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Polygamous sect leader, Warren Steed Jeffs, has been captured by the FBI. Warren and his backwards name was stopped in a routine car stop along Interstate 15 by a Nevada State Trooper. Jeffs was stopped outside of Las Vegas for not having tags on his 2007 Red Cadillac Escalade (his temporary tags were not visible). Jeffs is the leader of a Mormon sect that believes in polygamy and doesn't recognize the rights of minors. He gained his spot on the Top Ten Most Wanted for sexual assault on a minor among other charges. Officials had been worried that this might turn into another Waco due to Jeffs's heavily fortified and armed compound in Colorado City.

It is likely that Anderson Cooper will have a special broadcast on him tonight since they had quite a lengthy one when he was initially placed on the Top Ten List. No word yet on a replacement for him on the top ten list, this generally takes a couple of weeks for the agency to decide who should be placed there.

Great White roller coaster, Wildwood NJ

The first half of this week I'll be enjoying my time on Vacation down in Wildwood (pictured). I'll be starting out in Atlantic City possibly on Saturday morning and coming home for a little shindig. Then Sunday through Tuesday I'll be staying overnight somewhere in Wildwood. I can't wait to enjoy their boardwalk and waffles and ice cream!

Visit my flickr page: j.reed

Labels: flickr

Well, if you're reading this at the exact moment I posted this, you only have just over 5 hours to download it. For the past two days Microsoft has been allowing downloads of this game for free. I don't know if there is any particular marketing strategy behind it or if its just the results of this petition.

Either way, I hope that Microsoft follows up on this in the future, bringing attention to their Xbox Live Marketplace paid downloads. Maybe they'll have free days again, or over time, offer older games for free. Frankly, I don't see any other way that I'd get Frogger or Galaga unless they're free. They're not fresh new looks on the decade old classics, just shoddy ports of them that they think they can charge $5 for.

In other worldwide gaming news, I've signed up for GameFly. My first game I got so far is Dead Rising, its pretty awesome and I'm progressing well. If I keep this game (and all other games) for four months or less, I've saved money versus buying that individual title. I have the one game at a time plan for $14.99. The downside is that it takes quite sometime for it to come in the mail, but I guess if you keep the game for a few months, 4 days isn't that long.

Also Blogging:
Free Poker in XBLM, Lumines Live extra fees - Happy Ride

The Season Two premier of Prision Break is up for 100% free and legal viewing pleasure right here. It wasn't a phenomenal episode, but good none the less. I'm looking forward to this season, seeing as they're now outside the prison walls. Michael Scofield (main character) has seemingly "met his match" in intelligence and has a FBI agent hot on his trail. Enjoy.

If you fancy watching television news programs, you've probably already seen this. A Florida man was stopped for speeding and playing his 'music' loudly. According to the man, he was listing not to rap or rock 'n' roll, but Bill O'Reilly. The driver continues to berate the officer who just calmly listens and makes an occasional comment. Way to go Officer Friendly! Hooray for national media humiliation!
this post includes an embedded video availible here

Labels: funny, law enforcement, video

NYC's Municipal Transport Authority announced their high tech Rail Control Center and they're also testing their nifty spiffy R-160 trains on the N line.

The photo on the right is of the R-160's fancy dynamic stop information display. It can update for services changes, wither it be for a reduced late night/weekend schedule, a temporary diversion, or construction. These new trains are vital to the new command center and new train information systems at each station platform. If all goes well in this not-less-than 30 day test, the MTA will purchase 600+ cars from their manufacturer. Each time they encounter a problem, the 30 day test period starts over, so far, it has started over once. As far as I know, these new trains don't contain anti-urine seats.

With all these new trains and increased ridership the MTA is launching their high tech control station. Currently they can only tell if there is a train in a 600 ft long block section, with the new system, they should be able to tell where the train is at to the foot. This will enable displays at stations notifying awaiting riders of their wait time for their train. Allowing trains to ride closer together though the advanced features of this center will allow more trains to run, and thus a higher passenger capacity. The location of what, when finished in four years, will be the most advanced rail control system in the world, is a guarded secret, as it could potentially be a terrorism target.

Labels: new york, subway

Here is the Lion's Gate Bridge in Vancouver, British Columbia. My buddy Duncan over at Happy Ride may have seen this bridge while across the pond in the mainland of the city. There isn't anything impressive about this three reversible lane bridge, but the detail on the underneath of the deck is amazing. The photo was shot with a two minute exposure! Looks like a front was coming in too, since the clouds have moved so much within those two minutes.

Visit my flickr page: j.reed

Labels: flickr

Tomorrow you can look forward to a weekly feature called "flickr friday". Every Friday I'll post one of my favorite shots that I've found on flickr. It'll look similar to what I've done here and here. Flickr lets you make a template for blogging images from their site. I've fixed that all up and I'm satisfied that I'm ready for my first flickr friday which should be here very early this morning or late tomorrow night.

Leave comments if you have any photos to suggest and Please Enjoy!

Labels: flickr

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transport Authority is already prepared for the recent liquid explosives terrorism scare. SEPTA has been testing two $300,000 liquid explosive detection devices since February, and is thus the first transit system in the U.S. to use it. The device takes two minutes to complete a scan and doesn't require the opening of the bag. I believe they swab the bag and then test the swab strip, but don't hold me to this. It's really a trade off, since a standard random bag search probably takes less then a minute, but you'll have someone rummaging through your dirty underwear from the gym and all of your dirty magazines (or your stash of weed!). I don't know why anyone would want to attack SEPTA when they have New York's MTA just two hours north and a hellva lot bigger system, its just nice to know that your local agencies are looking out for you.

Labels: philadelphia, subway

I've been to all these cool looking blogs recently, and I'm a bit jealous of their handsome nature. I've made an attempt to make each post look more noticeable by upping the text size and changing some letter/line spacing. I've been avoiding posting two blogs per day because I felt like they ran together and there was ambiguity on when it was actually posted. I've changed around the dating and the line breaks that distinguish two different days of posting. Usually when I blog and it focuses on one web page or news article the title links to the reference. They used to be in a different color, but now all titles are black. Links are indicated by a dotted black line underneath the title. Hover them for a thicker line to show up for further linkage conformation. Hopefully we're look at one to two blogs tonight/early am and at least one tomorrow.

Also: Photo section on the right and larger text for comment links.

Update: I've also removed the top image temporally so I could reduce the width of the page so it will fit on 1024x768 screens.

New York's Finest just got themselves some new rides. They've just taken delivery of fifteen brand new 2006 Dodge Chargers. The majority of them are loaded up with massive 5.7 liter Hemi V-8s, good for a cool 380 340 horsepower. I've had the pleasure of driving one of these engines fitted in a Chrysler 300C. It was quite a fast ride, and appropriately, since the ten Hemi NYPD Chargers will be used for the Highway Unit. The remaining five will remain on the beat as a standard RMPs (radio motor patrols) in the five boroughs.

They're tough looking cars though I do prefer the Dodge Magnum. Possibly because I have some affinity towards sporty looking wagons, but mostly I feel that it looks more professional than the racer looking rear end on the Charger. My favorite modern cop car has to be the Impala, not too small, not too large, and very official looking. They need to at least start digging the black steel wheels on the new Chargers, the silver ones are ridiculous looking!

I just had one of the delicious new vanilla frostys from Wendy's! The very first time I went to Wendy's I ordered a vanilla frosty, they told me that they only had chocolate! I was devastated, I absolutely abhor chocolate. I sat around for years, watching people enjoy the chocolate variety, hoping that some day they'd make it in a flavor that I love. Recently Wendy's has been trying to win over a larger audience to help its falling sales spring back. (I'm sure the finger-in-chili farce has a lot to do with that.) They've introduced a ¢99 chicken sandwich which is quite a good deal and a decent treat. Hopefully they'll come up with something that keeps their fries from getting soggy (although sometimes I do enjoy them that way.)

If you look at the article press release they have has some fancy facts about the frosty:

• The original Frosty was one of the five products on Wendy's menu in 1969. The others were hamburgers, chili, French fries and beverages. The original price of a Frosty was 35-cents.
• The original flavor is actually a combination of chocolate and vanilla.
• The Frosty is served at a temperature of between 19 and 21 degrees. (It has to be served at the right temperature to keep it thick and maintain the right texture.)
• Wendy's restaurants annually serve about 300 million Frostys. The 12- ounce, 99-cent serving on Wendy's Super Value Menu is the most popular size.
  

I'm looking forward to having one every time the store gets lunch from Wendy's. I've tried dipping my fries and my nuggets into it, and its really not a bad combination! Did you know that Wendy's owns the succesful donut chain in Canada, Tim Horton's? They're the force suppressing Dunkin' Donuts and keeping Krispy Kreme out of the country.

This is seriously great! I've just recently started watching the reruns of Special Victims Unit and Criminal Intent. I personally prefer CI with Vincent D'Onofrio (the bug that "stole my husband's skin" in MIB) and Kathryn Erbe from sexyville. In this Sesame Street skit, four police muppets investigate the missing "m". My only question is whats up with the transvestite cow ... Murray? You just have to love how all the characters refer to the Law and Order sound as the "chung chung" thing.
this post includes an embedded video availible here

Labels: video

The UK just lowered their threat level from their highest level, critical, to their next highest, severe. They've eased restrictions at London's airports but delays are still plentiful. Laptops and other electronics are now allowed on airplanes. Cellphones and liquids are still not. I think it is odd that they allow a large device such as a laptop to be carried on, but not a cell phone? If the stories are true, a couple of people's cell phones are what prevented that last plane from crashing into a building and inflicting more casualties.

The most important lesson to learn from all of this is a piece of the store that I seldom hear mentioned:

According to a British intelligence official, the planned near-simultaneous attacks -- which one top U.S. official said were intended to be "a second September 11th" -- were foiled when a member of the country's Muslim community noticed an acquaintance acting suspiciously and went to authorities. An undercover British agent then infiltrated the group to gather information, U.S. government officials told CNN.

That really highlights that being Muslim doesn't make you hate America. Even if this Muslim does disagree with the US's and UK's international policies, it shows that there are good people out there that really care about preventing the loss of innocent human life regardless of their political or religious affiliations. I commend this hero and encourage everyone to think of this good willed British citizen next time you see a Muslim and think the worst.

Hopefully with the recent ESPN X Games rally portion the sport will become more mainstream here in the US. I believe that the Speed Channel recently dropped to almost no coverage of national and international rally events. This was probably done so they could get more redneck NASCAR fans watching. You know, the type of people that would watch rallies and say "Dem racers go left an' right?!"

The first, second, and third place finishers were all driving Subaru WRX STi rally cars. The driver of the winning car was Travis Pastrana, whom some of you may know from dirt bike (Moto Freesytyle) type events, which he also won first place an event for that. Basically, thats good news for my father's employer and my favorite brand of automobile, Subaru (I drive a Legacy GT). Not only do they have some winning cars, but they've also got a cross-genre sports star and a prominent and professional rally driver winning races for them.

The highlight of the event surely has to be when Collin McRae lost the gold by rolling his car on the last jump to finish only .52 seconds behind Pastrana. Videos from Google Video are here and YouTube are here.

Prison break is on dvd now. I had downloaded every episode for this first season. The show is quite good! Season 2 starts this fall.

Another great shot from New York found on flickr via Gothamist.

Do you think the shy is photoshopped or is it just a camera trick? I love how the top half of the photo is unreal and then as you pan down to see the street it really comes alive.

Labels: flickr, new york

I think I fixed my blog so it views properly in IE. Hopefully. Stop using it! My blog looks better in Firefox thanks to PNGs!

Someone found out this neat feature that lets you change the Google Video Layout to an experimental YouTube style layout. I quite fancy the new look it gives to Google Video. I'm not a fan of YouTube because it looks too much like myspace to me, with shitty graphics, basic colors, and this whole Internet circa 2001 feeling to it. Hopefully they'll permanently roll it out to all users as default and then allow the current view to be uses as a stepping stone between full screen and the small default screen.

So this makes me wonder, when will they make Picasa Web Albums more like flickr? The problem with Web Albums is just that, its nothing but an album. Its made to share an entire series of photos. I'd like to be able to have it sorted the same way it is, but have an emphasis on individual photos. Currently, you can't even link to just one photo, you have to link to the album. Seems like you can actually. There is only a small caption option available for each image, you can't draw the boxes on the image like flickr and describe each part. Comments can be left for each image, but users can't 'star' (mark as favorite) or vote for each photo. User's don't have the seemingly common "Blog This" button or any features that they can use to share other than a link that will email an invitation to the album to your party. What about tagging? It is present in Google Reader and Personalized Search bookmarks, along with a host of other things, but absent from Blogger and Picasa Web Albums.

Besides making Web Albums more flickr-like, I think they should make the software and the website work together better. I want to see captions that change on the Picasa software to update onto the website (unless you've already changed the caption online to something different). I'd like to see automatic upload of photos added to a label placed into its respective album online. Say I star an item, it should get uploaded with its caption "Roler Coaster" and tags "ride" "summer" and "friends" onto my "Starred Photos" album in Picasa. When I realize that I spelled Roller Coaster wrong, I should be able to change it in Picasa to "Roller Coaster" and then have Web Albums follow its lead. If I had changed it to "Nitro at Six Flags" on Web Albums after I uploaded it, it should stay as that even when I correct the error in the desktop software.

Its not all gripes though. I do LOVE how it loads and displays photos (could we have more than two zoom levels please?) I also love the information on the side bar and how the comments chill there. It is a very attractive store front and I don't think the look should be changed, just the addition of a few features.

(longest blog ever from me?)

Also Blogging:
Google Video's new layout - Screw Dave
Google Video Layout Experiments - Meta Google