Merry Christmas!

And happy holidays to one and all!

May your season be bright, and may none of the bulbs on your light strands burn out.

We know you want to move here, but…

first please give us a chance to fix our roads, our schools, and other parts of our infrastructure before you come here to place even more strain on them.

The U.S. Census Bureau says that North Carolina has now moved into the Top Ten List of the most populous states.  I seem to remember reading somewhere not too long ago that this was predicted to happen around 2012.  Was I just imagining things, or have we suddenly started to experience a population explosion here?

In any case, we thank you for your interest and we’ll be chopping down trees and eliminating green space as quickly as possible in order to make room for your brand new McMansion with an oversized, gas-guzzling Hummer in the driveway.  Please be patient.

Why so many wrecks on I-77?

They want to know why I-77 has a lot of accidents? Are you kidding me? Somebody is actually starting to study the problem?

I might be able to get them started with some suggestions:

1. potholes;
2. poorly-patched potholes (even worse than the above);
3. drivers in big-ass SUVs who refuse to pay attention because they are “safer” in their tanks;
4. drivers on cell phones, with or without handsfree devices, who don’t pay attention because they’re busy talking about Brittany Spears;
5. any combination of numbers 3 and 4 above;
6. has anybody even noticed that traffic on I-77 is light north of I-40, but gets progressively heavier from Statesville to Charlotte?;
7. has anybody noticed that much of the traffic in #6 involves drivers who are new to Charlotte and are still driving as they did back home?;
8. has anybody noticed that everybody on I-77 thinks (s)he is either a race car driver or a farm tractor driver, and that these two styles of driving rarely mix well?

Where have all the fact checkers gone?

Fact checkers — and editors, for that matter — used to be employed by news agencies to help ensure that the news that went out was, in fact, news, rather than some mixture of news and fabrication on the part of the reporter.  Apparently these people have all been fired or have collectively become so inebriated from the sheer weight of their burdens that they are unable to check even the simplest things.

Case in point:  the above story from CNN.com (here’s a link).  I’ve already e-mailed them about the error, but it’s in big, bold lettering right up front, and it places Wilmington in the wrong state, in a story that’s listed in CNN.com’s “most popular” list.  For the record, here’s a list of 239 (as of the time I’m writing this) other places that managed to get the correct location.

Yes, I know that placing Wilmington one state to the south is fairly minor in the context of getting the story right, especially as there are other references to the city’s true location in North Carolina.  The point is that CNN should have checked a story from Associated Press before ripping it off the wire and plopping it on their site.  If 239 other people could do it, so could they.

It’s a dance. No, really.

If you’re English, you’ll find this funny.  You might also plan a trip to the Charlotte area, where we have an actual Hall of Fame for it.  Americans may or may not get the joke.

The Charlotte Area Shaggers Hall of Fame had a large turnout for its first inductions at JB’Z Beach Club on Nov. 25.

The rest is here.