{"id":2705,"date":"2008-03-04T18:26:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-05T02:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2705"},"modified":"2008-03-04T18:26:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-05T02:26:00","slug":"news-chum-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2705","title":{"rendered":"News Chum"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>As everyone (and their brother) has observed today, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2008\/TECH\/03\/04\/obit.gygax.ap\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">Gary Gygax has died<\/a>. This actually doesn\u2019t touch me as much as others, because (for whatever reason) I never got into roleplaying games. Yes, D&#038;D was big in the UCLA Computer Club, but I was always into the Board and Card Games &#8212; Diplomacy, Cosmic Encounters, Junta, Bridge, Nuclear War. The closest I\u2019ve come to roleplaying was Superhero 2044.\n<li>There\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/well.blogs.nytimes.com\/2008\/03\/04\/falling-object-creates-real-drama-on-broadway\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">a fascinating blog piece at the New York Times<\/a> about people hit by falling objects. In this case, it was someone attending the new production of Gypsy:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>Toward the end of the show, as Ms. LuPone\u2019s Mama Rose was about to launch into her show-stopping number, there was a crash in the balcony. A huge metal plate, about 30 inches in diameter and part of the ventilation system, came crashing down from the ceiling. It hit a young woman in the head and ricocheted into the back of my friend\u2019s neck before rolling into my seat.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The discussion then turned about who has had objects fall on them and hit them. Fascinating reading.<\/p>\n<li>On the drive home, I was listening to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/quirks\/archives\/07-08\/feb09.html\" target=\"_blank\">2\/9 Quirks and Quarks<\/a>. They had a fascinating piece on barnacle penises, which are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.canada.com\/edmontonjournal\/news\/cityplus\/story.html?id=48358b24-c30f-4656-a7d7-1fd960ffb9f6\" target=\"_blank\">the longest in the animal kingdom<\/a>.  You never know what you will learn from the news.\n<li>Appropos of what I mentioned yesterday, there are now cases of folks losing their homes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/03\/04\/business\/04auction.html?em&amp;ex=1204779600&amp;en=e03c71494112d9f8&amp;ei=5087%0A\" target=\"_blank\">because the banks overcharged them on fees<\/a>. Perhaps this is why the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/03\/04\/business\/04cnd-fed.html?em&amp;ex=1204779600&amp;en=77abf840756e3db5&amp;ei=5087%0A\" target=\"_blank\">Fed Chair<\/a> is making statements about perhaps writing off some of the loan amounts, because what the banks are proposing just doesn\u2019t address the problem &#8212; it just brings more income to the banks. There\u2019s a good article in the SF Chronicle about how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2008\/03\/04\/BU1SVCU36.DTL\" target=\"_blank\">mortgage modifications are rare<\/a>, even though they may prevent the foreclosures in the first place.\n<li>And lastly, a warning to those in the north. One of our crazies down here, Tom McClintock, is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/local\/la-me-mcclintock5mar05,1,1513251.story\" target=\"_blank\">running for congress to replace Doolittle in a district near Sacramento.<\/a>  He lives in Thousand Oaks. As one who has seen some of what McClintock has tried to pass in the assembly &#8212; \u2018da guy is crazy. You have been warned.<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As everyone (and their brother) has observed today, Gary Gygax has died. This actually doesn\u2019t touch me as much as others, because (for whatever reason) I never got into roleplaying games. Yes, D&#038;D was big in the UCLA Computer Club, but I was always into the Board and Card Games &#8212; Diplomacy, Cosmic Encounters, Junta, <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2705\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum","category-lj-xfer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}