The old DynamoBuzz weblog was on-line for about 8 months. I’d get about 200 hits a month from search engines, mostly Google but also Yahoo and AOL. The top three search topics that lead people to DynamoBuzz were:

1. Taylor Ham
2. George Norcross
3. R. Lee Ermey talking doll

I wrote about Taylor ham more than once, since I believe it to be the one food item that you can most associate with New Jersey. And I linked to a site called Pork Roll Xpress which has recipes using Taylor ham and lyrics to a song, “PORK ROLL EGG & CHEESE”. You can also visit the shopping cart page and buy taylor ham on line. This is what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the internet, Taylor ham!! Taylor ham on a hard roll with egg and cheese is what they serve for breakfast in heaven. Fat, sodium and cholesterol all put together into a tasty package. And it has to be the thick Taylor ham. If I buy the thin sliced stuff by mistake, then I have to use two slices.

I wrote a couple of times about George Norcross. Norcross is a major south Jersey political player, but he’s been keeping a low profile lately. He was mentioned alot in the first year of McGreevey’s term, but ole’ George is smart enough to have figured out it’s probably not good to be associated too closely with our boy governor as he goes down in flames.

And the talking R. Lee Ermey doll?? Ermey played the drill sergeant in Stanley Kubrick’s classic movie, “Full Metal Jacket”. Ermey’s role in that movie was unforgetable, both for the intensity and for the way Kubrick shot that opening scene of him abusing the new recruits. I found a Yahoo store selling such a doll and I asked for one for my birthday. Instead, I got a wallet. Maybe for Christmas.

I just saw that I’ve been listed on the blog roll of another Jersey blogger, BackStage. Thanks for the link!! Check out his blog. It’s billed as, “A blog with no real purpose, or direction in life… Just the pursuit of rambleings on theatre, woodworking, life, death, whatever… Welcome to the insanity!” Between Parkway Rest Stop, DynamoBuzz and Backstage, you’ll find a little bit about everything with a Jersey flavor.

This story about how someone at the White House supposedly leaked the name of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, has the left wing in a feeding frenzy. If you check the left wing blogs out there, you’ll see they can’t get enough of this. I won’t link to them, but the big liberal blogs are Daily Kos, CalPundit, Atrios and Talking Points Memo. If you really want to go left, there’s BuzzFlash, Democratic Underground and Media Whores Online. Talking Points Memo had seven consecutive posts about this. These guys have a visceral hatred for George Bush, but they haven’t been able to get anything to stick to him. Remember Sam Donaldson saying Enron was bigger than Whitewater?? How about George Bush being AWOL while he was supposed to be on Guard Duty?? Buying and selling the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweet heart deal?? And I forgot what the Harken scandal was. They’re trying to pump up this story, and at this point even if there’s no crime, they’ll be talking about this up to the election.

What really has the lefties excited is that Karl Rove’s name is being thrown around. To the left, Karl Rove is combination of Rasputin, Michael Corleone and Joseph Goebbels. Never mind that Rove has denied being the leaker. That’s not the kind of thing a smart person would say if he was the leaker, and Rove is a smart guy. I’d be shocked if Karl Rove, who I think is an advisor though I’m not sure of his exact title, has a security clearance that would allow him to know the names of the undercover operatives at the CIA.

So far, the only on-the-record people are columnist Bob Novak and Joe Wilson, the husband of the CIA operative. Wilson showed his true left wing leanings by saying Rove leaked the story even though he had no proof it was Rove. He later said it probably was Rove.

I’m going to wait a while before jumping to conclusions. There are still too many unknowns. But I don’t believe if someone in the White House was the source of the leaks that they knew that Plame was an undercover agent. My guess is that lots of people knew she worked at the CIA, but did not know her job. And I’d be shocked if it was a top White House official. We’ll see.

A scandal needs two things: (1) A constant stream of new information. The great thing about Clinton-Lewinski story was that there was something new almost every day. First Paula Jones, then Lewinski, then the dress, then the testimony to the grand jury. Bush “scandals” tend to die out because there’s nothing to the story after the initial headline. We’re about three days into this scandal, and unless there’s new stuff soon, this will fade from the radar. (2) A catchy name. Watergate, Iran-Contra, Filegate, Whitewater. I haven’t heard a good one yet for this one.

The other funny thing is how the democrats are screaming for an independant counsel to investigate this. During the Clinton years, the democrats were screaming about how unfair the independant counsels were, in particular Kenneth Starr. Well, the law expired in 1999, and nobody complained. I guess independant counsels are OK for republican presidents but evil for democrat presidents.

Just ran the barbeque and cooked up some hot dogs and hamburgers. In a couple of weeks it will be too cold to cook outside, so I’m going to take advantage of the warmer weather while I can. My gas grill is hard piped to the house, so I don’t have to mess with cylinders.

After eating, my kids and I hit some balls around the backyard. Last time I was at Target, they had their summer toys on clearance, and I bought a dozen plastic baseballs for $2.67. They’re sort of like Wiffle balls, but they’ve got holes all over. My kids had lots of fun. My daughter has pretty good hand-eye coordination. My son is thick headed, he had to use an aluminum bat instead of a plastic bat like his sister. But they both had fun, we came in the house when it was getting dark.

You know, people spend hundreds of dollars on X-Box and Playstation video games, but sometimes the best thing to play with is a couple of plastic balls and a bat. Video games are so solitary. At least with the bats and balls, the whole family can play together. We took turns pitching, hitting and fielding. And we gave my wife and 10 day old baby girl some time to rest up in the house.

The Gannett newspapers in New Jersey have just finished a one week series of articles describing the corruption that runs rampant here in New Jersey politics. If you thought it went away when Boss Hague was no longer on the scene in Jersey City, think again. The Bridgewater Courier News website has a separate page with links to all the articles. The series is called “Profiting from Public Service: How Many NJ Legislators Profit from the System“. Stuff like:

1. Nepotism run wild, with William Bennett, Wayne Bryant and Bill Gormely padding the public payroll with relatives.
2. Many of our state representative are lawyers with lucrative law practices on the side. Many of the legal work is with city and state government.
3. New Jersey is one of the few states that allows someone to hold two elected offices at the same time. Almost one third of the state lawmakers either hold another elected office or hold a government job.
4. The relationships between lobbyists and lawmakers. People go back and forth between the two jobs, earning big bucks while taking advantage of their government connections

There’s a lot there. And this is only one part of the corruption. Perhaps Gannett can go into pay-to-play, the system where law firms, financial firms and contractors with business with the state contribute to the political parties with the unwritten understanding that if they don’t contribute, they can forget about getting government contracts. Someone actually has submitted a bill to outlaw pay-to-play, but “Boss” McGreevey is blocking it. Why kill the goose that’s laying the golden eggs??

Will it ever stop?? It will take a huge public outcry, and unfortunately I think New Jersey voters are quite uninformed. If I can borrow from comedian Bobcat Goldthwaite, the typical New Jersey voter watches “Entertainment Tonight” because “People” magazine is a bit too much for them. This stuff is going on under the radar, and my guess is most New Jerseyans couldn’t name the governor and our two senators. Things like this also happen when you have one party rule. Democrats know they can get away with anything, particularly in the urban districts, because democrats win elections by two to one margins. If there was a strong republican party in New Jersey, perhaps they could do something to raise the public anger over this stuff. Unfortunately, the republican party in New Jersey is nearly on life support. And if you read some of the Gannett articles, you’ll see just as many republicans as democrats abusing the system. In New Jersey, corruption is a bipartisan activity.

I wrote a few days ago about New Jersey state Sen. Joseph Suliga, D-Union, when he got into trouble at an Atlantic City casino for being drunk, rowdy and making lewd comments to a nearby woman. When security asked him to leave, he got into a scuffle with them. Then another story came out about an incident in 2001 in Point Pleasant where Suliga and a pal harassed a teenage girl working at a swim suit shop to the point that she called police [link]. The democrats probably could have let him stay if it was just the incident in Atlantic City. Suliga is in a safe democrat district, and democrats have a high tolerance for personal misconduct (see: Bill Clinton, Robert Torricelli). But the second incident, plus the fact that the first incident was recorded on casino video cameras, plus the repeated alcohol stuff was too much even for the dems, so Suliga has announced that he’s not running for re-election, “QUICK WITHDRAWAL: State senator drops re-election bid“. Republicans have a strong candidate running, Scotch Plains mayor Martin Marks. The senate is divided 20-20 between democrats and republicans, so every race is important.

Now what do the democrats do in the 22nd district?? The election is weeks away, and the deadline for switching candidates has already passed, it was September 17th. No problem !!! The democrats have their flunkie on the NJ state supreme court, chief justice Deborah T. Poritz, ready to do their bidding. After the Torricelli-Lautenberg switcheroo, this one is a piece of cake. My guess is McGreevey is already giving Debbie the orders on what to do, and by the end of the week, the democrats will be allowed to put another candidate on the ballot. Welcome to New Jersey politics!!

I bought a Ricoh 35mm SLR camera off of eBay a couple of weeks ago. It’s a manual camera, you have to adjust the shutter speed and aperture and manually focus. I’m interested in photography as a hobby, and hobbyists always say you have to have a manual camera. I just developed the first roll of film that I shot with the camera. I learned a couple of things. I used 100 speed film because I thought it was “fast” film. I got it wrong. The higher the number, the faster the film. I also didn’t realize until my second roll of film that the lens had a filter on it. It’s a SKY-A filter, which from what I’ve learned is sort of a UV filter and is good for outdoor shots, but it shouldn’t effect indoor shots. Some of my indoor shots look a little flat, so I think I’ll remove the filter in the future. I also need a tripod for longer exposures. The camera has a “B” shutter speed, which will keep the shutter open as long as the button is pressed. That will be useful for night time photography, which is something I’d like to try.

This is one of the better shots I got. It was a dreary, rainy day, so I had the f-stop at a 2, which means the aperture is wide open to get more light onto the film. This is down by the Edison boat basin on the Raritan River. I like all the green, though I did bump it up a bit in Photoshop.

Once I get the photoblog up and running (how long have I been saying that) I’ll put more pictures on-line.

I’ve always felt Quinnipiac University polls were a bit left leaning. I always felt that if a poll looked bad for democrats they would try to put a positive spin on it. Well the latest poll on George Bush and next year presidential election has just been released. The title of the article is “Bush approval slips to a break even in New Jersey, Quinnipiac University Poll finds; Democrats are nipping at his heels“. The poll shows (1) 49% approval rating for Bush in New Jersey (2) in head to head matchups with the democrat candidates for president, Bush beats them all in New Jersey. Bush even beats Hilary by a few points.

Now, democrats will try to put negative spin on this, but let’s remember Gore beat Bush 56% to 40% in New Jersey in 2000. New Jersey is arguably the most liberal state in the union, and the fact that Bush is up at all after months and months of negative stories being force fed to us tells me that he is in OK shape for next year. If these four things happen, in my opinion Bush wins next year: (1) Dow Jones average above 10000 (2) unemployment at 5.5% or less (3) an Iraqi government in place (4) no major terrorist attack in the United States.

I wrote about duct tape a few days back. Looks like there’s another good use for duct tape. Use it to treat shoulder wounds after getting attacked by a grizzly bear. That’s what this guy did after being attacked in Alaska last week [link]. And then the guy drove himself to the hospital.

My wife doesn’t really follow politics that much, but last night she watched the California governor recall debate on MSNBC. She hated Arianna Huffington, and most of the stuff I read today confirmed that she was totally out of control, more concerned with beating up Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Bush and barely mentioning Gray Davis. Just saw Bill Whalen from the Weekly Standard on MSNBC. He called Arianna “Arnold’s Big Fat Greek Headache” and said that Arnold got the vote of every divorced man in California because Arianna acted like the ex-wife from hell.

This recall stuff is fun. New Jersey allows recalls (see this column by Herb Jackson at the Bergen Record) but it’s really hard to recall a governor in this state. Still, I’m jealous of California. Imagine all the good blogging I could do if we were trying to recall McGreevey??

This doesn’t look so good. New Jersey state Sen. Joseph Suliga, D-Union, was arrested for making lewd comments to a woman in Trump Marina Hotel Casino. It was 2:30 AM and “sources close to the senator” say he was drunk. When the woman complained to security, he was asked to leave the casino, at which point he got into a scuffle with security. That’s what got him arrested. The Courier News and the Star-Ledger have more juicy details, including the accusation that Suliga was playing slots next to the woman when he asked her if he could suck her toes. He’s claiming he was framed. The casinos have video cameras all over the place, so I’m sure they have this on film. Can’t wait to see that.

I was reading a summary of today’s democrat debate over at FoxNews with a bit of amazement. It seems like every one of the ten dwarves says they will repeal the Bush tax cuts to pay for (1) Iraq rebuilding (2) Afghanistan rebuilding (3) homeland security or (4) health care. I don’t know if these guys were paying attention in high school civics class, but presidents don’t repeal diddly squat. Dean thinks he can just wave his arms and, “Poof!”, the tax cut is repealed. The congress, in particular the House of Representative and the Senate, would have to pass a bill that would “repeal” the tax cut and then President Dean would sign the tax bill. No bill from Congress, no repeal. Considering the house and senate will most likely still be in Republican hands in 2005, the chances that they would vote to “repeal” the tax cuts for President Dean or Kerry are slim and none.

But facts don’t matter when you’re running for the democrat nomination for president. The key things are (1)”standing up for the little guy” and (2) “Bush is evil”. Democrat voters are not exactly the brightest bulbs in the chandelier. Think back to those wretched old ladies in Florida complaining that they couldn’t understand the butterfly ballot. Democrat voters need emotional issues and emotional appeals, stuff like, “Republicans want to starve orphans” or “VOTE DEMOCRAT OR GEORGE BUSH WILL TAKE AWAY YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY!! AS A MATTER OF FACT, BUSH WILL PERSONALLY SHOW UP AT YOUR RETIREMENT CONDO AND TAKE THE CHECK OUT OF THE MAILBOX”. That’s how you get democrat votes.

I was talking to my six year old daughter today about our new baby, Liliana. My son is eight years old, and he’s been very good with the baby. When we were at the hospital, he was all excited and wanted to hold the baby. My daughter wouldn’t even appear in the same picture with her. She wanted no part of her. Now that the baby is home, however, she is doing better. I guess she just had to get used to the fact that she was no longer the baby in the family.

We were sitting around talking about how we now have a mom, a dad, two girls and a boy in our family. I said I didn’t know any families that had the same combination of a son and two daughters. Well, together we came up with one family: the Simpsons. My son is Bart, my daughter is Lisa and the baby is Maggie. My wife is Marge, and I’m Homer, though I think I’m better looking and just a little smarter. My daughter told my wife she needs to get big hair.

I’ve been playing around in Photoshop with some ideas for the header graphic for Liliana’s babyblog. This is one option:

I took the picture shown at the bottom of the page, modified it a bit and added text. I added a stroke effect and an emboss effect. I may add some colors to the flowers.

First it was John Ritter, formerly of “Three’s Company”, now it’s Gordon Jump, the station manager from “WKRP in Cincinnati” who died today from some type of pulmonary illness. WKRP and “Three’s Company” were both on during the late ’70’s when I was in high school, the golden age of television in my life. Once I went to college I sort of stopped watching prime time TV. I wasn’t into “Laverne and Shirley” or “Happy Days”. I confess that I did watch “Mork and Mindy”, “Alice”, “Barney Miller”, “The Jeffersons” and “One Day at a Time”. I stopped watching “M*A*S*H” because the show stopped being funny and instead turned into a 30 minute weekly left-wing political statement.

Once I went off to college, the only prime time TV we watched in my fraternity (other than sports) was “The Love Boat”. I mean, we truly loved that show. If you can imagine the comments a bunch of fraternity guys were making during that show, well, maybe it’s better that you don’t. That was TV.

Found a great night time picture of Ocean Avenue in Wildwood over at MaximumAardvark weblog. The weblog author was at the annual Fireman’s convention held every September in Wildwood.

My wife and our newborn baby girl, Liliana, came home this afternoon. The baby is very alert for a newborn. I sat with her in front of my aquarium and it seemed like she was fascinated. Her eyes looked like they were following the fish around. My wife is still a bit store. Unfortunately, our house is a split-level, so that means lots of stairs.

The big question: Will I get any sleep tonight??

I’m working on the baby blog. Let’s hope for Wednesday.

My old blog had over 300 posts. Rather than move them all over to my new host, I’ve decided to re-post the best ones on this new site. That way I can pick out the good ones and forget about the old ones. Plus I have something to post when I have writer’s block.

The following three posts (top drinking songs of all time, end of Microsoft Internet Explorer and duct tape) are from the DynamoBuzz archives.

How about a list of the top 86 drinking songs of all-time?? I can’t think of any drinking songs that didn’t make the list (maybe “Snortin’ Whisky, Drinking Cocaine” by the Pat Travers Band” ??)

The list brought to you by the folks at ModernDrunkard.Com.

This story hasn’t gotten much attention, but it has the potential to shake up the internet world. Some company called Eolas has sued Microsoft, claiming that the concept of using and launching plug-ins and applets from within Microsoft Internet Explorer is technology that Microsoft stole from Eolas who got a patent for this back in 1994 [link]. So far Microsoft is loosing all the court battles, and the most recent case had the judge awarding Eolas $521 million in damages. Yikes!! Microsoft will probably appeal.

Plug-ins and applets are all over the internet. The most widely used plug-in is the Flash Player, which I think is installed on something like 95% of computers. Other players are the Adobe PDF reader, Real Player, Shockwave and QuickTime. Java applets haven’t taken over the world as first thought, but they still are prevalent on the web. All these would be affected.

This gets into the whole arguement about patents. I’m not a lawyer, but from what I’ve learned, patent law is being abused. The concept of an invention is being perverted by lawyers and quick buck type entrepeneur/hucksters. Someone patented e-commerce and is trying to sue people for selling stuff on the internet, saying they are infringing on his patent. Amazon patented the concept of one-click purchasing and has sued other people for doing the same thing. Patent law was designed in the 19th century when we were inventing things. Now, people are getting patents for “business methods” which are making lawyers richer but doing nothing to advance the internet. Maybe Gutenberg should have patented the concept of the book, calling it the “automated method of transfering printed words to a portable paper-based medium”. That way he’d have been a multi-billionaire.

In the short term, Microsoft is advising web designers to start planning for changes in plug-ins. Microsoft may win out, because a lot of the work arounds would involve Microsoft specific technologies, such as Dynamic HTML. DHTML isn’t a language, but a combination of regular HTML, Javascript and CSS used to manipulate the document object model (DOM) of a webpage. I must be a real computer geek, because I know what all those terms mean. Using DHTML would make webpages look good in Internet Explorer, but they’d look lousy or wouldn’t even display in Netscape Navigator, Opera or Mozilla.