Springfield

The Simpsons movie, releasing this summer, will open first in Springfield. But which one?

A contest has been developed in which towns of Springfield in states across the country will compete to be chosen to host the opening of the animated movie.

Weird NJ

Before I was a teenager who spent weekends visiting Weird NJ ghost roads and abandoned structures with my friends, I was a kid in the passenger seat of my mom's station wagon.

We took Rt. 517 to Rt. 206 to go to antique shops or the Ledgewood Mall because it was the only mall with a Marshall's, which has always been my mom's favorite.

The highlight of this trip was passing an old man who sat in a folding chair outside his rundown house. The chair was inched right up to the place where the asphalt of Rt. 206 became the grass of his front yard.

No matter the season, when you drove by, he'd be there. Just sitting and waving.

You felt like the only one who knew about it, about him, until someone else brings him up and the shared experience instantly bonds you. "*You* know the waving guy? *I* know the waving guy! Why's he there?"

We never found out why he was there. But he always was. Every single time we drove by. And so it was weird when, one day on the way home from Ledgewood, we stopped at the grocery store that was on the way. We never went to any grocery stores other than the one in our town and so it felt foreign and strange. My mom and brother and I were there with my mom's best friend and neighbor Beth Leicht and her daughters. On our way out, Waving Willy, as he is known, was on his way in and he whistled at Beth.

So, he did leave his roadside chair on occassion. Probably more often than we realized. But he was always there when we passed and we never passed without slowing to wave and honk.

The summer before I left for college, I was hauling up Rt. 206 towards the Succasunna movie theater to meet my friends. Rounding the corner before Willy's, I started looking for him, as my brain was trained to do. You could see him long before you passed him. His chair was there, but he wasn't. It was covered in flowers and trinkets. Waving Willy had passed away. The papers ran a feature about him and called him a local legend.

Weird NJ magazine has covered him several times, from their initial discovery of him to his death. I was surprised to see his photo in the magazine when I first encountered it. He was mentioned in a section called The Cult of Wavers. New Jersey, it seems, has had several roadside wavers.

Willy's chair is still there. One of the most recognizable trinkets on it is a big red heart. I was just a kid, so he seemed funny, but became part of my memories. I imagine that for some, having him as a constant probably felt good. I think I'd find it hard to feel alone if I could wave to the same person every day, even if we never shared a word.

Pit bull Ban

Ben: Maggie, what were you saying about the pitbulls?

Maggie: I heard that California was trying to ban Pit bulls even though breed-specific banning is currently illegal in 11 states. There is some legislation addressing this.

Aside from what a terrible precedent it would set to be able to ban a particular breed of anything, it feels like crooked thinking. Pitt bulls have a bad reputation because of people. They are one of those breeds that people think are killers, and so people treat them that way. When Pitt bull owners try to make their dog tough, that just means they're abusing it.

The Pittie Love rescue group here in Massachusetts says that Pit bulls are "one of the most abused and misunderstood dogs of all time."

Pitt bulls end up spending a lot of their time chained in backyards and that isolation drives them nuts, just as it does to all other breeds. The more isolated they are while chained in back yards, the more likely they are to attack someone.

Pit bulls aren't like other dogs. While Labs were bred to retrieve birds and St. Bernards were bred as rescue dogs, for hundreds of years Pit bulls have been bred to fight other dogs. They do have the potential to be aggressive. But Pittie love says:

Pit bulls have superior physical and mental characteristics that make them excellent partners for responsible, active, and caring owners. On the other hand, these same outstanding qualities can make them a little difficult to handle for people who don't have a lot of experience with dog ownership, or for those who don't understand the breed very well. Luckily, pit bulls are very responsive to training and eager to lease. It is therefore strongly recommended to take them to obedience classes.

Every breed has problems that adopters should be aware of. For example, people think Huskies are great dogs because they seem so smart in movies. But Huskies were bred to work and if they don't get A LOT of exercise then owners will have A LOT of behavioral problems with their husky.

The flip side of the banning issue that if state governments don't address the fears that result from dog bites and attacks, people may take matters into their own hands. When Googling about this, I saw several references to incidents where people killed neighbors' or stray Pit bulls with golf clubs or guns because they were afraid of them.

Legislation should be addressing animal neglect and abuse, dog fighting, and other cruelty.

CNN

Has anyone else noticed that CNN's homepage hasn't updated in almost a week?

What's with that? I like to fill out their poll. Not only that, but I went there looking for information on the newest reason to hate Ann Coulter.

Come on, CNN, don't make me get my news from Fox.

My new specs

Here tickey tickey

Today was the second or third time in a month that the ticket-taker on the train didn't come around to take tickets. While a free ride is, of course, a great way to start the day, I can't help but think that if they actually collected the fees, they wouldn't have to keep raising the price of the T.

But I guess it all works out in the end.