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I Voted Today

Over 98% of Michigan residents who are eligible this year were registered to vote in today's election. Over ?? of them are expected to vote today. I'm proud to say that I'm among them.

What I'm not so proud to say is that today marks the first time I've ever voted. It surprises a lot of people I know but it's true, I've never voted before. Not once, even though I've had ample opportunity. But even though I seem to be so tuned in to politics and the elections and everything else (I'm not, really, I think I just pay more attention to everything than most.) I've never bothered before. I've either been away at school or out of the country or even just to apathetic to care – it's not like my one vote, after all, could ever have made a difference. And in those few years when I have actually felt motivated to vote, I've always wound up putting off registering until the last moment only to miss one deadline or another.

Not this year. I sent out my application over the summer, well in advance, just to make sure. Had my voter's card returned just in time for the primary although I didn't bother to vote then since it was such a joke. Obama and Edwards weren't on the ballot in Michigan, remember, because of the fight over the contest being moved up, leaving it to Clinton in a race of one. And I just couldn't stomach crossing the aisle and trying to throw some chaos into the Republican race.

I'm registered as an Independent, by the way, because I don't believe in strong party identification. I'd prefer to vote the issues rather than a blind party line. But I might as well be a Democrat because it'll be a long time before I ever consider voting Republican.

I did vote for the Green Party candidate for the House of Representatives in my district, if only because I also couldn't stomach the idea of voting for Kilpatrick's mother. I was really hoping she would have lost to Waters in the primary but I was out of town that day and couldn't manage to figure out the absentee provisions so I, again, didn't bother to vote. Wouldn't have matter much anyways.

I also voted yes on both propositions on the ballot this year. The first was to legalize medical marijuana which is expected to pass handily. Opponents say it's a stepping stone on the road to decriminalizing marijuana entirely. Since I wouldn't have a problem with that, I'm all for the idea.

The second, though, is less of certainty. Polling about propositions is notoriously inaccurate but, heading into today, at least, it was running about dead even. Prop 2 is about embryonic stem cell research which is an extremely complicated issue. I got into a lengthy discussion about it with my mother over the weekend since she's planning to vote against. Neither of us were very committed to our position and spent most of the time just trying to justify our opinions even to ourselves because we're, as my mother put it, “conflicted”. I don't have the religious objections to the development of new stem cell lines that my mother seems to have but I can understand why it makes people uncomfortable. It's a complicated issue and the wording of the proposition is complicated as well.

And the campaign of distortion and distraction waged by both sides of the debate in the weeks leading up to the decision hasn't helped. The pro-2 position says derregulating stem cell research in Michigan (where the creation of new stem cell lines is currently prohibited) will lead to cures. Something that hasn't happened yet, even though stem cell research is promising and even though there are a few potential medicines undergoing clinical trials at the moment. And they also say it'll bring grant money to the state, bringing with it well-paid research jobs that are going elsewhere. A compelling argument in a state as beleaguered as Michigan but it's not like they're going to be offsetting the tens of thousands of jobs about to be lost in the automaker's collapse.

The anti-2 side, on the other hand, are, if anything, even worse. They say this measure opens the door for human cloning and repellent animal hybrids. That the funding for this research is going to be paid for with new and higher taxes. Again a compelling argument in a state as economically disadvantaged as Michigan but also one that's unsupported by the evidence. Proposition 2 is merely about removing the ability of the state to regulate this embryonic stem cell research, instead entrusting any such guidelines to the federal government's oversight. There's nothing in there about public or private funding and certainly nothing about raising taxes. That it might cost the taxpayers money is just a projection, a prediction, and a shakey one at that.

In the end, though, I wound up confirming my initial impulse to support the measure. Stem cells might not be the magic cure they're made out to be but I think it's at least worth the chance. Any research, as far as I'm concerned, can only be a net positive to humanity as a whole and we need as much as we can get. Any ethical research, of course, which is where a lot of people part company with me since embryonic is another word for fetal and these cells are coming from discarded fertile cells. But, as far as I can understand, it's not coming from human harvesting or paying for aborted children, but, instead, from waste material produced by fertility clinics as part of their treatments. From cells that would otherwise simply be thrown away. I don't necessarily like where those cells originate but as long as they're made they might as well be made to be useful before they're destroyed, as far as I'm concerned.

And, at the same time, I find the campaign against the measure to be dishonest and disgusting. I think, in so many words, that when one side is asking you take the positive case and to hope for the best while the other sides is lying to you in order to get you to fear the worst that it's probably better to go for the side that's asking for you to be optimistic. Hope is a powerful trap but, sometimes, it's worth believing in. And when it comes to cures and health, sometimes, I think it's the only thing we've got.

So, that's the way I voted. As for my polling place, I went in the afternoon where I've heard that the waits is the shortest. Despite reports of long lines and large waits, I didn't have any problem. There was a bit of a line although not much more than ten people. I got there a little late and I'm actually kind of glad that I did. One woman I spoke with said she'd been there earlier, when I actually planned to to show up, and the line had been stretching out of the door. I'd been smart, though, and brought a book. But I didn't even have a chance to read more than 5 pages before it was time to fill out my forms and cast my ballot. I walked to the polling place, instead of taking my customary afternoon stroll and, all in all, it took me less than an hour to walk there, vote, and get back home.

But I did it. I voted. It's taken me far too long but I've never felt so proud.

A Weekend of Silence

This blog is officially in mourning over the premature death of the Michigan football. I'll have more tomorrow but tonight, I'm very, very drunk.

Somehow, I Blame Al Gore

It's supposed to snow today.

Letting the Rage Flow Through My Fingers

I literally broke my keyboard whilst typing.

I think that's a sign I need to take a break.

Rex Does Kongai: Quick Question

Which group would you like to see worked on next?

The scrappy and flexible Gangsters?

The disruptive, mysterious Psychos?

Or the darkly dangerous Necros?

Perhaps you'd rather see me stick it out with the Rockers and work on them some more?

I'll let you know that, at the moment, I'm leaning towards the Gangsters. But I'm open to being convinced otherwise, so let me know what you think.

The State of the Blog

So, the blog isn't doing so well lately. I'm afraid I have no one to blame for all the inactivity around here except myself. I could have found the time to write more but I haven't. It's been far down on the list of priorities for a while now. Just been hard to put digital pen to the electronic paper.

And, unfortunately, that looks like a state of affairs that's going to continue. As I feared, heading into last month, my schedule is just hellishly busy lately. I'm back in school nearly full time now, with a heavy load of classes as I'm getting closer to that second degree. The studying alone is enough to suck up most of my time. But I'm also working part time in order to pay for it all. And I've got my other projects and diversions to keep me busy. The simple fact is that when I do find time to sit down and write, I don't seem to be able to summon up much energy for the process. Not when I've finished typing up my latest paper or dropping a few thousand words on fleshing out some other concept.

Now, though, the semester's finally well underway. Past the initial stages and easy opening assignments and into a time of reports and midterms. It's not like my grades are poor but I didn't go back to school in order to test well. I went back to understand and advance myself and that takes precious time.

Next month, I'm afraid, isn't going to get any better. I'm likely going to be hosting at least part of the annual gathering of the clan for Thanksgiving and that's means not just hours of family and feasting but long days of cleaning and preparation. And November is, of course, National Novel Writing Month and, at the moment, I'm thinking I'd like to participate, once again. I don't have the time. I don't even have an idea. But I might not have the sanity and I'd like to make sure that I don't, by month's end. I'm more worried about what happens to me if I take the lazy way out and refuse to try, once again, rather than try to push myself past what I think's possible.

But that's next month's concern. At the moment, I should be able to find a little time to tend to my sadly neglected blog once again. If nothing else, if only to get used to the challenge of a steady routine again.

It seems that on this blog, as in life, there are no promises. So I don't know what to expect and neither should anyone still kind enough to be reading this. But I'm going to try to write at least a little bit. Every day. One post at a time. Rain or shine. Exhilarated or exhausted. I have to keep the pen moving. Because the alternative is that it might stop.

Voting Ain't Easy

I figured as long as I'm passing out voting help that I should mention this. If you're one of the many people who've registered at university this year, you might want to check carefully where you're registered. If you're registered in your home district rather than the one near your school you might have a problem.

In Michigan, at least, newly registered voters are required to show up and present photo ID at their polling place for their first vote. You can't vote via absentee ballet for your first time around, in other words.

You can get around this by presenting your ID at your local county clerk's office. But if, like at least one of my cousins, you're attending school halfway across the country, that's going to be a bit of a hassel since you have to show up in person.

Register to Vote Today

Many states, including my own home of Michigan, require that voters register at least 30 days before the election. That means if you're planning to vote this November, you need to make sure you're registered by the end of today.

In only a few states (Nine, I believe, including Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming - but I'd check and make sure, since I'm not.) you can show up vote on election day. You just need to have a valid ID and you'll be registered on the spot - it makes voting easier and tends to increase turnout significantly. Everywhere else, you need to be already on the voter rolls. Because, I guess, voting should be as difficult as possible.

But with the stakes in the election this year, though, I'd hope tit's worth the inconvenience. If you're not sure where to start, in Michigan, at least, you should visit your Secretary of State's.

There's also this, which will find your registration form for you.

Tempting Fate

It's too damn hot out to write anything.

This Worked So Well The Last Time...

So, I'm upset over yesterday's drubbing. It still stings. Michigan football this year is looking to be a painful ride this year. I'd like to say more and I've been trying to collect my thoughts but all I've got so far are variations on the theme of "f-f-f-f-fuuuuck".

But, now, it's Labor Day and I'm going to be taking the rest of the weekend off. See you on the other side.

Fuck It

I just cannot seem to find the time/energy to blog it out these days.

Screw it, we're going to go full-on Atrios style.

short, quick posts mixed with the occasional opus until I re-get the hang of this blogging thing. Anything to get the pen moving.

What I've Been Up To

In the long, dark teatime of this blog, I've been silent. But I don't want you to think that I've been, you know, laying around all day in my underwear, eating Cheetos, and masturbating. I hate Cheetos.

No, I've been productive. If, of course, you define finding other ways of wasting my time to be productive. Which I obviously do.

Over the summer, I've completed yet another version of my fantasy script Unbound. Which stinks. Again. Just not sure where I'm going wrong there except for the disheartening prospect that I might not know how to write after all.

Someone, somewhere (Although I can't find the link at the moment) made a post about coming up with your own MMOs. Already having the venerable ClotH tumbling around in my backpocket, I sat down to think about making it more than a vague parody or a story vehicle and fleshing it into a viable gameworld. As usual, though, I overshot the mark and wound up comgin up with not one but three different MMO concepts. Who knows, I might even get around to putting them down. On paper, as it were.

Then there's Kongai. I haven't been playing much - a match here or there to keep my toes in, some time beating up the AI to perform sanity checks on the numbers (I really have to get around to making some kind of bot to do that for me. Wouldn't be too hard. Just need to it to run a lot of monte carlo tests for me, and that's the sort of repetitive thing a program should be good for. Sigh, one of these days...) - but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about the plucky little game that could. I think I'll wait until I have a few games under my belt before I talk about balance. But, in the meantime, I've been thinking about balancing my own ideas. That's right, I haven't given up on tinkering with my own cards, something I've mentioned having created in passing several times in the past. We're up to two full expansions now. 8 groups, over 40 characters, and some fifty odd items in various stages of completion or at least more than a line or two jotted down on a notepad. I tend to make more characters than I need for each group and winnow the number down as I go along, merging and blending unsuccessful characters into one another to get to that final five. As for items, well, six generals plus five for each group and the numbers add up. Items are easy, anyways, it's making sure they're not imba when paired up with certain characters that's frustrating.

Also, this year's National Novel Writing Marathon is coming up and, lately, I've been trying to come up with ideas. I figure I'm going to be extremely busy this year and won't have a whole lot of time to devote to the madhouse. Not enough to be trying to crack the 200k Club, at least. So I'm looking for a smaller, simple story that I can reasonably expect to get through instead of letting my freak flag fly.

I have three ideas at the moment, as is my usual want. The first is a superhero story that I might just save for next year's Script Frenzy as it might make for a good graphic novel.

In a nutshell, it's about a hero who wakes up after years of brainwashing to find herself in a world where the villains won and the heroes have been subjected to various tortures and degradations. Together with the daughter she doesn't recognize, she's out for revenge.

The second is a bit of a sidestor set in the crazy alternative/other world of the Empire from last year's Stalking the Wolf. It deals with the story of a Princess, the reluctant next in line to the throne, and the assassin sent to kill her off. I'm not sure, really, how to classify it except that it's equal parts science fiction, thriller, and quietly character driven drama.

And, finally, there's a bit of a supernatural idea that's going to wind up drenched in smut. It's about a pack of werewolves (Giving them the "Lestat" treatment of modern, misunderstood monsters) and their youngest member, a boy drawn into a world of destruction and mayhem, of sex and violence, where every day is a life and death struggle - and that's just from the other members of his new family. Each of them is interesting in its own rights and I'm probably going to spend the next month working up their outlines and deciding which one I want to run with.

Then there's all the writing exercises that I've been doing. And the blog posts that I've written only to crumple up and throw away and the ideas for posts that I've had only to salt them away for a time when I could finish them.

So, I've been jerking around. But the results are strewn across any number of files and notepads, perhaps to one day pay dividends.

Let's Try This Again

Argh. Okay, so obviously my network problems got worse, not better. My laptop also finally gave up the ghost (I've had it since college and that's an increasingly frightening long time ago.) and that was that as far as the "upload those blog post and postdate whenever I can" plan went.

First it was the router which I sent back to the manufacturer for a replacement. Then the switch I used to hop from upstairs to downstairs went bad, prompting another replacement. Then I had to track down and resplice some cords that were giving intermittent service. At this point, I'm half convinced that by this time next week I'll be crawling through the rafters trying to find the cables that some furry creatures (Having inexplicably found their way back into my attic after I spent way too much money last year having that problem fixed.) had managed to chew through and dreading the discovery of half-fried little corpses.

Fortunately, it hasn't come to that. Although I did spend the better part of the evening with some rudimentary wiring guides trying to figure out why a dimmer switch wasn't working. Short answer: it was so old that the spring inside of it, the one that holds the switch in when you click it to turn on the light, had broken. Replacing it was an adventure in and of itself. Not only because I'm deathly terrified of electrical fires ever since that one childhood incident that I like to call "The Story of the Smoking Wall" but because I was dealing with the detritus of electrical wiring from some forty years ago - maybe even longer, dating to when this house was even built. I knew I was in trouble when I opened up the wall and went "...huh, there's no ground here."

Anyhow, I have refitted my network, replaced everything except the desk on which the router sits, reformatted various computers until I was reciting IP addresses in my sleep, and made the appropriate sacrifices to the dark elder gods of technology who conspire against me. Having, I believe, successfully mollified them, my internet is back and, hopefully, so is this blog.

Just in time, too, since there's plenty to talk about. From the start of college football to the conventions and - finally - the final stretch of the campaigns. There's even that new Warhammer MMO I've been hearing so much about. Sadly, I wasn't in the beta and I'm probably not buying the game but I'm hoping to check out the open beta at the very least. There's a month left before the latest NaNo kicks off, too, so I'd better get used to pouring out the daily wordage again. That should be enough to keep me busy. For now, anyway.

Epic Fail

Okay, so that weekend I took off turned into...Christ, three weeks?

I fail at this blogging thing.

At least I'm comforted by still updating faster than pal Clamatius. He's too busy off doing less important things than blogging. Things like having a

family and raising his children. Pfft. Doesn't he know that once the passage of time has ground our modern world to dust that the only artifacts of our passing will be the scant archives of our internets that have survived? And that only those who've left behind a few tetrabytes of semi-personal ramblings will be able to be adequately simulated in the databank homes of the creatures of information and light who have come to rule our world?

Oh, wait, he has Twitter. So I guess he does.

Just When We Were Getting Started

Just a reminder that I'll be off for the weekend. Excellent, one another, being. Figure it out.

I Tremble With Rage

This is what I've been trying to post for the last few days:

Figures, soon as I resolve to spend more time blogging, my internet goes out.

At first I took it as further proof that Comcast (and other ISPs) are evil. But diligent tracking down of the problem has revealed that it's my router that's the cause.

It's pretty old in electronic equipment terms, so it's not exactly a surprise. Basically, what happens is that the network is still there, all my computers are still connected and can talk with the router as well as one another, but it's not able to receive any traffic from outside of the network - pages won't load, data won't arrive, and so on. Which means, in practice, no internet connection.

My fix - which consisted of flipping the power switch on and off while alternating praying and hitting things - seems to be holding for now but that's what I thought on Saturday night, too. And Monday.

Yeah, so spending a few sweltering hours trying to figure out the latest reason the networks gone down only to find that it's gone out again just when I want to actually use it doesn't do wonders for my desire to blog, I'll tell you.

Anyway, the problem hasn't cleared up and it's become much more frequent. It's a matter of hours now before the network conks out. Fortunately, my router's still under warranty so I'll be getting a replacement soon. Unfortunately, that involves packing up the old one and shipping it off to the manufacturer and waiting for the new one to arrive.

My workaround now is the simple expedient of jacking directly into the modem - which works fine so I can at least check my mail from time to time. But since I'm not the only one in my home who craves the internet, I'm not going to be able to hop online as often as I'd like. Writing in advance and scheduling posts, though, should mean that the blog shouldn't suffer from much more neglect. But the way things are going, who knows? I don't expect many more outages but I make no promises.

Like Patton

I have returned.

It's frightening just how easy it is to go a long time without posting. Miss a day here and there and you get out of the habit and, before you know it, there goes a month or two where you haven't said anything.

Anyhow, I won't bore you with the excuses because, you know, what do you care? Short story short, really busy. Travel and classes and searing heat making it hard to sit down and blog it out.

It's not like I haven't had ideas for posts or even taken a stab at writing them out. I'm never out of ideas, it's always a matter of time. And effort. When I'm trying to jot something down and realizing it's going to take me another couple thousand words to flesh out my ideas to the point where even I know what I'm talking about, and then only having a few minutes before I have to get moving on something else, well, it leads to notes and files full of scraps and pieces and not a lot of production.

Things haven't exactly quieted down but, really, I like blogging and want to get back to it. So we enter yet another brave new era for things around here. I've said it oh so many times before but maybe this time it'll stick for more than a few days.

I'll have to get around to posting some things and going through my sadly small backlog of e-mails and comments. Sigh, one of these days people are going to realize that my frequent disappearances are nothing but a thinly veiled cry for help and react with the cries of alarm and concern that will give me the attention I so desperately crave. But the problem is that I probably won't be around to see it when it happens.

But, yes, I have neglected this place for a time and, because of it, I have some work to do to whip it back into shape. But that's for the future, I'll get around to it in the coming days. For now, I'm tired and it's hot and I'm going back to bed.

When It Rains...

My power has back on for a little while now, I've just managed to slip the blogging habit and haven't had the time to pick it back up yet.

It was actually not that bad an experience. One of my neighbors, who works construction, was nice enough to go around the neighborhood with a generator and give people a chance to plug in their appliances for a few half hours at a time. That was good for me because my stove is electric (I know, I know, I wasn't the one who put it in.) so outside of firing up the grill that was the only way I could cook things. Spent a lot of time working on my script which is coming along nicely, thanks.

I lost a few things out of the freezer and it's never fun to throw away food, especially with the way prices keep going up. But the biggest casualty was my computer. I thought my surge protector was on its last legs (There's only so much voltage those things can accept before you're basically just plugging your valuable equipment into the wall.) and, well, it was. I've taken it into the shop and I'm hoping it's just the power supply. A casual inspection didn't reveal any twisted hunks of silicon where important things like the hard drive and video card used to be but we'll find out. The power supply was on its last legs, anyway, and its fan would often stop working so it was probably time for an upgrade. I'm just hoping that my drives are okay since, otherwise, I'd loose everything since my last not frequent enough back-up.

I really should move to storing things online - there are any number of services - instead of in my desktop but then I always worry about everybody out there who could sneak a peak at my data. It's not like I have anything important - just stories and scripts and ideas and a bunch of other miscellaneous junk that's the 21st century equivalent of a bunch of crumpled up papers shoved that I cling to as if they were something valuable. But, you know, it's my stuff.

The fact that someone tried to hack into my Guru accounts over the weekend doesn't make me any less paranoid. I don't use them and I really hope the passwords have been changed by now - the e-mails attached to them certainly haven't - but I honestly haven't checked in years and I wouldn't know the passwords now if I tried. I should be better about it but every so often, I try to change them up and make sure my passwords are as safe as can be. All of them. And it's been several iterations so I have no clue what they would have been.

Anyhow, I've dragged out the old laptop which is slow and clunky and even older than my desktop but it works alright now that I've got power again. We'll see about the old computer. Worse case, I'm without a desktop unit, won't be able to play any real games (Not a problem since I'm All Flash All the Time, these days), and I'll have lost a month or three of ideas that I thought were important enough to jot down. I can live through that.

But don't think I'm coming off of break just yet. You see, We got a call over the weekend from the RCMP or probably just the local law enforcement agency who aren't anywhere near as cool that our family cottage had been broken into. Someone has to head up there and assess the damage and make whatever repairs are needed. One of my cousins was supposed to go up in a week or two to open it up for the summer but he's not free at the moment. The impression is that it's pretty bad so it's something of an emergency, too. And since I'm the most available, I've been volunteered. I actually don't have the time to go up myself since it'll mean missing out on some classes and an interview. Wanted to see if I couldn't attend the Obama rally, too, but of all the family my time's apparently the least valuable. Doesn't surprise me much.

So, I'm just about to head out the door for the long trek up north. Where I'll no doubt spend my time filling out police reports, sweeping up broken glass, and dealing with the soggy wooden mess left by any burst pipes and rotting wood. Oh, the place needs to be painted, too. Just popped in to give an update, answer some comments, and pick up Juju (Short review: Ugh. Slightly less short review: Not quite as good as Phoebe but not completely awful. Juju is alright so long as you accept that to play him well you have to be prepared to play completely lame. But Juju is definitely not the best card around and it has nothing to do with Touch of Doom - the problem is the rest of his bar, in that he doesn't have much of one.) before I get on my way. Might be back by the end of the week, might be longer, might decide to just forget about the blog to concentrate on my script, I don't know at the moment.

Oh, interesting update in the pipeline, too. I'm especially looking at the changes to Andromeda who I really think needs them. Or at least something to help her in the range game. Helene, meh, reality diverging from my expectations again but I don't like changes that make her more like Ashi and less like herself. She's definitely a problem, especially with Valkyrie but I'd rather hit her damage and interrupt proc instead of her speed.

Blacked Out

Thanks to the recent storms, the power at my home went out yesterday. I spent the rest of the night searching for flashlights (I have the hand-turned sort that mean I don't have to hunt around for batteries but that doesn't mean I can forget where I put them) and setting up the grill to cook up a bunch of thawing meat before it went bad. Today, I have to search through the fridge and see what can and can't be saved - at least it's blessedly cooler today. Not sure when the power will be back so I'll be on yet another blogging hiatus until then.