Mayor Holley challenges Portsmouth recall effort

The headline is pretty self-explanatory. The petition must meet certain criteria—mainly making sure the signers are real people who vote.

From Pilot: “The brief, one-page complaint challenges the sufficiency of the petition against him, the genuineness of the nearly 8,800 signatures, and the qualifications of the people who signed them.” Let’s break this down, shall we?

-Sufficiency of the petition: According to Merriam-Webster, sufficiency is defined as “enough to meet the needs of a situation or a proposed end.”  Interesting. Holley’s not meeting the needs of Portsmouth, so its citizens are proposing an end. This is actually more apt than I thought before checking the ol’ dictionary. He probably is referring to specific wording of the petition, but the paper was insufficient with providing me this information. Learning definitions and using them in a sentence. Anyone else suddenly missing second grade?

-The genuineness of the 8,800 signatures: As in, people were signing things like Donald Duck or Rain Man? Wouldn’t it be funny if someone signed their name James Holley? Guess not. I went to whitepages.com and there are several people in P-Town with that name, so maybe not so funny. More ironic or at least coincidental. I wonder if he’s planning on seeking out these people to make sure they’re genuine. Wouldn’t it be crazy if they were like a hologram or something? Holograms lack sufficient levels of muscle, blood, and skin to participate in the ousting of their elected officials. Talk about equal rights!

-The qualifications of the people who signed them: I immediately think of what would make someone not qualified to sign his or her name. Broken fingers? Lack of black ink? Illiteracy? In reality, this likely means their residence or voter registration status, but with Holley, who really knows? If he doesn’t understand mayoral qualifications I would gather there are other types he lacks sufficiency in understanding.

Local chefs’ use chemistry to create mind-bending dishes

I think I was more excited about this headline than what was behind it. They do? Sadly, the title changed to “Local chefs’ chemical combos cook up edible art” once I clicked the link. While this is still neat-o and all, it’s way less Star Wars meets Acid Test. And try saying “chemical combos cook” five times fast. (Mind bending chemistry optional).

Profiling a few local restaurants who use molecular gastronomy, it explains what it is and how most kings of culture in the 757 are afraid of it. “Chemicals? Not in my food!!” Ummm…how many of the same people are eating organic? Show of hands?

The story also has to put molecular gastronomy in quotation marks like, “that wild crazy European, sniff sniff ‘mo-le-cu-lar gas-tron-o-mee.’” Maybe if you tell your customers this stuff’s been on Top Chef or some other cable foodporn show for years, they’d get all impressed and order it more?

Norfolk council OKs new beach walkways

Picture | virginiaimages.com

Last fall’s nor’easter knocked down a bunch of walkways (many of which were built illegally) in Ocean View. Residents got angry and wanted them rebuilt. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. Some can now be rebuilt, with restrictions in place.

That’s the story. Then there’s Mr. Wizard, a commentor and apparent OV resident who doesn’t like the idea of the city allowing private citizens to build on public land. He seems to indicate that OV’s residents are the ones who make it a less-than-ideal beach destination and wants the city to up its involvement and regulation.

I’m sadly uninformed on the issues. I know they have a cool St. Patrick’s Day party down there and there used to be an amusement park. I’d like to learn more.

I never go to OV. I will drive twenty minutes to Virginia Beach every time. Why? How do we change this? A bike ride to the beach sounds like a fairy tale after experiencing the joys and delights of 264 all these years. I can’t even let myself think that way. Not yet. But it could happen. There could even be family activities there! Like Mt. Trashmore or Towne Point Park!

Tourists, Va. Beach club settle assault suit

This may seem unfair, as plenty of people say “That’s why I don’t go to Granby” and I want to  share with them BC’s unicorn blood. But…this is why I don’t go to The Block! They are so drama. For a mini-synopsis, check the Pilot story on the strip’s transition from day to night.

And… The Block sues the city.

And… The Jackass Incident/

Kindle lights fire in virtual business class

Again with the misleading headlines. It’s not a virtual business class. It’s a real one at Warwick High School in Newport News. The students are real. They are not holograms. They are using Amazon’s Kindles instead of traditional books in their business class. Their instructor is teaching the same class to another group using regular textbooks. He’s then going to determine the pros and cons of teaching with Kindle.

So far, the Kindle experiment seems to be working. Students are more engaged and understand the subject matter. They like the ability to have a built in dictionary (me too—see “sufficiency”) while reading and have it read aloud. There are controls built in which prevent Internet-surfing, file sharing, sexting, etc. Hopefully more to follow on this. I think it’s cool. It makes me feel old old old.

And now for some random fun from the Internets:

- What’s a good business? One you would want to work at? Or start for that matter? Here’s a list of a few you CAN’T hahahaha.

- As my day job is in finance and involves all forms of boring, I love when a creative client comes along. This is VISA, not finance, but it’s still awesome.

- This is not a plug, as I don’t know this woman. But I love her photography. Here are some of my faves. Here is her website.