babbling blue

The Top 5 Reasons To Vote In Illinois*
Or: Why It Still Means A Thing Even If It Ain’t Got That Swing
*Or any non swing-state

1. Big margin = big mandate. The popular vote doesn’t put anyone in the White House, but it effects what presidents can do when they get there. Want Obama to be able to actually do the stuff he’s been talking about? Pass universal health care? End the war? Then we need a landslide.
2. The other things on the ballot matter! For example: Congress. Without more support in the House and Senate, Obama will have a hard time getting progressive laws passed. Plus, there are other important local races and ballot questions in some places.
3. If you don’t vote, everyone can find out. Voting records are public. (Not who you voted for, just whether you voted.) Pretty soon, finding out whether you voted could be as easy as Googling you.
4. Help make history. You could cast one of the votes that elect the first African-American president. If we win, we’ll tell our grandchildren about this election, and they’ll tell their grandchildren. Do you really want to have to explain to your great-great-grandchildren that you were just too busy to vote in the most important election in your lifetime?
5. People died so you’d have the right to vote. Self-government—voting to choose our own leaders—is the original American dream. We are heir to a centuries-long struggle for freedom: the American revolution, and the battles to extend the franchise to those without property, to women, to people of color, and to young people. This year, many will still be denied their right to vote. For those of us who have that right, it’s precious. If we waste it, we dishonor those who fought for it and those who fight still.

For information on how, where and when to vote: www.voteforchange.com

(Blatantly ripped off from MoveOn.org.)

If you didn’t vote early (and I did not), get your butt out there tomorrow and cast your ballot! Or else I’ll kick it.

“Is that an earthquake? No, it’s Rrrrramone!” Actually, no… it really was an earthquake. I felt my first earthquake ever last night! It was a bit surreal. I honestly thought I had dreamed it until I got to work and someone else asked if I had felt the earthquake. So I looked it up, and sho’ nuff, there was a magnitude 5.2 quake in southern Illinois, more than 200 miles away from here. I woke up around 4:40am. . it felt a bit like someone jumping on my bed next to me. Very odd. I’m not sure how long it lasted. . . maybe 10 seconds or so.

This quake apparently occurred along the New Madrid fault line, which was also responsible for one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in the contiguous US, in 1812. There were no measurements then, but experts estimate it was around a magnitude 8.0.

There was also an earthquake in the central Illnois area somewhere in the 3-4 years ago range. I remember hearing about it, but I slept through it that time. Some family in Madison, WI said they felt it.

If I’m going to live in an earthquake zone, I should just move to California where at least there is better weather!

In a frenzy of updating, I decided to update the photo gallery software I use as well. The new software is more powerful and the results are more modern-looking. However, the configuration is much more complex, and I’m still figuring it out. This blog software integrates with the gallery software rather nicely, but I’m still figuring that out as well. I can’t imagine someone who’s not computer savvy getting this stuff to work. I guess that’s why it’s good sites like blogger and flickr are in existence.

I did not yet upload my European vacation pictures, but I’m getting there. I did upload the pictures from my trip to Mexico for Thanksgiving. Clicking the image to the left will take you there.

Note: The gallery/blog integration keeps breaking the gallery links, so if you find one that doesn’t work it’s not a dead link, just a dormant one. It’s easy to fix the links once I discover they’re broken. The real challenge will be finding out how not to break them in the first place!

You may also notice the “Random Photo” to the left (unless I’ve moved it since this posting). It is just what the name implies. . . a random photo from my gallery. You can click on it to see the full image.

Disclaimer: Some images may be rated “PG” but I don’t believe there is anything blatantly NSFW.

You can visit the gallery by clicking here.

For some reason the server hosting my account seems to be running super slowly and unreliably, often timing out before a page loads. I am not sure what’s going on, but I hope it’s fixed soon. It’s messin’ with my ch-ch-changes.

I decided it was time to spruce things up a bit around my tired, old blog. So I changed the theme, and even renamed it to something a little less unoriginal but equally alliterative. Now I just installed the new theme last night before bed, so I haven’t had a chance to tweak it at all. Please be patient as I make the changes I want to get it lookin’ good.

Also, you may notice that RSS feeds will no longer contain the entire post. I have my reasons for doing that, and I apologize for any inconvenience it may cause. It’s not necessarily permanent; right now it’s a trial run. We shall see.

In the header I call this version 3.0 of my blog. While that may be a bit misleading, since this version entails mostly cosmetic changes, I figure that software companies do it, so why can’t I?

For anyone who cares, version 1.0 started on May 5, 2004 on easyblog. Version 2.0 made its appearance in this very spot on June 15, 2005.

Happy Holidays to all! Have fun, be safe.

There are a group of words that I sometimes get confused by. They all seem to look similar . . . well they all start with the same letter anyway. And that is good enough to confuse me. I assume that if I have a problem with something then surely someone else does as well. So as a service to others, I am posting these words and what they mean. You can thank me later.

ethereal 1. of or relating to the regions beyond the earth 2. lacking material substance (and some others I find less interesting)

If you encounter this word, you probably play computer games or read fantasy books or work on computer networks. . . or read blogs written by geeks. Regardless, you’re probably a big nerd.

ersatz being a usually artificial and inferior substitute or imitation

Like the ersatz Coach bag you got from that shop located in a back alley. . .

ephemeral 1. lasting one day only 2. lasting a very short time

A team may manage to take the lead over the New England Patriots, but the lead is destined to be ephemeral. (That sounds like something Dennis Miller would have said.)

eldritch strange; unearthly; weird; eerie

This is the trickiest one for me. I always know it when I see it, but I can’t usually pull it out of my brain on demand. In fact I started writing this post and then couldn’t come up with this last word. So I saved the post as a draft and moved on. And then the next day, I encountered the word in a book I was reading. A ha! This is another word you’re probably encountering in fantasy books.

Bonus Word (not starting with e):
funereal 1. of or relating to a funeral 2. befitting or suggesting a funeral (as in solemnity)

Basically, it’s taking “funeral” and making it into an adjective. Now you know!

This has been your vocabulary lesson for the day. You’re welcome!

Another day, another death. Actually it looks like this one happened a few days ago, but it didn’t come to my attention until today.

Author Robert Jordan (aka James Oliver Rigney, Jr.–I can see why he used the nom de plume) passed away this week at the age of 58. The cause of death was a rare blood disease.

This is significant because Jordan was working on a finishing up his massive epic fantasy series, “The Wheel of Time“. And I do mean massive and epic. I read all 11 of his books in the series (and these are some big books) to date. Even book 10, which was by most accounts–including mine–a real stinker. And now I may never know how the story ends! Will Rand Al’Thor win the last battle? Well he probably will, but I want to see how. . . and I want answers to the many unanswered questions. Will Mat and Thom go get Moiraine? Will. . . OK I’m not going off on a tangent on those; they could be a whole blog post on their own.

This was my worst fear (regarding these novels, not in life)–that something would happen to prevent Jordan from finishing. Back in my undergrad days when I started the series, we used to joke about it (before Jordan’s diagnosis. . . we weren’t heartless bastards). And it has come true! Damn! I am sad of course, but also mad that he didn’t finish sooner. He dragged the series out longer than it needed to be (I’m looking at you, book 10!). And now tens of thousands of fans are left hanging. I heard a rumor that he finished the end of the last book, but not the beginning. If that’s true I hope someone can fill out the missing part and release the book. I mean, he must have at least left behind some notes on what he was planning, right? Right? Please? Argh!

I could wax poetic in eulogizing RJ, but instead I’m just going to tug on my braid, smooth my skirt and scowl. Men!

Sad news. Brett Somers–actress, comedian and former Match Game panelist–has passed away at the age of 83.

Brett was a crucial part of Match Game’s success, in my opinion, and certainly contributed to making it my favorite game show of all time. Of course I never met her, but she seemed like a very nice person and I never heard anything to the contrary. She was certainly funny, and maybe even a little crazy.

RIP Brett.