Watching...

Happened upon Elton while clicking through newly-installed cable TV. Living the high life over here.

Burn Down the Mission -- currently playing. Tune in. You already missed Take Me to the Pilot. Hurry!



Some people say they are Elton John fans. I'll show you my original liner notes from Captain Fantastic.

Remembering Diva Today

I remember writing this last year when Diva was almost 13. She was so darn cute.

I keep hearing her today. "Diva, quit that bark.... oh."

Thanks for all of your kind words. We're really okay today. I cleaned up the dining room, washed out her dishes, vacuumed the downstairs, watched the vacuum take away her stray hairs a clump at a time, swollowed the lump in my throat, smiled, knowing her hair will never all be gone. She was just too fuzzy.

This is the first animal we've had who died at home of old age. Something nice about it. She curled up on her favorite spot and took a long nap. I said to Tom, she got it right.

Bando is lost though. He's nearly 4 now and has never spent a day without his surrogate mother. We got him at the pound when he was 8 weeks old. We figured Diva could teach him some things. She was patient with him. He's not the smartest biscuit in the box, but he loved his Diva.

Bando howled last night. He stands at the gate and yips like a puppy. After the holiday, I told Jenna, we'll get him cleaned up. Let him spend some more time inside. I got him a chew toy today to keep him busy. He was happy to see that we hadn't disappeared too.

Bando was the one who showed George where she was. He stayed by her side while George checked her out. He watched over her until we took her away.

Bando grew up yesterday.

I feel worse for him.

Oh, Diva.

George always tells people I stole her. He says, "She saw that puppy in someone's yard that day and she just took her. She stole that dog. Some little boy is still crying, 'mommy, my puppy's gone!'"

It wasn't like that. Two blocks from the Rochester public market, where quite a few dogs roam free looking for scraps from the open air market, I saw the most adorable fuzzy tiny puppy out in the rain, drenched, the cold Rochester spring rain pounding the sidewalk, this poor little dog in obvious intestinal distress.

I got out of my car, picked her up, oh dear, oh my, she was so sweet, so I naturally walked the neighborhood, up and down both sides of the street, "Hello? Is this anyone's puppy?" I came upon one man who lived on the street, but he said he'd never seen the puppy.

Crap.

I tried to leave her on the sidewalk and go on my way. I got back in my car. We didn't need a puppy.

But she stayed so close to my car that I couldn't see her and didn't dare pull away from the curb for fear of running her over.

Oh hell.

Now what?

I got out and took her.

I took that sweet puppy right away from that lonely street and directly to our vet, who said she was just 7 or 8 weeks old, and from her paws and state of health, she'd most likely been living outside on the streets. He said that I'd done a good deed. Of course, he knew me. What else was he going to say?

For all his blustering about my criminal intent, George fell in love with her when he came back from Boston and saw her face, this little black-and-brown-fuzzball-shepherd-mix-good-old-fashioned-big-hearted mutt.

We named her Diva. She was a sweet and dainty doll.

Diva has seen us through so many changes; she watched me go through my late 20s, 30s, and early 40s. That's a long road to travel together.

Two weeks ago we took Diva to the vet to get her skin, hearing and general health checked. The vet assured us that given her age, she was hanging in there pretty well. We got some medicine for her skin problems--Diva, the queen of hot spots. He advised us to let her keep on going, since she was happy and not in any serious pain. We were prepared to say goodbye that day. But we took his advice and brought her home. She did well on the medicine and her skin cleared up.

Last night Diva didn't come in for dinner. This wasn't so unusual for her the last few months. More than once I had to hunt her down outside. I'd walk up to her, see her curled up on an old dog bed we have out back. I'd suck in my breath, thinking, "Oh no, she's dead." And I'd say, "Diva? DIVA?" Her head would pop up and she'd look at me over her shoulder as if to say, "Oh you! Is it time to eat already?"

She'd gone mostly deaf, and it usually took me slapping the house or going down the back steps to get her attention to come on up the deck for supper.

This morning George went out to get her. Her dinner from last night was still waiting. I heard him put on his boots and go out the door to find her.

He found her under our bedroom window.

She was curled up under the big overhang--her favorite cool and dry place in the yard.

This time when he called her name, she didn't look up over her shoulder. She didn't raise her ears or wag her tail.

Her soft nose was tucked into her paws, her eyes closed, just as she napped nearly every day for just shy of 14 years.

From what we can tell, she took her last breath sometime early this morning.

Sweet Diva.

Our good good girl.

I'm sorry I wasn't with you last night, or there to pat your head this morning.

But I am glad that I stole you when you were a pup. And I'm honored to have had you by my side for all of these years.

goodbye, girl.

Keeping Time

5 person company looking for a tool to enter time into daily that will add time up by project/person, etc. in order to ease invoice creation.

Any ideas? Leave links and I'll share findings.

more to come...working like crazy here...

Also, atlanta area writers--and I mean good folks with tight skills in PR/Marketing writing especially in tech--send me links to your samples if you want to be considered for some upcoming writing project opportunities.

No time to 'splain. more news anon. Ask Stu what anon means.

Write Your Own Caption

(They need to stop giving us so much material.)



"Mmmmm, I love it when you talk redneck to me, Bubba."

Disclaim This

I am very near to dubbing the following, from IT Kitchen, the best blogline of 2004:

Possible monetary disclaimer:

I made 23,000US dollars last year, of which 2000.00 was from weblogging; the other 21,000 came from selling myself on the street corner at 5.00 a blowjob. I regret this, though; I feel so cheap for taking money for weblogging.

We are here and not in traditional media because we are biased. Most of us were drawn here by the unique opportunity to explore voice/writing/opinion/conversation.

As a reader of this weblog, please understand the following: Right here is the place where I say what I want, about whom I want and what I want, and on the occasion that someone decides to sponsor one of my writings, projects or brilliant ideas with cold hard cash, I have not only the right but the inherent responsibility to jump up and down in my own living room telling Jenna that it's present time.

(Read Gonzo Marketing, kay?)

David Weinberger has a nearly 600-word disclaimer/disclosure, the short take of which is, if you trust him as one of his readers, then you don't need to worry unless he tells you to.

For my part, I'll take any money I damn well please from anyone I damn well please. I'll decline any money I damn well please, but that's not likely to happen any time soon. Those who decide to give me money have no control over me, which, they would know if they had been reading me for any length of time, making the entire exercise of disclosure irrelevant.

Read Gonzo Marketing, kay? Because if someone trys to exert that control in a micromarket that is informed by whipsers, yelps, rants, and conversations, it doesn't work. Black eye to them. Bully for us.

To Chris, it's time to put the whole book online.

To Shelley, it fucking figures.

Write Your Own Caption

Oh so many come to mind...



"You mean I gotta talk into the motherfucking microphone that goes into the box on that cracker's back?"

Settling the Score

Boing Boing found just the right Chistmas Present for that special someone who's hard to buy for.

It's the University of Iowa's Jumbotron, starting bid just $10K.



I hope the lucky bidder puts it to good use.

The International Association of Dissociation

What?

I'm sorry; my mind was someplace else.

why so inconsistent, jeneane?

Been working on a new business venture. Going into business with a long-time marketing/PR associate to provide writing services in line with what I've been talking about on this blog since time was old, but starting more physical than virtual.

It will grow into something very, very cool. I know it will. Time. Energy. Focus. Gotta get better at all three. More soon, anon.

Ask tom what anon means.

Neither of us is certain.

He thinks it may be related to hey nonny nonny.

I think he may be right.

Glad Tidings,
jeneane

Write Your Own Caption

"Sure he's a wetback, but he's my wetback."

Woops.

And a little something for the Missus.

Okay, since I didn't get my Tiffany's gift from all you slackards for my 3 year blogiversary, I bought myself a little something special.

I feel your pain.

Sometimes enough really is enough.

Is this my Blogger?

Smokin' with speed tonight, blogger boys.

You promised it would get faster, and it looks like you've delivered.

If Blogger keeps up its hippity-hop speed like this, I might actually start writing again.

[[that is not an invitation to tweak it backwards.]]

Oh No, Did I Miss It?

Listen, something tells me bloggercon already happened, and I completely missed my opportunity to make fun of it this year! OH SHIT! I've let my readers down. I've let myself down. I've let all of our friends across the pond who wonder what the fuck we're doing over here down.

It seems my classmate Frank was there, as evidenced by his photos on flickr.

I'm sorry, Frank, I had to tag this one as potentially offensive.

I never new you were into this kind of thing.

shudder.

Talk Radio & Clear Channel vs Reality

Thank goodness for the blogosphere--the antidote to mindless talk radio--especially to the self-righteous conservatives who call in from my neck of the woods.

This morning, I was driving home from carpool while listening to the morning radio host on 640AM. He was polling listeners about today's court date for Cobb County's evolution disclaimer (and the constitutionality thereof) for school textbooks. The disclaimer inspiring debate reads as follows:



I live in Cobb County. I think the courts and the schools could be doing more meaningful things. But that's not really the point. What stunned me was the nutjobs who showed up in force on on the radio to defend the disclaimer. That they wish to defend the disclaimer doesn't bother me. Heck, the disclaimer itself doesn't even bother me. It's the symantics of righteousness and hatred I heard that made me sick.

One caller from a neighboring county said this: "On election day, the citizens of this country DECLARED that the United States is a Christian country. I'm so sick of these liberals and their attitudes, I think it's time we start putting liberals in prison."

HELLO, CHRIST CALLING?

The radio host feigned dismay--"Well, that's a bit Draconian I think," and yet, the screener knew excactly what this caller was going to say. Bet on it. It's not just another isolated incident.

Which brings me to zealots.

Which brings me to wondering, what does a zealot stop at in his quest to advance his noble cause?

Which brings me to mounting evidence that they did it again, referenced by Tom.

Dick Morris, the infamous political consultant to the first Clinton campaign who became a Republican consultant and Fox News regular, wrote an article for The Hill, the publication read by every political junkie in Washington, DC, in which he made a couple of brilliant points.

"Exit Polls are almost never wrong," Morris wrote. "They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state."

He added: "So, according to ABC-TVs exit polls, for example, Kerry was slated to carry Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa, all of which Bush carried. The only swing state the network had going to Bush was West Virginia, which the president won by 10 points."

Yet a few hours after the exit polls were showing a clear Kerry sweep, as the computerized vote numbers began to come in from the various states the election was called for Bush.

How could this happen?

On the CNBC TV show "Topic A With Tina Brown," several months ago, Howard Dean had filled in for Tina Brown as guest host. His guest was Bev Harris, the Seattle grandmother who started www.blackboxvoting.org from her living room. Bev pointed out that regardless of how votes were tabulated (other than hand counts, only done in odd places like small towns in Vermont), the real "counting" is done by computers. Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter's hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a "central tabulator" machine.

That central tabulator computer is a Windows-based PC.

"In a voting system," Harris explained to Dean on national television, "you have all the different voting machines at all the different polling places, sometimes, as in a county like mine, there's a thousand polling places in a single county. All those machines feed into the one machine so it can add up all the votes. So, of course, if you were going to do something you shouldn't to a voting machine, would it be more convenient to do it to each of the 4000 machines, or just come in here and deal with all of them at once?"

Dean nodded in rhetorical agreement, and Harris continued. "What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer."

"So," Dean said, "anybody who can hack into a PC can hack into a central tabulator?"

Harris nodded affirmation, and pointed out how Diebold uses a program called GEMS, which fills the screen of the PC and effectively turns it into the central tabulator system. "This is the official program that the County Supervisor sees," she said, pointing to a PC that was sitting between them loaded with Diebold's software.

allied is 3 years old today.

That's 59 in blogyears. Happy to me.

Time for an emotional fractal party.

Hey class of 2001, children of RageBoy--Happy anniversary to all of yous too.

Caffine chips and puffs

I've been so tired the last couple of days that suddenly, around 11 a.m., in the middle of working, I basically pass out. Today I didn't even get under the covers. I just put my head down, slapped on the alarm, and snoozed off to dreamland.

It's time to move my office again. I've been working on the king-size bed over the last month. I relocated from the living room couch in early October. I do this every so often for a change of scene. It's a lot easier than getting a new job, especially since this job is the best one I've ever had because I have no boss. Except me. And I'm a pushover.

George tells me that when you reheat day old coffee, especially in the microwave, it has less caffine in it. I get expensive coffee, so I rarely waste it. Which means that every other day I'm reheating day-old coffee, and I'm wondering if what he says is true. That would explain my dumb-headed sleepiness every couple of days.

During my siesta, I dreamed that I smoked. November 4 was my 4 month anniversary. How weird. This dream wasn't your typical "oops, i smoked" dream. It was luxurious and enjoyable, and if I didn't know better, I'd think somehow I really did smoke. It felt, tasted and looked so real, so familiar. I even remembered that I wasn't supposed to be doing it, but not with a jolt--with more like an oh yeah. I remember quitting. This sure tastes nice.

At dinner tonight I chipped my bottom tooth. Not the old chipped tooth, but a new one. I did it by being over excited about the eggplant parmesian from Whole Foods. Half way through I bit down on the fork with such gusto that I jammed the prong right down into my lower tooth. What's up with that? Suddenly I've got Arnold jaw? BAM! One chew, and chaos ensued.

Jenna followed me up to the bathroom convinced that she saw me lose my entire bottom tooth right before her eyes. "OH YAH, OH YAH MOM, YOUR TOOTH IS G-O-N-E!" She mistook a piece of chicken breast for my tooth, thankfully, although she still steals glances at my mouth every hour or so to make sure my teeth are all there. "I really thought I saw your tooth gone, mom. That was so freaky!"

Anyway, it's not a big chip, and it wasn't a big nap, and I don't have dental insurance, and it wasn't a real cigarette, but all of these events added up in their smallness to lend some excitement to what has been a state of numbness these post-election days.

I'm grateful for that.

Diebold, Rangers and Pioneers, and "The Fox Guarding the Henhouse"

This Diebold/Ohio scandal is not new. We should have been all over O'Dell last year.

Published on Thursday, August 28, 2003 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer
Voting Machine Controversy
by Julie Carr Smyth

COLUMBUS - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O'Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president's Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party's federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.

The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.

Blackwell's announcement is still in limbo because of a court challenge over the fairness of the selection process by a disqualified bidder, Sequoia Voting Systems.

In his invitation letter, O'Dell asked guests to consider donating or raising up to $10,000 each for the federal account that the state GOP will use to help Bush and other federal candidates - money that legislative Democratic leaders charged could come back to benefit Blackwell.

They urged Blackwell to remove Diebold from the field of voting-machine companies eligible to sell to Ohio counties.

This is the second such request in as many months. State Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, asked Blackwell in July to disqualify Diebold after security concerns arose over its equipment.

"Ordinary Ohioans may infer that Blackwell's office is looking past Diebold's security issues because its CEO is seeking $10,000 donations for Blackwell's party - donations that could be made with statewide elected officials right there in the same room," said Senate Democratic Leader Greg DiDonato.

Diebold spokeswoman Michelle Griggy said O'Dell - who was unavailable to comment personally - has held fund-raisers in his home for many causes, including the Columbus Zoo, Op era Columbus, Catholic Social Services and Ohio State University.

Ohio GOP spokesman Jason Mauk said the party approached O'Dell about hosting the event at his home, the historic Cotswold Manor, and not the other way around. Mauk said that under federal campaign finance rules, the party cannot use any money from its federal account for state- level candidates.

"To think that Diebold is somehow tainted because they have a couple folks on their board who support the president is just unfair," Mauk said.

Griggy said in an e-mail statement that Diebold could not comment on the political contributions of individual company employees.

Blackwell said Diebold is not the only company with political connections - noting that lobbyists for voting-machine makers read like a who's who of Columbus' powerful and politically connected.

"Let me put it to you this way: If there was one person uniquely involved in the political process, that might be troubling," he said. "But there's no one that hasn't used every legitimate avenue and bit of leverage that they could legally use to get their product looked at. Believe me, if there is a political lever to be pulled, all of them have pulled it."

Blackwell said he stands by the process used for selecting voting machine vendors as fair, thorough and impartial.

As of yesterday, however, that determination lay with Ohio Court of Claims Judge Fred Shoemaker.

He heard closing arguments yesterday over whether Sequoia was unfairly eliminated by Blackwell midway through the final phase of negotiations.

Shoemaker extended a temporary restraining order in the case for 14 days, but said he hopes to issue his opinion sooner than that.

© 2003 The Plain Dealer

[[More on Rangers and Pioneers]]