"And the liberal, with the small L, cries in front of the TV......and wearing badges is not enough in days like these"
I'm utterly depressed. Seems Mark and I picked the right time to leave Georgia. It's so sad, and really Billy (Bragg) says it best "The majority by their silence shall pay for days like these". All the news stations here are shocked. All their polls predicted a solid victory for the democrats, especially Governor Roy Barnes. I guess people just didn't vote, excepting the conservative right-wing, SUV driving, suburb living, anti-choice, neo-fascists that live all around us, they clearly voted. The Republicans here didn't even run on a platform, they just showed a series of negative mudslinging democrat-attacking ads. I'm going to go and cry now.

I'm speechless. I am without speech. How could the people of this country want to give one party unilateral power? Especially that party? I fear for us. I really do. The Dems needed to find a message, one that people can rally behind. They had none. Of course it's too late now anyway. Now they're goners, and it'll be two years before anything can be rectified. Scary times.

Mark and I went to see Bowling for Columbine last night. The film really explores the gun/violence issue in the United States in a very insightful, balanced, and provocative manner. I left the theater with a renewed respect for Michael Moore. I really think it should be on everyone's "must-see" list.
Now I'm off to vote.

A couple of friends of mine are participating in NaNoWriMo, a project centered around inspiring people to write a first novel, by encouraging them to write 50,000 words during the month of November and reporting their progress. It's engrossing to watch, and inspiring. Maybe next year I'll try.

I know what my third book is going to be about. It's an idea too choice, too irresistible to pass up, but it's also too ambitious for a first try.

It's science fiction, like most of my ideas, but also political. The idea is that mankind has sent off a "generation ship" (as has been suggested in sci-fi numerous times as a way to reach the stars -- because it takes so long to get to any other star, you create a large spaceship that's self-supporting, and generations live and die on it before it reaches its destination). Just before it gets where it's going, there is an election on the ship, that's close, and hotly contested (the parallels to recent history should be obvious). When they arrive, they discover two planets orbiting the star that are habitable. So all the liberal supporters of the one candidate go to settle the one planet, and all the conservatives supporters of the other candidate go to settle the other.

That would just be how it starts. There's worlds of interesting and comical possibilities that can grow from that seed, methinks.

For no reason whatsoever, here are five movies that I think are grossly underrated. Are they my five favorites? Quite possibly, but there are some more popular ones that would probably squeak into the list. In no particular order:

Remains of the Day -- IMHO, Anthony Hopkins gives the best acting performance by anyone, ever. A study in repression.

Rushmore -- Certainly my favorite of the last few years. Quote: "I saved Latin. What did you ever do?"

Welcome to the Dollhouse -- If you were raised outside the US and are curious to see what it's like to be an adolescent here, there is no more accurate depiction. I know a lot of people who can't watch it because it's too accurate and brings up painful memories.

The Thin Red Line -- A deeply psychological and philosophical war movie. This one leaves me in a fog for days after viewing it.

Fearless -- A disturbed and disturbing tour de force. Jeff Bridges' best work. Rosie Perez is even tolerable.

While on the subject of movies, a pox on TBS for always hooking me in by showing those movies that you can watch over and over. The Shawschank Redemption, As Good As It Gets, The American President -- do they ever show anything else? And yet they hook me every time. If they were to add Groundhog Day and The Princess Bride I'd never be able to flip past that station. Not my favorite movies, but they suck you in...

And while on the subject of TV, I'm giddy that The Larry Sanders Show is now on nightly on Bravo. I find that show just fascinating to watch.

Some Halloween pictures, for your bemusement. Unfortunately, Marjorie was still getting ready while we were futzing with the digital camera. We'll take more pics tonight. But, here's a shot of me and one of me with my friends Mike and Matt. Listen all y'all this is sabotage!

Had dinner last night with friends Brooke and Toby at the always-amazing Fritti. I'm sad that with only 26 days left until we leave, we'll only get to eat there, like, 26 more times.

I kid. But as foodies, we have been keeping a list of places where we have to dine on our last week here. These include:

Sotto Sotto (Fritti's sister restaurant)

Fritti (of course)

Tortillas (for Marjorie)

Ma Li (for me, love the Pik King Pork)

Neuvo Laredo (there's always an hour wait, but for good reason)

Yacht Club (me again, love the beef brisket)

We never made it in to see Hot August Knights at the Clermont last night -- we were having too much fun across the street at the Local doing karaoke. Marjorie and I butchered a version of Wouldn't It Be Nice. It was a hoot though. My friend Matt took second in the costume contest, mostly because we shouted ourselves hoarse for him.

Non-sequitur of the night: "Paintball guns are an underused form of social commentary."

WORD OF THE DAY
The Merriam-Webster word of the day is
sanguineous • \san-GWIH-nee-uss\ • (adjective)
1 : bloodred
*2 : of, relating to, or involving bloodshed : bloodthirsty
3 : of, relating to, or containing blood

I'm glad to see they're getting into the Halloween spirit.

I'm working on a theory that the stages of human development can be mapped directly to how we dress for Halloween. To wit:

Infancy -- Your parents dress you up for Halloween.

Childhood -- You dress up. Halloween rules! Can I be Batman?

Adolescence -- You are too cool to dress up.

Early adulthood -- Hey, dressing up is fun. Why did I stop?

Adulthood -- Who has the time? Maybe if a friend is throwing a party.

Parenthood -- The kids are dressing up. Why not me?

Old age -- Get off my lawn, you mischievous little brats!

Okay, it's not a perfect theory.

Somewhere in America, a woman is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes
I learned yesterday that a friend of mine was recently drugged (GBH or rohypnol) and raped while on vacation in San Francisco. This is the third person close to me, that I know of, who has been raped. I spent last night tossing and turning filled with rage and impotence to do anything about this problem. Women are simply not safe in this country. Today I donated money to RAINN, The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. You too can donate at www.rainn.org.

My favorite new conspiracy theory, now that Mondale is leading in the polls: the Democrats killed Wellstone, so they could win the Senate seat with the sympathy vote. Maybe it was Clinton!

Moooooon river..... Had my first physical in four years this morning. Got a clean bill of health. If there's one thing this adventure is doing for us, it's getting us to take care of a lot of little things we should have been doing all along.

CHECKING OUT the Blogdex site Mark referred to, I came across this article that ponders "Was Paul Wellstone Murdered?" A question that has probably occurred to every cynical liberal in the country at this point. The article then remembers another recent liberal politician who died in a small plane crash "Mel Carnahan, who lost his life in 2000, three weeks before Election Day, during his Senatorial race against John Ashcroft. Carnahan went on to become the first dead man to win a Senatorial race, humiliating and defeating the unpopular Ashcroft posthumously. Ashcroft, despite his unpopularity, went on to be appointed Attorney General by George W. Bush." Kinda scary to think about kids, isn't it?

I would really love to make a website like Blogdex -- that is, a news/interesting link website based on polling hundreds of blogs -- that would have the following improvements:

It would be human-edited, so advertisers couldn't phony their way onto the list like often happens on Blogdex.

Each entry would have a paragraph of description, not just a few confusing words.

Separate links which point to essentially the same story would be collapsed into one place on the countdown.

A homespun graphic to accompany each entry would be nifty.

So would a comment feature/discussion board for each.

Sort of a cross between SlashDot and Blogdex. With all my current plans, though, this will probably fall into the bit bucket of conceived-but-never-realized projects. On the road to big money and internet fame, there's a lot of wreckage in the ravine...

More vaccinations this morning... We both got polio boosters, which should fix us for life. I also got my first Hepatitus B, and will get another just before we leave and another 6-12 months down the line. (Marjorie's already finished with her Hep B.) We also got prescriptions for three different malaria preventatives which we can choose from. Now we must choose which of them we want based on the trade-off among side-effects, time of coverage, and price. The good ones are $5-$10 a pill, to be taken daily.

When people from southeast Asia come to visit the US, do they have to get vaccinated for things that they have no natural resistance for? Like, yuppie flu, carpal tunnel syndrome, or the summertime blues?

GOOD GIRL
I'm having a very productive Monday: I've scheduled the movers to come; Confirmed our doctor's appointments for more vaccinations; Got money orders for our visa's for Vietnam; Mailed off our visa applications; Returned our library books; Turned in the applications for our international driver's permits, and picked up the permits; and checked on the baggage restrictions for our flight to S'pore. I love checking things off the "'to-do list".

I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. Speaking of seedy -- last night, patrons of a local country bar known as the Crazy Horse were treated to the second installment of my karaoke tribute to Johnny Cash -- this time it was Folsom Prison Blues. Love to sing that baritone.

There's a strange place in town called the Clermont Lounge, which for most nights of the week is just a very seedy strip club. They say the only requirement to become a dancer there is that you can in no way be the least bit attractive. On Saturday nights, however, it becomes one of the most popular discos in town, and is usually packed to the gills by both men and women. The seediness only adds a strange energy to the place.

There's a strange band here, too, called Hot August Knights who are a Neil Diamond cover band. And by all accounts they are amazing; the lead singer is apparently the spitting image of Neil, both in appearance and voice.

This coming Thursday night, the latter will be playing at the former. In addition, the band will be dressing up as the band Kiss, in full makeup, and will be adding covers of Kiss songs to their set. The lead singer will still be singing in his Neil Diamond voice though.

And people wonder why I prefer city life!

Scrambled around today trying to put together Halloween costumes, only to find that everyone we know is doing the Halloween thing next weekend. At least we're ready for next week. You'll have to wait for pictures to find out what we're going to be though...