Indecision 2000
Was watching NBC nightly news just now, and they had a little piece on the Election Night Broadcasters’ Fuckup, which happened when the vote in Florida for the 2000 presidential race was called too early and incorrectly.
They assure us it won’t happen again. They can assure all they want, I just won’t watch be watching the news, I’ll be reading it, instead; I have much greater trust in print news organizations.
Anyway, such talk also brought me back to my own memories of working that night for my college paper, The BG News. We expected the evening to be a late one, because election nights mean extra work and no certain headline until late. We ordered pizza in, feeling like real working journalists, exhilarated and ready to go. The rest of the paper had come together as usual. We just needed to wait for the results, so we knew which AP story to swap in for A1 and what our banner headline should say. We couldn’t wait too long, though, because deadline for our color front page was 11 p.m. and the rest of the paper needed to be delivered to the waiting courier at the campus police station by midnight. That guy, a driver for the Findlay Courier paper, would deliver it to their presses for printing and bundling.
Well, 11 p.m. came and went, as did midnight, and there was still no winner. Deadline was thoroughly blown, and we were flummoxed, with a gaping hole on the front page where our decisive news coverage could be. The pizza had been digested hours ago, the Mt. Dew high had worn off, and it was 3 a.m. before we knew it.
If Jeffy and I didn’t drive this paper to Findlay ourselves, there would be no paper at all, and our advertisers would have several heads on platters. So we took the latest AP story that had come over the wire, typed in a headline — I seem to remember it was the wrong one, but I’ll be damned if I can recall what it said — and hauled ass the 40 miles down I-75 to deliver the flats.
The paper did get printed, thank god, bad headline and all, and we were no worse off than a lot of other, more respectable publications the next day — at least the ones that didn’t have multiple editions.
After our mad rush to Findlay and back, Jeff dropped me off at my dorm, and I fell asleep that night, fully dressed, listening to Peter Jennings on my 13“ TV. When I woke up a few hours later, after dawn, Peter was in his shirtsleeves and the country was in turmoil.
Sure makes me glad I work for a weekly now, instead of a daily. I’ll get a full night’s sleep on Tuesday night no matter what. Though I will miss the pizza, I won’t miss the chaos.
p.s. It’s almost 7:30 and there have been zero trick-or-treaters.
p.p.s. On the upside, the Steelers are winning.
Happy Day of the Dead Eve
So this is the awesome jack-o-lantern we designed and carved about two weeks ago. And this is what those bastard squirrels did to it.
Gross, huh?
So what’s the deal with Halloween around here? I have a stash of candy in case the kiddies come by, but I’m having a hard time finding any local mention of trick-or-treating hours or anything. The kids do still trick-or-treat, don’t they? I mean, not everyone goes to the mall instead, right?
‘Cause that would be really depressing. And then think of all the candy I’d have to eat by myself.
Devilish
Wishing everybody a happy [and safe] Devil’s Night. It’s almost time for my favorite holiday: “Fall back” for Daylight Saving Time! Woo hoo! An extra hour of sleep. I don’t think it gets any better than that.
Tonight I was going to set out the jack-o-lantern Iain and I carved for Halloween, but the damned squirrels got to it first. They chewed all around the delicate carving, and then wangled the top off, and then chewed up all around the inside, and then one of them must have cut himself, because he bled all over the inside of the pumpkin, and then because it’s been so rainy mold grew all over the pumpkin, and the whole thing was so mangled and deformed and disgusting we had to toss it in the compost heap. It wouldn’t be so bad if they hadn’t done the same thing to our three other, uncarved pumpkins, but they did.
Have to say, Maryland squirrels are real thugs. Back home they never would have dreamed off gnawing and then bleeding on our jack-o-lanterns.
Victory is mine
Just a few changes around here, most of which I hope you don’t even notice.
I wasted three hours trying to upgrade to MT 3.121 last night [sorry I couldn’t call you, Jen, I broke the Internet]. No luck. Hung up on some upgrade scripts and an “invalid login” error.
Went to sleep all pissed off that I couldn’t figure it out.
Woke up this morning and, with the aid of a bowl of Life cereal for sustenance, managed to fix it in 10 minutes. The problem was twofold: I hadn’t actually run the upgrade scripts, and permissions for those upgrade scripts were not set correctly. By the way, if anyone tells you to “run the upgrade script,” what they mean is “point your browser to that URL, dumbass.” I finally figured that one out.
The feeling of triumph I got when I saw the phrase “Upgrade appears to be successful” was a euphoric high not often matched by anything else I accomplish on a daily basis.
Anyway, boring story short, one of the changes you may notice is that I’m asking commenters to register. This should keep spam to a minimum, I hope.
Also, I’m debating killing the geekblog — I think it’s outlived its usefulness. So there may be a little geekblog-shaped hole in the Internet soon.
There’s probably half a dozen other little winky things I’d like to do, too, but I’m not locking myself into anything, and will try not to bore you to death with the details.
I’ll now return to my regularly scheduled life.
I have no pithy title today
Thinking I might flip on the tube this weekend to catch Tina Fey and Amy Poehler doing ‘Weekend Update.’
Perplexing: What is the deal with Parkville people going as nuts over Halloween decorations as they do over Christmas? Those little orange pumpkin lights, giant blow-up Frankinsteins that take up entire yards, flags and window-stickers. Yowsa. Next thing you know, we’re gonna have, like, Groundhog Day decorations pouring all over folks’s porches.
Trompe l’oeil: Looking in the mirror the other day, I was thinking that for as big as I feel, and as uncomfortable as I am 24/7, my profile just doesn’t convey that. I need to be like three times bigger so that bystanders get an immediate impression of how miserable it is, physically, to be pregnant. Like if you were to look at broken leg, sans cast, or a hockey player’s face right after the tussel — right away you get that “ow!” reaction, that sympathetic wince. It may look like a basketball up my shirt, but it’s more like a medicine ball inside my skin. Ow.
Paging Dr. Frankenberry: The followup glucose test came back negative, which is a giant weight off my shoulders. I was really starting to get worried about big-fat-baby syndrome.
Damn you, dial-up: I want Elliott Smith’s “From a Basement on the Hill,” and it’s only $9.99 on iTunes, but it would take like five hours to download those 15 or so songs. Dammit.
The Book! The Book! I got the bestest present from the courier today: SND’s The Best of Newspaper Design, 25th Edition. I’m only halfway through it so far. It’s truly astounding, as always. Two things I hate: the foreign submissions, because I can’t read headlines that are in Swedish or German or Portuguese or what-have-you; and the fact that the tearsheet/examples are so tiny and the design so good. It makes me want to read the stories, but I can’t because the font-size is like 0.008 pt. Yagh. But it is inspirational, even if SNDUpdate suggests this month we look elsewhere for inspiration.
England is lovely this time of year: So turns out British mommies get six entire months of paid maternity leave, and some Parliamentarians are pushing for more. In the States, FMLA only gives you 12 weeks of unpaid leave. I think it’s time to move. [The Guardian: New parents could get a year’s pay to stay at home]
Bound to happen, sooner or later: Apple releases the iPod Photo, complete with 60 GB of storage and a color screen. I’m telling you, pretty soon they’re going to reclaim the Newton using all this technology. Only a matter of time. [Wired: Apple’s Newton Just Won’t Drop]
But for my money, and my purposes, I don’t see much point in this latest development. What, am I going to sit around on the bus and stare at my own photos for $600? And I certainly don’t need that kind of space. I suppose that’s why iPod minis are popular: the whole iPod family lets you get just what you want or need. And what I need is a 20 GB iPod loaded with plenty of slow, mopey rock. Which is why I cursed the dial-up connection, above.
All right, enough of this verbiage. Time to retire with my book and try to sleep without Junior here kicking the hell out of my bladder. Ooh, but not before dessert. Homemade punkin pie, anybody?
This post brought to you by: It’s A Big Old Goofy World from the album “Great Days Vol.2” by John Prine.
Hers and Hers and His
Three musketeers? Jeffro and Tasha were in town last night and today and we had a blast hanging out. I think they should move here so I can see them all the time. Just like the olden days! Remembering the drama of the Snooz, scoping for boys [well, not me, obviously], eating and drinking, walking around. Seeing people I have such a history with is really heartwarming.
All the more reason to re-implement my Import Friends To Baltimore plan!
Here, have some more: I don’t need this pesky blood. Go ‘head, have some. Four pricks in one day? Pshaw. A 12-hour fast? No problem. 100g of dextrose solution? Sure, why not?
It’s not like I have plans or anything.
Or feeling in the crooks of my elbows anymore.
Mmm, calcium carbonate: I heart Tums now. Never thought I’d be saying that, but their minty chalky goodness allows me to lay down and actually sleep without feeling like I’m going to throw up. Hells yeah.
Bubble! Bubble! Hell-o! To the creepy, creepy guy at Borders: You totally invaded my personal space and weirded me out. When a girl says she doesn’t have any money, and she is reading her favorite magazine at the bookstore instead of buying it, that means she DOESN’T HAVE ANY MONEY! Staring her down in an intimidating way is not going to change that. I don’t care if you are deaf. Asshole.
This post brought to you by: Bring The Funk from the album “Diamonds On The Inside” by Ben Harper.
Hope for the Book Thing
Book Thing founder Russ Wattenberg may have found a new home for his hundreds of thousands of free books, but he’ll need help getting the mortgage together.
The City Paper reports today:
Wattenberg says he’ll enter this week into a contract to purchase for $280,000 a 24,000-square-foot building at 122 W. North Ave. He hopes to relocate by February to the ground floor, and lease the two upper stories to other nonprofit organizations or to students from the nearby Maryland Institute College of Art.
— snip —
In exchange for a nonrefundable $5,000 deposit, the sales contract would give the Book Thing 45 days to come up with an $80,000 down payment and a bank willing to loan it the balance.
For my money, there’s no better charity, but that’s the bibliophile in me talking. And if you’ve ever been to the Book Thing’s current location, you know that “cramped” is a gross understatement. I think the Book Thing is one of the best things going, and I hope this purchase works out.
By the way, they take donations.
Maybe I should watch more television, after all.
Via Kenney:
Better than reading a transcript of Jon Stewart calling Tucker Carlson a dick is watching the video of Jon Stewart calling Tucker Carlson a dick. Thanks, VizEds!
‘How could you let me let myself go like this?’
And I don’t even put butter in my coffee.
For those of you yearning for a shot of me from the neck down, I relent. Dad took this shot right before they left last Monday.
Turns out that was the day I barfed all over myself at work; nothing makes you feel more like a little kid than throwing up at your desk. But at least that cold I’ve been trying to recover from for the last two weeks seems to be — finally — on its way out.
About fucking time, I say. And the rest of the week was not much better … ever notice how the doctor’s office never calls with good news? You never win a free X-ray or anything. It’s always, “We need to change your appointment,” or “Your test results were abnormal.” Blah, blah, blah.
Stupid doctor’s office. Who asked them, anyway?
Pumpkin portraiture
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my sewing tutorials
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