I have been really busy with work related stuff. I am gonna pick this blog back up with a post about my visit to the NCMA this coming weekend.

Broken Social Scene and Flavor Flaaaavvvv at Raleigh's Hopscotch Festival

Earlier this week, Indy Weekly announced the lineup for the Hospcotch festival and it included headliners Broken Social Scene Public Enemy with Flavor Flav and Panda Bear.

More campy ace double scifi goodness

I just picked up a few new Ace Doubles at Reader's Corner here in Raleigh for only 50 cents each. It seems whoever sold these books was a big fan of E.C. Tubb and Juanita Paulson. 

Update: The Death of Sweepstakes Madness?

Well the North Carolina Lottery commission seems to be closing in on those so called Sweepstakes Centers I mentioned in an earlier post. Today the State Education Lottery sent letters to retailers who operate such video gaming devices warning that if they are convicted of felony gambling charges, they will lose their license to sell lottery tickets.  The state senate also says that it plans on outlawing sweepstakes cafes once it reconvenes for the May session of the legislature.  As I mentioned in my earlier post I definitely see these sweepstakes centers as a problems, especially considering that they are practically popping up anywhere and everywhere. It is also rather disturbing that some are open 24 hrs and some actually let minors in (I wonder if they are able to gamble?).  However, I don't really see the purpose of moving toward an outright ban of these mini-casinos.  It just seems like with very strict regulation, and heavy taxation or licensing requirement these places could serve as a handy revenue source for the state.  I guess we'll have to just wait and see what happens come May.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/wral_investigates/story/7287280/

The above picture is a photograph from the WRAL post that is linked above.

Woot! Health Care reform passed by The House!

 
I spent hours watching this tonight and I am so happy that Congress is finally coming to their senses and doing something about this problem.  I really feel that this is a historic vote and the first real win by the Obama administration.  It doesn't have everything in i that I would have wanted, but honestly after the months and months of BS that we have experienced, it is amazing that that it happened at all.  In my opinion, if this is signed into law it is on par with medicare or social secure or even the civil rights movement (though this might be a bit of a stretch).  I will gush about this when it is signed into law, but I am really excited by the fact that this has been passed by the house tonight.  Also, I will admit to geekily chanting "Yes we can!" with house members when vote number 216 showed up on the screen.  I have had my doubts, but I feel like I am finally seeing my vote for Obama and this congress pay off. 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/21/health.care.latest/index.html?hpt=T1

Texas whackjobs and the death of American education

The more I read about this situation the angrier I get. It is just beyond me who decided that we would put the future of our children's education n the hands of such a small and extreme group of fundamentalists.  The Texas school board has an undue amount of power when it comes to textbook publishing, and it has made the decision to rid history books of any trace of Thomas Jefferson. 

9 Amazing Campy Ace Books sci fi covers

While I as going to school Grad school in Ohio, my favorite bookstore had a great selection of Ace Doubles that were 2 or 3 bucks a pop.  After months of rifling through them, I couldn't resist buying a few because of the amazing 1960s style art that was on each side of their covers.

The Destruction of the New South

Well, I quite enjoyed Raleigh Gawkers assessment of the situation, but I really thought I needed to add my own voice to the fray. As many of you know, The Raleigh school board has been taken over by people who decided that our busing program needs to be scrapped. To me, this move is nothing short of a racist, classist attempt by these parents to keep certain people out of "their" schools. In the New York Times today ,  they focus on the fact that Raleigh was once a leader in creating a kind of model for desegregation that if reversed could easily spiral out of control to the point of resegregation.

Geektastrophy 1: Caprica , first impressions

As with many scifi geeks, I have been a huge fan of the reimagined version of Battlestar Galactica.  I didn't much care for the cheesy, 1970s version of BSG as it always just seemed to be a Star Trek rip-off that paled in comparison.  However, I do love the fact that Battlestar Gallactica footage was stolen for the movie  "Space Mutiny" (Can we say Big Mclargehuge?) which is featured in one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes.  Anyways, the 2003 iteration of Battlestar focused on the quest for survival by a small group of humans in the face of total destruction at the hands of the cylons.  It deals with interesting overarching themes including the nature of humanity and artificial intelligence, as well as very compelling discussions of the nature of war, terrorism, and god.  And yes, there certainly were a lot of points where BSG stumbled in the first couple of seasons, but while it was on, it was a series that I couldn't wait for the next episode to air. 

The Great Sweepstakes Center Scandel

I am well acquainted with the idea of legalized gambling as there are many riverboat casinos in different areas of my home state of Illinois.  The closest one to my hometown in central Illinois was about an hour away on the Illinois River in Peoria.  I think gambling can be a great revenue source for a state, but it has to be controlled and highly regulated or it has the potential to be very harmful to an area.   In North Carolina (and several other Southern states) there is a bizarre loophole that allows computerized slot machines to be placed in Sweepstakes centers throughout the state.

Streaming music gets a swift kick in the face

It seemed to me that music companies had the perfect deal, or at least a new and improved deal.  Finally they'd found a way to get around the rampart file-sharing that had cut a huge sized chunk out of their profits.  After years of suing their customers to recoup the losses from filesharing, there seemed to a light at the end of the tunnel.  Last.fm and others in the U.S. as well as the apparently awesome Spotify in the UK and Europe served as a way for consumers to get music outside of the deadly filesharing.

The Great Super Bowl Sell Out and The Super Bowl's Ban on Female Performers

After the scandalous appearance of songs by both Arcade Fire and Grizzly Bear, hipsters and indie music fans continued the endless tail chasing that attempts to protect underground culture by kicking those out who do not adhere to a code of rejecting mainstream culture.  So it was no surprise that when the Grizzly Bear song "Two Weeks" was featured in a VW commercial and Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" was used in a NFL commercial that was supposed to benefit Haiti earthquake victims.

Testing out my sms posting. I am currently working on a post about biz centers/ sweepstakes centers (legalized gambling) in North Carolina

Jennifer Government and Corporate Personhood

I am having a really hard time getting started with this blog. RDU Gonna Eat is so much easier because we have a specific topic that we focus on all the time. We go to a restaurant, and then write about what we ate. Or, we cook something and then we right about how that went. So I need to brainstorm some generally more structured ideas for this blog or something.


Anyways, I thought I would do a little post on Corporate personhood because it generally scares the crap out of me. As you may have heard the wonderful Supreme Court has decided that corporations have the right to free speech, which essentially struck down much of the progress that has been made (it isn't much) in the past 20 years. This decision was followed immediately followed by the ironic declaration by liberal public relations firm Murray Hill Incorporated that it will run for congress in Maryland's 8th district . And while I appreciate the wit of Murray Hill as well as the Corporations Dream Too T-shirts, I couldn't help but be a bit terrified by this whole situation.

As I thought about this situation I couldn't help but be reminded of one of my most favorite books of all time.

A snowy Raleigh Day!

I keep getting side tracked and never get around to adding a proper post on this blog. I swear there will be well thought out content here at some point. But for now here are a few pictures from our lovely snow day here in Raleigh. I was amazed at how slowly the roads were cleared after the snow, and also what is the deal with people sledding in the middle of the road? Anyways, everybody should go out and enjoy the snow.

Farewell Coco

I thought about writing a long post about our beloved Coco for my first full post, but I decided was a bit cliche even after being quite moved by the other night's final Tonight Show with Conan. A million other bloggers and websites have done that for me and likely done it much more succinctly, so I will just say farewell Conan, I wish you the best.

Well, to start let me introduce myself. I am one half of the blogging team that writes the Raleigh food blog RDU Gonna Eat That (http://rdugonnaeatthat.wordpress.com/) . My name is Tony, and as my wife and I have been writing our foodie blog I always find myself having ideas for posts that don't really fit our modus operandi. So this blog will focus on those topics including my movie, music, and political interests. Of course, since I have titled this blog The Raleigh Outsider, I am also going to focus on some issues inside the Beltline and the greater Triangle area. Finally, since I do a majority of the photography for RDU Gonna Eat, I will add as much as possible to this blog. I hope you enjoy and I look forward to your feedback. Feel free to check out my about for more info (which I will update toute suite).

Oh Yah, and I love Star Wars so I will often place Star Wars related images in random places so bear with me.  This is a Biggs action figure in case you were curious.
-Tony