasing and minor key tonality"


Well yea - of course, I should have just typed that in instead!!!

NEW STATION - I typed in Lacuna Coil! Hard rock root, heavy use of vocal harmonies, use of a string ensemble, a clear focus on recording studio production and a mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation?

AGAIN - I should have just typed that in. Now I hear two new groups I have never heard before Sirenia and Nightwish.  Nightwish is GREAT!!!! more mild rhythmic syncopation (what the hell is that anyway!!), acoustic rhythm piano and intricate melodic phrasing - I REALLY like these guys - I need to buy their CD . . . .wait - how easy is this! - I can buy it right here!!! What luck!

I guess I really like goth-influenced symphonic heavy metal bands with female leads and dorky looking Russian composers that look like one of my high school math teachers.

So check out Pandora and just try to get work down after that!!

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I'm trying to get a Historic Columbus Photograph Facebook page going. Getting some positive responses and I'm looking into legal issues with the guy that runs the Historic Madison Photographs site which is GREAT.

Anybody have an interest?
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I have been looking at water and the amount of precipitation we have been getting and then I read that America is basically drought free.  Only a few times in the last 200 years as the U.S. had so much water and such a lack if drought!  92% of America is drought free compared to 2007 when it was 50%.

In Columbus we have had a dry winter except for December and this month there is nothing in the future that will hint at ANY snow for the next few weeks. Perhaps a butterfly will sneeze in Zimbabwe and create a storm but until he sneezes were free of snow until March.

Winter temperatures are lower then norm.  November we were 7.7 above average for the average high (who cares about the Low, I'm sleeping then) December1.5 below avg and January 1.5 below.  Right now we are 4.1 below average in February.

Yea - what do I remember NOAA saying? warmer and wetter then average?  Still - this has been a good winter, meaning it has not been a BAD winter.   Any winter that is not a BAD is good.
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Columbus will not lose it's Amtrak Station for the High Speed Railand as it seems Amtrak wants nothing to do with High Speed Rail (HSR). One problem is that if they rerouted the HSR to Columbus this would change the schedule more then 1 hour behind on the Empire Builder and that would be a very bad thing.  Amtrak LOVES Columbus as it's a money maker station for Amtrak. If you have not noticed the Columbus Station is PACKED every train.

This is why it is important for the downtown to get it's act together and embrace Amtrak somehow and get those people to travel a few blocks to the city.

Plus - many communities along the HSR path are not real happy. THEY have to provide their own station and many roads along the way will be blocked with train crossings. Plus they will lose business as now potential customers will zip past going 150 mph.  There are a lot of strings attached and while I'm not anti HSR it's not ALL wonderful as it's being made out to be.  We already have a train going to Chicago and Milwaukee is not THAT far is it?  What are the benefits?  I believe it has many hidden financial problems.

In Madison there was a thriving area now called the Atwood area but when they built Atwood avenue it sped people PAST that area and it became blight for many many years. This is what High Speed Rail can do to communities.  Move people past towns. 
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Anybody hear of the Flower Game for PS3s?   A co-worker turned me on to this and I'm interested. Flower was primarily intended to provoke positive emotions in the player, rather than to be a challenging and "fun" game.   I've been reading reviews and man, for $9.99 it gets rave reviews from everybody.   The audio and video are breathtaking.

Gamespot reviews "The idea behind Flower is to collect petals by steering a gust of wind through idyllic pastures. You guide the wind using the motion-sensitive controller and use any button to accelerate, which lets you take the game at your own pace. In fact, you're encouraged to lose yourself in this digitally created nirvana, and the time slows down to help you take it all in whenever you're not accelerating. There's no incentive to collect every petal in each level, but key flowers return the environment to its natural vibrancy. It's a serene experience, and though it's engaging, prolonged play will lull you into a deep state of relaxation.       

Here is the official trailer for Flower.






have a fun Wednesday
Rod