Live blog coverage at pandagon and DKos. My favorite so far:

Bush looks like an overeager college debater who has some killer fact about gold trade pacts in Alaska lined up in an argument about race relations. He's leaping out like he's about to piss himself to get time that's *guaranteed* to him.

I pity the president's kidneys. He's slamming that water like it's last call.

I sit down with world leaders!

Watching the debate. Bush is petulant, when he's not looking pissed. Or like an Oompah-Loompah. (CSPAN and Fox show him as a striking shade of orange.) He's insisting that he sits down with world leaders, just like a kid who didn't do the reading insisting he did.

Kerry, after listing the gross incompetence in Bush's funding homeland security. "America didn't need that tax cut, it needed to be safe."

I wish I had screen capture of Bush doing his weird mouth thing. Such a tell.

If you've seen Fahrenheit 9/11, you've seen this face. It's the one he had when he sat and read "The Pet Goat" for 7 minutes while people died in New York City.

THURSDAY THURSDAY THURSDAY!

You'll pay for the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge! SEE President George Bush take on battlin' John Kerry in an ALL-OUT, no-holds-barred CAGE MATCH OF DEATH!!! Then watch the ROBOTIC Dick Cheney duke it OUT with Johnny "Sunshine" Edwards in the "Your Mama So Fat!" roast! BE THERE!

OK, so I may be exaggerating a bit. The "debate" is more a publicized conference, given the lame-ass rules they insist on including in an effort to ensure that the thing is as boring as possible. There's a DKos post about something to watch out for, so that might be interesting.

Steve Gilliard posts an interesting account from Iraq.

I am house bound. I leave when I have a very good reason to and a scheduled interview. I avoid going to people's homes and never walk in the streets. I can't go grocery shopping any more, can't eat in restaurants, can't strike a conversation with strangers, can't look for stories, can't drive in any thing but a full armored car, can't go to scenes of breaking news stories, can't be stuck in traffic, can't speak English outside, can't take a road trip, can't say I'm an American, can't linger at checkpoints, can't be curious about what people are saying, doing, feeling. And can't and can't. There has been one too many close calls, including a car bomb so near our house that it blew out all the windows. So now my most pressing concern every day is not to write a kick-ass story but to stay alive and make sure our Iraqi employees stay alive. In Baghdad I am a security personnel first, a reporter second.

I'm sure this person is too busy trying not to get blown to hamburger to report on all the good things we must be doing in Iraq. Somewhere. Where nobody can see. Remember this when W tells you how rosy everything is going.

President Hazelwood

Juan Cole has a gift for metaphor:

When you are deep in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging. Whatever Bush has been doing in Iraq for the past 18 months demonstrably has not worked. He desperately needs a change of mind on these policies. He needs to try something else.

The image of him giggling about Kerry changing his mind on Iraq takes on a chilling aspect when you think of him as Captain Joseph Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez. Hazelwood told the helsman to steer right and then went to bed. The helsman didn't steer far enough right, and plowed into the Bligh Reef and disaster. Part of the reason was that corporate cost-cutting had left the ship without radar. If you think about it, in fact, a wrecked oil tanker is a good image of Bush administration Iraq policy.

Try and catch the Hersh interview on the Daily Show if you missed it. Somebody give that man a Pulitzer.

Da Shizzolator

Athenais pointed me to Ask Snoop, who will kindly translate any webpage for you. Here's one from yesterday:

We don't make games like Katamari Damacy here, 'n that is sad n' shit. In da game, yo' father (da King of All Cosmos) has destroyed izzall da stars, so that shiznit's up yo' ass replace 'em n' shit. To do this, yo' ass get a big ass wad of, know what I'm sayin'? .. stuff n' shit. And yo' ass has roll this ball around, capturing stuff that becomes part of da ball, know what I'm sayin'?

The gameplay description reminds me slightly of Marble Madness, wit just a touch of Robot Alchemic Drive, know what I'm sayin'? For da insanity n' shit.

They made a funny over at Pandagon:

Since we can't izzall grow up be president, Big Baby Bush has kindly lowered da position so that shiznit's on par wit 0's-drinking-cuz-who-pees-on-yo'-couch, know what I'm sayin'? I never has feel bad again!

But is izzle shorties learning?

Word.

Funny because it's true

The Onion knocks another one out of the park. Documents Reveal Gaps In Bush's Service As President.

According to Rocklin, the most damning documents were generated at roughly one-day intervals during a period beginning in January 2001 and ending this week. The document's sources include, but are not limited to, the U.S. newspaper The New York Times, the London-based Economist magazine, and the well-known international business and finance record, The Wall Street Journal.

"Factual data presented in these publications indicates that Bush took little or no action on issues as widely varied as the stalled economy, increasing violence in post-war Iraq, and the lagging public education system," Rocklin said. "The newsprint documents also reveal huge disparities between the ways Bush claimed to have served Medicare patients, and what he actually did."

They were eerily prescient back in 2001, when they proclaimed Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Over.

I've been reading Jasper Fforde again and I could really use some toast about now. Or a GoliathCorp t-shirt. Since I don't want anything to happen to me.

Prince of Space

We don't make games like Katamari Damacy here, and that is sad. In the game, your father (the King of All Cosmos) has destroyed all the stars, so it's up to you to replace them. To do this, you get a big wad of... stuff. And you have to roll this ball around, capturing stuff that becomes part of the ball.

The gameplay description reminds me slightly of Marble Madness, with just a touch of Robot Alchemic Drive. For the insanity.

They made a funny over at Pandagon:

Since we can't all grow up to be president, Bush has kindly lowered the position so it's on par with beer-drinking-friend-who-pees-on-your-couch. I never have to feel bad again!

But is our children learning?

Message from the abbotoir

You should read this post from Iraq. But don't do it before bed.

The other day NPR had an "undecided voter" who could not tell a difference between Bush and Kerry. (Never mind that this guy was basically a Republican who just happened to vote for a Democrat once, which in NPR's mind must make him a swing voter or something.) Reading stuff like this, I have to wonder: how fucking stupid do you have to be to be undecided at this point? Can you tell the difference between applesauce and plutonium? Ionic plasma from the sun's corona and a Bose-Einstein condensate? Your ass from a hole in the ground?

If America were Iraq...

What would it be like? So asks Juan Cole.

What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number.

Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week?

There's more, but it's worth a read.

I had a package or two arrive for me today, but neither was our PowerBook. Dammit.

I just want my laptop

IS THAT SO WRONG?

(Note, it helps if you say the above in a Harvey Fierstein voice.)

Our laptop knocked on the door on Friday, but we weren't home so it didn't stay. I called DHL and they should be bringing it by my office today. Their hold music was insane, though. Santana, then The Supremes, then UB 40.

I have genre whiplash, I think.

Spent the weekend playing far too much Pikmin 2, so much that it was starting to affect my dreams. I did finally manage to complete the first part of the game--the gathering of 10,000 Pokos--but I have not managed to find my lost comrade yet.

There's a bit in the Mark Leyner novel Et Tu, Babe where Mark goes into a video store and asks for the Schwarzeneggerization of a couple of films, where every actor is digitally replaced by the Governator. I was reminded of that today when Kevin and I were talking:

*** eXpress message received from Beaucoup Fish at 10:03 ***
Every line in the Holy Trilogy is better in a loud Arnold voice. "SHUT DOWN ALL THA GAHBAGE MASHERS ON THA DETENTION LEVEL!!!!"

*** You sent this eXpress message to Beaucoup Fish at 10:05 ***
I GOINGK TO TASCHEE STATION TO PICK UP ZUM POWAH CONVERTAHS!

Who doesn't like a nice, tasty apple?

Listening to the new Patton Oswalt CD, which we got at the Comedians of Comedy tour. It was a fantastic show. How can you turn down this lineup?

• Patton Oswalt
• Jim Goad
• Brian Posehn
• Maria Bamford
• Zach Galifianakis

And hey, I learned that Patton Oswalt's THAC0 is 18, because he just made level 3. This, along with his talking about Bush as Dr. Doom is why he is My People. Plus, he and Brian Posehn went to my comic shop and did a set about it. Preach on, brother.

Trying not to jinx it

There's a thing going on but I don't wanna talk about for fear of jinxing it.

So anyway.

I need one of August's t-shirts. Based on this cartoon.

There was a half-moon during the autumnal equinox. I feel the entire world is on the cusp of a huge change.

A price comparison

Shawn Hoke gives you the breakdown on buying comics.

Over at Fanboy Rampage, where I learn so much about comics and comics fans, I was shocked to read that there are a few titles that Marvel charges $3.50 for. These aren’t special issues or prestige format books, just normal monthly floppies that cost $3.50. Of course, there is much rampaging and gnashing of teeth, but I suspect that fans will quietly knuckle under and pay $42 a year for twelve issues (264 pages of story that takes between one to two hours to read) of Iron Man. But to be fair, your $42 also buys you anywhere from 72 to 96 pages of cutting edge advertisements over those 12 issues.

So, $42 for 264 pages of story and roughly one to two hours of entertainment. And over those twelve issues, if your’re lucky, there may be enough story and action to equal one issue of a typical Jack Kirby comic. Marvel Comics, folks - less bang for your buck.

DC doesn't fare much better. Hoke goes on to list a few things you should buy, though I would also recommend plunking that $42 on a copy of Pikmin 2. Dozens of hours of entertainment. Or go to the used bin and grap a bunch of old RPGs. Hundreds of hours of fun. (Note that this cost does not include electricity, gaming systems, peripherals, TVs, or opportunity cost of spending a lot of time on the couch.)

I'm a real employee again

At least according to my health care, anyway.

So after two days, I finally have the coverage I was supposed to have all along, but had been missing without my knowledge for three weeks.

Good thing I wasn't, you know, dying in a ditch somewhere waiting for somebody to approve my medical benefits before loading me into the ambulance.

La Femme D'Argent

There's something about listening to French techno while looking outside the window on a foggy day. As I used to say in the 3-D software days, "God's cutting down on her rendering time today."

Fun reading from DKos and Steve Gilliard this week. Probably some more fun stuff lying around but I've been busy hacking HTML and writing documentation. I must create a bunch of accounts at some point today, but that is only going to happen when other people give me the stuff they said they would. So it is Not My Problem.

Term date of 8/31

I went to get a script filled last night, and much to my surprise, I find that I was terminated on 8/31. Which is weird, since I just turned in my time sheet for the last pay period. So I call HR this morning, and it turns out that if you are like me and forget to turn in a timesheet on time and require a manual check, our health insurance automatically says you're terminated and refuses coverage until they are told otherwise.

Remind me again why we pay more for health care than any other industrialized nation, yet have shit like this happen? Not to mention the 44 million Americans who lack any health care at all. A friend of mine once theorized that we are one celebrity death away from better medical care for all--which celebrity is gonna take one for the team?

I had a lovely weekend last night and I will tell you all about it later. Booze was involved, because it makes you shiny.

Double century mark

If I can believe what Blogger tells me, this is post #200. Whee, or something. Not sure if this is what I originally intended, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned.

Kerry spoke to the National Guard today. Well worth quoting here:

Two days ago, the President stood right where I’m standing and did not even acknowledge that more than 1,000 men and women have lost their lives in Iraq. He did not tell you that with each passing day, we’re seeing more chaos, more violence, more indiscriminate killings. He did not tell you that with each passing week, our enemies are getting bolder – that Pentagon officials report that entire regions of Iraq are now in the hands of terrorists and extremists. He did not tell you that with each passing month, stability and security seem farther and farther away.

There's a patron in the library who is fond of wearing shirts like John Kerry--Traitor. Not even mentioning that you have over 1000 dead when you're facing a group of people much like those you've gotten killed--what is that, I wonder? Bush is a miserable failure. His only plan in Iraq seems to be "Go in there and loot the treasury as fast as possible. Who cares about the consequences?"

Kevin is off to Canada tomorrow. I hope he can get the NHL back on track to start the season on time.

A fun one and a serious one

The fun one

Kevin, did you know it was monkey week at Engrish.com???

The serious one

Hold them accountable. Bush talks about the "ownership society," let him finally own this.

That was fast

That Bush bounce following the GOP Hatefest? It's gone. You can go off suicide watch now--it's a close race but they are tied. With two months to go and Kerry is gaining momentum. We haven't even had a debate yet.

Called Apple today and figured out the TiBook should be back next week. If everything goes as planned. Keeping my digits crossed.

I finally found the books I was looking for. They had been hiding in a box in a closet, and my memory of just recently touching the one was clearly a hallucination since my little archaeological expedition shows that box hasn't been touched in about a year.

Kevin posts a picture of an upcoming Avengers cover.

This reminds me so much of that Grant Morrison classic:

(You can buy this masterwork at Mile High Comics, who clearly deserve some of my business. Crap. They have a complete run of Young Heroes in Love, which is kinda hard to find.) Anyway, maybe Bendis is just doing a tribute or something.

Finally clicked KeepIt on Pikmin 2 the other day. Some of the cave levels are frustrating, and the all-or-nothing victory condition kinda bothers me. Still, it's a fun game and I find myself thinking what I would do for a sequel. Game design's another of those things I used to do back when I was fun.

Uncomfortably numb

Having a meeting the day after a day-long training is not something I recommend. On the other hand, at least I didn't have three meetings today.

Came home to find somebody had taken our Vote Democrat sign out of our yard. No idea who or why--all the other signs on our street are intact. Perhaps this is the universe telling me I need to get the biggest Kerry-Edwards sign I can.

There's a story on This Modern World that is disturbing because we are so not disturbed by it. And we should be.

I was supposed to write with a friend tonight but I find I no longer have much energy for it. On the other hand, I did find the books I was looking for since Sunday. They had been buried in a box for a couple months.

Not the X-Men Colossus, I imagine.

Gameforms has a story about the new project from the Ico team, called Wanda and the Colossus.

This is their first release since Ico, and it looks pretty interesting. I'm interested in what it will end up like, as the team's first game was just magnificent. Emotional as hell despite a lack of a lot of dialogue--a story about a horned boy and the young woman he protects as they attempt to escape from a castle much like Gormenghast.

Booze makes you shiny

My voice is a bit hoarse this morning after a night at the Lucky Lab. It was just the sort of thing that I needed, though.

There's an interesting story that's caught my eye the last few days: A worker fired for a bumper sticker on her car gets a better offer in the end. The end result works out well for the woman involved but... What kind of country do we live in where management can fire somebody for exercising their First Amendment rights? Well, the neocon America, but still.

Phantom Brave arrived in the mail the other day. It's from Nippon Ichi, who made La Pucelle and Disgaea, both excellent, offbeat strategy games. This one throws a lot of stuff at you very quickly, but like the other Nippon Ichi games, it's fairly deep. The main character is a bit annoying, alas. I think of the three, Disgaea may be my favorite, if only for exploding zombie penguins. Oh, and the guys who made the strategy guide are offering it as a free download. Which is awesome. It looks good--I will have to pick it up now.

I've been liking Pikmin 2 a lot, though it does have some mixed messages. They got rid of one of the more annoying aspects of the first game--the fixed time limit--but they also start sending you ominous messages if you take "too long" to play the game. So which is it, guys?

The laptop is still on hold in the repair facility, which is a little worrisome.

Pikmin 2: Electric Boogaloo

Gamefly delivered a copy of Pikmin 2 to us this weekend, so that took up a great deal of my time. There are many differences between the first and the second games, mostly subtle things like an increased number of graphic effects, more realistic water, etc. There are also purple Pikmin, which rock.

But before I could have Pikmin goodness, Friday night was spent at the Alibi, which may or may not be the only Tiki bar in Portland. A wonderful time was had by all. And since I have been playing a lot of Kingdom of Loathing, a drink with an umbrella in it is a very cool thing indeed. (Little paper umbrellas in KoL drinks add a ton of stats.)

Off to a day of meetings and statistics gathering. More later.

Want to make more gil?

Sure, we all do!

One of my projects for the next time I am unemployed or on extended vacation will be to play every Final Fantasy game ever, in sequential order. This may be somewhat difficult as one of them never made it to the States--the Japanese FF III, as I recall. Our FF 3 was really the Japan FF VI, at least in its original US release. This was later changed when they released the FF Anthology collection, restoring the original numbering.

Last night I moved the old TV from the upstairs to the bedroom, and installed the old PlayStation. Somewhere I seem to have lost a coaxial cable, so I had to scavenge the one from the DishTV receiver. (It was labeled For TV to Dish Receiver ONLY so don't tell anyone that it works somewhere else.) Then I plopped disc one of Final Fantasy VII and turned the power on. The grand score of the Nobuo Uematsu's soundtrack filled the screen, and I was instantly transported back to 1997, like it was the first time I played and not... seven years ago.

The game holds up surprisingly well, I think. At least for the hour or two I spent with it last night. A little bit more than I originally thought it would. Sure, the textures are bad. You have no idea how much you love bilinear filtering until you have to do without it. The original PSX hardware didn't have it. There's a feature in the PS2 to play PSX games with a software bilinear filter, but the results are somewhat mixed. Games like Metal Gear look great with it--FF 7 has such tiny models and textures that it doesn't help much. (Take a look at the other definitions on that site. Now you'll know what mip-mapping and Z-filtering for later, when there's a test...)

Emotionally, I think it's still a very strong title. The opening cinematic reminds me just why I bought a PlayStation in the first place--like many people, it was just for that game. I do miss the Saturn, though. I've been scouring eBay for them lately but there's no way I can afford to recreate the library I once had for it, not when Guardian Heroes sells for $70. I do wish somebody would port Dragon Force to the GBA, though.

The Materia system in FF 7 is still one of my favorite things about the game--complicated as hell but very flexible and much cooler than the refining crap in FF VIII. It's a programming language of sorts. "If I get hit, Counterattack and Steal . Oh, and I'm Covering everybody, so I will counter and steal almost all the time." Or you can add elemental damage to weapons, absorb damage with armor, or give tons of evil status penalties when you attach certain Summons, etc. So great.

People remember this game very fondly for a reason, I think. There's a bit in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics where he talks about the simplicity of icons, and how we are able to project emotions on to simple figures. This is possible with FF 7 in a way that is not possible in the later games. I don't have nearly the attachment to Yuna or Squall or any of the more realistic characters that I do with Cloud, Aeris, or Vivi, for example. The more human-looking characters tend to remind me more that this is not the real world, or they look slightly off (Yuna is always staring blankly the way human beings should not), whereas the more generic icons and flat faces of the earlier characters allow for more active interpretation on the player's part. For example, I think the cartoony character designs in FF 7 work better than the "real-world" designs in FF X.

It may be related to voice talent as well. Recent Final Fantasy games have actual voice actors, taking even less active participation from the player. Nicolas Meyer said something interesting in the Star Trek II commentary--that art depends on the aspect that is not there to convey meaning. Some of the power of music stems from what is not there--the visual imagery. Paintings require the viewer to fill in motion. But movies, and more modern games, require less thought and action. They do the work for you. So what are you left with other than a passive experience?

So maybe I am wrong when I am asking for a FF 7 remake. Maybe just a director's cut of the game with bilinear filtering, anti-aliasing, and the actual use of the Underwater Breathing Materia hinted at. Maybe an ending. That makes sense. That's not too much to ask.

Cool stuff this afternoon...

Scientists are working on a robot powered by flies.

The robot's energy source is the sugar in the polysaccharide called chitin that makes up a fly's exoskeleton. EcoBot II digests the flies in an array of eight microbial fuel cells (MFCs), which use bacteria from sewage to break down the sugars, releasing electrons that drive an electric current (see graphic).

In its present form, EcoBot II still has to be manually fed fistfuls of dead bluebottles, but the ultimate aim of the UWE robotics team is to make the droid predatory, using sewage as a bait to catch the flies.

Then there's an entire DKos thread with a ton of Eddie Izzard references. Speaking of which, the Sexie and Glorious DVDs can come out any time now. The latter has been in limbo for over a year.

Undo

Currently listening to the Plink song by that name, thinking about stuff and wondering just what to do with my afternoon. I have several projects, though some of them are... problematic. As one of my favorite professors used to like to say.

Congratulations must go out to Athenais for finishing the first draft of her novel! I need to get my lazy ass in gear and start writing some more. There is, of course, NaNo on the horizon. (I've done it twice in the past two years. The first was... just for me. The second I think has some potential.) There's a whole file full of story ideas waiting to be fleshed out, but inertia has been hard to overcome.

We've been playing a lot of Tales of Symphonia. It's a lot deeper than you'd think at first glance, though the story is somewhat of a rehash of FF X.

Speaking of Square-Enix, I really want to see a FF VII remake. I'm still not kidding.

Shocking revelations!

The Poor Man comes up with the shocking revelations on Bush in Kitty Kelly's new book...

Read the comments, too. Great stuff. And SHOCKING!

Well, maybe not if you've been paying attention at all for the last few years.

Lemme build some siege tanks already!

In a fit of nostalgia, I re-installed StarCraft on one of our computers and I'm playing through the entire campaign again.

In some ways it's brand-new to me since I haven't played the game in years. I've forgotten some of the story twists and that's kind of like discovering it all over again.

On the other hand, I do have years of playing the game with coworkers (when I worked in the boonies, we had a choice of either being stuck in traffic for hours, or playing games for an hour and then driving home in no traffic--I chose the games every time). So my first instinct when confronted with an impassable group of Sunken Colonies and Spore Colonies is to whip out a bunch of Siege Tanks and beat the hell out of them. Only the map I'm on has disabled that unit. So I gotta do it the hard way.

Great map design for the novice player, somewhat limiting for a veteran player.

In other news, Dick Cheney basically said that if you don't vote for him in November, you will all die. How pathetic. Now W is talking about ducking at least one debate. Is he too busy snorting coke? There is talk in the blogosphere about running a mock debate between Kerry and Will Farrell if this comes to pass, which I think is a brilliant idea.

Jesse is a genius

One of the questions I hear a lot (other than the laughable and idiotic "Who would Osama vote for?) is "who would you rather have a beer with?" As if that is the criteria on which the President should be elected. Were that the case, Spuds MacKenzie or the LaBatt's Blue bear should be in office.

Jesse of Pandagon tackles this point:

Me and the American electorate need to have a little sit down. A little powwow, a coffee klatsch if you will.

The President of the United States is not coming to dinner at your house.

The president is not going to come watch a football game with you. He or she is not going to recommend a good place to get address labels. The First Spouse is not going to substitute teach your kids. He or she is not going to call you up and see if you want to go bowling this weekend.

I say this if only because we seem to be suffering from a mass delusion that they are. Somehow, the election of the president has equivalent to electing the family next door. We want to look over the fence every night and see the family that we want to be.

The only problem is that the fence is ten feet tall, made of black iron, has sensors and cameras wired into it to let them know whenever you get too close to it, and a team of several dozen highly trained law enforcement agencies who will make damn sure you don't throw your leaves into their yard.

Given George's history of coke abuse and Laura's fondness for the bottle, I certainly wouldn't want the Bush family as my neighbors. I'd be calling the cops on their kids every damn weekend.

And now it begins...

It's after Labor Day. Maybe now people will start paying attention to things. We start with a Bushism, recently minted:

"Too many good OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love, with women all across this country."
- George W. Bush

I, for one, would be a little nervous if my doctor was practicing his love with me. He'd at least have to buy me dinner first.

I have nothing funny to say to the news that last month was the deadliest ever in Iraq. More soldiers are getting killed and wounded after we captured Saddam than before. 999 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq (as of this writing). Thousands more are wounded. And despite what the beyond-contempt delegates to the GOP conference would have you believe, wounds aren't usually covered up by a band-aid. Lives are ruined, and for what? Enriching Halliburton?

We could ask Bush about it, but he's such a coward that he does not attend meetings with proles like us. Every attendee at an event gets vetted--they had to sign a loyalty oath in Arizona just to see Cheney. A LOYALTY OATH.

Bush got the lowest "bounce" ever by an incumbent president from the Hatefest in NYC. Which is fitting, as he is the lowest president ever.

John Kerry and John Edwards have an optimistic plan for a better America. It does not involve raising taxes on most Americans to give a tax cut to the richest Americans. It does not involve fighting the wrong war in Iraq in the name of fighting terror. It does not involve cutting civil liberties at home.

Kitty Kelley's got a new book coming out. I hear rumors that it's full of all sorts of stuff. There's an interview on 60 Minutes about the guy who got Bush into the Air National Guard, who now regrets doing so. Bush is a miserable failure and the next few weeks will be the final hurrah for him.

I like our house rules better

Spent much of yesterday playing croquet with the Pints folks. (A group of people I've been drinking with for eight years or so.)

Our rules are a bit different from the real rules.

Special Rule #1:
One must have a drink in one's hand at all times.

Special Rule #2:
Particularly good play will be penalized by the assignment of another drink.

Special Rule #3:
Upon hitting the last wicket, your ball is now "Poison." If you hit another ball, it is removed from play. The last ball remaining is the winner.

I typically finished the course last but survived into the poison round. I even won a game. Strategy with the poison variant is tricky--do you attempt to finish first and then take people out as they try for the last wicket? Or do you let the others go ahead and hit the wicket towards the end, letting other people eliminate your opponents for you?

Following the game, we left for dinner at a friend's house, which was fun. I felt much like death upon leaving, maybe it was the lavender sorbet, maybe it was too many gin an tonics. Not sure.

I also installed StarCraft again at home, so I will have that to play before Pikmin 2 arrives from Gamefly.

Training to be old ladies

Mrs. GFR, myself, and our friend E went out to Canby to the Dahlia Festival. Acres of flowers, tons of bees, and a bunch of ideas for flowers for the house. They don't require a ton of maintenance, either.

Grabbed a bunch for the house, though we may need to go out to grab some bigger vases.

My shop had half-off back issues this weekend. Picked up some Midnight, Mass at Kevin's recommendation. I am thinking about going back for some Avengers, maybe.

Lots of gnashing of teeth about the elections this weekend, but I am gearing up for the home stretch and the inevitable Kerry landslide. Bush is a miserable failure. One cannot stress this enough.

Spent part of last night upgrading our iMac to System 9.2, though I didn't go whole-hog and do OS X. Perhaps I should have. Still, it's nice to have something that can play Total Annihilation.

Water into steam

Spent a good chunk of today cleaning the carpets. Interesting, in a clinical sense, if you like knowing just how much hair your cats are shedding on the carpet.

This article on Bush by the numbers is interesting. For example:

1 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security issued between 20 January 2001 and 10 September 2001 that mentioned al-Qa'ida.

104 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned Iraq or Saddam Hussein.

101 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned missile defence.

65 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned weapons of mass destruction.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden in his three State of the Union addresses.

73 Number of times that Bush mentioned terrorism or terrorists in his three State of the Union addresses.

83 Number of times Bush mentioned Saddam, Iraq, or regime (as in change) in his three State of the Union addresses.

$1m Estimated value of a painting the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, received from Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and Bush family friend.

0 Number of times Bush mentioned Saudi Arabia in his three State of the Union addresses.

1,700 Percentage increase between 2001 and 2002 of Saudi Arabian spending on public relations in the United States.

79 Percentage of the 11 September hijackers who came from Saudi Arabia.

3 Number of 11 September hijackers whose entry visas came through special US-Saudi "Visa Express" programme.

140 Number of Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family, evacuated from United States almost immediately after 11 September.

14 Number of Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) agents assigned to track down 1,200 known illegal immigrants in the United States from countries where al-Qa'ida is active.

$3m Amount the White House was willing to grant the 9/11 Commission to investigate the 11 September attacks.

$0 Amount approved by George Bush to hire more INS special agents.

$10m Amount Bush cut from the INS's existing terrorism budget.

$50m Amount granted to the commission that looked into the Columbia space shuttle crash.

$5m Amount a 1996 federal commission was given to study legalised gambling.

Bush has had a small bump from the convention, but it's short-lived at best. The polls are different than the ones during the DNC convention (now including likely voters and more males sampled), so it's really apples and and oranges.

Fibbed or Reversed Daily

I guess this poll makes as much sense as any. There's a story in the Guardian about candidates and the brands associated with them. Bush is IBM, Dunkin Donuts, and Bud Light.

Kerry is Apple, BMW, and Starbucks.

In other news, Clinton's not doing so well in the heart-type area and is going in for a bypass. Get well soon, Big Dog. We need you.

Speaking of Apple and dodgy bits, the TiBook is undergoing repairs. I got a note saying the repair was on hold due to a lack of parts, but now it's back on schedule. That was fast.

Apple Wrangling

Both computers and fruit, actually. The PowerBook is now sans AirPort card and is already in Texas. (I dropped it off at the box yesterday afternoon and the thing was in Texas two hours ago. Hooray for DHL.)

Instead of watching the Bush rantings, I did something constructive--picking up the fallen apples in my backyard. Last year, I was going to make apple cider and had no apples. This year I have no real plans and I have plenty of apples. Hrm. Perhaps I should look into an apple press. At least one of the falling apples had started to ferment--there was a drunken yellowjacket flying around slowly. Pity I didn't have a breathalyzer for it.

The Daily Show last night, about Fucking Z. Miller and Cheney was a hoot. Hearing Fucking Z challenge Chris Matthews to a duel was just awesome--it's like that episode of the Simpsons with the tomacco, where Homer starts challenging everyone to a duel to get his way. I'm a little curious to see what they'll do with Bush this evening.

I'm particularly disappointed that this country is at the point where the GOP convention is four days of name-calling. They can't run on anything else, of course. Even the job announcement was not great. (I will also bet that it gets "revised" in about three weeks--they said 140,000 new jobs but I imagine they padded it for the President's approval rating. Wouldn't be the first time.) Plus, we were promised two million new jobs that have never happened.

Kerry's speech from Ohio last night:

The Vice President even called me unfit for office last night. I guess I'll leave it up to the voters whether five deferments makes someone more qualified to defend this nation than two tours of duty.

Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty. Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without healthcare makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting the Saudi Royal Family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions of government contracts to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit. That's the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney. And it's not going to change. I believe it's time to move America in a new direction; I believe it's time to set a new course for America.

The Saudi line is a good one, reminding everyone who's seen Fahrenheit 9/11 where the Bush loyalties really lie. (That has to come out on video soon, doesn't it? I am hoping for an extended edition, where you can watch Bush just sit there for all seven minutes, reading The Pet Goat. Speaking of movies, I kinda want to see Shaun of the Dead when it comes out.

OK, off for coffee at Coffee People.

Reinventing the wheel

But mine will be round.

(Thanks to Binder for the quote.)

I should really start work on hacking some GeekLog templates (I got my experiment to work, so now that I've done it once it should be easier to repeat the process...) but instead I'll be removing the AirPort card from the ShinyBook.

Turns out that Apple needs to revise its documentation to show that you:

• Don't have to pack your peripherals and power supply
• Should remove any RAM and AirPort cards you've added since you originally bought the machine

Hrm. I could move to Cupertino for the right price, Apple.

PS: Nice iMacs.

PPS: Check out this graphic of words used by each convention.

Hatefest NYC

The GOP convention this year is like Buchanan all over again. Red meat for the fanbase, scaring the shit out of everybody else.

It's hard to be optimistic when your two spokespeople are fucking Zell Miller (he should really change his name to that, Fucking Z. Miller, as he has no other name now) and Dick Cheney. I mean, look at their pictures. As one poster put it last night:

Even Foxnews' attempt at a friendly photo of Cheney ends up looking like itshould be captioned, "Cheney makes desperate plea for nation's fresh tender (chicken-fried) babies, 'I'm staaaarving!'"

Check out the Photoshop fun in that thread, as Zell makes a fine Emperor Palpatine.

Bush is up tonight, but I dunno how he can top the performances of the last few nights. How do you top the governator telling everyone who's unemployed that they should suck it up? Or Cheney tearing into Kerry for being sensitive, when both Bush and Cheney have used the same word themselves. Shorter Cheney: John Kerry is French! And he has girl cooties!

These are the assholes with their fingers on The Button?

My box for the wounded TiBook arrived last night, but the instructions are confusing. The ones packed in the box tell me to leave all memory and cards installed, and pack in the power adapter as well. The AppleCare guy told me to leave out the power adapter and remove any RAM or AirPort card I installed after I got it. Which to believe? Time to use that modern invention we call the phone.

More effective when he's bored

Watched the director commentary on the Star Trek II DVD last night. Great stuff. There's a bit where he talks about how Shatner got better on successive takes, because he'd "get bored and stop acting and start being."

One of the more interesting sequences in the commentary is his discussion of cinema and their reflection of the era they were made in. It's started by the David Marcus character wearing a sweater on the bridge, and somehow that's an 80s thing. (Personally, the things that scream 80s to me about the film are the computer graphics and the hair. But I remember reading about how ILM made a lot of the CGI stuff in Discover magazine back in the day when I was a wee bot.)

A nice lady from ACT came by the house today. I signed up to volunteer in whatever capacity they need. She said that the cult-ish neighbors next door asked her "Who would Osama vote for?"

So really, who would he vote for? As a Saudi citizen, he can't vote in American elections. There are no elections to speak of in Saudi Arabia. However, given magical voting powers, he'd vote for Bush in a heartbeat. After all, Iraq was his Red Ryder BB Gun. (As the author of Imperial Hubris has said on the Al Franken show.) It's the present he always wanted but could never ask for. And now terrorist recruitment is up. So in a long answer to my dumb neighbor's question: Osama would vote for Bush. Any other questions? Now keep your kids outta my yard.