New Cellphone Plan? No Thanks!

I got a text message on my cellphone today from Verizon. They want me to "upgrade" to one of their newer plans where you get unlimited nite and weekend minutes BUT you pay $2.99 a day when you use your cellphone during the day.

Since I use my cellphone everyday that would come out to roughly $90 a month and I don't think that includes text messaging as well!

'No thanks' I'll just stick to my little old monthly cellphone plan thank you.

It's bad enough with all the advertisements that we are subjected to but now they are on the cellphones as well!

Germantown

I was talking to someone about the Germantown section of Philadelphia and it brought back some fond memories. Personally I remember the area as having those great big old beautiful houses that I later found out were quite historical in nature. I also remember the area having a lot of "green" in it - meaning trees and grass.

I haven't been in that particular area since last year when I was at Germantown and Chew avenue doing some shopping. Unfortunately there was a lot of trash in the area but it was full of people including a lot of students, people who were going to lunch from their jobs and just a lot of people in general. Germantown and Chelten is quite a congested area during almost any time of the day.

I see that the Germantown branch of the library is still there and it is still in that cute old-looking building. (I have been looking for an online picture of it but haven't found one yet but will post it when I do).

The whole entire area is steeped in tradition and their historical society is supposed to be quite popular.

The further up Germantown Avenue you go the more shops and stores that appear and I seem to remember that they decorate the outside streets with Christmas decorations during the holidays. I also remember some of the shops being quite pricy but there are also stores there where you can get a good bargain as well.

Now that I'm remembering I seem to remember there being a fabric shop in the area but I don't think that it is there anymore )-:

Unfortunately My Brother Is Back In The Hospital Again

It just happened within the last few days!

Ironically enough he was going for a regular doctor's appointment and while he was there he told his doctor that he wasn't feeling well. They checked him out and thought his condition warranted him a longer stay at the hospital so that they could take some tests to see what is wrong.

My brother is a veteren and he's currently at the VA hospital.

I talked to him a few hours ago and he said that he is feeling better as long as he doesn't over-exert himself.

So while the hospital is taking tests he will be there for a while.

State Income Tax Website

I have added a new list of links to the side of this board. What prompted me to do that is that I'm currently filling out my income taxes and since the April 15th date is so near I was looking online to see if there was a site where I could download a copy of one of the Pennsylvania state tax forms that I need. I found the website and here it is:

State Income Tax Website

You can go to the website to find the Pennsylvania State Income Tax forms that you need and you can download them from the site as well.

Temple University Gets A BIG Donation!

College gets anonymous $5 million in the mail: Kind-hearted donor sends big checks to help educate women and minorities *

The checks to Temple University really were in the mail -- for $5 million. It was a total surprise for the school to receive the anonymous donations, which arrived in a pair of nondescript envelopes sent via U.S. mail from a bank in Arizona, said Stuart Sullivan, Temple's senior vice president for institutional advancement.

source
MSNBC

WURD 900 AM's Albert Butler

I have a stats tracker widget on this blog. I use it to track my traffic and see where it is coming from. I use it mainly for my Adsense Consultant blog but traffic to this blog is also including in the stats.

With that being said I noticed that there were more than a few people doing searches for Albert Butler and/or WURD Radio. I am taking this to mean that a lot of people are trying to find out where Albert Butler (aka Mr. Midday) is now. He does have a myspace page (which you can find the link to on this blog by hitting the WURD label that appears at the bottom of this blog entry).

Albert Butler used to have a show on WHAT. But if you don't know it by now WHAT has a new owner and a new format - which isn't anything like the old format! The last time I listened to WHAT they were touting something like "independent music".

Albert Butler can now be heard on WURD Mondays thru Fridays from 4 to 7 pm.

Philadelphia Webcams

Because of the bad weather today I thought I might look around to see if I could find some Philadelphia related webcams. There is supposed to be a webcam site for the Philadelphia National Airport but when I went to that site their webcam was "temporarily" down. I did find another Philadelphia Webcam site which is supposed to be a skyline view and taken from the perspective of the Philadelphia Franklin Institute.

Since the above picture was taken today I notice that I don't see any snow there!

WURD Radio - 900 AM

I'm currently listening to WURD Radio's Al(bert) Butler who is on Monday - Fridays 4-7pm. However I only get good reception on this AM station from one upstairs room in my house (that static interference starts to kick in at around 5:45pm) - so currently I am listening to it online.

WURD Radio's Website

So I'm listening to it online and it occurs to me that I could probably listen to it via my Windows Media player - but I'm still trying to figure out how to do that.

I didn't even know that this station existed until a few years ago! My station of choice was WHAT which is now no more! It really is a shame that I didn't know about this station before but at least I know about it now and I listen to it a lot.

Remember that WURD is a community talk station.

Al Butler - aka Mr. Midday!

Here is a picture of Al Butler - aka Mr. Midday who used to have a show at WHAT. I'm glad to report that he is now on WURD, Mon - Fridays from 4 - 7pm. I just found this out today by going to

his MySpace page

If you don't already know WHAT is not WHAT Radio any more. I'm still trying to find out what happened to Mary Mason!

But I'm glad I found Mr. Midday.

WURD is 900 am

"Parking Wars!"

If anything should scare you about getting parking tickets in Philadelphia - This show will! First of all I can't get over the fact that this show is only using Philadelphia - do we really have THAT much of a parking problem that they don't have to highlight other areas as well?

First my own experience with the Philadelphia Parking Authority -I have never gotten my car booted BUT I did have some rather horrendous experiences with getting tickets!

This was a few years back but once I was going to school in Center City and I decided to park my car along Walnut Street! When I returned to drive home I found that my car was gone - I thought it was stolen! I came to find out that first it was ticketed and then and then it was towed to the tow "place". Well I first had to find out where the towing place was - it way far out somewhere - and I had to take the bus to get there! Once I did get there there was something like $200 I had to pay! Well I decided there and then that I was never going to get another parking ticket again! That scared me enough to NEVER get another parking ticket again!

Another time (again a few years back) I got an $80 speeding ticket! So suffice it to say that I don't speed any more!

Well back to the show - Parking Wars - It sorely reminded me why I avoid getting any kind of ticket or anything like that again. First of all people have to wait in line forever - a lot of them had to take off from work to get down there and they are not to happy to begin with!

Another thing is that a lot of people are there because they either don't have or they have expired paperwork like their drivers' license and/or registration and/or their car insurance has lapsed (or they have let their car insurance expire). (So as much as I grumble about having to pay that stuff I know its better to pay it than to get caught without it!)

As you can guess a lot of these people are NOT happy at having their car ticketed, booted or towed away! A lot of the people got into this situation because they have a lot of unpaid parking tickets. One woman got her car towed because her registration had expired. She had to go to court and get a paper releasing her vehicle, then she had to go back to the parking authority to get her car only to find out that she had to hire a towing service to remove her car!

It's just enough to make you want to scream (and some of them did!)

I kind of feel sorry for some of the Philadelphia Parking Authority staff because they take a lot of abuse from the people!

But if anything will scare you straight about getting a parking ticket - then this show should definitely do it!

Philadelphia's New Mayor!

Well it looks like Philadelphia has a new mayor. Michael Nutter was sworn in today and I saw a bit of it on the news. One of his main agendas is fighting the high crime rate in Philadelphia. He is asking for community support from all the residents of the city.

Only time will tell as to how good he is.

Philadelphia Wind Advisory Until Tomorrow Afternoon!

Philadelphia is currently under a wind advisory until tomorrow (Monday) afternoon!

Wind gusts of up to 50 mph can be expected!