By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (CP)

ROGERSVILLE, Tenn. — A man's homeowners insurance apparently doesn't cover "acts of cow."
Jerry Lynn Davis called the Hawkins County Sheriff's office in Tennessee on Thursday, complaining that a neighbour's cows had been licking his house. In the process, Davis says the curious bovines did about $100 in damage by ripping off a screen window, cracking the glass and pulling down a gutter.

The Kingsport Times-News reports that Davis' home is next to a fence enclosing the cows' pasture. They managed to poke their heads through to lick the house, though a deputy's report did not indicate what made the house so tasty.

Deputy Chris Funk was able to contact the cows' owner, who said he'd take care of the problem.

I went over to a friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner tonight in Pinole, on the northern part of the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay. On my way back into San Francisco, once again traffic suddenly slowed down. This time at the I-580 East / 880 South / 80 West split, the flip side of the interchange where the earlier accident had occurred.


Would you believe that another collision had happened right in front of me again? This time it was a multi-vehicle collision, with one vehicle on its side. Neither CHP nor any medics had appeared on scene yet. Unlike the earlier accident, this was at night and traffic was a lot more aggressive, trying to drive through the accident scene and around it.

Once again I stopped and rendered assistance until Chippys arrived. Slow down, people.

I went to San Francisco International this morning to pick up a friend who was coming into town and staying in the East Bay. On my way back into San Francisco this afternoon, traffic suddenly started slowing down right around where I-880 splits off into two directions, one to I-80W and the Bay Bridge and the other to I-80E and Sacramento.

Out of Arkansas comes 10 year old Will Phillips who refused to stand up and recite the Pledge of Allegiance because of GLBT inequality.

The Nevada State Law Enforcement Memorial is in downtown Carson City, Nevada. I stumbled across it today while taking pictures of autumnal colors.


More pics can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cop4cbt/sets/72157622751313828/

I went to get a burrito tonight and came out to find my truck trapped by about 50 protesters at the corner of 18th and Castro.

The premiere of "V" was seen by a hefty 28.6 million eyeballs last night, scoring a big win for ABC and scripted science fiction on network television. It won in the all important 18-49 demographic, but actually lost out against NCIS in terms of sheer number of viewers. (NCIS - 19.04M vs. V - 14.3M) Both "V" and "NCIS" left the competition in the dust, competition that included 2 reality shows, "The Biggest Loser" and "So You Think You Can Dance".

Is it possible that America's appetite for reality shows is waning? Unfortunately, I think not, but one can hope.

Using very similar tactics as the Yes on Prop 8 campaign in California last year, Maine has voted to repeal the same sex marriage law, handing GLBT folks another defeat.

California Yes on 8	Maine Yes on 1

The UK Guardian reports that out of 31 such measures that have appeared before voters in the US, all 31 have gone against same sex marriage. I didn't know there have been 31, did you?

With midterm elections coming up next year and voter anger rising, I forsee a potential rise in the number of these measures appearing on the ballots next year. The "Protect Marriage" groups have already announced that their next targets are New Jersey and New York for 2010.

ABC is premiering a remake of the 1980's show, "V" tonight and the buzz is pretty good. For some reason, ABC decided not to opt for a full season and instead has decided to only greenlight 5 episodes for now, airing in November and February during sweeps months.


Back in the 80's there were two "V" mini-series and one regular series that lasted one year. The first mini-series had strong allegories to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The second mini-series and the regular series was less a social commentary and more space opera.

The name of the series, "V" and the iconic spray painted red "V" derives from the World War II "V for Victory". Back in WWII people would subversively graffiti Nazi propaganda with V's or sneak V's in wherever they could as part of the resistance movement.


There have been some grumblings that this re-imagining is a slam against the Obama administration with parallels of his campaign and the current way media works (or doesn't). It will probably also build on the post-2001 terrorism fears.

Happy Day of the Dead! It's the day of the year where it's supposedly easiest to communicate with the spirit of your dead ones. It's primarily a Latin America holiday but is gaining traction in the US due to the increasing Latino population.


Those of you who are computer gamers may remember a game released in 1998 by LucasArts called "Grim Fandango" which builds off the Day of the Dead mythology. The game got good reviews, but didn't do too well commercially. I personally think that the subject matter was too unfamiliar at the time to most Americans.

Calaca/Catrina Figurines	Jack

A large cable snapped off the Bay Bridge this evening and shut the entire bridge down. My guess is it will be shut for a few days. it's sad that the bridge has been officially condemned by Caltrans since the 1989 earthquake 20 years ago and we still don't have a replacement.


The new Bay Bridge is going to look nice, but is it going to be worth it if cars start falling into the Bay before it's finished? Those of you who watch Battlestar Galactica (the new one) will know what the Bay Bridge is going through right now. No amount of Cylon paste is going to stop the inevitable.

Sometimes geeks do fun things...
This last one is an embedded Easter Egg in some HP scanners. I don't know which is stranger, the fact that someone did this, or that someone actually figured out how to unlock it.

In the first one, the electrical arcs from the Tesla coils are making the music. It's not a Tesla coil sync'ced to pre-recorded music. The sparks are turned on and off at various Hz to get the right tone for each note. The sparks ionize the air, causing vibrations which we interpret as sounds. Do it enough times per second and humans hear it as a particular note. Do it in succession and you hear "music".

It's that day of the year again where you can celebrate Canadian Turkey Day, Columbus Day, Día de la Raza (Hispanic Pride Day), Discovery Day, Indigenous Genocide Day, or Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Indigenous People's Resistance Day).

After two days of practice, the infamous San Francisco fog threw a wet blanket on today's Blue Angels show. Two quick passes over the cold crowds and the Blue Angels scurried back to the warmth of SFO. Better luck tomorrow.


Anyone else notice that the Blue Angels discreetly broke the sound barrier a few times during their practice runs the last two days while way out over the Pacific? I and a couple of other guys I was with who were ex-military recognized the tell tale sounds of distant sonic booms.

I spent a while tonight writing an LJ entry, an entry that I had wanted to do the other night but couldn't because of LJ's maintenance cycle. When I hit save it re-directed me to the login screen. It never saved any of what I had wrote even though it claimed it was autosaving. I am not happy.

I was going to write an LJ entry tonight, but LJ had a maintenance cycle. I watched anime (Final Yamato) on YouTube instead. Now that LJ is back I'm too tired and lost interest. Isn't that how it always goes.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is not quite the same.




...look at the police shields....