Here's hoping everyone's better off than the sff.net servers.

Today we crept out in Jim's low-slung sports car to get necessary groceries (eggs and that kind of thing), and did not have too much problem except for trying to walk on our driveway (it was a sheet of snowy ice). At least on the drive we can hang onto the car and porch.

and happy day, I have to go to work tomorrow. Publishing houses don't get MLK day. Especially event media houses.

And I don't mean to sound like a Texas chauvinist, but the fact is that Texas is one big state. They have ice and snow up in the panhandle while we're running around outside in shorts and T-shirts. A lot of the nasty stuff scoots through the panhandle and Oklahoma and we never see it.

On the other hand, up above the Caprock the snow is likely to blow off the road before it sticks, if you're not in town. But freezing rain is ... not fun. Except for when it's thawing, and the pieces are falling off overhead objects.

Here in the SF Bay Area we have no ice or even rain storms, but the temperature at night has been in the 20s for the last 3-4 days in my neighborhood, and looks to be there for a while yet. Frost on the ground and on windshields in the morning. These lowered temperatures are hardest on the homeless, and hard on those in thin-walled houses with old heating systems.

SFF Net's regulars are welcome to carry on their ongoing discussions and leave messages for each other here until their site is back up; and after that, too.

Whee!

The current bit of Schaenfreude comes from the fact that Rick Perry was supposed to have an inaugural parade tomorrow. Instead, I think the town closes down.

JC #10: There's an ice storm that makes it into Austin about once every two years, usually at highly inappropriate times, like, in this case, opening week for the university's spring semester. Since nobody knows how to drive in this stuff, and since there's lots of little twisty roads with hills on the west side of town, it's a mess. Count on 400 accidents, even with everything closed.

Today's picture is one of Comet McNaught over Catalonia, very pretty. Yesterday's was a time-lapse X-ray series of the center of the galaxy, with stars moving enough to notice.

The APoD skips the 14th in the index page, but not in the "next" function if you're already on the page.

Watching stars move in the center of our galaxy, how 21st century cool is that?

Nova just had a good program on that in Monster of the Milky Way. It showed stars whipping around Sag.A. like comets do around the sun. Neat.

Although I personally am disappointed- not sure why- that our galaxy has a central black hole. (I've also been disappointed in our universe for only having 500 billion galaxies. I was hoping for something more uncountable.)

The spindle has to go in somewhere.

No, I'm kidding. I know exactly what you mean.

I don't know why you'd be disappointed in a central black hole, though--that's seriously just about the most awesome thing I can think of being there, besides, like, William Shatner or something.

77 galaxies per person: great big number, that. 77. whoooooo.

It's just that just about every other galaxy has a black hole. Be cool to live in a galaxy without one.

Not to mention who wants to live where there's a sun-eating black hole in the middle? Would you want to live in a house with a central vaccum capable of taking children? It isn't safe. Yeah, sure, should be losing more sleep about Eta Carinae. But first, that's a southern thing- black holes don't care what hemisphere you're in. Second, a black hole can eat a hypernova, and wouldn't even notice.

Would you want to live in a house with a central vaccum capable of taking children?

If it would mean my house would be permanently child-free, I'd be happy.

Ordinarily we do the groceries on Tuesday, and over the weekend the predictions were that the weather would have cleared up by then. Ha, ha, ha. I suspect that the grocery scene tomorrow adternoon and evening is going to be horrific.