Does your family have a legendary story about an experience so terrible that it’s been retold for years? I’m talking about the kind of spectacular disaster that was miserable for everyone involved at the time, but has since become folklore. My family does, and it involved a night’s stay at the Floridian Motel in St. Clairsville, Ohio.
Continue reading “Paradise lost: a night at the Floridian”
As a coin collector who spent much of 2026 unemployed, I’ve had a blast hunting down this year’s United States Semiquincentennial coinage. I splurged on the Enduring Liberty half-dollar and the controversial dollar, which I’ll cover another time, but the real fun has been finding the rest in my change. Will they ever be worth more than face value? Probably not. Do I care? Not a whit! After what felt like an eternity, I finally got my hands on three of the “Constitution of the United States” quarters featuring James Madison and Independence Hall.
Continue reading “My 65-day SemiQ quarter hunt ended at Panda Express”
We didn’t need another Asia album. As a matter of fact, you may have never needed Asia’s first blockbuster! Still, I’ll anxiously await new tunes when original keyboardist Geoff Downes gets together with a mix of prog-rock luminaries and a talented newcomer to reboot the band. After all, Yes is a shadow now, Genesis is finished, and two-thirds of ELP is dead. Somebody has to fill the prog-rock void, and this newfangled lineup of Asia has entered the ring. The group will release its new album, Indigo, on November 6th, and the album’s third single, “Arcadia,” recently dropped. Naturally, I’m here to check it out.
Continue reading “Asia’s “back” with a third new single! My review:”
The breaded pork tenderloin might be Indiana’s greatest contribution to civilization aside from corn, open-wheel racing, and Axl Rose. You can find one practically anywhere here, usually consisting of an expansive fried pork cutlet far larger than the bun tasked with containing it. The best I’ve ever had actually came from Chubby’s in Sevierville, Tennessee, of all places, but Indiana is its home. In tiny Markleville, the Grill-A fries up a pretty good one.
Continue reading “Tenderloin time at the Grill-A”
I’ve had an Apple Watch for years, but owning one and actually wearing one have turned out to be two different things. My first was a Series 3, which I bought around 2021. A year and a half ago I replaced it with an SE 3 with GPS for $249. I like my Apple Watch a lot! Unfortunately, I’ve always been terrible at keeping the thing charged. Enter this dumb little JOYROOM device.
Continue reading “Random tech review: the JOYROOM Portable 2000mAh Wireless Charger for Apple Watch”
Now that we’re a couple of years in, I’m used to blogging in the AI era. Friends and family might send me a screenshot of their favorite chatbot citing one of my blog posts, or I’ll see a couple hundred random referrals from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Copilot. Sunday, though, I got an unexpected email from what purported to be an AI agent. What?
Continue reading “What, exactly, was this unsolicited AI email I just received?”
Just south of Muncie, downtown New Castle is home to some compelling architecture. There’s the 1869 Henry County Courthouse for starters, but the city’s old YMCA -a four-story building erected in 19251 and designed in a restrained Renaissance Revival style- features an enormous bracketed cornice. The cornice does much of the architectural heavy lifting for the structure, but what sits above it is what intrigues me: a Federal Signal Thunderbolt 1000T tornado siren.
Continue reading “New Castle’s silent Thunderbolt”
Sorry to break away from my typical topics, but the newest incarnation of the ’80s progressive-rock supergroup Asia released “The Traveller (Into the Light),” the first single from the band’s long-awaited Indigo album, back on July 6, . On August 12, Frontiers Records released a video for the album’s second single, “Echo of You.” As I was with the first release, I’m here with some thoughts.
Continue reading “There’s another new Asia single and I’m here to review it”
Longtime readers here know that I’m fascinated by tornado sirens. I’ve tracked down all of Muncie’s aging Thunderbolts, the Banshee on top of the old courthouse, and even some of the modern 2001-SRNs scattered around these parts. It’s rare that they actually become newsworthy, but the other day, they did! A little.
Continue reading “Muncie’s sirens still sounded after the flood”
I’ve been selling a ton of stuff on Facebook Marketplace (where I’m highly rated, I must add) over the past few months. One of the first things to go was a vintage General Foam Santa Choo-Choo and Tender Car from the seventies, but I got ripped off after failing to do enough research about it. I made a solemn oath that I wouldn’t get caught flat-footed if the opportunity ever appeared again! When I inherited thirteen more vintage blow molds, I came prepared.
Continue reading “Santa heads, giant pumpkins, and one weird goose”