Mind Blowing

A little rough, but this is too cool.

What's True and What's Good

This makes a grand point about quality over surfeited quantity of our "national debate," but I'm predicting that, after being fooled by the media and their general sense of public awareness and all the input that entails, to vote for a man that's been definitively outed as an utter douchebag at long last, people aren't going to able to trust anything coming from their TVs, radios, etc to inform their decisions. Which very very earnest gasbag, the polar opposite of his counterpart (billed as just as qualified to bloviate), speaks the truth?

Don't Let the Paperwork Grind You Down

I'm in Ohio once again, having come back from the field at the end of the workday, and I've got more forms, files, and phone calls to work through tonight, lest they pile up and give me twice as much to do tomorrow night. Even so, I did manage to take a short trip back to see Athens in all its now-deserted familiarity. O'Hooley's is now a brew pub -- the bearded brewmaster is probably 25, and makes a remarkably good porter, and a very tasty stout.

Half the stores there are different, and I was struck that I couldn't remember what a lot of them used to be. The old Woolworth's building looks like it's been through a few further incarnations, and is now once again closed. My old slavemaster Burger King is gone. School Kids is gone. Casa Nuevo is still around, although one of my crew members, an OU student, mentioned that it's been through some changes. The short walk along Court Street was strangely affecting, and the sense of conflict between distance of time and proximity of place was pervasive. Same Taco Bell in a very different world. Gone is the Athens of Heather and Josh, here is the Athens of brief escape from thirty-something job responsibilities. Not that Burger King and Subway weren't obstacles to my leisure. Urban Bosche, more like.

Fifteen Minutes and Counting

Public Censure

Well, it's done: we've had our lovely, venerable row house called the ugliest dump on the block on national television. I'll write more about this shortly, but for now I'm off to Ohio for a quick assessment of a few access roads. Woohoo...

Three Cheers for the Thoughtful

A-freakin'-men. Bush has officially been called out as the historical perfect storm of Presidential shit-headedness. That's gotta be like being called an asshole by Carl Sagan.

RIP, Dave Cockrum

Sad news from the world of comics this hour. Dave Cockrum was always second fiddle to the great John Byrne in the mind of a 10-year-old me rummaging through Donn Erik's magic box o' comics in the 80's, but he did as much as anyone to sling the X-Men to the heights they achieved. Sad to hear he, too, has passed.

On a more solipsistic note, the Good Morning America film crew will be here to film a segment tomorrow afternoon. And I believe Mario Cuomo's youngest will be on premises for Carter to drool on.

Through a Computer Smugly

Up early for a delayed trek to the Eastern Shore -- last night saw 15.5 mile backups at the Bay Bridge and an 8-mile-per-hour speed limit enforced by the guy in front of you (this info courtesy of Traffic.com; I didn't actually see this nightmare). We're taking all two or so gallons of Janine's stuffing, made from her grandmother's recipe, and heading out shortly, no doubt giving self-satisfied nods to all the other wise motorists who slept blissfully when others raged at each other in an immobile haze of monoxide.

Hope everyone has a very, very happy day.

The First Broadcast

>From: xxx
>To: "Janine Davis"
>Subject: RE: Schedule updates
>Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:13:12 -0500
>
>Thanks for touching base! We will definitely want to shoot some time
>the week of 11/27...probably toward the middle or end of the week. We
>will then want Barbara to be LIVE from your house Monday morning 12/4
>with you two there. Does that help? Is there a day/evening the week of
>11/27 that will work well for both of you?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Janine Davis
>Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 4:10 PM
>Subject: RE: Schedule updates
>
>Dear xxx,
>I just wanted to update you on our schedule. My husband will be
>out-of-state next week on business. Depending upon your plans with the
>show, with ample notice, he can inform his employer to make the
>schedule fit the filming schedule. Please let us know what you have in
>mind as soon as possible. There is some flexiblity with my husband's employer, but they
>also budget time/ billing with every contract he works with and there
>is some advanced planning required. Thank you for your understanding and
>we hope to hear from you soon. Happy Thanksgiving!
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Janine Davis/ Andrew Bockhorst

TV Savage

I'm up too late once again -- I've got to be up at 5 in the morning for a very long week of digging in Roanoke, although it seems like this actually may be an interesting project to be involved in. This comment after month after month of mostly fruitless shovel testing, followed by three weeks of heading an excavation in which I discovered a large quantity of mulch. I might actually get my trowel on a couple of skeletons this week. Yee haw.

And it's now official, we have been asked by ABC to help out with a segment they're preparing called "Dud to Dreamhouse" -- the title might be all you need to put together the focus and how we fit into it. They should be here at the end of this month or the beginning of December to get some preliminary footage of the house, after which they'll apparently be lending us a camera to film the transformation as it happens. Such as it'll be. I've been told the finished product will air sometime in the Spring -- maybe I can do something from the inside about ABC's reported reluctance to permit advertizing on Air America...

Want the TV hounds on your trail, boy? I think this is the lady behind the shakedown.

Stay tuned.