Dang, that was cold on everybody

In a rare moment of vaguely political content here on the FOA blog, a link to a great analysis of the VP debate:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100602634.html

My favorite line:

"Many of my colleagues judged Palin simply as a performer and inferred that her performance would go over well in homes with aboveground swimming pools."

There's, like, 87 different burns just in that sentence.

Dang it, Fry's Electronics!

We go to frys yesterday, for the express purpose of buying an extension cord and one of those power cable floor protector things. And then it turns out that, as near as I can tell, they're closing out the books section. Books on programming normally cost upwards of 50 bucks, but they had just about everything for 15 and below. What?

Talk about hitting my thermal exhaust port - books, computers, AND a savings? Normally I wouldn't buy a book called "wicked cool perl scripts," but for 10 bucks? Sure.

Happy Ten-Ten Day!

It's October 10th, or Ten-Ten day, and by ancient family tradition,
that means Chinese food for dinner.

There is a standard, two step response that everyone has on learning this:

1) Yum!
2) Why?

The normal responses:

1) Yum!
2) I have no idea.

There have been many theories put forward to explain Ten-Ten day:
Archie comics, never before heard of "Chinese holidays," my Dad's
crazy roommate in college, etc. In truth, like all good traditions,
the origins are lost in the mists of time.

Dang, what's up autumn?

Had to wear my jacket to work for the first time this morning. Must be October.

Great Moments in TV Watching

Somehow it came to light a few weeks back that Heidi had never seen "Soap," and was, in fact, totally unaware of the program's existence. This was clearly an unacceptable circumstance, so our friend Cristi loaned us her DVDs - which proceeded to sit unwatched until last night.

"If everybody I know thinks this is funny," she says, "I guess I'll try to ignore my judgment of the program based on this cover art."

I'm pretty sure I'd never seen the first episode before, and it was kind of funny watching them try and spin Soap up to speed - and explain to a mid-seventies audience what they're in for.

However. The Great Moment.

The pilot is laboriously introducing the characters, and Jessica finally walks back into the kitchen to talk to her butler.

"Hey, " says Heidi, "That's Benson!"

"Good Morning, Benson!" says Jessica.

I've never seen a draw drop that hard or that fast. Upon learning that this was was the show Benson spun off from, Heidi suddenly became *far* more interested.

Wait... DOMO-KUN?

Wait a minute. Target's Halloween mascot this year is DOMO-KUN? That's... I have no idea what that is.

Walking into the store on Saturday was the most surprised I have ever been.

(Go do a Google image search for Domo Kun. Now do one with a safe search off.)

I spell hell "J-U-R-Y D-U-T-Y"

Wow, how I had avoided doing jury duty up until now I suspect is a real feat. When I lived in Chico I received a summons, but I wrote them a letter how I had a "special needs dog" and could not afford to kennel her for days or weeks. It worked!

I have never heard from the good peeps of the Sacramento Court Circus until last week; well, technically they sent the summons WEEKS ago but it was tossed in with the junk mail by accident and retrieved in the nick of time to avoid "problems." Will they really arrest you for not going to jury duty? Will someone then be summoned to serve on a jury to convict you of not attending jury duty? If so, consider yourself toast -- everyone in that jury will be pissed as hell at you for avoiding the thing that would be currently ruining their day.

ANYway, jury duty is a study in self control. It tests your ability to keep from running out of the courthouse at top speed or saying things that may put you in handcuffs. I know it was my fault for not sending in a letter about my hardship of working for a non-profit organization who cannot pay for ANY jury duty; but you'd think that after I stated that fact to an official (and they agreed I couldn't serve on pretty much ANY jury), that they'd let me go to work after that fact was discovered. Nope. I had to sit in front of judge after judge and let them know of my hardship, be dismissed, and then go check back in with the jury pool. Wait, what? If you all you people agree I cannot serve on a jury while working for my current employer, why must I go to other panels only to be excused? It wastes the court's time, it wastes the council's time and it wastes my time.

It looks like they just waste A LOT of people's time because at 3:45 pm, the last panel I sat in was basically 25 people who were in the same predicament as me. The only ones left that late in the day are all people who had been repeatedly excused from other panels, so almost all of us were excused from this one and the lawyers had to call in another group of people -- whom I could over hear their hushed-tone lamenting about how they too had hardships and would just be excused.

While waiting in line to go home, I chatted with several people who HAD sent in letters only to have them returned with a rejection notice -- then they were dismissed by every judge. There should be a better way of doing this to make sure that people are not stiffed a day's pay to be told by a judge that they should not be stiffed a day's pay.

I think I need to go adopt a "special needs" dog.

Bill Gibson on the current fiscal "Situation"

I think I got that email.

Enounters with the American Situation

I've been remiss in my duties in not linking to the Truck with No Doors. This dude I know, and this other dude I know, and one of their Dads are driving a Volvo from New York to Sacramento.

Hijinks Ensue.

We mixed the books

I wanted to follow up to Gabe's post about the library with what excites me about our new organization. Our books are finally mixed. It may sound silly, but he and I have been together 5 years, lived together for 3.5 of those years, wed for 3.5 months and this is the first time we have a single library. I think this development is one of the things that has made me feel the most married.

When you have an English major w/a minor in creative writing, and a Sci-fi buff with an English minor to his BS in Computer Science under one roof -- you get A LOT OF FREAKIN BOOKS! It doesn't help that there are used book stores a plenty and amazon.com to feed our habit. SO this was a big step in my eyes and I am so glad Gabe did it. It now makes me wonder though how we are going to be able to afford a 6 bedroom house; we currently rent an awesome 4 bedroom Victorian so we each have our own office, a house library and a master bedroom. We are probably going to have 2 kids if all goes well so we'll need a place to stash them too.

I think I will go buy a lottery ticket with my bottled iced tea money.