Sunday, September 28, 2008

Gah. I updated the template for this blog and it screwed up all my links and some other stuff. If you see that I am no longer linking to your blog...it wasn't me...it was the system, man.

I have to rebuild the list now.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I Suppose I Should be Flattered



Out of idle curiosity I spent some time seeing who had been to my various blogs, how they found it (if not a regular or alt refugee), etc. I found one address who had been to my Desert Storm related blog multiple times...so I did some backtracking...and discovered they had found it via a google image search.



It's a teacher in another state who was making a web page on the history of Desert Shield/Storm for his grade school students.



And he used three of my photos on the page.



Which sort of baffles me...because almost all my pics are mundane and sort of dull. If you look around the web, the DS memorial or bio pages...the photos are so very, very similar. In fact, many are much more exciting, dramatic and demonstrative than my few surviving ones. He could have used any number of the thousands of the pics available online. But three of the five were plucked from my blog. Weird.

I guess it might be flattering...that some very young kids will be learning about a short, nasty and mostly eclipsed war and their visuals of it will include the image of my sad, filthy little sand filled tent.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

From the No Shit, Sherlock files:

Clay Aiken came out as gay. Access Hollywood TV celebrity-themed show goes into breathless histrionics.

Next week it will be announced that water is wet.

Thursday, September 18, 2008







I'd be Lying...









...if I said pictures like these....



didn't drive me absolutely insane with lust...






In Literary News....

This has me bummed...

"US authors have been paying tribute to writer David Foster Wallace, who was found dead at his home in Claremont, California, on Friday night.

The 46-year-old hanged himself at his home, police said.

Wallace, best known for 1996 novel Infinite Jest, first gained praise for his offbeat humour with 1987 debut The Broom of the System.

In 1987, the New York Times said the then-24-year-old's Broom of the System was "a portrait, through a combination of Joycean word games, literary parody and zany picaresque adventure, of a contemporary America run amok".

His biggest hit, Infinite Jest - set in an elite tennis academy and a drug rehabilitation centre - was praised by critics for its complex, dark wit and featured in many best-of lists.
Wallace, born in Ithaca, New York, also wrote short fiction, published in magazines including GQ, Esquire and Harper's.

Three collections of his short stories - Girl With Curious Hair, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men and Oblivion: Stories - were also published. "

===================

I was a big fan of his...even though at times some of his writing made me roll my eyes (sometimes he tried to hard to be different and his writing came off very mannered) I still appreciated his wit.

I find myself wondering if his suicide note had several pages of footnotes .

---------------

And this has me happy...

Children's author Eoin Colfer has been commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series.

Mostly Harmless, the last Hitchhiker book, was written by its creator, the late Douglas Adams, 16 years ago.

Now Adams's widow, Jane Belson, has given her approval to bring back the hapless Arthur Dent in a new book entitled And Another Thing...

Eoin Colfer, 43, is best known for the best-selling Artemis Fowl novels.
He said he was "terrified" by the prospect of creating a new Hitchhiker book almost a quarter of a century after being introduced to what he described as a "slice of satirical genius" in his late teens.

Monday, September 15, 2008


Visual Representation of The Bush Doctrine:


A Handy Learning Tool for Sarah Palin.







Because I'd rather have two or three people I know will read and sign rather than 500 people read and do nothing....

From an IAVA mailing....

With your help, we're holding the presidential candidates accountable.
With 53 days left until the election, the stakes couldn't be higher for our country's 1.7 million veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and their families. Thousands of Americans have signed IAVA's open letter, asking Senators Obama and McCain to pledge that they will make veterans' issues a top priority when they reach the White House.

Can you take a minute to add your name?

Over the past two weeks, IAVA took our message of putting veterans first on the road to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. IAVA is non-partisan and does not endorse political candidates, but we brought member veterans from across the country to tell convention delegates and guests about the most critical issues facing our country's newest generation of heroes.

IAVA will continue to work in Washington, DC and across the country on behalf of our newest generation of veterans. Can you help us out by adding your name to the petition to the candidates?

Yesterday, Senators Obama and McCain put political bickering aside and came together in remembrance of September 11, 2001. Just as patriotism rose above partisanship then, we can unite now to honor our nation's veterans.

Together we can move beyond political rhetoric and work to ensure that no matter who our next President is, veterans' issues remain part of the national dialogue. Be sure to forward this email to your friends and family.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Paul Rieckhoff
Iraq Veteran
Executive DirectorIraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

P.S. The presidential candidates aren't the only politicians we're holding accountable. In the next few weeks, IAVA Action will be releasing our 2008 Congressional Report Card, grading members of Congress on their votes on key veterans legislation. As soon as it's posted, we'll let you know how to check your lawmakers' scores.