Laugavegur Trail (Iceland)

I was looking around on Something Awful for threads about backpacking sleeping bags, and came across this amazing thread about backpacking in Iceland. Oh man, I really want to do this now. It's like visiting another world out there. Totally surreal.

Put this Sigur Ros music video on in the background and read this thread to see what I'm talking about. Backpacking Christmas here I come!

Newspaper Industry Hit Hard in 3rd Quarter

Hey all, thought you might be interested in this, Happy Thanksgiving:

Newspaper sales fall 21% in historic rout
Newspaper advertising sales dived by a record 21.1% in the third quarter in a historic, across-the-board rout paced by a nearly 31% plunge in classified revenues.

Barely eking out $9 billion in print sales in the three months ended in September, the industry shed more than $1 billion in revenues from the same period in the prior year, according to statistics published quietly on the afternoon before Thanksgiving by the Newspaper Association of America (continued).

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/2008/11/newspaper-sales-fall-21-in-historic.html
http://www.naa.org/TrendsandNumbers/Advertising-Expenditures.aspx
http://www.slideshare.net/hblodget/mary-meeker-web-20-presentation-presentation

Death in Gaza

Never Again

This summer I went on a backpacking trip up a mountain about 6 hours away from where I live. We had the best luck all the way up and down that 8,000 ft mountain, only for it all to nearly fall apart at the end.

First we got down, only to realize I couldn't find the keys to my car. 3 hours from cell-phone reception. Miraculously, after a half-hour of searching I found them lodged into my ruck harness - presumably where they had landed when I was quickly packing that morning, despite 6 hours of hiking over rough terrain. That by itself could have turned pretty ugly.

But we got on the road, and drove 3 hours to my friend's hometown, only to eat a bunch of food and burn a bunch of time because we were tired and indecisive. By the time I finally get on the road I've been up 12 hours, hiked down a mountain, and had about 6 hours sleep in the last 48. Alone on the straightest, most boring road you can imagine - and it's getting dark.

After about an hour, I pull off to the side because I'm getting groggy. But with traffic whipping past me I don't want to stop there. In retrospect, I should have slept right then and there. But I don't, I get back on the road and call my friends to see if they want to meet up and drive my car. Only there's nowhere to stop, and I'm barely hanging on at this point.

Eventually we figure out that there's a rest area (the only one for hours in either direction) up ahead that I can pull into and wait in. So now I've got my window open and my radio blasting and I'm drinking water and trying to keep my eyes open. I see the familiar blessed sign - and it informs me that there is a rest area in 9.5 miles. That's like an eternity to me at this point.

Semis are blasting past me on the other side of the two-lane highway with their bright beams disorienting as hell, and their shocking passage is terrifyingly close at this point. I finally see the rest area sign again - 2 miles to go. Dear god, this is brutal.

The cars behind me are getting close as I slow down because I DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS EXIT. But their beams make me further disoriented, and at this point I figure I have about 5 minutes left before I'll just fall asleep. I've already heard the rumblestrip a couple times, and I figure this is it. I see the familiar blue rest area sign (my vision is so bad at this point it's hard to focus on anything more than that) - 3/4 mile. No shit. I remember being infuriated at this. Who the hell plants so many signs for a damn rest area?

The last 1/2 mile brought me to my limit. I had started the day at the top of a mountain, and now I was about to die like a fucking idiot. I pretty much lost control of my speed at this point, coasting along at 10 under and focusing entirely upon the course and staying awake. I see the final sign up ahead, but to add insult to injury a huge line of semis zooms past me in the other direction. It felt like a gauntlet. In the end I'm barely able to limp off the road and into the rest area parking lot, where I fall asleep almost instantly.

I woke up one hour later with my friend knocking on the window with a concerned smile. She got some coffee and then drove us home. I'm never doing that to myself ever again.

More stories of near death experiences can be found in this thread. There's one about a kayaker on a Class 5 rapid that made me wince, and then want to write my own.

The Monty Python Channel on YouTube

Yeah.

Oh Snap!

I am lost for words, this is awesome.

Armistice Day

It's a bit late to mention it, but today was Armistice Day - the day that the Great War was ended in 1918. It is traditional in Europe to wear red poppies this day in remembrance of the fallen, and here in the States we call it Veteran's Day, which has an awkward competition with Memorial Day (effectively the same holiday.)

10 veterans of that war survive to this day, including one American, and it's amazing to think of the changes they have experienced in the 90 years since then. The embedded link is to one of my favorite episodes of the fantastic BBC4 miniseries The First World War. If you are interested in this kind of thing, I'd definitely suggest watching it.

On a side note, yesterday was the Marine Corps birthday, celebrating the birth of the Marine Corps in the Tun Tavern 233 years ago. The affair is traditionally a jarhead affair all the way around, which resulted in a few Brits getting miffed that 'those damn Yanks' were cutting cakes with swords while generals were doing shots with privates on what was supposed to be a solemn occasion. But it was just a timezone difference.

Apparently this year it also resulted in the acronym USMC getting spray painted across half a US Army base in California.

One Day in the Near Future

President-elect Barack Obama held his first press conference today on the economy. It was actually a little weird to watch him acting so ... presidential. I kept on expecting people to start chanting "Fired up, Ready to Go!" Something different, but in a good way.

In any case, my dear Aunt Jini sent me a chain-mail today. While, as some might know, this is not particularly newsworthy it did seem timely and topical, and I thought that I would like to share:

One sunny day in January, 2009 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The old man said, "Okay", and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."

OBAMA Obama obama obama....

Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

Though I was at first disinclined to post the above news, my new favorite website convinced me that I probably should. Plus, I definitely know more than one person who has found themselves completely at a loss now that the election is over.

Fortunately, Obama's new website, Change.gov, has posted job offers! Want to compete with 30,000 other people to file papers? Check it out!

What Might Have Been

MORE POLITICAL FALLOUT IN THIS HOUSE!:

Fox News has gotten aboard the post-campaign secrets train, releasing information that Palin was about as dumb as a doornail. Apparently she was not only too much of a rogue for the Maverick, but she didn't know that Africa was a continent. And she was almost Vice-President!

While it is hard to say whether the as yet anonymously sourced story will turn out to be true, it certainly seems to have made the Republicans look a little foolish. But don't think that this is a sign that the ship is going down for good, this could easily be the RNC throwing her under the bus for its own survival, or even the first play by Republican favorite Mitt Romney for the 2012 election.

In other news, after a grueling race and a two-day count, the Oregonian is now predicting Democrat Jeff Merkley will take the Oregon Senator seat from incumbent Republican Gordon Smith, edging the DNC ever closer to their super-majority. While it is unlikely that Democrats will actually attain all 60 seats, Merkley's success signals an "exponential" increase in their ability to overcome the Republican filibusters that have plagued the Democratic party ever since their takeover of Congress two years ago.

In even more local news, Republican Rick Dancer, formerly a KEZI anchor, is trailing Democrat Kate Brown by 3,000 votes, while the latest results from Lane elections show a slight lead in the Eugene mayoral race between Democratic incumbent Kitty Piercy and conservative rival Jim Torrey. That race should continue on to tomorrow, as the Lane County elections suffered a several hour delay Tuesday after a system failed and they had to restart the count on a redundant system.

And in the closest race of all, liberal Rob Handy holds a nail-biting 113 vote lead over incumbent North Eugene County Commissioner Bobby Green (a margin of .03 percent, state law mandates an automatic recount if the margin is less than .2 percent).

Final results will come in tomorrow morning, and it would not be surprising if this 13,000 vote election comes down to a margin less than the number of write-ins (currently 77), never mind the under votes (people who turned in a ballot without marking a preference in the commissioner race - 3,754).

Good Effort, Good Effort

So ... we win. Obama is president-elect, and should hopefully rule the roost for quite some time. I'm not sure what else to say about it, I was so exhilarated that it kind of settled into a feeling of unreality. Fun.

Anywho, now that the election is all done with, on to bigger and better things. Newsweek is publishing a behind-the-scenes project that is showcasing all the stories we couldn't hear during the campaign season: like, for example, that Palin spent way more on clothing than was revealed; or that both the major Obama and McCain databases were hacked by China or Russia, and huge amounts of data were pulled down for what the FBI and Secret Service termed "[uses] in negotiations with a future administration".

Moving on, Russia's oil economy is so bad that people are talking about revolution due to unemployment doubling. Good thing they announced plans today to put missiles on its Western border.

Good luck Obama! Make us proud!

Election Soundtrack

Peter, Paul and Mary are today's election soundtrack for me, just thought I'd share. They are damned good if you don't recognize the name, but you're sure to know all their music even if you didn't know you did.

Godspeed Obama

Well it is 2300 here in Eugene, Oregon, and it is almost hard to believe that the election is finally here. It has been a long, hard-fought campaign - the most expensive in history. But in only a few short hours voting booths will start to open on the East Coast. I can only hope that in 24 hours we will be able to begin closing this dark chapter in American history that has been the last 8 years under Republican leadership.

To Barack Obama, and all of his many supporters around this nation: Good night, and good luck.

Twitter

I'm not feeling well so I decided to sit down and try and figure out what the deal is with Twitter. After setting up an account and playing with it and reading about it, I've come to a few conclusions.

1. It is basically just the Internet Relay Chat that I played with as a kid, only with more mediums of communication that just an IRC client. So now you don't need to be a nerd to use it. Of course I don't use IRC anymore either.

2. Apparently journalists are losing their minds over it, and the RNC convention rioting was apparently some kind of turning point where people without Twitter were some stone age morons. Of course, considering how poor the coverage of the RNC convention was anyways I don't think that's saying much.

3. It is pretty cool to see a huge channel like http://election.twitter.com/.