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| Friday, October 29, 2004 02:53 AM |
| TMI |
 by Fëanor |
Okay, I have a lot to talk about this morning, so let's get busy:- First of all, remember the whole Bush back bulge blow-up (I'd apologize for the alliteration, but...I'm not sorry!)? Well, there's a new break in the case. Unfortunately, this article is only on Salon, so you'll need a subscription or a free day pass to view it. But the gist is as follows: a NASA imaging expert, who is currently trying to figure out the shape of Saturn's moon Titan at his day job, has been working hard at night analyzing close-up images of Bush's back from the first debate. He's determined that, regardless of what the bulge might be, it is definitely NOT just bad tailoring. There is something under Bush's suit, and it appears to be an electronic device of some kind. I don't know how much credence I give this, but the guy is an expert at analyzing images and determining the shape and properties of the objects in those images...
- I read in these two articles (the former on Salon, with the subscription, yada yada) that many Evangelical Christian groups are trying to claim Halloween for their own purposes rather than just shut it down completely. So they're handing out religious pamphlets instead of candy. I don't know about you, but if, as a kid, I got a little religious booklet from you instead of candy, I would be pretty damn pissed, and probably wouldn't come back. Of course, not all of the religious folks are so stupid; some are giving out candy at their churches--they're bribing the kids to show up with sweets, pretty much. Blah. I hate the whole "Halloween is based on evil" and "Harry Potter is bad" school of thought. What the hell is wrong with people?
- Now, back to O'Reilly's sexual harassment suit, which I discussed when it originally came out. If you haven't heard it already, the parties have settled the suit. Everything is being kept confidential, so there's no way to know for sure why the settlement occurred, or even whether any money changed hands, but let's look back at an earlier article on this. Somebody points out here that O'Reilly never actually denied wrongdoing. This quote from him is interesting:
I am stupid, I am a stupid guy, and every guy listening knows how that is -- that we are very stupid at times, but there comes a time in life where you got to stand and fight and I knew these people were going to do this, I knew they were going to do everything they could to try to destroy me and the channel and I just made a decision that I'm just going to ride it out, and I'm going to fight them. It sounds to me like he's practically admitting it here, though he's also talking tough, as always. In fact, I believe he appeared on various shows and talked about how he was going to fight for all he was worth, etc., etc. And then, boom, settlement.
Yeah, so, show of hands, who else thinks she had tapes of his lewd phone calls?
- The fourth--and most important, to me at least--news item is the following: the Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith teaser trailer will be premiering online, exclusively for Hyperspace members, in the early afternoon of Thursday, November 4th. I know to most people this is not exciting news. But it was exciting enough for me, when I read it in an email this morning, to make me jump up and down in my chair, throw my arms in the air, and make little noises of various kinds.
- On a more personal note, last night TrackerNeil, Super Tarzan, Dave, and Sarcasmo joined me in a rousing game of Hero Quest. They were nice enough to be guinea pigs and try out the new quest, new characters, and new rules that I wrote. And I think it went pretty well. I may have been a little too easy on the heroes in some ways; they're leveling up faster than I thought they would, and I really am handing out all kinds of cool items. There was some quarreling with some of the new rules, but TrackerNeil assures me this is normal even with normal D&D games. I'm afraid I might have gotten a little snippy and defensive, as I was tired and I'd put a lot of work into these crazy ideas. Actually, many good and constructive points were raised.
Another problem: the quest was a bit too long, and we didn't end up finishing it (I have to remember the important rule that I learned when I first started making quests some years ago--you don't have to use the ENTIRE board every time you write a quest!), but we paused at a good point and can pick it up some time in the future. Probably some time in the FAR future. Peccable was tired of Hero Quest before we even started last night and chose to sit out of the game, and by the time it was over, I was getting pretty tired of it, too, and am looking forward to playing a different game next week. Which is not to say I've given up on Hero Quest--in fact, I was pretty much over those feelings by this morning. But a break will be nice.
Peccable and TrackerNeil mercilessly browbeat me last night about how I should really just get the D&D books, since I'm now practically running a D&D campaign anyway, so maybe I'll graduate to that eventually and leave Hero Quest behind.
Anyways, I think that's quite enough for now. Later, people. |
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