Open Question: Vote Early, Vote Often
Here’s the Open Question for September:
“It’s election season. How involved are you in the political process – do you join a party, post signs,hand out leaflets, march, or volunteer at the polling stations? Do you vote every chance you get, or do you pick and choose? Do you have any memorable votes or voting memories.”
This is an all-party, all-nation question. Leave your answers or links in the comments below. I’ll post my answers tomorrow.
Happy Birthday, Naomi!
You are 35 months old today! I love our little lunch dates at the Chinese restaurant.
Palmed
Those eagled-eyed blog readers out there (well, those of you who’ve been to my home a lot) may have noticed something missing from the picture of my new, still-fairly-clean desk.
The Palm Pilot cradle is gone.
Yes, after seven years of dwindling use, I no longer have a Palm Pilot in constant use. At one time, it was an essential novelty, repository of games, mp3s, addresses, mapquest directions and those all-important CCG collected rulings. But now, and for the last three years, it’s little more than a bulky address book. It’s time to remove the cradle and cut my power bill by an infinitesimal amount.
I haven’t thrown it away, of course. Who know when I might change my mind?
The First Pot Roast of the Season…
…tasted great!
I like any recipe that requires me to ignore the food for four hours while it cooks.
Objective Accomplished: The Desk
Behold! It won’t look this good tomorrow!
Maybe I should turn this picture of my desktop…into my desktop picture!
Weekend Objective: The Desk
Once again, I’ve allowed my work area to become overwhelemed with stacks of paper, car keys, books and sonic screwdrivers. Time to clean up!
If you don’t hear from me for the rest of the weekend, one of those piles has landed on me. Send help!
More Cthulhu Comics
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Cthulhu Tales: The Series #4 First, a math teacher rediscovers Cthulhoid equations that reshape his perceptions of the world – every face is a Cthulhu. Next, the Iraqi heir of the Necomonicon’s author is tortured by US mercenaries who seek treasures they do not understand, and he defends those secrets at a price he does understand. |
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Fall of Cthulhu: Godwar #1 Fall of Cthulhu #15 by any other name. The Harlot hires Lucifer (the Brazilian thief, not the devil) to free Cy, our hero from the first FoC storyline, from the Arkham psychiatric hospital, under cover of a hail of burning alien frogs. This is Lovecraft as action movie…and it works! |
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Necronomicon #1 Henry Said, an isolated engineering student and language expert, falls in with a bad crowd at Miskatonic University who hire him to translate the Necronomicon into English. This coming of age story will not end well, but it will certainly be a creepy read, thanks to Andrew Ritche’s skeletal artwork. |
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Rex Libris #12 After some sluggish issues, Rex is back with an abundance of weird fun. Any story that features yetis piloting an iceberg battleship…complete with imperial war penguins…works for me. The story ends with Rex surrounded by a league of enemies. How this racket hasn’t yet woken sleeping Cthulhu is a mystery. |
This Show Deserved Better
It’s too bad this show lost viewers and momentum when CBS kept putting it on a seven-week broadcast cycle (2006/2007 was a year full of senseless network scheduling decisions.) The seasons hold up quite well when viewed in a sitting.
I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed Gerald McRaney’s work, and now I want to see more Lennie James, Brad Beyers (Captain America, anyone?) and Alicia Coppola.
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Jericho: Season 1 Imagine a televised Heinlein novel (Tunnel in the Sky or Time Enough for Love) – that’s Jericho. It’s a tale of personal, societal and ethical survival in a small Kansas town after a nuclear attack…with spies and government conspiracies thrown in. Uneven at first, but ultimately outstanding. Deserved a better fate. |
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Jericho: Season 2 A noble second attempt, but either the post-nuclear attack concept was too high, or the government/corporate conspiracy angle cut too plausibly close to the bone for the series to survive. The new tone was harsh rather than hopeful, and the enemies were cruel rather than desperate…but I wanted more! |
Another Blogathon Article
It took me a while to find this, but it’s another clipping for the collection. Many thanks to Janet Gadeski for the link.
Canadian Fundraiser eNews – The latest “thon” the blogathon
Steve Wark of Montreal spent all night on July 28 reading comic books. Steve’s not a kid reading under the covers with a flashlight. He’s a father of a five-year-old autistic son who wants to give back to Montreal Children’s Hospital, where young Ben was diagnosed.
As well as reading comics overnight, Steve blogged every half hour. His Blogathon for Ben was part of the Day of Blogs, a fundraising effort that saw dozens of participants around the world posting every half hour for 24 hours, soliciting funds for their chosen charities.
Steve participated in a similar effort for the first time last year. To his great surprise, he raised $1,400 for the hospital’s autism clinic. The donations came from family, colleagues and friends as you might expect, but also from people who stumbled across his blog and even other participants.
This year, the day began with his usual stint of home-based work as a freelance writer and video game designer under the supervision of Ben and his two-year-old sister Naomi. Steve blogged faithfully every 30 minutes and was sometimes able to prepare a post or two in advance. During the day he posted about the experience of parenting an autistic child.
Staying awake became a challenge once the children were bedded down for the night. Blogging about the comic books he had saved up to read kept him going. And he attracted a sponsor; Boom! Studios offered five comic books to his top five donors.
By August 1, Steve had raised $1,950 with a further $300 pledged.
For more information, www.steve-blogathon.com, www.dayofblogs.org
Getting Things Done
For all the running around I did yesterday, I still managed to finish some lingering projects: I finished watching the second season of Jericho, completed A Princess of Mars (which took me far longer than was justified by the slender volume), and finished reading the campaign setting for the Pathfinder Chronicles RPG, but two work projects which modesty and NDAs forbid me to discuss.
There’s still a backlog, but it looms a little less ominously right now.