Al's Blog-o-Sphere

That used to be the motto of many police departments. Today it’s more like To prosecute and serve warrants.

Suppose you were talking on the phone to your Little Old Granny who lives across the country from you. Then she stops talking. You become worried about her and call the police. It happens all the time. It’s called a welfare check.

Now suppose that the police arrive and find Granny snoozing. She fell asleep while on the phone. Hey, that happens too. The police arrest Granny and charge her for “second-degree aggravated harassment and third-degree falsely reporting an incident.” Continue Reading…

Last night, I was looking at the web site for Heil Sound. I was sort of window shopping for a microphone, but ended up getting distracted – like I often do on the internet – and was browsing through the photos on Bob’s site.

I came across this photo, of Bob Heil with Les Paul and a shudder went down my spine. Here was an image of two men, possibly THE two men, responsible for modern sound recording technology. Each of them came up with equipment and techniques that, while not wiz-bang super-new technology, the way they applied their knowledge to a problem they saw changed the way that music recording and live sound amplification was done almost universally.

Little did I know, the next day, I’d be reading that Les Paul had died. Continue Reading…

Yesterday, I was listening to our local radio stations’ call-in talk show. The main topic seemed to be the latest lawsuit trying to block the Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for the Lockport Mall location.

A lot of the people seemed to want to know who exactly was behind the Lockport Smart Growth, or as Scott Leffler, the show host referred to as “Citizens for No Growth.” There was speculation that there was ties to both the owners of the local Tops store and Lockport Developer David Ulrich. No one seems to know at all who are ‘members’ of the group, but the idea to “follow the money” seemed to be the idea. But it might be hard to do.

What if Wal-Mart itself, were a secret contributor to the Smart Growth group? I’m not saying it is, but my evil side wonders. It wouldn’t be hard to funnel some money their way through some intermediary. Wal-Mart seems to be benefitting from their efforts as much as Smart Growth thinks they are hurting them. Continue Reading…

Five plastic garbage bags, 10 cents each: $0.50; 350 pounds of pull-tabs, scrap metal value $0.13; one photo op with a little girl on crutches, Pricele$$!

Every once in a while I run into a friend (not always the same one, multiple friends) who insist that everyone should save the little pull-tabs off the top of soda-pop cans.

A few years ago, it was supposed to help fund kidney-dialysis charities. It turned out to be an urban legend.

Later, it was Ronald-McDonald House, which is apparently part true. It seems that RMDH capitalized on the urban legend to use it as an activity. The value of the tabs, however, is so small, that the programs value is mostly an activity promoting the charity itself.

It’s easy to find all sorts of information about this on the internet. The most obvious and reliable, in my opinion is Snopes.com, which usually has the straight dope on any of these questionable rumours. Another good article was Associated Content, which I know less about, but had actually checked it out with aluminum recyclers to verify it’s value.

Charity watchdog, Where Most Needed also chimes in with their site.

The only verifiable site supporting pull-tab collection was the McDonalds-sponsored Courtesy Corporation which clearly is collecting pull-tabs, despite any tangible value to them.
Continue Reading…