In Soviet Russia Boston, you don’t surf the Internet, the Internet surfs you.

Okay, that doesn’t actually make any sense, I just felt like saying it. Anyway, yeah, city governments shouldn’t be banning websites. That’s all I have to say about that. (Hat tip: InstaPundit.)

P.S. BoingBoing has a pre-existing page detailing how to circumvent “censorware.” Its stated purpose is to help people whose “employer or corrupt, undemocratic, dictator-based government uses a filtering service…to block access to BoingBoing.net.” Who knew the government of Boston was “corrupt, undemocratic and dictator-based”? Heh.

Just keep looking up:

The sky will be dark and moonless for at least three hours before the first light of dawn on Sunday morning, April 22, when the annual Lyrid meteor shower is due to reach its peak. …

Within a day on either side of the maximum, about 5 to 10 Lyrids can usually be seen each hour by a single observer under good skies. At the peak, the Lyrid rate is roughly 10 to 20 per hour. …

While hardly a rich display, like the famous August Perseids or December Geminids, the April Lyrids are brilliant and appear to move fairly fast, appearing to streak through our atmosphere at 30 miles (48 km) per second. About 20 to 25 percent leave persistent trains.

In 1922, an unexpected Lyrid rate of 96 was recorded, and in 1982 rates unexpectedly reached 80 per hour, so although usually a weak display, the Lyrids have had a history to surprise observers so it’s always one to watch.

(Hat tip: ScottF.)

The pilot of a U.S. Navy Blue Angels F/A-18 jet that crashed at an air show in South Carolina is dead, the Beaufort County coroner says.

Visit CNN for the latest.

There has been at least one fatality in the crash of a U.S. Navy Blue Angels F/A-18 jet at an air show in South Carolina, the Beaufort County coroner says.

Visit CNN for the latest.

A member of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels precision flight team has crashed during an air show in Beaufort, South Carolina, witnesses tell CNN.

Visit CNN for the latest.

I'm wandering around, taking pictures from various sections of the stadium. Not something you usually get to do at Notre Dame games. Fun times. And what a beautiful day!

Why are some sections of the stadium closed? What would be the harm in letting people sit where they want? It's a scrimmage, it's general admission, and the stadium is nowhere near capacity, so what's the big deal? Stupid regulatory randomness.

It’s amazing how fast ND games go without NBC TV timeouts.

At the Blue-Gold Game. Very good crowd. Ara and Lou are honorary coaches!

The dog's name is Charlie. Woof!

A committee on Church teaching and doctrine has issued a finding reversing the idea that unbaptized infants are relegated to Limbo.

Not the Ty Willingham era green, though. Darker than that, more like a forest green. I forgot all about the unveiling, but Rakes of Mallow has pictures, cribbed from the Bookstore website.

The Sabres and Islanders are underway in Buffalo. It’s a scoreless tie midway through the first period.

To which I say: enough with this scoreless tie s**t. I’m sick of the Sabres pussyfooting around. I’m sick of down-to-the-wire games between the NHL’s best team and the worst team in the playoffs. It’s crap. I want to see the Sabres play like they’re capable of. I want a blowout. I want blood. You’ve got 50 minutes, boys. Yeah, all we need is a win to clinch the series, but a win isn’t enough. Anything short of Buffalo 7, New York 1 will be a disappointment. That’s all I have to say about that.

P.S. The Isles might be better if their players weren’t druggies. Hehe.

P.P.S. Bfloblog has an open thread.

UPDATE: 1-0 Sabres, end of first period.

UPDATE 2: Pominville scores less a minute into the second period, and it’s 2-0. I like where this is going. Now, no stupid penalties, no lazy defense. Keep up the pressure. Go for the kill. C’mon Sabres!

UPDATE 3: 3-0!

UPDATE 4: 3-1, with 13:42 left in the third period.

UPDATE 5: 4-1! w00t!

UPDATE 6: 4-2. Harumph.

UPDATE 7: F**k! It’s 4-3 with 8:53 left. This is exactly what I did not want to see. Lame. LAME.

UPDATE 8: SABRES WIN!!!!

Well, it wasn’t the blowout I wanted, but a win’s a win, and a series win is a series win. And they clinched it at home! WOOHOO!! On to the conference semifinals!!!

Finally brought my E18 error-plagued digital camera to Best Buy for repair. Cross your fingers!

UPDATE: There are actually three separate problems with my camera (a Canon PowerShot A95). The newest and most severe is the aforeblogged E18 problem, whereby the camera’s lens will intermittently get stuck, make a grinding sound, and produce the dreaded E18 error, preventing me from using the camera at all. The other two problems have been occurring almost since I’ve had the camera: every couple of months, it resets to the factory default settings for no apparent reason; and the sensor that’s supposed to determine whether a photo is vertical or horizontal sometimes doesn’t work, causing it to rotate some photos that shouldn’t be rotated, and vice versa.

I told the Geek Squad technician about all three problems. I also explained that the latter two are inconveniences that I’ve tolerated until now, but that have been happening almost since I bought the camera in December 2004. He typed out a summary of the problems, then said the camera will be sent out for repair — and darkly hinted that the technicians might conclude that a slight dent on the front of the camera voids the warranty. Needless to say, I’ll be very, very annoyed if that happens, because the dent has absolutely nothing to do with any of the problems. It’s really just a cosmetic issue. Yeah, so I’ve dropped the camera once or twice. Every camera gets dropped once or twice. It’s part and parcel of regular usage. S**t happens. It’s precisely because I know that “s**t happens” that I paid $60 for a four-year service plan (almost one-fifth the price of the camera). Anyway, the E18 error is a common problem, so it’s ridiculous to blame it on something I supposedly did wrong — and besides, the other two problems long predate any alleged physical damage to the camera. If Best Buy screws me on this, you can bet I’ll be blogging extensively about it, a la Jeff Jarvis’s Dell Hell.

Anyway, the Geek Squad guy said the camera should be back in 2-4 weeks. Hopefully it’s closer to 2 than 4, so I’ll have it in plenty of time for 3L Week and graduation. But I found my “backup camera,” the old three-megapixel A60, so I’m not cameraless in any event.

A man entered a NASA building took two hostages, and eventually shot one and himself today at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

More details here.