Tiramisu gelato

This afternoon was pretty good. Went to get gelato at Staccato Gelato and then off to Excalibur for my fix. My haul included:

• Powers
• Planetary
• X-Men
• Justice League: A New Beginning
• Red Star (both of the super-big trades)
• Astonishing X-Men

So far I am loving the Justice League trade, which I purchased on Kevin's recommendation and has some great stuff. The first Red Star trade is a duplicate for me as Aaron was kind enough to send me one when I couldn't get my hands on it locally. So I may find something to do with it--trade it or lend it out. It's good stuff.

Then I sat and read comics while drinking coffee, which was followed by a 100-minute massage. So it's been a good day.

The only downsides were the allergy attacks this morning and the huge temptation I had to mention St. Ralph's little PA escapade at dinner. But that would have been bad.

The password is catnip

The countersign is bus.

Spatch (aka The Funniest Guy I Know) informs us that Cat Town has been cancelled. Though it has a mid-season replacement in Dog Town.

He also perfectly encapsulates the Diablo experience. He goes through Act I of the game, so nothing about the annoying-as-hell third act, or the monotony of Act IV.

I have all sorts of plans today, but the only thing that we must do is go for massages.

In other news, the only thing left for St. Ralph is puppy-kicking. His Philadelphia office shut down and left a bunch of homeless people wanting their money.

Ralph Nader's presidential campaign this week abruptly abandoned the Center City office that housed its efforts to get on the Pennsylvania ballot, leaving behind a mess of accusations and a damaged building.

The office, on the 1500 block of Chestnut Street, was emptied Thursday after a raucous scene the night before. Police were called as dozens of homeless people lined up to collect money they said they were owed for circulating petitions on the candidate's behalf.

DNC warchest gets a little bigger...

So Kerry and Edwards raked in $8.9 million in donations in the last two days. Wow.

From this source:

On Wednesday, the campaign shattered its previous online fundraising record, raising over $3.3 million dollars in one day, only to crush it on Thursday with a total of $5.6 million raised - bringing its two-day total to $8.9 million. At times during Kerry's speech, johnkerry.com received over 5,000 hits per second.

(Steve Gilliard does a pretty good analysis of the speech.)

Didn't sleep well again last night--some sort of allergy attack woke me up for a very uncomfortable couple of hours last night. Bleh.

My brain is fried and I could use a weekend. More entertainment later, perhaps.

Friday grab bag

As Josh sometimes points out, spam comes from some very strange people. But I think I may have found my new nom de plume: Urinary B. Crayoned.

Kerry's speech from last night is still sinking in. I think it was better than the Circular Firing Squad that is the blogosphere (billmon and the left coaster, for prime examples) would have you believe.

Zogby is already posting a 5-point bump in the polls, and the majority of that polling was before last night.

Mood: cautiously optimistic
Now playing: The Al Franken Show, playing more of that sweet, sweet Barack Obama address.

(Oh, and iTunes is now giving audio books of the convention away for free.)

My last transcript for the night

I swear.

Found it at johnkerry.com, even.

George W, you're being called out, beyotch:

Now I know there are those who criticize me for seeing complexities--and I do--because some issues just aren't all that simple. Saying there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq doesn't make it so. Saying we can fight a war on the cheap doesn’t make it so. And proclaiming mission accomplished certainly doesn't make it so.

OOOOOHHHH! BURN!

Also note the fine work of Doug at GeorgeMustGo, who defuses yet another stupid Ann Coulter slander.

Hair pollution

Wheat

Kerry was supposed to give the speech of his life tonight, and he did. Not a grand slam or an over-the-Green-Monster home run like Obama and Clinton had, but a damn fine job nonetheless.

I was watching nervously, and he got off to a rough start. But after a while he nailed it. The convention was supposed to positive and upbeat, and with the exception of Sharpton, most people refrained from attacking Bush directly. Kerry called Bush out, on everything from his failed policies on terror to his negative campaign to his complete slimeballs serving as the Attorney General and Vice-President.

There was a moment where he talked about how the flag flew behind him on his patrol boat in Vietnam, often riddled with bullets but still waving in the breeze. How that flag does not belong to any one party, but to all Americans. It made me want to go out and fly one again, which I haven't wanted to do since Boy's State in 1991, before I was disillusioned with the first Gulf War.

My metric for measuring this speech was to have a beer--every time Kerry said something I agreed with or had been waiting for somebody to say, I took a sip. (OK, so it's a lame metric.) Anyway, I went through one beer and I could have had another, particularly when he said, "I want to depend on American ingenuity and not the Saudi royal family." ZING.

Chaff

In other news, Hellboy and the Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex DVDs are out. Huzzah!

Had sushi this evening, after postponing it the other day. I did not get food poisoning like my friend the Lipstick Librarian did. So that is quite good.

MrPiggs and TBW were up for a very short visit this week. It was great to see them but they should make a longer appearance next time. I'm just saying.

OK, I'll have more to say tomorrow but I am very optimistic for at least a five-point shift in the polls. Though really, the only one that counts is in November, if they let it. Stupid tin-foil-hat-thought-creating administration.

Realm of Western One-ness

Had a lot of trouble sleeping last night, dreaming about shattered elemental planes, blueberry muffins, and frozen puppies. Not my best night, really.

I'm really sorry I missed Al Sharpton speak at the convention last night. I'm not sure I'm convinced that he was totally off the reservation with his speech. (I gather there's some controversy that he didn't read his prepared speech but went with another thing entirely.) Folks may have problems with the Reverend Al, but that gives him a plausible deniability that allows him to say things like:

If I told you tonight, Let's leave the Fleet Center, we're in danger, and when you get outside, you ask me, Reverend Al, What is the danger? and I say, It don't matter. We just needed some fresh air, I have misled you and we were misled.

...

Mr. President, as I close, Mr. President, I heard you say Friday that you had questions for voters, particularly African- American voters. And you asked the question: Did the Democratic Party take us for granted? Well, I have raised questions. But let me answer your question.

You said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule.

That's where the argument, to this day, of reparations starts. We never got the 40 acres. We went all the way to Herbert Hoover, and we never got the 40 acres.

We didn't get the mule. So we decided we'd ride this donkey as far as it would take us.

Bush got maybe 5% of the black vote last year. If you've ever seen this story, you'll be surprised he gets more than Condoleeza's vote this year.

I liked Edwards' speech last night. The blogosphere has nicknamed him "Johnny Sunshine," which I suppose I will accept over "Slick Willie." I am particularly pleased they've integrated his "Two Americas" speech into the platform. There are two Americas--one for the 1% who made out like bandits for the last three years, and the rest of us, who are still trying to get by with less. This is the second year in a row that income has declined, according to the IRS. That hasn't happened in over 50 years.

Oh, and Juan Cole makes with the funny:

Although it may be true that al-Qaeda is as determined to destroy the US as the Axis Powers were in World War II, this observation is a Himalayan exaggeration if it is meant to suggest a parallel. Al-Qaeda is a few thousand fanatics mainly distributed in a handful of countries. If Zacharias Moussaoui and Richard Reid are any indication, a lot of them are one step away from from collecting old soda cans on the street in their grocery carts while mumbling about the radios the government implanted in their asses.

You wouldn't know that 120 people died in Iraq yesterday, judging by the news. Why people think Bush is equipped to win the War on Terrah is beyond me. I'm not sure he could run a lemonade stand at this point.

Glengarry, Glen Fiction

I've been writing with a friend this evening, after a night of vacuuming, dusting, sweeping, watering the plants, and more vacuuming. I also cut the hell out of my left index finger on a broken part of our hose reel, which annoys me.

Anyway, I tell Kevin about my writing project and we both start channelling Mamet.

BeaucoupKevin: SNAP TO, FAG. Write like a MAN. Coffee is for WRITERS.
GiantFightingBot: I don't see any writers here!
GiantFightingBot: First prize is a Cadillac El Dorado.
GiantFightingBot: You wanna see second prize?
GiantFightingBot: Second prize is a set of steak knives.
GiantFightingBot: THIRD PRIZE IS: YOU'RE FIRED.
BeaucoupKevin:What's my byline? FUCK YOU, that's my byline.
GiantFightingBot: They just like talking. To writers.
BeaucoupKevin:I sold eighteen million paperbacks last year, you drove a Hyundai to Staples.
GiantFightingBot: You know what it takes to write fiction?
BeaucoupKevin:It takes brass balls to write fiction.
BeaucoupKevin:You see this watch? This watch cost more than your writing courses.

Time to fire up the Glengarry mix.

In other news, I thought Edwards had a pretty good speech. I love the fact that he talks about the two Americas we have in this country--one rich, one not, and how that is not the America he wants to live in. It's about time we have this discussion about race and class that we've been needing for over two hundred years.

Up to almost 800 words in 45 minutes, though I am very tired. On the other hand, it's good to know that part of my brain still works. I used to do more than that during NaNo, but this is the first time I've written anything since December, really. I'm really glad that Athenais and I could do this writing thing again. We both needed it.

Sushiland

I think instead of going all-convention, all-the-time at home tonight, we may skip a little bit and head to Marineland Sushiopolis. Mmmm. Sushi.

But hey, I had enough of Joementum in 2000 and during the primaries. (I was hoping for a Gore/Kerry ticket in 2000.) I cannot believe the DNC gives Lieberman a spot tonight when they relegated Obama to last night. (Which wasn't covered by all of the networks. Silly me, I thought they had licenses for the publicly-owned airwaves for the public good, not to run inane shit likeEverybody Loves Raymond. Which is more important?

I've been kinda grumpy today, haven't been as productive as I would have liked. But that will change later on, I hope.

Recommended reading

Michael and I were discussing books this morning as we looked for coffee.

Coffee is very important, by the way. I need it when there is too much blood in my caffeine supply.

I've been reading a lot of stuff lately.

Revelation Space
Alastair Reynolds' first book. A great novel about humanity, aliens, and the reasons for so few civilizations in our galaxy. It was followed up by a pair of sequels and has some related short stories, but this is probably the pick of the lot.

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Volume 21
I try and read this every year when it comes out. Dozois does a nice summary of the state of the genre, and there are usually one or two really good short works. I'm not sure what we're going to do when he finally retires--the most important editor in SF since Campbell, really.

Essential Fantastic Four: Volume 3
Contains the introduction of the Silver Surfer and Galactus. One of the highlights of the Marvel era, or of any era. (There's an entire issue of Marvels devoted to the three issues of Galactus. I re-read that the other day and while it's not as great as I remember it being, it's still not bad.)

War of the Flowers
Just started this the other day. I love Tad Williams' other work, like the Three Swords books and Otherland.

Up next: Don Quixote
I really need to read this and this new translation is evidently very good.

My geekdom could be worse. I could be in this photo.

P.S. I am not kidding about that Obama speech.

I'm not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don't talk about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. No, I'm talking about something more substantial. It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker's son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too. The audacity of hope!

My brother's keeper

A-ha! Found the transcript of Alston's speech last night. I nearly lost it when he spoke of "speaking truth to power."

I hope you were watching Barack Obama speak tonight. That's your President in 2016, my friends.

Forgive me if I quote at length here, but Obama encapsulated just why I belong to the Democractic party.

OBAMA: John Kerry believes in America. And he knows that it's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we are all connected as one people.

If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child.

(APPLAUSE)

If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent.

(APPLAUSE)

If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

(APPLAUSE)

It is that fundamental belief -- it is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work.

The rest of the transcript is at the Washington Post.

In other news, we have ants in the house and I spent a good chunk of my evening looking for ant death. So I missed Teresa Heinz Kerry speaking, except what I heard over the radio. Damn.

For that, among other things, the ants must die.

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

We've been watching the DNC convention from Boston this evening. An excellent lineup of speakers. I was particularly moved by the speech of the Reverend David Alston, who served with John Kerry in Vietnam.

And of course, there was Clinton. The Big Dog himself, laying out a brilliant speech comparing the price of his tax cut ("I'm a member of the wealthiest class in America, for the first time in my life!") with what it costs to the average person. I'm looking for a transcript now. Just pure gold. A-ha! Found one!

For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I’m in that group now for the first time in my life.

When I was in office, the Republicans were pretty mean to me. When I left and made money, I became part of the most important group in the world to them. At first I thought I should send them a thank you note—until I realized they were sending you the bill.

I cannot wait for tomorrow--Dean and Obama.

Must. See. This. Movie

I am far more interested in Ong Bak (aka Mach) than I ever thought of for Catwoman. Flaming kickboxing. Rock on.

Today is also the 8th anniversary of moving to this city. My love for Portland is like a golden poem, as I saw in a recent Fandango ad. (They were doing a dead-on Bollywood parody, which went WAY over the heads of the kids in the audience but made us laugh.)

I'm gonna sing the MyDoom song now...

Time for another virus alert! This time it's W23.MyDoom.M!

As Gir would say, Doom doom doom doomdoom doom doomdoom!

A bit of undigested potato

That's what Scrooge blames for his visit by the ghost of Marley. I'm not sure what to blame for this dream of last night:

I was Frodo. Sam and I were trying to get the Ring to Mordor, only we were driving a 2002 silver Accord. Somehow I'd managed to lock the keys in the trunk, so we pushed the car into a shed and covered parts of it with straw.

A mass of refugees and soldiers came down the road, so the two of us hid in the back of the shed and hoped they wouldn't see it. (Did I mention this was on a north-south road through Mirkwood? THERE ARE NO SUCH ROADS IN MIRKWOOD.)

Anyway, then I remembered that I could press the button release in the glove compartment to get the trunk open, so I did so. Grabbed the keys and started the engine up, gunning for Mordor at top speed on the washed-out road through Mirkwood.

I knew I was behind where I was "supposed" to be at this point in the story, so I was speeding and running over anyone getting in my way. Then it switched to a third-person view, and I watched myself running along the road on an ostrich, which later turned into a giant frog. Frodo and the frog hid in a waterfall as they waited for the Nazgul on the shore to finish drinking water.

Kevin sent me a text message last night talking about parachutists in Boston. I couldn't really find much other than this story.

I'm enough of a political junkie that I'm looking forward to the convention coverage this week. Barack Obama. Remember that name. You'll be hearing it a lot in the future.

Take this flight belt as a consolation prize

Kevin sends me two images of great amusement:

The Legion of Super-Heroes makes a big mistake.

Art everyone can enjoy. (Except Mrs. GFR.)

I should really get in the shower so I can go get coffee or something. It's much cooler today than yesterday.

The Massey prenup

Have you seen this picture of Saturn's rings? You should.

Spent the evening being hot and watching Intolerable Cruelty. Made us laugh a lot, and George Clooney is a riot. I may have to go watch Out of Sight again. Not only is he great in that, it's probably the best adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel ever. OK, so Jackie Brown was cool but it feels like it's 300 hours long.

Another part of the evening was spent adding tons of Marvel Essential books to my Amazon wish list. I've been a DC bot for a long time, but there are some good things in the House of Ideas.

Hot and cold

No, not the kids' game.

Once again it's warm in the City of Roses, so many citizens are out finding ways to cool off. We went to see Shrek 2 this afternoon, which was hilarious.

I remember being very surprised at how much I liked the first film. It didn't exactly cry out for a sequel, but the second film was also surprisingly good. The Puss-in-Boots character needs his own sequel, I think. (Whoever animated the hairball sequence obviously had a cat.) That's two films in the last six months featuring extended hairball moments--the other being Return of the King, as I remember Andy Serkis saying that Gollum's voice was inspired in part by his cat.

All this running in and out of air conditioning is playing havoc with my sinus units. I appear to be coming down with a headache. Grrr. Faulty manufacturing, I say.

Suck it, Ashcroft

Librarians Against Bush have some links they want you to see.

As some of you know, I work in a library. We've been trying to deal with the fallout from Bush and the PATRIOT Act for years now--it's quite possibly the worst law we've had on the books in years.

As they used to say on the ABC Saturday Morning Cartoon lineup, read more about it.

It's 8:30 and now the temp is down to 98. I was going to watch a movie or something, but I've been reading old Fantastic Four and Avengers issues. Sure, the teams bicker a lot, and Mr. Fantastic is pretty much a dick. (He really should know better, being the smartest guy in the world and all.) But you add in the sheer fucking genius that is Jack Kirby (tell me the Inhumans are not the prototypes for the New Gods to come later) and the peril that is Galactus. I mean, Kirby draws the biggest enemy of the FF as GOD. That's just too cool for words.

Friday surprise

The jokers in DC have this habit of releasing really bad news on a Friday when nobody is paying attention.

Today the Washington Post announced that the Pentagon found Bush's military pay records from his disputed time in the Guard (i.e., when he was too stoned to fly or pass a physical and went AWOL while going into business flying plants around the country).

The Pentagon had said that the payroll records for that time period had been inadvertently destroyed.

"Previous attempts to locate the missing records at the Federal Records Center had been unsuccessful due to the incorrect records accession numbers provided," the Pentagon's Office of Freedom of Information chief C.Y. Talbott said in a letter Friday to The Associated Press.

"The correct numbers were obtained ... and the records were found."

Uh-huh. Pull the other one. It's got bells on.

Bonk!

Athenais just pointed me to the Mutts comic store. Shtuff, indeed!

My only regret is the squirrels don't have their own t-shirt.

Currently my tasks involve swapping hard drives, conjuring laptops (I was just told that it was a surprise I only had four loaners to give. That's double what we had before, and that's not enough?), and avoiding the heat.

I figured out why I find the heat so interesting. Portland's weather is somewhat monotonous, so this is a chance for some variety. Still not going to the Brewfest.

Early to rise, early to bed

Makes a man, healthy, wealthy, and dead. Or so Terry Pratchett tells us.

The weather, as of about five minutes ago...



Desktop is off of Digital Blasphemy. I seem to recall the guy who runs that used to work at ACT in Iowa City, even. But I could be wrong.

I haven't had a chance to read the 9/11 report yet. Other people have done so. However, it seems to me that Bush is going to "study" it, rather than read it. Given that nobody in the Bush administration can ever be wrong about anything, I can't imagine he'll take it too seriously. After all, he was too busy in August of 2001 to read a memo titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside U.S.

An Altercation reader gives us a useful timeline:

Would you please remind your readers of the history of the 9/11 investigation.

1. Unsupported by the Bush administration, acceptance of the investigation was forced by grieving family members of individuals that lost their lives to the horror of 9/11.

2. Bush, in an attempt to sandbag the process, names Henry Kissinger to lead the commission.

3. Family members counter the Bush administration's attempts to sandbag by pushing for disclosures from Kissinger on his clients that leads to his resignation.

4. The Bush administration plays politics with the commission's deadlines, before giving in to the committee's request for more time.

5. The Bush administration claims Executive Privilege in an attempt to keep Rice, Cheney and Bush from testifying.

6. The administration gives in to public pressure and allows Rice to testify under oath. Rice's testimony leads to the most memorable soundbite of the hearings: Bush had been given a report on August 6, 2001, entitled, "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United Sates."

7. Rice's public statement that no one ever imagined terrorists using planes as weapons is contradicted by Louis Freeh's testimony that the use of planes as a potential weapon for a terrorist attack was known.

8. The administration gives in to public pressure and allows Bush and Cheney to meet with the commission privately. Bush becomes the target of late night talk show barbs for needing to have Cheney with him when he testifies.

9. Bush and Cheney, in the face of evidence to the contrary, continue to spin that intelligence warnings indicated al-Qaeda attacks would be overseas and not here in the U.S.

10. Bush accepts George Tenant's resignation.

11. Despite an Interim Report from the commission that states no evidence was found linking Iraq to the 9/11 attacks, Cheney continues to publicly link al-Qaeda and Iraq.

12. The commission rebukes Cheney's public comments that he probably had more facts than the commission on the al-Qaeda links to Iraq by offering Cheney an opportunity to provide them with that information Cheney provides no such information.

13. Early reports indicate that the commission will tie Iran to al-Qaeda. Iran had much to gain from the removal of Saddam and his secular government.

Bush has said he's going to "study" the report, instead of reading it. (I'd really like to see him read it aloud in public without an earpiece or prompts from Cheney, actually. Could he? I doubt it.) Since nobody in the Bush administration is ever wrong about anything, I doubt much will be accomplished until he is out of office. This is a guy who says that he's a war president, and now he wants to be a peace president, and we're winning the war on terrah. At the same time, they're announcing that elections might be postponed if we're attacked again. If we're so safe, why are they trying to frighten people with vague, meaningless alerts?

Kerry, on the other hand, has pledged to follow the commission's recommendations. The commission itself is a weird duck, though. The report is unanimous and bi-partisan, so I am not sure that is really the hard-hitting report we needed. It does follow a bit in the tradition of the Warren report on Kennedy, where nobody is terribly satisfied with the result, though.

Update 11:09 am

Fixed the spelling of Pterry's name. Also, it's now 87 outside.

I left my motivation somewhere...

A couple quick notes.

The new Bulwer-Lytton winners are here.

The SF entry rocks:

The scorched pasture, with its charred and smoking remains of dead cattle, was the least of Jessica's worries, and as she pondered her shredded gown, newly shaved head, and the quickly disappearing spaceship in the Nevada twilight, she realized if she were going to hitchhike back to Carson City, she'd have to show a damn sight far more leg than she had ever intended.

I also watched some of the Democratic party ads today. They're asking people to vote on them--the One-Stop Shopping ad is probably my favorite, if only for the big-ass Apple monitor.

It is far too hot for me to consider going to the Oregon Brewer's Festival this year. Projecting 101 tomorrow, and there are few things I would want less than drinking beer in that weather with a bunch of hot, sweaty people with a propensity for a free-floating cry of, "WoooooooooOOOOooooooOOOO!"

I guess I've acclimated

At least it's not this hot AND 95% humidity.



Oh, if you're curious, that's Konfabulator with a background by Greg Martin.

Happy Moon Landing Anniversary

As I noted yesterday, 35 years ago we landed on the Moon, went a couple times more, and then... stopped.

Today, in the style of leadership that we have become accustomed to by Fearless Leaders Bush and Delay, House panel voted to slash NASA funding. All to pay for our war in Iraq, in which US casualties have passed the 900 mark. (That we're counting. Over a thousand dead if you add in coalition forces, and who knows how many if you include the people we are supposed to be liberating.

In other news, I have some sort of back malfunction after no sleep last night. Add to that the melancholy of what-could-have been (though I am getting better at that) and I'm thinking it's about time to go home.

Wait. I have a meeting in about 13 minutes. Nevermind.

Hrm. Think about other things.
Kittens
Puppies?
Peasants Quest?

TROGDOR IS WAITING.

What is this? Iowa?

The weather for the next couple of days is giving me Midwest flashbacks.

It's not too bad right now, but the next couple of days? Ugh.

I slept maybe five hours last night, so don't count on me for too much today.

Thirty-five years

Oh, and today is the 35th anniversary of the first Apollo moon landing. We sent a handful of people there, then stopped.

Fearless Leader said something about going back and then to Mars once there was a lot of excitement about Spirit and Opportunity. (As a side note, there are probably more electronics in the arms of the rovers than in the entirety of the Apollo modules. Just a guess but I bet it's close.) Of course, like so many of Fearless Leader's proclaimations, there hasn't been much followthrough.

I want my flying car. I want my own personal robot.

How can I retire on the moon if we haven't been there since I was a toddler?

Infection Rate

20 machines and counting. Love those Outlook viruses. Please people, stop using this hunk of crap. Thunderbird or Mozilla will read your e-mail and not get infected like a compound facture bathed in swamp water.

My circuits are somewhat melancholy this morning. Not totally sure why, other than thinking of what might have been.

Updating Virus Definitions

So the library has a bunch of W32.Beagle.AG activity. I love Windows.

You know what I love best? Symantec doesn't have a set of virus definitions out for this out just yet, so we'll be smacked about the head and shoulders tomorrow once all the machines in the building get the new ones. Then we'll find out how many have really been compromised.

Add to that the fact I dreamt about work and it getting screwed up, plus people yelling at me to fix it when it wasn't my fault, today could have been better.

On the other hand, I did get tickets for an actual vacation-type thing in August.

Poor Man for President

How can you argue with a platform like this? For example:

Here is what I will do in my first 100 days:

1. Bring about world peace forever
2. Abolish all corporations
3. Cure AIDS and cancer
4. Make everybody completely free
5. Ban everything lame
6. Free Mumia

I will also legalize the KB, stage one in my War on Shwag. Also, I take no donations from anybody, and my Vice President will be Britney Spears Naked, and nobody will ever have to do anything they don't want to and we'll all live forever in cloud castles made of cotton candy and rainbows.

The cotton candy and rainbows plank of this platform is stolen directly from the Bush campaign, I think.

Watched Shakes the Clown this evening, courtesy of Ms. LL.

Body of Binky, anyone?

Searching for Bobby Fischer

When they made the movie, nobody had any idea where he was.

Well, now they found him. Sounds like they should have left him alone. He sounds... unwell.

Today I had a pretty good haul at the comic shop--new Scurvy Dogs, a new Powers, and a bunch of other good stuff. (Like Noble Causes. You should read that if you have not.)

Also had a panic attack/PTSD malfunction in the Fred Meyer today. That was unpleasant.

Other than that, it's been an OK day.

PS: Nutshakers.

By brightest day,

By blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil's might
Beware my power,
Green Lantern's LIGHT!

Ain't It Cool News (no way I'm linking to that dumb bastard's page) says that Jack Black has signed a deal to play Green Lantern. As a comedy.

Aaron has been saying that this was originally pitched as an Adam Sandler idea, so you can just imagine how great it will be. Think Catwoman bad, I am guessing. Ugh.

(By the way, Hal Jordan's slogan there was courtesy of Alfred Bester via Julius Schwartz. Rest in peace, Julie. I'm kinda glad you didn't have to see this fakakta thing.)

Absolution Gap

Finished this book the other day. At some point I will have to sit down and write out a timeline of the Revelation Space universe. Reynolds ties up a couple of loose ends from the other books, a couple of short stories, and leaves a whole bunch of others running free.

For example, I am really unhappy with his habit of killing off major characters offscreen, mostly as an afterthought. "I'm tired of writing Felka, so I'll just kill her and never reference her again." I'm tempted to say that if you read Revelation Space and liked it, skip the sequels.

One other reason it annoyed me is that it violated the rule of Chekov. (Not the navigator, the playwright.) There was a colossally huge gun left on the mantle at the end of the first book, and it only gets... two mentions after that. Well, it's referred to obliquely a lot but has no agency to speak of.

I am reminded a bit of the Nancy Kress series Beggars in Spain. Though in that case I loved the novella but hated the book and had little use for the overwrought sequels. In this case it's not that the sequels are bad, just sort of aimless. Reynolds actually made me physically jump in my chair with one chapter of Absolution Gap, and so for that I have to give him props.

A little gift

When I went to bed last night, I was pretty sure that I was going to be hating this morning. My neck and back hurt a bit from all the tossing and lifting and whatnot, so my theory was that I'd be lucky to get up without screaming.

Instead, I feel pretty good--sure, some of my vertebrae are protesting a bit, but nowhere near the "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" level that I was expecting.

Reminds me a bit of last year, where I woke up after a night of debauchery to feel pretty darn good. Maybe this won't be such a bad day after all. (Of course, it's Friday, which means some horrible news item will pop up around noon. On the other hand, my e-mail was full of fun stuff, including baby pictures from the pints list.)

And wow! The last Saturn picture from Cassini is a doozy.

Living legend needs... eggs.

Watching an episode of Firefly where the character Jayne is a folk hero. The last couple of episodes have been hilarious--innuendo, hurt looks, double-takes, and some extraordinarily huge hair.

I really gotta pick up this DVD for myself. Special thanks to Sir M for the lending.

In other news, my neck is still hurting from running around in Storage.

Some numbers:

• One title I recycled had 507 volumes
• Each of those volumes weighed at least 3 pounds
• We went through two large dumpsters in half a day
• By the time I left, we had 12 booktrucks full of stuff still to surplus

Books fly really far when you pitch them underhand. The packrat in me dislikes throwing stuff away, but a lot of that stuff has sat on the shelf for years.

Phantom cat wee

Today we went off to Storage for the weeding project. We've got thousands of books in a warehouse, and since we're moving to a new warehouse it doesn't make sense to keep stuff we don't want anymore.

So I think I pitched about 2000 volumes today, sending them in ever-changing arcs into a dumpster outside. Then they're off to be recycled, probably to end up as cardboard or mass mailings or whatever. A bunch of that was Index Medicus, a year-by-year index of articles about various medical issues. Pages and pages of myocardial infarction, that's for sure.

My neck is killing me, and I'm beginning to wonder when my elbow is going to start acting up. I missed a meeting today, though. And it was hard to get people on the phone today. Not sure why.

I continue to slide into disorganization--it took me five minutes to find my keys. It never takes me more than 10 seconds, usually. Maybe I need a vacation. Though I had one when my mom was here, right?

Wonko the Sane was right

In So Long and Thanks For All the Fish, Arthur Dent runs into a guy (Wonko the Sane) who decides the world is insane and needs to be put into an Asylum. Wonko's Asylum encloses the rest of the world and exits onto a beach. I am beginning to think that Douglas Adams was the most psychic man alive, as we need an Asylum right now.

Wonko was set off by the instructions on a package of toothpicks. For me, it's two stories:

• The NATO forces in Afghanistan were providing aid to a vigilante who was running his own investigations into "terrorists."
  
• The Pentagon has videotape of US soldiers in Abu Gahrib raping young boys.

Every time I think that we can't fuck up the world anymore than we already have, there's stuff like this.

Ralph Nader is fucking insane

Salon's interview yet another reason that people should probably just ignore him until he goes away. I mean, here's how St. Ralph ends the interview:

Nader: OK, now I've flushed you out. Now you've come out. I'm an expert in flushing out bias, prejudice and prejudgment. And you've demonstrated all three. Until you go after the Democrats for obstructing us with dirty tricks and using both Republican and Democratic money -- they used a Republican law firm, by the way, among their three law firms -- until you're even-handed, I will declare you hopelessly prejudiced.

Talbot: Well, we're obviously not going to sort this all out here. But I would like to sit down with you and have a formal interview.

Nader: You have already interviewed me. You have already prejudged me. You have already indicated your predisposition. And you have lied.

Talbot: How have I lied?

Nader: On the anti-gay thing: That's a declared lie. You want to explain it to him, Kevin?

Zeese: The obvious thing is that Ralph stands for strong issues on gay rights.

Talbot: But you are working with groups that are opposed to gay rights.

Zeese: We're not working with them at all.

Talbot: What agenda do you share with the Reform Party?

Zeese: Oh my God. Have you looked at their platform? They're against the war, they're for repealing the Patriot Act...

Talbot: Are you with them on abortion rights and immigration?

Nader: Not on immigration...

Zeese: We're running on Ralph's agenda, not the Reform Party's. We made that clear to the Reform Party. We do not kowtow to everything they wanted. We said, endorse us if you want to -- that's your choice. But we have an 85 percent area of agreement.

Nader: We're not going to play the fascist game of the two-party monopoly barricading itself from any competition, with all kinds of statutory obstruction that cost third parties immense time and money if they can surmount them. This is a dictatorship, which you don't seem to understand...

Talbot: I...

Nader: I've got another phone call, I've got to go. Bye-bye.

He makes the LaRouche supporters lurking in the park outside my building look reasoned and cogent. His position on gay rights is better than Kerry's? This, the man who said he's not into gonadal politics? He's working with the Reform Party but he's not?

I never will understand how people can follow this guy. Remember, he fired his employees when they attempted to form a union.

(See, I can get just as worked up about Nader as I can about Bush. No outrage fatigue here!)

These folks deserve a medal

The fine folks at NewsHounds watch Fox "News" so you don't have to.

How they manage to do it without having a stroke is beyond me. Fox got taken off my list of DishTV channels so fast...

Also, do not miss the dueling campaign e-mails pointed out by Steve Gilliard. 0wnz3d, b1tch.

Went to the farmer's market today but I didn't buy anything. Ran into one of the DNC ground operatives who's been canvassing for donations in Portland for a while--he said they may have finally saturated the market here since a lot of the people they're running into have already donated. I thought that was excellent news. The Kerry donation link in the sidebar should be good for a while yet, but after the convention all donations should go to the DNC or a 527 like MoveOn.

I'm averaging about a meeting a day again. Now I know why my data entry thing hasn't happened the way I thought it would have.

Oh, and Blogger is fucking up again, so I have no idea when this post will go.

Hey, in other news, Barack Obama is going to give the keynote address at the DNC. Whatever vitamins they're drinking over there, they are working.

blah blah blah

OK, so my last meeting today only lasted 2.5 hours instead of the 2.75 hours last week's meeting lasted.

I received a problem e-mail the other day and the strategy for ignoring it does not appear to have worked. Pooch.

I am going to stop playing KoL in the evenings since it leaves me too much of a zmobie in the mornings, I think. There are no cranberries in my head, either.

Hrm. It appears there may be time for me to call and get this home equity loan thingy squared away.

I will probably need a beer at the Lucky Lab this evening after all.

Current reading: Across Realtime by Vernor Vinge and Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds.

Fair and balanced

The Onion infograph from last week points out all the things about Fahrenheit 9/11 that were wrong. For example:

Insinuates that Iraqi civilians don't like to be killed.

It's very hot in Portland today. I have a suspicion somebody was going through my desk while I was gone, and I spent a chunk of today trying to calculate what a home equity loan would do for us.

I must be getting into middle age. I think I know how escrow works, even.

Maybe I should try this calendar thing

So I totally forgot about an appointment I had at 1:00 today until I was called and reminded.

This is not the first such incident in the last couple of months--I am really losing track of stuff lately. Not sure if it's because of all the shenaningans going on or what.

Willamette Week had a story about blogs, and their verdict is that most of them suck. Sturgeon's Law, anyone?

Anyway, I found it funny that their list of blogs they thought didn't suck included one from a writer for the other weekly in town, the Portland Mercury. A weekly who makes fun of WW all the time.

Oh, and I finally got into Final Fantasy X-2 and it's pretty cool. It's like Charlie's Angels on crack. But fun.

Vacation musings and whatnot...

So my mom and stepdad are now enjoying their cruise to Alaska. I got a message dated last night at midnight that they were having fun on the ship, watching whales and food o'plenty.

I was very nervous about my mom visiting, mostly because of the last time she visited, for our wedding. (There's a long story there which I can tell you over a drink at some point.) But everything went OK. They had a good time, didn't mind me driving them everywhere, and had fun doing the touristy things that one can do in Portland and the surrounding area.

Back at work today after a weekend spent watching:

• The Lion in Winter


• Firefly


• MI-5
  


• Blazing Saddles

The latter is the new 30th anniversary edition, which has some deleted scenes, a couple of documentaries, and commentary by Mel Brooks. Haven't watched the commentary yet.

Firefly and MI-5 (titled Spooks in the UK, but they changed it since that word has... connotations in the US) are both really good. I'm borrowing these sets from friends but I will have to pick them up for myself.

In other news, it looks like Tom Delay may be facing the music after investigations have uncovered his involvement in Enron and the redistricting in Texas. Couldn't happen to a nicer scumbag. I also see that the government is talking about postponing the elections in the event of a terror attack. To paraphrase Teresa Nielsen-Hayden, I resent that my government is turning me into a nutbag conspiracy theorist.

Every time I think that we can't possibly sink any lower, I am surprised. Somehow I must get rid of this inborn optimism, I guess.

Family visit

My parental units are now off on their merry way. Woke up early this morning and took them to the airport and everything. Then I ate a massive Belgian waffle and a mess of bacon at the Cameo Cafe. (They sell their pancakes by the Acre or Half Acre. Do not try the former unless you are a sumo wrestler. It's gargantuan. Godzilla would have a hard time with it.)

Things my mom and stepdad liked about the trip:

• Portland Rose Garden


• Portland Japanese Garden


• The Horse Brass


• Tillamook Cheese Factory


• Cannon Beach


• Bruce's Candy Kitchen

Our visit included messing around downtown Portland, with a big loop from Astoria to Cannon Beach to Tillamook and back again.

Being on different schedules was a little weird--they're from the Central Time Zone so they were crashing as we were still going strong. On the other hand, they were up for hours by the time we got up.

All in all, things went pretty well. I was exhausted yesterday after hours and hours of driving. I mostly zoned out after we got home. Plus, I bought a flask yesterday, so fear my power.

The purpose of a ninja...

Is to flip out and kill people.

Anyway, I am reminded of this after my last combat in Kingdom of Loathing:

You're fighting a Demoninja

A big red ninja with horns stands before you.

"I am the Demoninja," he says. "Allow me to demonstrate the myriad ways in which I can whoop your ass."

He gets the jump on you.

He tries to ninja you in the head, but misses.

Family visit

My mother and stepdad are in town, so my postings have been pretty light. We're off to Astoria/Fort Clatsop/Tillamook today, and then... something this evening.

More later.

Blogger appears to be acting up again

I've noticed trouble posting things, a lot of blogs on blogspot don't show up consistently, etc.

Maybe it's the New Cruelty.

Today on the O'Franken Factor, they're asking callers what they like about Bush.

The current caller is thanking him for defeating all the shark attacks. Remember how many attacks we had in the summer of 2000? Note we don't have them now that Bush is in office!

So there is that. Our brave President ruined the shark menace!

Kerry-Edwards 04

John Kerry picked John Edwards as his running mate today.

The GOP is terrified of this, as they are sending every media pundit out with talking points. NPR was already slagging him with backhanded stories and lines off of Fox News. NPR, you may remember, used to be not so bad. But at this point, I think they've signed off on ever getting a donation from me again.

What I love is they're talking about how he has no foreign policy experience. As if Bush did. As if our foreign policy for the last three years has been exemplary. Afghanistan grows more opium than before we bombed the shit out of it. Iraq is going to be a synonym for clusterfuck in the next OED. North Korea is a mess. Anybody remember when China shot down our plane? Bush couldn't fellate them fast enough.

Foreign policy, my ass. Bush should make it easy on himself and resign in disgrace now. Future theses will be on the debacle his adminstration has made out of our country.

Insomnia plus KoL equals fun!

I've been up off and on all night. Not quite sure why--could be that my parental units are visiting on Wednesday and I'm trying to come up with ideas to entertain them.

Also, meeting Athenais again has reminded me of my writing from last year. What with the job uncertainty (having a sword of Damocles over your head for months is not something I recommend for sanity) of November through May, I never really wrote all that much.

But this morning, it's like my brain is on fire with story ideas. Rather than leave them to dust or oblivion or whatever, I quickly got up and started writing them down. SOme of them have been percolating in my head for a while, others just popped up.

Well, it is 4:12 am and I do have to go to work today. And Kingdom of Loathing is out of the question, as my character broke the 15 inebriation barrier and all of my adventures involve losing stats or meat. How did I do that? Why heading to the Typical Tavern, of course! I gained a ton of points in three adventures, but by the end I was facing Pink Elephants that could not be beaten. If none of this makes any sense to you, no worries. If this sounds like fun, go play Kingdom of Loathing.

Dress code? The fuck?

Met Athenais and some of her friends at a tavern downtown today. I was amazed that they'd posted a dress code in the front entryway.

NO BAGGY PANTS
NO BASEBALL CAPS
NO EXCESSIVELY BAGGY CLOTHING
ETC.

This is Portland, people. Dress codes are for other cities. Here you can be in shorts and dine next to somebody who's just come from the opera and nobody bats an eye. I was cross until application of Terminal Gravity IPA and Delerium Tremens. (The latter, with an alcohol content of 14%, is served in a smaller glass.)

It strikes me that the dress code at this tavern is targeted at a specific subgroup of teens. It's not as if Portland isn't one of the most segregated cities in the country, and now they're doing this? Hrm. In retrospect, it may be the only time I eat there. I suppose I could give the nice people a call and ask their motivation for such a thing.

Last night was fun--went to a party with some of my friends, which involved fireworks and massive amounts of alcohol, always a fine American tradition. One of my friends made a keg of gin and tonic, which we plowed through at the rate of a gallon an hour. That is a fuckton of gin and tonic.

My comic shop had a 25%-off everything sale in honor of Free Comic Day. Picked up a couple of things, but was mostly restrained. Still, old-school Avengers goodness is fun, even if Stan Lee can't think up anything to do with the Wasp. Other than make her a brainless git. I much prefer Mark Millar's take on her, though he still beats the shit out of her for no good reason. Maybe it's time to re-read David Hahn's Private Beach again. That is what Strangers in Paradise should have been, because Private Beach does not suck ass.

It was really nice to see Athenais today and meet her friend. I hope we see them all again soon--it was a lovely day.

I also sent Vice City back to Gamefly, since it was just... too clunky for me.

Outdoor grilling? Bah!

Note the prize in this contest in Finland.

An Estonian couple has carried off the gold medal in the world wife-carrying championships in Finland.

20 year-old Madis Uusorg ran through sand, waded across waist-high water and scrambled over timber logs to win the prize of a portable sauna.

...

The prize includes the "wife's" weight in beer but the portable sauna cabin is only big enough for one.

The man just won 48 kilos of beer for two minute's work. Now think about that while you blow up illegal fireworks or char-broil meat or whatever you do to celebrate this day of freedom.

Kevin and I are geniuses

Why don't they pay us to write more movies? Paramount, you're missing out on a goldmine here.

The following is a conversation that Kevin and I had on AIM this evening.

Me: Would it have killed them to make a Captain Sulu movie?

Kevin: Yes. One episode of Voyager is enough. And a novel! His mission was like ten years, too, right?

Me: I think so!

Kevin: MAPPING. GASEOUS. ANOMALIES. For a decade!

Me: Pshaw. FIGHTING MIRROR UNIVERSE SULU. Now that would be a movie, my friend.

Kevin: I bet HE always has his sword!

Me: And then Chekov has like an eyepatch and a monkey. In the mirror universe. Tuvok could wear a little hat with dangling pieces of cork.

Kevin: A STABBING MONKEY. Specially bred for STABBING THINGS.

Me: A STABBING MONKEY WITH A PHASER

Kevin: Ook! Stab! BURN! Oh, and those agonizers are like kid's meals prizes on MIRROR SULU'S SHIP.

Kevin: You wake up and if you're not being agonized, you must be the captain.

Me: They have more nookie with communications techs in the Mirror Universe than most people do ALL VOYAGE.

Kevin: Well, they get most of their female officers off the Orions.

Me: GREEN COMMUNICATIONS TECHS.

Kevin: Captain, we're being hailed by the Romulan commander. "Shut up and show me your tits."

Pirates are the new monkeys. But the old monkeys still kick ass.

It's raining naps

Ever since I was a kid, I've had sinus headaches. Sometimes they get so bad that it hurts to see. The one today was on that end of the spectrum. The only thing that works is to sleep, usually. Today was no exception.

Today was free comic day at my shop and around the country. Did you get your free comic? Do you not read comics? If not, what the hell is wrong with you? Comics are just words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures. (Thanks, Mr. Ellis.)

My favorite BBS was down for a while, but it has come back from the dead. Next it will walk on water and turn water into wine and write an Emmy-winning episode of Stargate SG-1.

There is a lot of speculation of who Kerry will pick as a running mate. The common wisdom is that it will be either Edwards or Gephardt. My money is on Edwards, though my personal choice is Martin Sheen. Particularly Martin Sheen with speechwriting by Aaron Sorkin.

Al Franken just hurt me

So I'm listening to the O'Franken Factor this morning. Their guest this morning is a doctor who wants to take the Star-Spangled Banner to a different key--if it were sung a few steps lower, more Americans would be able to sing it.

His co-host Catherine asks, "But this was a drinking song originally, so why can't more Americans sing it?" Al starts singing in a drunken slur

You're such a great guy
And I... know your brother
He works with me
We cobble horses together

OK, so maybe you had to be here, but the guest was laughing, Catherine broke up, and I was in danger of falling out of my chair.

Are you a felon?

Are you sure?

If you live in Florida or have plans on being there during election season, you could be on the list of felons and not know it. One of the DailyKos readers found that his name was listed, most likely barring him from voting. And he doesn't even live there. Granted, it's probably somebody else with his name but odds are they'd disallow you at the polls.

Somehow I thought that if you paid your debt to society, you would be allowed back in. (I'm going to skip the theories of prison as punishment vs. rehabilitation at the moment.) But this is Florida, remember. We should chainsaw that state right off the continent. Or better yet, give it to Cuba.

Another long night last night. I'm exhausted and since I don't have any CD-ROMs handy at the moment I am rearranging furniture to test a theory.

I have such an exciting life.

Zot!

This God simulator has made my day.

It's even better than the hitting-penguins-for-distance game.

Thanks to Josh for the heads up on the first link!

Even Stevens

This thread on DailyKos reminds me of some of the funniest segments on the Daily Show, which really is the most important television program, ever.

How sad is it when the best news program in America is a comedy show?

I'm also reminded that tomorrow is the Friday before a holiday weekend, so I expect some sort of horror from the White House. The Plame indictments are probably going to come down soon, so that is a possibility. Revised economy numbers perhaps. Or maybe another resignation.

It's been a long and trying day. I slept for about two hours when I got home from work.

Family values

Focus on the Family, a wingnut Christian group in Colorado, has just informed all of is members of Michael Moore's home address through e-mail. Somehow I'm imagining it's not for Christmas cards.

Moore's already had a lot of threats against him. These are the same kind of people who post wanted posters of abortion providers, then cross names off when some religious zealot kills one of them. But it's all in the name of Jebus, of course. So it's justified. If you worship Allah and kill people, you are a filthy terrorist who hates freedom. If you worship Jesus and kill people, you're merely preparing for his glorious homecoming.

I will never understand the mindset of poor, persecuted Christians who must not rest until we replace all of our laws with Scripture. But I also wonder how many of them will put themselves to death for marrying divorced women, planting multiple crops in the same field, wearing poly/cotton-blend fabrics, or any of the other thousands of things prohibited in the Bible. The Library of Congress recommends you read more about it: try Ken's Guide to the Bible for some fun with both the New and Old Testaments. Also includes a handy Bible litmus test!