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Just a quick update…rode another 21 miles Tuesday in 88 minutes so my average speed was around 14 miles per hour. Still not great, but it was good to log about 53 miles on the ol’ bike over the extended Fourth of July weekend.

I’m hoping that by the end of the summer, I will feel up to taking on the 36-mile round trip between my parents’ place in Toms River, N.J., and the Point Pleasant Beach side of the Manasquan Inlet. That route would look like this:

In case you haven’t heard, the state of New Jersey has effectively closed for business thanks to a political showdown over the state budget.

That means no lottery in New Jersey. Now, while the lottery’s revenue supposedly goes toward services for the elderly and higher education, it’s really not a big deal that there isn’t a lottery for the time being.

Then again…you have these New Jersey residents who are quoted in this article from The Times (of Trenton):

The hiatus of lottery sales has become an inconvenience to Trenton residents like Michael Dell, who have to leave the Garden State to buy tickets.

Standing yesterday outside of the Pennsylvania News and Tobacco shop in Morrisville, Pa., Dell said he couldn’t believe the state would allow the budget crisis to get this far.

“The state’s actions have taken a toll on our residents. It’s very inconvenient to have to go across the river just to get lottery tickets,” Dell said. “It takes time out time of your day that you don’t normally plan for.”

Here’s the thing, Mr. Dell…you don’t HAVE to go across the river just to get lottery tickets. You could simply NOT play during the hiatus.

Here’s another one…

Waiting in line to purchase a Powerball ticket, resident Joe Camarana said the absence of lottery ticket sales is annoying, but he doesn’t plan on letting government disputes prevent him from playing the lottery.

“They’d have to break my legs to keep me from buying these tickets,” Camarana said.

OK, that kind of language screams “gambling problem.”

Just wait until these people realize the casinos in Atlantic City are going to be closing at 8 a.m. Wednesday because they need state regulators to operate.

And don’t think they can just go to a race track and bet on the horses. The state’s race tracks were shut down, too.

Ever since the announcement a couple of years ago of a big-budget, live-action/CGI “Transformers” movie, I have been excited to see it finally come to the big screen. And with Steven Spielberg as executive producer, what could possibly go wrong? Right?

Well, Michael Bay was hired as director…that’s not a good sign.

Over the past few weeks, details about the vital Autobot character of Bumblebee have emerged. For the uninitiated, Bumblebee from the toy line, comic book, television show and the spectacular, animated “Transformers: The Movie” from 1986 always looked like a yellow VW bug in vehicle mode. However, from things I have read, VW apparently no longer wanted to be associated with a weapon of war—albeit a fictional one—and had declined to license a VW bug version of Bumblebee in recent years. This is probably the reason the movie will show Bumblebee with another vechicle mode…the upcoming version of the new Chevrolet Camaro.

Now, I guess they had to change the vehicle mode for Bumblebee, but I would still like to have seen him as a smaller car. A Cooper Mini, perhaps? But, no…Bumblebee is now a muscle car.

And here is a partially transformed Bumblebee…

But I can live with that, I guess. I just hope Optimus Prime isn’t changed from a tractor-trailer to a minivan.

Then, the “Transformers” teaser trailer was released a few days ago. And while I like the premise, it is filled with a bunch of inaccuracies. When you have so much wrong over the span of a 1 minute, 45 second teaser, it makes you wonder how much is going to be wrong with a full-length movie. Here is the “Transformers” teaser trailer from YouTube:

OK, here are the problems. First of all, the Beagle 2 probe that is mentioned in the teaser was a real-life, British-designed and constructed Mars lander that crashed on the planet’s surface. As far as I can glean from the materials I have read, it was not a rover like the American-made Spirt and Opportunity rovers that have been rolling along the Martian surface for years now. There was a “mole” component of Beagle 2 that was supposed to crawl along the Martian soil and grab samples from beneath the surface, but it wasn’t anything like a full-size rover depicted in the teaser.

Also, the “mission control” voices in the teaser are decidedly American, even though Americans had nothing to do with Beagle 2’s launch or mission. Again, this was a British program that launched from the Russian spaceport at Baikonur in Kazakhstan so the inclusion of American voices in the teaser just doesn’t make any sense.

And then there are the visuals that are supposed to appear like images from the Martian surface. The teaser producers didn’t even take the time to make the Beagle 2 footage look like it was taken on Mars. It looks they got some footage in a southwestern U.S. desert and quickly added the raw footage into the teaser.

So while I’m looking forward to seeing a live-action/CGI version of “Transformers” from a technical standpoint, I feel Michael Bay has missed the point again…all explosions, effects and action…and no story…and no logic…and no heart.

UPDATE – 7/4/06, 10:32 a.m.
Well, looking at some message boards led me to Michael Bay’s news blog, which says that none of the Beagle 2/Mars storyline will be in the movie. So that’s a good thing.

Went on a little ride of about 11 miles today to see a friend of mine. My right knee was killing me from yesterday’s 21-mile jaunt and I learned the hard way that most of the roads I took to get to my destination had pretty decent inclines on them…and any acceleration I picked up on the declines were short-lived thanks to inconveniently placed sharp turns or stop signs.

The ride there took me 20 minutes and the ride back took me 30, so my average speed was only 13.2 miles per hour, which is pretty pathetic for me normally, but I was riding rather leisurely so I guess that’s not too bad.

…well, it’s not the sky…it would be more accurate to say that planes are falling out of the sky. Two of them, in fact, needed to make emergency landings…today…within a couple of miles of each other here at the Jersey Shore. Of course, they were sign-towing planes…a fixture over the beaches in the summer.

I apparently just missed seeing one of them, but I turned off the road before I got tied up in the resulting traffic. I did see an ambulance rushing to the scene, but figured it was just a typical automobile-based accident.

Anyway, this Asbury Park Press news update gives a brief description of the emergency landings and this image from Google Maps shows the two locations of the incidents. The green pinpoint marks the first emergency landing while the red one shows where the second plane came down.

Back in the VUE after approximately 21 miles on the bike. The return trip into the wind and with tired legs took 49 minutes, so my total ride time was 84 minutes (I took a 15-minute break at the Point Pleasant Beach side of the Manasquan Inlet to rest and post update #1). That means I was averaging 15 miles per hour, but I’m usually closer to 18 miles per hour.

Not bad for the first ride of the year, but my bike and I both need work.

To the inlet in 35 minutes.

Well, I’m packing my 12-speed in the ol’ VUE and bringing it with me to the Jersey Shore this holiday weekend. Considering I spent the Memorial Day holiday confined to my apartment and writing songs (which came out pretty good), I feel the need to enjoy the outdoors this extended weekend.

Before I take off on my first ride of the summer, however, I must get a flat rear tire repaired. Once that is done, I hope to be on two wheels early tomorrow morning…and I’ll get to ride over the new Mantoloking Bridge. Woo hoo!

So forget about a Lance Armstrong-less Tour de France that has already been rocked by a doping scandal. The Tour de BK is where it’s at in ’06!

Here is my route, which starts after a transport by car to a shopping center near the Brick/Silverton, N.J., border:

Of course, I’ll only be going on this bike ride if my head stops feeling woozy from a self-inflicted coffee cup wound I suffered while walking in my front door this afternoon. I had my travel mug in my right hand and went to shoo away a buzzing insect flying around my head…well, I clocked myself on the front, right side of my head with the top edge of the mug and sliced some skin off.

It’s not quite as bad as the time I hit my head with great force on a beam in Rider’s Alumni Gym during a basketball game, but it was bleeding pretty good there for a few minutes until I patched myself up.

As I mentioned in my previous post about the flooding near me, today is my friend Katie’s birthday. Well, actually, there’s only about an hour left of it.

Anyway, I decided to write her a little birthday song a la “Happy Birthday, Lisa” from “The Simpsons.”

Enjoy.

UPDATED – June 29, 2006; 7:30 a.m.
The above graphic is from the National Weather Service’s Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service shows the current level of the Delaware River in Trenton, N.J., and its projected level within the next couple of days.

As you can see, the Delaware is currently over what is considered flood level, which is set at 20 feet. Even though the worst of the rain and storms have moved out of the area, flood water from areas in upstate Pennsylvania and New York are expected to spill into the Delaware and cause it to rise to as high as 25.1 feet by Friday morning.

Why am I going on and on about all this? Well, the Delaware is between my home and my job…which is why it took me an hour and 40 minutes to make what is about a 13-mile trip this morning. And I expect it’s going to be worse the next couple of days.

Of course, it could be worse. I could live by the Delaware and have my dwelling submerged in flood waters like so many unfortunate people in this area and in the Northeast in general, at this point.

Hmm…I guess I shouldn’t be complaining.

One other comment, though…Happy Birthday, Katie!