The rains this weekend swelled the rivers to flood stage in south-western New Hampshire. As much as half of Keene is said to be under water. Further north, the small and historic downtown of Alstead has been washed away.

This picture comes from the Portsmouth Herald, and reports in the Washington Post from Keene and Alstead add detail. The current death count is five, according to NHPR news, and NH Governor John Lynch has declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard. Many hundreds of people have been evacuated and are waiting for the waters to recede.

Inspectors say the flood control damns are at full capacity but are holding — for the moment. Predicted rains for tonight and through the week are worrying people, though…

tags: alstead, alstead nh, damage, destruction, devestation, flood, flood damage, flood destruction, flood devestation, flood stage, floods, keene, keene nh, loss, national guard, rivers, state of emergency, swollen rivers

Matt started talking up the weird issues developing around multiplayer online games a few weeks ago. Then soon after he blogged it, a story appeared in On the Media (listen, transcript)

Short story: online gaming is huge — one developer claims four million paying customers. More significantly, the interplay between real and virtual worlds might create new challenges for this real world legal system. “Theft” of in-game money and equipment among players in the online world is possible, but it’s lead to the real-world arrest of at least one person and the murder of another when authorities refused to act.

One argument is that these games occupy players time and cost money, so in-game theft results in real-life loss. Baloney. Chess and Monopoly occupy great deals of time, but try telling the cops I rooked your knight. Money? A huge number of Americans invest time and money on building and racing cars on the approximately 1800 racetracks around the country. Real time and and hard-earned money are lost when cars crash, but the track has its own rules “rubin’s racin, Cole” — and none of us would excuse a driver for off-track violence against a competitor.

tags: crime, game, game money, game world, game worlds, law, loss, mmo, mmorpg, multiplayer online games, murder, online games, real world, real world violence, role playing game, story world, theft, video games, video game, virtual, virtual economy, virtual world, virtual worlds, weird issues

Yes. The scooter was a thing of ridicule for most people, but I loved it. Riding the scooter was like ‘playing bikes’ when I was ten. It was just fun, and I didn’t need an excuse to do it. I named her Trixie, but most people just called her scooter.

But the scooter is sold now. It went first to Cliffy, then to Chuck. Did Cliffy appreciate it like I did? Will Chuck?

My time with the scooter was sure to come to an end after moving to Warren. My 20 mile commute to work was too far away for the scooter, and the scooter didn’t really fit well in-town either. Indeed, the scooter came to me after my friend Joe Monninger moved to Warren and decided to sell it.

During the time I had it, the scooter endured two or three crashes. The last crash was while my wife, Sandee, was making her second attempt to learn to ride. She minored in dance, and while on her feet she can balance and spin, jump and land with grace and outstanding beauty. But on the scooter she locks up as soon as the scooter begins to accelerate. In panic she squeezes the hand grips, and turns the throttle. Accelerating, screaming, wobbling, she aims for the largest obstacle.

Her two rides as scooter driver have been short ones.

The sticker on the back, which was so tongue-in-cheek, was found dangling from a wall outside Chuck’s old apartment many years ago when I first got the scooter. The backing had been removed, and I wasn’t sure it would stick well. It was on a humid night in June, 1997, that I put that sticker on trunk of the scooter. It’s stuck ever since.

Good bye old scooter. I will miss you.

scooter, yamaha, cool, i’m cooler than you, loss