Dead Allen

today's overheard in DC is particularly choice . . . or maybe I'm just in a weird mood.

http://dcist.com/2008/10/03/overheard_in_dc_normal_everyday_con.php

Struggling Local Chain Olsson's Books finally goes poof

http://www.olssons.com/

Not that we didn't see it coming, and having talked to some people who worked there in the past, it's not just a case of "put out of business by big box stores." The chain reportedly had serious internal management and cashflow issues that may have had nothing to do with "the competition."

But, still, sad to see a local institution go. The Penn Quarter store had a better chance of making me find something interesting while browsing (and actually buy it at brick and mortar) than almost any store in the area. But then again, that's not saying a lot.

Unfortunately, I think there's been more discussion on facebook than LJ . . .

but here's another "interesting" (to me) article discussing current affairs:

From Senior Lecturer in Economics at Harvard Jeffrey Miron, an article discussing why the "bailout" is a bad plan . . . and bankruptcy for these companies is the right answer:

"Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airlines). Bankruptcy punishes those who took excessive risks while preserving those aspects of a businesses that remain profitable.

. . .

So what should the government do? Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.

The right view of the financial mess is that an enormous fraction of subprime lending should never have occurred in the first place. Someone has to pay for that. That someone should not be, and does not need to be, the U.S. taxpayer.

I often like to check several different world media sources in times of "crisis" rather than just those based in the US.

I offer this story from the BBC analyzing the various factors at play behind the failure of the bailout bill to pass. I think it has some really good insights, and covers all the bases without as much finger-pointing as a lot of the domestic rags may have.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7643199.stm

The market was down 666 and change.

If you want to see a good documentation of what it looks like when someone jumps off a cliff, go look at the google finance homepage . . . (or various other online news sources).

Holy crap.

Bad Brains is playing DC on Election Day at 930.

If I'm in the country, I'm so there.

You've still got a month and a half before the election:

New link for Obama D&D Shirt

hey everyone!

Just a reminder that nofcna is presenting at Refresh DC this evening!!

Come check it out, it starts at 7. Get there early!!

Current Mood: impressed

( One of the McCain campaign's latest )

Post commentary here

Well, I did go out and buy Star Wars, The Piece Of Crap for the Wii today.

Again, console gaming community, you have shown me that you are a mediocre piece of poo that takes great game concepts and delivers stinky smelly piles of feces to the public who laps them up.

If anyone wants, I'll happily sell it for $35. If not, I'll probably go trade it in for credit at CD Game Exchange.

( Why do I rant so? )

So, apparently Pentagon funded researchers have come up with a new potential threat vector:

Terrorists might plot attacks using World of Warcraft.

Taxpayer dollars brought you this.

Not making this s--- up folks. Wish I was.

Wow. I think I will be buying this today. Period.

Although it does have the unfortunate acronym of SwTFU ;-)

Perhaps, finally a Wii game that will be better on the Wii because it's a Wii, and not just another console game.

edit: it's a typical piece of console dooky. Don't waste your money.

If you have a few minutes, I highly recommend reading through the Washington Post's collection of articles on "The Cheney Vice-Presidency."

To me, it's a terrifying example of what happens when the wrong people have power, and yet another reason why the existing regime needs to be swept out with a really big broom. I personally think that this stuff should scare the crap out of you, no matter who you are.

But, regardless of your views, it's pretty eye-opening to see irrefutable proof of what many have been suspecting all along -- that a fair chunk of what has been coming out of the white house in certain areas is pretty much all him (this especially in the two excerpts recently from the book that this is being turned into), and that he does whatever he feels is right, circumventing the checks and balances in government at every turn.

A lot of sad famous people obituaries today. To go along with your ulcers at the stock market . . .

Richard Wright of Pink Floyd died at age 65 of Cancer.

http://news.google.com/news?q=Richard+Wright

Black Cat, Back Stage, $8.

Be there, or be [].

Tell me this isn't a little scary:

http://www.sprint.com/familylocator

It's a new service from Sprint that allows you to track your kids via GPS and their phones.

I definitely see the logic in it, but it's a bit spooky. The one thing I DO like is that even the slick PR stuff includes the fact that they are doing it on a "permission based" system (their buzzword, it's more access control) -- e.g. The parents control access to being able to track the kids, and (more interestingly and valid) the kid's phone gets a notification that it just reported in -- i.e. the child knows their phone is tattling on them, so they are reminded that they are under surveillance.

And yes, let's face it, this data is all out there -- if you were well and truly entrenched in the provider's datastream. But this is basically filtering it and putting it out there with an API for grabbing on a specific set of data (i.e. a family).

thoughts? Anyone? Bueller? Big Brother or technology helping out with parenting tasks?

(the new act of the rebellious teenager -- taking the battery out of the phone . . . Or, worse, leaving their phone behind ;-)

ganked from several other sources:

edit -- ok, I HAVE to think that this site is a joke. Today's post makes that pretty clear. I feel MUCH better now.


Anti Spore -- Resisting EA’s War on Creationism

I created this blog to find support for and follow my progress in letting Electronic Arts know that their biggest attack on Christian values to date will not be tolerated.
We can not allow the gaming industry to invade our homes and poison the minds of our children.
After all, their billions in revenue and all the advertising in the world are no match for the power of God.
Please feel free to contact me at antispore@gmail.com

I think I need to have new shorthand for

"Wow. . . Just Wow . . ."

WJW? (though that's close to WWJD)

I hope against hope that the next post on that blog is "J/K!!!" (edit -- it is! it is! -- faith in humanity restored . . . )

If anyone wanted to get one of our Pro-Obama D&D Crowd t-shirts, or any others, Zazzle is running a deal this weekend where if you buy over $40 of "political shirts" you get 15% off.

the coupon code for this is "ELECTIONRACE"

The new flickr uploadr is being retarded on the mac (surprise surprise. I seriously think that for all their web 2.0-ness, flickr supports the mac as an afterthought).

I've gotten some, but not all pix that I am calling "mine" up here: http://flickr.com/photos/dallendoug/collections/72157607082761772/ Don't expect that all things are correct as far as order, captions, etc, as having to redo this several times has kind of thrown some facets of order in a cocked hat.

The parade pix desperately need more uploaded, hopefully I can get the rest uploaded tomorrow evening some time.

We survived Dragon*Con 2008 and made it home!

This year was excellent. Not the wildest ever (which is probably good at this age ;-), but solid fun and carrying on around the clock punctuated by a lot of great moments and memories. And oh my (expletive), the sleep dep . . .

I'm so tired I can barely stay in my chair, but at the same time, I feel much more alive than I have in quite a while due to just so much doing in such a short period of time. Last night I went to bed around 3, and that was the earliest I went to sleep all con.

Thanks to nofcna, bondagejelly, colinmac, railwaymadness, papercuppie, headcrashaddict, Lina, Jeff, Jack, and Paivi for being great "roomies," and for all the others we met up with there (special thanks to ceosanna for organizing the theme costume, industrialreich and Jack for another amazing episode of the "I didn't know you could DO that to/in a hotel room" party, eiriktheyounger and Higgins for FINALLY MAKING IT, and hotfix, edgeds, ego_likeness, djmindcage, Ron, daenerys and Brian, and baobh for hanging out however brief or long crazy schedules would allow (apologies to anyone on or known on LJ that I may have forgotten). My only regret is that we didn't get to magically fold time and hang out with everyone all weekend.

Pix to follow (though it may be a little while), though I'm sure that if you just hit the right key words on flickr, there's already several zillion up there.