Municipal meanderings

For what's an essentially small town (something like 300,000 in the metro area, I think), Peoria has a pretty good-sized 'blog community'. There are even occasional local 'blogger bashes'...ok, "bash" might be too strong a word. They meet at a neighborhood bar, swill beer and bullshit. My kinda soiree, though I've only been able to attend one...so far.

A few of my favorite locals are listed over there ------------> in my sidebar.
There are many more than that, though. I either haven't gotten around to checking each one out, or just haven't added them to Mr. Blogroll yet. That's one of those rountuit jobs. I'll do it when I get rountuit.

Aaaanyway, this post is mostly about local stuff. I figure you're all gettin damn tired of hearin about my GI tract and all it's foibles.

We're expecting a "possibly major" ice storm here tonight. (Everybody got their storm provisions laid in?) I haven't been out since I came home from work and the store at about 1 pm, but it was just misting rain then...I hear it's starting to freeze now, though. Anyway, at about 10 am, I had to be out a bit for work and I noticed that the salt trucks were already out in full force. 'Course I didn't actually see any of 'em spreading salt. It was misting then, too...and about 45 degrees.

But, boy-howdy...they were visible. Just...drivin around. Being...visable. heh

Anybody ever notice the occasional sportscaster on WEEK? The little, nervous, round, bald guy with glasses? The one that looks like an accountant? Has there ever been a sportscaster that looks less like a sportscaster? Hell, Howard Cosell looked like a total jock compared to this guy. Bad toupee and all.

And is "sportscaster" one word or two? Hmmm...nevermind. I say it's one.

One of our esteemed (ahem) city councilmen says he'd like to create a city-wide ban on smoking in restaurants. I'm not about to rant and rave about it, even though I smoke. I don't have a problem with it, though I do have a problem with government dictating my personal choices. Perfectly LEGAL personal choices, I might add. Don't even give me any horseshit about 'infringing on the rights of others'...my rights are infringed upon every time I hafta listen to meaningless cell phone blather. My personal safety is threatened every time a drunk driver gets behind the wheel of a car. I'm pretty sure that more people have died at the hand of a drunk driver than have been killed by second-hand smoke. But as far as I know, booze is still perfectly legal, too.

Ooops. I said I wasn't gonna rant, didn't I?

Anyway, like I said, I don't have a problem with a smoking ban here in Peoria. There are lotsa other bars and restaurants...in East Peoria, Pekin, Chillicothe, Bartonville, Washington, Morton...etc. ect. We'll drive to one of those places...and hopefully won't be killed by a drunk driver on the way.

Oh...and I wanted to mention

Peoria.com

. Finally! A decent Peoria-related web site. Is it just me and my incredibly sloooooow dial-up service, or are most of the other Peoria portals...well...junk? Slow, clunky, hard to navigate and rarely updated. Kinda like me. heh