I guess when people got to know me from the last post, a large percentage liked what they heard, and then it went viral...

But really-- what are the odds a white male can get elected President?

In the immortal words of Jon Lovitz and the meme picked up from the distant but not forgotten Lisa Sullivan:

1. What is your occupation right now? VP,Production/Utility Infielder, ComicMix.

2. What color are your socks right now? Black.

3. What are you listening to right now? Wind chimes and a distant highway.

4. What was the last thing that you ate? Ham on a bagel. Hah!

5. Can you drive a stick shift? Hell yes.

6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? A telemarketer asking why I left Verizon (because Verizon cut access to the alt. newsgroups, and you should leave them for that reason too).

7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Oh mais oui.

8. How old are you today? 39.

9. What is your favorite sport to watch? I'm not sure it counts as a sport. If it does, it's rarely considered a spectator sport. And like most sports, it's more fun to watch live, and even more fun if you're playing.

10. What is your favorite drink? Alcoholic: Ice wine. Nonalcoholic: Diet Pepsi Max, lord help me.

11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Occasionally whitened for theatrical reasons. And yes, some of it's still in there. Honest.

12. Favorite food? Roast beef on toasted garlic bread with melted mozzerella and bacon. (Damn. Now I'm hungry.)

13. What is the last movie you watched? Shoot 'Em Up.

14. Favorite day of the year? Thanksgiving.

15. How do you vent anger? I have a punching bag in the basement.

16. What was your favorite toy as a child? Merlin.

17. What is your favorite season? Swimsuit.

18. Cherries or Blueberries? Cherries.

19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? If they don't want me to wonder about them.

20. Who is the most likely to respond? To email? Probably Mike Gold.

21. Who is least likely to respond? The dead ones.

22. Living arrangements? Brownstone.

23. When was the last time you cried? Last week.

24. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes and probably a hairball.

25. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending this to? Lord, I don't know who's going to read this-- if it's who I think it is, say hi to the kids for me.

26. What did you do last night? Stayed up way too late.

27. What inspires you? If I knew, it wouldn't be an inspiration, it would be a routine. But knowing that what I do goes out into the world in directions I can't predict to effect things in ways I can't anticipate and can never fully explain or even know-- that's impressive.

28. What are you most afraid of? Willful, premeditated, and sustained ignorance.

29. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Plain.

30. Favorite cat breed? They have breeds? I've only had mutts.

31. Favorite day of the week? I don't have one. Weekends are usually pretty good.

32. How many states have you lived in? Four: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

Neil Cavuto courageoulsy says that he "will conveniently destroy this message in the event I'm wrong" and gosh, I just can't let him do it. We should keep it for posterity. After all, I count two things that are wrong in the article already, so it may disappear any minute. See if you can spot them.

Cavuto: The Democrats are Done

It's August.

It's early.

But for Democrats, it's over.

Over. Done. Fini.

At the risk of sounding like I've snapped...allow me this snap judgment.

The Democrats have just lost the presidency this week.

For them, a horrible week.

So horrible...so discombobulated. So inconsistently communicated and messaged, that they've lost their message.

And I think, this election too.

Because here's the deal as we end this week, my friends.

The Dems...are done.

I know. Laugh all you want. And I will conveniently destroy this message in the event I'm wrong.

But here's why I don't think I am.

During this crucial defining period that brought a Russian bear out of hibernation and a befuddled Nancy Pelosi into drilling reality...allow me to drill home this point.

Democrats lost a lot of mojo this week, their only saving grace that it's an August week.

I don't think that will save them.

Not when Russia threatens a new Cold War and the best their presumptive nominee can do is offer hope warring parties could put aside their hostilities...

While his opponent calls Russia what it clearly was and is: a bully. And a bully that must be dealt with.

And if his presidential metal wasn't tested enough...Barack Obama caves to Hillary Clinton and allows a roll call vote. He's doing it for all good and decent reasons. But nothing good or decent will come of it....her supporters still don't flip over him, no matter what he does to accommodate them.

He's given Hillary a prime time speech. Bill a prime time speech. Chelsea a prime time speech. Is Sox the Cat still around?

My god, who won this damn thing? Show some backbone, man!

Then in the middle of the week Obama's economic team comes out with this grand explanation of a tax cut package that reminds all again...not of cuts promised for the middle class...but serious hikes for those who don't much consider themselves above middle class.

And charges again that these new numbers "still" don't add up as we explored on this very show.

On the very same week Nancy Pelosi read the furor among her own members and decided to backtrack on that no-drilling vote thing.

Not good things for a party that said it would lead the charge.

It shouldn't be this way...with the slowing economy, democrats should be running away.

But they look weak on a military crisis.

Inconsistent on an economic crisis.

And impotent on their own brewing political convention crisis.

Things change. Tides ebb and flow.

But I think we will look back to this week in August as the time the party that had it all in the bag...just puked in it.

Let's see. It's presidential mettle, not metal; and Socks the cat, not Sox. And the rest of the ways Cavuto's wrong will become obvious later. But no later than November, I suspect.

Prompted by the reminder of Jim Macdonald's Gnomic Verses from his dad, I have to add some of my own gleaned wisdom:

* When hanging upside down from a seatbelt, see if the other person in the car knows how to get out first.

* No matter how stupid you think people are, they're stupider.

* You don't have to worry about preparing a will if you're never going to die.

* The advantages inherent in being tall make up for the fact that you'll never fit in an airplane seat.

* You never know what bit of history is going to come in useful.

* Know what you're doing before you gamble.

* No matter where you go, no matter what you do, no matter what troubles you may encounter in your life-- there are nine hundred million people in China who really don't give a shit. So you might as well be happy.

If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook it when those you love take it out on your when through no fault of yours something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion, gender preference, or politics...

Then you have reached the same level of development as your dog.

Picked up from here. Cheery, ain't it?

Or at least, where in the country. Grabbed from Dave Mack:

visited 25 states (50%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president

I gotta get out more.

...keeps the AC in, dontcha know.

New to the blogosphere: the easy to remember Tor.com and the "what does this name mean?" Suvudu.com. But Zuda still sounds sillier.

Drew, you flatterer.

Status games, and how to avoid low-status negative behaviors.

James Elroy Flecker and The Golden Journey To Samarkand. For lust of knowing what should not be known.

Interviews with Garry Trudeau and George Carlin -- apparently his last one.

In honor of the release of The X-Files movie, self-bondage accidental deaths. Paging Fox Mulder...

The indecency fine against CBS for the Janet Jackson nip slip has been thrown out.

And finally, a blog beg: Anybody know why I can't send outgoing verizon.net mail on my Optimum cable line? It's really ticking me off.

10 things you should never say to a tall woman.

Usually I say, "It's so refreshing to meet a woman who's a nice normal height."

Over at the day job on ComicMix, Dennis O'Neil dispenses the best writing advice you might get today:

Stan’s first sentence – “Write about things you know” – may be familiar to those of you who’ve taken formal creative writing courses. I heard it, years ago, and I always thought it didn’t apply to what I did for a living. I mean, I have to confess that I’ve never, ever waited on a foggy rooftop for a grotesquely deformed madman to approach me with murderous intent. Not even once. But if I’ve never written that particular scene, I’ve written plenty like it.

Yet, the write-what-you-know shibboleth is applicable, in a limited way and maybe at one remove, to the production of the fantasy melodrama us superheroists traffick in. The trick might be to write your own fantasies. If you dream of godlike powers, maybe Superman is your fellah. If you dream of mastering technology, check out Iron Man. If the Atom is your favorite…well, you might have self-esteem issues.

Go forth and find what you know and what you want to write about. Or put another way: tell the story you want to know.

Sheesh. Back from Italy, off to Chicago for Wizard World last week. Back from that, over to friends for the 4th. This weekend, off to Shore Leave as a guest and to leave a pint of blood behind. Then two weeks after that, off to San Diego Comic Con. Then two weeks after that, off to Connecticut for a wedding. And doing lots of stuff now so I can get myself up to Westchester tomorrow.

Yipes.

When I get a few minutes, I'll post all these open window links, in the meantime, talk among yourselves.

I set a poor example. John C. Wright thought that just being a world-famous international science fiction author meant that he could win at the ponies:

Dear Sir, having been in arrears for your offtrack betting debts to Harry’s Happy House of Horse Play, the Family has determined to bypass normal legal action and garnishments, and send a gentleman from our collection department, “Gonad-Crusher” Guido Ugnolini to pay a call on you. Mr. Ugnolini has experience in both American and Sicilian correction facilities, multiple murder raps, and a tattoo. We are confident that you will be forthcoming after receiving his attentions.

Dude. There's room for only three world-famous international science fiction authors who are also heavy-duty horseplayers: Mike Resnick, Josepha Sherman, and me. If you're going to gamble, stick to submitting your next novel to Margaret Clark at S&S.

Rev. James Dobson of Focus on the Family accuses Obama of `distorting' the Bible.

I think there's a part in the Bible about taking a log out of your own eye before you remove the speck from another's eye... but I bet Dobson would say I'm distorting the Bible too.

I know, I know, I go away to Italy and then don't write anything for a month. No trip reports, no photos, no nothing. You know how it is-- when you get back (in our case after missing the flight back because of a 3 hour traffic jam, and even an average speed after of 150 kph isn't enough to catch up) you spend all your time fixing the things that exploded while you were away, and then you can't find the right thing to come back on, because if you blog about this then you really should have said something about that, and more things pile on and on and on and on...

But I couldn't let George Carlin's death go unremarked.

I first was exposed to George Carlin by watching an HBO special of his when I was really young, probably around six or seven. I snapped up as many of his albums from the local library as I could, which, let's face it, is probably not the sort of thing someone under the age of ten should be taking out of the library. I first saw him live in 1983 or so (an advantage of being big for my age, no one looked askance at me) and the last time I saw him live was at the Stardust in Vegas about two years ago. (It's not there anymore either.)

Carlin worked long enough that you could see his thinking evolve, and he always thought about his work and what he said to people, what he inspired and what he left behind. He got angrier over the years, and hell, didn't you? He kept seeing things break down and people getting deceieved by others, and deluding themselves constantly, and it pissed him off. Even his acting, which he only did occasionally, showed constant evidence of thought. He once commented on how he got the role of a fifty year old gay man in The Prince Of Tides, by going into the audition just thinking of one word, over and over, inspiring his delivery of lines: lonely.

Mark Evanier had the best comment: there are seven words that come to mind and are appropriate on him dying. Carlin had a few thoughts on dying himself recently, and you should see them now. (No, of course it's not safe for work. Jesus wept, don't you know anything about this man?)

Yes, I've heard there are some technical issues with the site, I'm going to see what can be done about it. But since I'm current wandering through Italy with limited connectivity and battery life, not to mention a desire to actually enjoy something resembling a vacation, it may not be for a while.

When will I be back? Well, you better have a Democratic candidate for president when I get there...

Great fun, satisfying in all the right places, a pure popcorn film, no complexity whatsoever, nothing completely jaw dropping but a hell of a ride, made up for a very annoying 24 hours prior to the start of the movie... but it was missing one thing at the end.

See here about 55 seconds in, and be warned that watching this clip gives away the finish of two films: