This may be a case of journalists making something of nothing, but check out the NY Times article called March of the Conservatives, published today.
Apparently, the movie March of the Penguins isn’t about penguins, as the common, non-sophisticated, illiterate viewer may have thought. Instead, it is about such overarching topics as Monogamy, Intelligent Design, and Pro-lifeism.
I’m at a loss. It’s penguins, people!
Yesterday, Jenn performed an act of sublime grace; never to be repeated. She removed, without damage, the CD-case sticker/sealer from the edge of the Green Day American Idiot CD.
I’ve never heard of this being done before. I’m sure it will never be done again.
Chris Schierer on Spaceweather.com
Chris Schierer is the headlining picture at this moment on the captioned website. Go Chris!
If that link doesn’t drop you there, try http://www.spaceweather.com/aurora/gallery_01sep05_page3.htm
Like, the subject says it all. Check out Live Journal if you haven’t before.
Last night I saw the Indigo Girls live at the Chastain Park Ampitheater, Atlanta! This culminates a 14 year odyssey to see them perform in concert. For one reason or another, I’ve been missing their concerts since 1991. Now, I’m a satisfied man.
Their concert was excellent. They are a muscicians group, not a performance group, if you understand the difference. They had no bling on stage; no pyrotechnics. Just them and a gazillion different guitars (and a harmonica, once).
They were opened by Magnapop which didn’t blow up my skirt. However, Magnapop apparently alternates with another group, Three 5 Human, who were excellent. They played a few songs with Indigo Girls at the end of the concert. We’re going to look into them.
An amusing story from the concert: The last song played, by Indigo and Three-5, started up and everyone was singing. Jenn and I looked at each other. I asked her, “Should I know this song? I don’t recognize it.” Jenn replied, “Maybe it’s on the new album” (which I don’t have yet).
Then the chorus comes and we realize that the song is “Midnight Train to Georgia.”
I guess we had better learn that one.
Is it being unamerican when I totally forget that it’s September 11th? Raise your hand if you’re with me. Without the Sunday morning news programs, I’m not sure I would have remembered.
If you reference my blog entry from yesterday titled Inexcusable Behavior, you might note that I advocated contacting your Senators to explain how the treatment of evacuees in New Orleans was deplorable at times.
Well, I did that. I send an e-letter to Senators Isakson and Chambliss, both of Georgia. The letter was composed at the Senate Website on a submission form, so unfortunately I do not have the exact text, but to summarize: The story referenced my blog entry mentioned criminal behavior on the part of authority figures and I felt that the Senators should take that into consideration when they do whatever it is they do in the Magical DC Land.
Senator Chambliss’ form had a check box for “do not send response” which I checked. Senator Isakson’s did not have a similar check box, and here is the reply I received (all of the random HTML garbage has been removed, including the pretty header with his headshot in it).
From: senator@isakson.senate.gov
Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 11:42 AM
To: bill .junk@jbwr.net
Subject: A Response From Johnny IsaksonDear Mr. Ruhsam:
Thank you for contacting my office regarding the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I appreciate your thoughts and the opportunity to respond to you.
In the last week of August 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the Gulf Coast region of the United States . In its wake, the people of Louisiana , Mississippi and Alabama have been faced with the loss of their homes, businesses and lives. My thoughts and prayers are with all those individuals and families affected by this tragedy.
Congress has passed emergency supplemental appropriations to assist those agencies involved in the rescue efforts and will continue to provide the resources necessary to the affected areas. Congress has established a bipartisan committee to review the immediate preparation and recovery from Hurricane Katrina. I am pleased that these issues are being addressed, but stand fast that we must remain focused on completing the immediate response rather than placing blame without facts. Those impacted by this crisis will need the support and assistance of all Americans throughout this process.
Please feel free to visit my website at http://isakson.senate.gov to get more information on relief assistance programs. Thank you again for contacting me, and I hope you will not hesitate to call on me in the future if I can be of assistance to you.
Sincerely,
Johnny Isakson
United States SenatorFor future correspondence with my office, please visit my web site at
http://isakson.senate.gov/contact.cfm
First off, no one uses indents anymore in electronic communication! Get with the times. Second off, the code attached with his message was the worst amount of javascript crap I’ve seen in a while. I love how in the second paragraph he/they explains to me that a hurricane apparently came ashore somewhere on the gulf coast. Hmmmm… I’m glad they’ve got Senators to tell me things like this.
But most importantly, this crappy response treated me like I’m an infant. I object to that. Here is my re-response (or my regift, if you will).
To: senator@isakson.senate.gov
From: bill .junk@jbwr.net
Re: re: A Response From Johnny IsaksonDear Staff of Senator Isakson,
This canned response to my missive beggars my intelligence. Sending me an obviously pre-written message does not endear me to you. Please, in the future, try not to so hideously embarrass yourselves by simply not sending a response. A simple, “Your message has been received and will be given its due consideration” is enough for those of us who do not want the bullshit political psychobabble.
Good luck with this senate term,
Bill Ruhsam
Thanks, Senator, for all of the fish.
If you haven’t been following the developing situation in New Orleans, you’re probably not an American or you live on the Moon. It’s a mess.
The Interdictor‘s blog on Livejournal.com has a unique perspective on the situation.
Yayyyy! The RSS feeds for Billblog are working. As usual it turned out to be something simple, obvious, and over looked. The href tag had “feed:” before the
As mentioned in my post concerning Dragon*Con ’05, I saw two of the actors from Battlestar Galactica over the weekend: Tricia Helfer and Richard Hatch (not from Survivor). I refuse to link to his website because it belongs on webpagesthatsuck.com. If you must see it, go to http://www.richardhatch.com/ but don’t if you’re on dialup. You are warned.
Mr. Hatch played Apollo for the original Battlestar Galactica and now plays Tom Zarek for the new one. He does a good job on the show with his character. I am suitably impressed. He’s not all that in person, though. I showed up for his panel (which was supposed to be with Jamie Bamber and James Callis, but they cancelled at the last minute. Apparently they were called back to Vancouver for shooting), and expected to hear about Battlestar or things related to Battlestar.
Unfortunately, we got a lot of Richard Hatch talking at us. He had some interesting stories, but he sounded more like an inspirational speaker than someone answering questions about his work. It got rather boring after a while.
I was amused that he kept staring at Jenn, though. I think he liked her.
Tricia Helfer was much more interesting. Her panel was on Sunday. She was a stand in for Jamie Bamber and nicely flew out to give us a Battlestar fix. She answered questions about the show–without revealing any spoilers–and herself. She mentioned that the Pegasus storyline would be coming up in an episode or two, but we knew that already (Pegasus is another surviving Battlestar).
I asked her the following question: “We have seen five human-looking Cylons. That leaves seven. Do you, Tricia, know who they are, and if so, have we seen them on screen?”
She answered that she knew who one of them was, and she did not think that that character had been on screen yet. She also said that the actors are always the last people to know about the plot twists and anyone we’ve already seen could be a Cylon. I’m still waiting for Adama to turn into a Cylon. That or Colonel Tye’s wife.
I’m glad I went to those panels, even if Richard Hatch was a bit preachy. Tricia Helfer was engaging–and nice looking!