Workin' hard

So I haven't been around much the last couple days. This is because I've been busy working on my car. I've been trying to swap a lower control arm, which has been easier said then done. In theory all I had to do was unbolt the ball joint from the control arm, unbolt the swaybar end-link, then 4 more bolts would drop the arm from the chassis. I had to cut of the swaybar end-link, fortunately I had thought ahead and bought a new end-link. That wasn't a big deal. The control arm had 3 bolts at the rear of it holding it to the chassis, and one at the front that goes through a bushing, and threads into a nut that's welded into a cross-member. This nut broke loose. Because of the weld I couldn't get a wrench on it enough to be able to turn the bolt out of it. I ended up cutting the swaybar off, cutting the bushing off, then cutting the bolt off. To make it worse the only cutting tool I had that I could use in this spot was a Dremel tool. It took me HOURS to cut it all out. I already had a spare control arm, so that's no big loss. Tomorrow I have to pick up a replacement nut and bolt, and reassemble it all. This will be the third day of a project that I was hoping would only take an hour or two. We're supposed to get a storm tomorrow, which is supposed to be snow, but might end up being rain. If it's raining I'm going to have to put finishing the project off until Saturday (or whenever the rain subsides).

My blogger reading list is HUGE, and I definitely owe some people some comments. I'm gonna start making some rounds in a few minutes, but don't know how long I'll be at it- I'm BEAT.

I'll take you around the universe, and all the other places too!

A while back when I was cruising the internet I came across Amazing Horse, and thought it was pretty funny. A little bit later I learned that there's a longer, beter version on Youtube. While looking for the extended version I came across a cover done by a girl who had done a cover of she. Seeing the thumbnail I thought 'An attractive girl singing this song could be humerous/cool', so I clicked and watched it.

I'm no music critic, but I noticed she has a really nice singing voice, and is good with the guitar. Some of her facial expressions add to the humor of the song- to highlight one the first time she sings"eew, that's dirty" made me laugh. After I watched the one song I ended up going to her channel, and noticed she covers several songs. After watching a few covers I fell in love with her singing. You can tell that she really gets into performing. Some videos have cuts where she flubbed a line, or something else screwed up her recording (one video has 2 out-takes at the end, where she got interrupted by a drill, then a text-message). Once I read where it says she lives in Germany I couldn't really fault her making a mistake or two- singing is hard enough, but singing in a different language is that much more difficult.

I haven't been as fond of the video where she has other people performing with her- seems like while her co-stars would be good on their own, they just don't work together very well. Occasionally she'll use software to allow her to sing backup for herself. In my opinion the songs would sound a bit better without this. Despite this I often listen to the effected songs anyway. Further reading on her Youtube page reveals she's a tattoo artist, and has a web-page showcasing her tattoo work, along with other artwork she's done. I must say that I'm as impressed with her artwork as I am with her singing. Check her out and let me know what you think.

Somehow I wrote all of that without mentioning that her Youtube channel is rockabillie

Washington inititave 1149

As many of you have probably noticed, the public opinion on marijuana is changing as time goes on. California's medical industry is about as close to straight-up legalized marijuana as it gets right now. Unfortunately, last year a ballot initiative to legalize failed in the state, as it did in many states trying to pass similar measures. Part of the reason many of these attempts at legalization failed is because they didn't have to funding to succeed. Groups in California paid a lot of money to spread their fear-mongering to shoot it down, yet it still came incredibly close to passing.

This year Washington State has a measure called initiative 1149, which would legalize marijuana in this state. I think this attempt at legalization has a bit more going for it than the California initiative. For one, there's a TON of people growing up there- there's whole communities where pretty much everyone grows, it's so rampant that the police can't enforce the marijuana production laws in these areas. There also a long way away from the Mexican border, and the drug war on both sides of it. But there's one more thing going for them- they have a source of income. Sensible Washington has a link on their site that, when used, donates 4% of the purchase to Sensible Washington. Because of this they'll be able to better fund their noble campaign. It's also remarkable that a major business is outright supporting legalization- a break from most companies' policies to distance themselves from any such effort. This makes it clear that opinions are changing regarding marijuana at EVERY level.

If you smoke, know anybody who does, or even just think that people should have the right to consume if they wish, be sure to use this link if you're going to buy stuff on Amazon. Even if you don't live in Washington, you should still support the cause, because legalization in one state will undoubtedly lead to other states following suit- possibly yours! I live across the country, and I would still use their link.

Before you ask, yes I'm for legalization. I believe that adults should have the right to responsibly and safely consume marijuana. It's much safer than tobacco and alcohol

Here's a link to Sensible Washington's blog, where you can find the link (it's the same as the 2'nd image in this blog post)
https://sensiblewashington.org/blog/

Saw this today. It made me laugh, so I thought I'd share.

I love how he keeps playing after he's told to stop

Nickelodeon to remake some of their '90s cartoons! College students rejoice!

A few days ago I was flipping through the channels on my TV, went by Nickelodeon, and remembered when I used to watch it all the time. I also remembered how disappointed I was when the shows that I liked started disappearing one by one. Eventually there was no longer anything good on the channel- I determined at that point that channel was, for the most part, geared at kids younger than I was. I wasn't interested in the few shows that were suitable for kids of my age, and for years after I never turned Nickelodeon on. I had lost all hope in a station that at one time was my favorite. 

Last night I was cruising a chan site, and saw a picture that caught my eye. The subject was completely unrelated to the picture, but I still investigated the picture. Clicking on it opened a new tab, and this beautiful image popped up in a new tab.

I was pretty excited about this. I instantly nostalgia'd to my younger years, plopped in front of my TV watching these shows for hours on end.  I haven't been able to find an official announcement from Nickelodeon about this, but there's postings all over the web about it. I'm hoping this is legitimate, and not some cruel hoax aimed at those of us in our late teens and early-mid 20s. Assuming this is true I'm excited to see some of the new episodes of these classic shows, and I know many other people are as well. I hope Nick sticks to the way the shows were, and doesn't try to change them. One thing I'm wondering about is if they'll spend a couple episodes explaining the shows' absence in the storyline, or if they'll continue on like nothing happened. Personally I hope it's the latter, I want to get back to my old cartoons!

So what do you all think about this? I'm interested to hear your opinion. Also, if you can find a definite announcement of this I'd love to see it.

Got the HTML working

So after a few hours of work last night, and a couple today I finally got the HTML straightened out. I was having issues getting my adsense working. At one point I clicked 'monetize', and noticed I had an ad-click. I immediately began wondering how I had a click when my adds weren't working. So I decided to look at my blog from another computer. Turns out my ads were visible, just not from my laptop. Naturally, this had me puzzled. I got back on my laptop, and promptly realized that I might have been blocking adsense with AdBlockPlus. Disabled it, and sure enough, my ads were showing up.I felt like a moron spending so much time messing with the HTML when ABP was causing the problem. Lesson learned. I'm happy with the layout of my blog for now, just in time to hang out with a friend of mine. I'll post a blog with some real content tonight. Thanks again for the views, follows, and the ad click!

Thanks everyone

Thanks for the comments and for following. I was going to get some content on this last night, but I got hung up trying to get the HTML working. I'm going to straighten it out now, then I'll get a real post up later and return the love I've been receiving. Any HTML advice would be appreciated.

Hello all

So I'm new to this whole blogging thing, and just starting to get set up. I'm not yet sure what direction I want to go in with this, so my blog entries may be kind of random until i get settled into a groove. I"m looking forward to making some good entries and getting feedback from you all.