We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Perhaps, it was fitting something royally screwed up during the first draft of this entry as we were going to talk about computer fiascos I was having this weekend. We had come to a community library here in Bethesda, Maryland*, in the hopes that it would help us and somehow the computers here went kablooowe as well.

In case you were wondering, this image above is of a TRT (Turkish Radio Television) test pattern. We would regularly watch test patterns (I was born in America, but I lived Turkey, my late father's home country, for two years as a child from 1977-1979) before watching reruns of American tv programs like "Flipper," "Uzay 1999" ("Space 1999") and "Zaman Tuneli" ("The Time Tunnel").

Back in those days in Turkey, television only aired at certain times of the day (it was also only in black and white), and all of us kids were excited when "Flipper" came on circa 1:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoons. So my father who had hoped that being in a country where tv was less a part of the culture would mean I would be less excited by watching tv actually found out that I got even more hooked to the boob tube.

Interestinly enough, my favorite show I watched on American tv before and after we lived in Turkey was "Star Trek," and it aired as "Uzay Yolu" (which actually means Space Trek) a few years after we left Turkey.

Speaking of Turkey, we found out that Fenerbahce beat our beloved GalataSaray in Turkish soccer, yesterday. And, we are also not happy that West Virginia, featuring Turkish player Deniz Kilicli, lost to Kentucky by an 81-73 score earlier today. But, we hope Dogus Balbay and his Texas Longhorns teammates fare better when they play the Arizona Wilcats tomorrow in the NCAA men's baskebtall tournament.

CORRECTION: Earlier when we were making fun of radical Christian extremists (we realize not all Christians are this way even if they reside in Lynchburg, Va.), we were mistaken. We had thought that they were predicting the End of the World would be on May 21, 2001.

Since I am not in the know when it comes to far-out views of the world, I had assumed Judgment Day and the End of the World were one in the same. But, as it turns out, Judgment Day is actually 'supposed to happen' on May 21 and the End of the World as we know it will come on October 21.

This whole campaign was started by Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping, and it has even made for discussion board topics on atheist web sites and blogs!

SIDEBAR: The answer to our question about the distance between Logan, Utah, and Manhattan, Kansas, is B; they are exactly 15 hours apart.

*-We are not actually in Bethesda, Maryland, at the moment, but it is my favorite suburb in the United States!