29 August 2009

End of Reading Rainbow

I heard on NPR yesterday that Reading Rainbow is going off the air because no one wants to fund it.  That's unfortunate.  There's also an article on the Wall Street Journal's website.

25 August 2009

Skyline Drive History

For anyone in the Maryland Outdoor Club reading this (or anyone else for that matter!), here's a link to a historical site on Skyline Drive.  For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, that's the road that traverses Shenandoah National Park.  There's a picture on the National Park Service's website of what looks like the same overlook that I stopped at last fall and took pictures at.  I'm looking forward to the fall.

19 August 2009

Paying Attention on the Taconic Parkway

I read an article in the Times on the Taconic Parkway the other day and agreed with many of the points made.  The Taconic definitely requires attention when driving it.  The lanes are thin, and there is not much space between the shoulder and the center guard rail.  It's kind of like the section of the George Washington Memorial Parkway between I-395 and where it starts to climb up away from the Potomac.

Another thing to pay attention to on the Taconic Parkway is your speed.  The New York State Police love that road.

16 August 2009

Still More on United Breaks Guitars

Here is an update to my two posts on United Breaking Guitars.  According to this blog post, the musician packed his guitar for transit in a soft case.  Also, to protect themselves against future mishaps, United now makes you sign a waiver before you ship your guitar with them.  While I agree it would have been nicer if they had been more careful with the guitar, Dave Carroll (the musician) did not help matters when he packed his guitar in a soft case.

15 August 2009

Dickinson Law Library History

For those of you DSLers out there reading, Penn State's libraries posted an article by Mark Podvia about the history of Dickinson's library.  I liked, especially, the discussion of the tobacco chewers trying to aim for a hole in the floor.

10 August 2009

A Drive-In Movie Theatre Near Carlisle That I Missed

There was a story on NPR about the Cumberland Drive-In in Newville.   I never made it there during law school.  There's also an MP3 download of the story available.

08 August 2009

The Recording Industry and Its Future

There was an article in the Times (thanks Matt) about the future of the recording industry.  The statement by the article about the amount of music that people are streaming instead of listening to online surprised me.  I guess, with Myspace, and how it allows people to stream music, I should not find this that surprising.  But, on the other hand, you can't listen to streamed music on an iPod.

What did not surprise me as much was how people hardly bought CDs anymore.  I've bought a few CDs this year, but then, I think only from bands that I saw perform in person.  I did this partially to support the band, because I figured I was cutting out middle men.

There are very few CDs that I've purchased (even from bands) where I've liked a lot of the songs on them.  The two that I can think of right now are a promotional CD that was put out by a Newfoundland supermarket chain to celebrate the 500th anniversary of John Cabot discovering Newfoundland and Heroes by Paul Overstreet.