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Why isn’t the series “Junkyard Wars” available on DVD, Hulu, or Netflix?

Remember that great BBC series that got ported to The Learning Channel back in the late ’90s, “Junkyard Wars”?

It was a show that one fan site (Junkyard Wars Online) described as “equal parts gameshow, Mad Max and science lesson in a race to see which team will build the best machine in the allotted time of just ten hours.”

Well, I have searched high and low, and cannot find them on DVD, Hulu, Netflix, TV.com, YouTube or anywhere else…

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Defense of Marriage, 45 Years Ago

In the upcoming primary elections this spring, North Carolina voters will vote on a proposed amendment to the state constitution. It will be listed as N.C. Amendment 1. The ballot will read:

“[ ] FOR [ ] AGAINST
Constitutional amendment to provide that marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State.”

You can find the full text of Senate Bill 514, the legislative bill that put this amendment on the ballot at: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/Senate/HTML/S514v3.html

In church the other Sunday, the pastor, Steve Shoemaker, reminded the congregation of another and similar law about marriage in Virginia. I was surprised by the details of the court case he cited, so I looked it up. The actual details from the Supreme Court decision are more surprising than anything I read about it on Wikipedia, or on any other private site.

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Rotten Tomatoes

I’ve been catching up on my Science Friday podcasts, and I heard an interview with Barry Estabrook, author of the recently-published Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit. He tell a story of when he was following a tomato truck in rural Florida in the winter, and a tomato fell of the truck, almost cracked his windshield, and still stayed as hard as a baseball.

I really want to read the book but I’m a little scared.

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The weather outside is frightful… How Christmas music stations ruined Christmas music

(This post may seem a little belated, but pretend we are still following the Julian calendar and that Christmas comes on January 6th.)

Do you know how some radio stations switch over to an all-Christmas music format, sometimes as earlier as Nov. 1? There are two radio stations in my city that do so, although one actually let listener vote on its website, and their switch was mercifully delayed til mid-November. I’m not sure how long this phenomenon has been going on, but I know people have been complaining about it for years. The gist of the objections is that it cheapens and commercializes Christmas even more than it already has been. Well, on Christmas Eve–“new Christmas Eve”, that is, Dec. 24th–a different and more compelling reason why this is bad occurred to me.

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Daylight Saving Time, why bother?

Some people put all their energy into having a Tea Party. Some people get so mad they want to Occupy something. Me? I want Daylight Saving Time (DST) to go away and never return.

Why do I get so worked up over something that seems so trivial?

Well, it’s partly a matter of my political disposition. In my longer-than-I’d-like-to-admit life, I’ve actually supported some conservative candidates and some liberal candidates. I like to say that I’m “the most liberal conservative” and “the most conservative liberal” that I know. (Someone may protest that there is already a shorthand word for that–moderate–but that’s not quite the same thing. Some of my best friends are moderates, but… no… I just can’t go there.) My overriding political belief, however, is my love of my country, not in a “love-it-or-leave-it” kind of way, but in being proud to be an American and wanting to make US the best that it can be.

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