I submitted the following five-cent review of Rum Runners in Raleigh, for Barstar.com. We’ll see if it gets posted.

You pay a premium when you visit Rum Runners — from the $5 cover charge, to the $4.50 plastic Solo cup of Guinness, and of course for the $2-5 request per song you’ll fork over to the pianist(s). However, the point of going to a place like Rum Runners is to have fun, and this is certainly a place to do it. It gets packed in the summertime, so if you’re afraid of a little sweat in your beer, this isn’t your place. But if you want to get together with a group of friends, sing classic songs with an added touch of humour, and watch the bawdy jokes made at the expense of birthday girls and brides-to-be, this is your place; overall, it’s a lot of fun.

So, I touted 25 Million, so I might as well cheer twice as much about the news that Firefox has achieved 50 million downloads.

Was talking to a coworker about it yesterday. I think he’s planning to install it on his laptop this weekend.

Sorry, don’t have any new favourite extensions to recommend this time — these milestones are coming along so fast that I haven’t had time to find new extensions that I like, between them!

(Originally written on 4/26 at 11:30)

Spring has sprung, the temperatures are certainly rising, not least of all on the Hill, where news comes tonight that House Republicans have rescinded the ethics deadlock rule, implemented in January, that has railroaded the Ethics committee and been used to insulate Tom DeLay amidst the numerous allegations on his plate. Per the WaPo:

House Republican leaders, acknowledging that ethics disputes are taking a heavy toll on the party’s image, decided yesterday to rescind a controversial rule change that led to the three-month shutdown of the ethics committee, according to officials who participated in the talks.

Republicans touched off a political uproar in January by changing a rule that had required the ethics committee to continue considering a complaint against a House member if there was a deadlock between the committee’s five Republicans and five Democrats. The January change reversed this, calling for automatic dismissal of an ethics complaint when a deadlock occurs.

Is this just window dressing, though?  From all I’ve seen, Republicans seem more and more confident that DeLay will survive, at least for the remainder of his term.  Such sentiment is reflected by DeLay ally, Henry Bonilla, as quoted in the San Antonio Express News (reg. req.):

Despite a poll showing waning support back home, DeLay launched a counteroffensive last week to fend off charges of ethics violations and to dampen speculation the controversy could lead to his political undoing.
“He should weather this storm,” said Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, a DeLay disciple. “He is still standing tall.”

This said, Bonilla is just that — a fanboy of DeLay, who fears him just as much as he reveres him. No doubt that this same fear scares the lot of them in the same way.

I guess I got a bit carried away in this thread.

So, this commercial has been out for a while now, but it still astounds me… I mean, I can’t make the Darius Rucker – Burger King mental leap.

How far has Hootie fallen, where Rucker is doing commercials like this? Then again, Brooke Burke is in it, and I’m not sure if any of those others are celebs (besides the Dallas cheerleaders).

Regardless — it’s a kinda surrealist commercial, and I still can’t figure out how the heck Mr. “Let Her Cry” fits in to the picture.

Update: So it seems that there are other well-knowns, or relatively well-knowns — that apparently is the booty girl herself, Ms. “My cellphone was hacked too”, Vida Guerra (site only marginally SFW).

Also: Boondocks fun (mirror).

The Hill is reporting that Newtie is considering a run for the top in 2008.

That would be interesting. I was certainly more conservative back in the day, and while I never really liked the guy a whole lot, the name still takes me back.

So yeah. The idea of President Newt makes me feel about 16 again.

To Whom It May Concern:

Well, I must say I was somewhat surprised when I received a letter from the Jefferson Village HOA, informing me of a of community standards violation with regards to my yard. Specifically, the violation cited was:

[ x ] Remove realtor signs from front yard.

To this, I might make a separate recommendation to the Jefferson Village HOA and to Koger Management:

[ x ] Remove my name from the list of Jefferson Village homeowners, update your records, and please refrain from sending articles which are of no concern to me anymore.

You see, if those doing the inspection had done any prior homework, if Jefferson Village’s property ownership records were kept up-to-date, if the JV HOA grounds committee wasn’t so overzealous in its efforts to nail down suspected perpetrators, it might have been noted that I no longer own the residence at xxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx – in fact, I had not lived at, nor owned that residence for nearly one and one-half months when the letter was addressed to me. If half as much effort had been taken to assure ownership and residence of a property, as was taken by the Yard Gestapo to find violators, it would be duly realised that a change in legal ownership of the property took place on 8-February-2005.

Now generally, I would not have made such a case out of this, except for the fact that:

• The JV HOA Grounds Committee and/or its members have had a history of nitpicking and, indeed, glaring hypocrisy.
• Koger Management was enough of a hassle when trying to get the paperwork ready to sell the property, that one would think they would be aware of the transaction – well, except for the fact that Koger no longer does any of that work itself, choosing to instead pawn residents off to CondoCerts.com, which in turn raises prices for any resident wishing to request this information.

In other words – any ill-will I have harboured in the past is not new, but in my opinion, it is certainly justified. At the same time, however, as I am no longer a resident of Jefferson Village, I do not feel it is awfully relevant anymore, and in that light, nor are any further communications between JV/Koger and myself, unless they specifically reference me as a former, not current, resident of the community and thus not one to whom any (stifling) JV regulations, property-specific or otherwise, apply.

If you have any further question, please do not hesitate to reach me at the address listed at the top of this correspondence – please note, however, that it is nearly 300 miles away, so if there are concerns about my yard, please pack your bags accordingly.

Regards,

Corey Welton.

… but I gotta admit it. It’s nothing intentional, but it’s happening nonetheless.

I’ve had Meryn Cadell’s “The Pope” stuck in my head for the past several days.

We all here to see the Pope, pope, pope, pope, pope…