Sparks
This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us, 1974
Covered admirably by Siouxsie and the Banshees about ten years later.
There’s just something cool about being trapped inside a dark, 140-year-old museum building waiting for a big storm to pass.
Three items for your amusement:
Posts have been few and far between lately, which should indicate that I’ve been rather busy over the past two months or so.
So what’s been going on?
Driving, mostly. I’ve been spending a lot of time in my car, not just going back and forth to Pittsburgh dealing with the new house, but also to Greensboro, where I’ve been working and interning up a storm. I’m putting in one day a week at UNCG, working on a big digitization project to which I’ll introduce you shortly. I’m also working three days a week at a local museum processing an archival collection centered around a major local historical figure. The latter gig is a grant-funded named internship, which makes it more impressive, right? Either way, I’m enjoying it. It’s a good internship — one where I’m actually learning things rather than just occupying space, making coffee, or otherwise providing slave labor.
What scares me, though, is that I’m starting to think nothing of a daily commute that’s thirty miles each way. Unfortunately, Winston-Salem is not the cultural heritage epicenter of the Piedmont Triad. Given that and all the nasty budget cuts about now, my optimism about local job prospects upon graduation is somewhat lacking.
I assume Borders and Barnes & Noble will be going belly-up soon, though. Maybe my education will at least qualify me for a job at one of their liquidation sales.
Dear Enemy
Computer One, 1983
See also Together in Electric Dreams.
So today I visited Wheeling, West Virginia, because in my convoluted view of the world, it was “on the way” from Steubenville, Ohio, where I had lunch, to Pittsburgh.
Wheeling is pretty. More photos after the jump…
Steubenville, Ohio.
While I appreciate the sentiment behind an article like this one, and while the author tries really hard to be a good road geek, I have to point out a couple of things:
- I-279 through Pittsburgh, once truncated at the Point, will still fit the definition of a three-digit interstate with an even first digit, which is to say that it will both start and end at other interstate highways (in this case, I-79 to the north, and I-376 to the south).
- I-376, once fully extended to the airport, will actually fit the definition of a three-digit interstate with an odd first digit even better than it now does, because it will start at one interstate highway (I-76) but will no longer end at another one. Of course, all bets will be off if plans to further extend it back to I-76 on the west side or to I-80 are ever realized.
Note that even numbers at the beginning usually indicate loops or bypasses, and that odd numbers usually indicate spurs into a city, but the real definition is based on the start and end points.
Sorry. It’s been a rough week. That’s all I’ve got tonight…
I thought this was a gag when I heard it mentioned on the radio this morning.
What’s really sad is that so many people are unemployed while the studio executive who signed off on this probably still has a job.