October 31, 2009
Masquerade
To the woman I ran into in the elevator last night who was dressed as a...nurse?...anime character?...punk revivalist?:
Doesn't matter. First of all, loved, loved the red fishnets you had on. Some people just know how to wear fishnets. You, madam, are one of those people.
Second, are you in need of free legal advice? Not that you looked like someone in need of legal advice, free or otherwise. But I thought I should ask. Some people don't realize they need legal advice until the question is posed to them.
Did I mention how much I liked your fishnets?
Anyway, thanks for the unexpected Halloween treat.
Warm Regards,
Mark
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)
October 30, 2009
An Evening Out
This week has been uncommonly busy and the trend continues tonight with a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Guthrie. While I'm getting my culture on, check out the new Avatar trailer. The plot doesn't look all that original (the "bitter gimp" motif is alive and well in science fiction), but I'll still go for the alien-on-giant-robot action.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 29, 2009
Impeccable Logic
IRAC is a mnemonic they teach you in first-year legal writing classes. The letters stand for the four components of a legal brief or exam response: Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion. Millions of law students learn the IRAC method every year and they use it to write dry little briefs arguing whether or not X breached a contract to make widgets for Ms. Y. It probably wasn't intended to be employed as a means for a horny law student to argue, via Craigslist, why she and a fellow student should totally do each other, but modern lust knows no rules. Here's an excerpt:
ISSUE:
Should we have wild, crazy, meaningless animal sex?
RULE:
Distractions can be very detrimental to success in law school, and should be eliminated whenever possible.
ANALYSIS:
As detailed above in the facts, my desire to be plowed by you is a major distraction from my studies. It's got to be a distraction to you as well since it's probably unnerving to be stared at by a predatory sex-starved woman as if she wants to take a bite out of you. Per the above rule, this distraction to both of us needs to be eliminated for us to graduate from law school and pass the bar exam.
It's not Oliver Wendell Holmes, but it does demonstrate a good grasp of the IRAC method. With a little more focus, she might even make law review next spring.
Oh, Craigslist, where were you when I was in law school? I get wistful when I think of all the hopelessly desperate ads I could have posted late at night in the vain hope that the cute blonde in Health Law would read them.
Credit to BoingBoing for the tip.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2009
Talking Shop
Here's a question I'm sure everyone's asked themselves at least once: what do government attorneys talk about when they go out for a beer? Work, politics, work, comic books, work, reminiscences from law school, and football. It's a good thing there were only four of us around the table; one more and we would have had enough to start up a firm or a political campaign.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:33 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2009
Fall Fashion
Can someone invent me some kind device that will keep my fingers warm when I go outside on cold days? And no, I'm not talking about mittens. As annoying as it is to wait for sensation to return to my fingertips before I can type, I still have my pride. I inhabit a strictly no-mittens zone, as well as a no-tossel cap zone.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 11:09 PM | Comments (2)
October 26, 2009
Give 'Em Hell, Harry
Progressives scored a tactical victory today when Senator Reid announced that the Senate floor version of the health care bill will include an opt-out version of the public option. This doesn't mean that the final bill will include a public option, but it will be difficult for opponents to strip it out. The grassroots and advocacy organizations did a magnificent job of keeping the the public option's prospects alive, even when the political environment seemed rather grim. Reid's decision is probably grounded in politics rather than policy--he faces a tough reelection next year and will need all the liberal allies he can round up--but I can tolerate such calculated behavior if it produces a better bill.
Senator Snowe is already whining that bipartisanship is dead, but she may still be won over if the good people of Maine apply enough pressure. The more important task is to convince the few fence-sitting moderate Democrats that they will suffer real consequences if they enable a Republican filibuster. Consequences such as vigorous primary challenges.
Democrats are also realizing that, after all this sound and fury, people are going to want to see actual benefits before 2013. That might change the final price tag a bit, but probably not enough to matter. If people who were previously denied insurance can at least get some affordable catastrophic coverage, it could have payoffs in the next election.
It's as if Democrats are finally getting a clue.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:25 PM | Comments (1)
October 25, 2009
Patience, Grasshopper
After reading all the (mostly) enthusiastic reviews of Windows 7, I'm tempted to make the upgrade from XP. Yet I think I'll wait until I have a long weekend to give myself sufficient time for reformatting and reinstalling all my applications. I'm enough of a geek that I actually look forward to spending a couple days making my system all shiny with that new OS smell. That said, XP continues to work like a champ. Since I rebuilt my computer a couple years ago, it's been a paragon of stability and reliability. But I'll be able to resist the siren call of the new new thing for only so long, so XP and I will do our best to enjoy whatever time we have left.
And yes, I've also been eyeing the new iMacs. But a new iMac, along with the necessary accessibility software, would cost me close to two grand. I'd have a hard time justifying that expense, especially now that Windows 7 and OS X approaching parity in terms of features and ease of use.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:21 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2009
Jeff Bezos Finally Heard My Pleas
Like I needed another reason to sit in front of my computer all day. Amazon recently announced that it will soon be releasing a PC version of the Kindle Reader (a Mac version is also reportedly in the works). Barnes & Noble already sells e-books that can be read on a computer, but I haven't tried it because the reading software looks a little klunky. Hopefully, Kindle for the PC will be more polished. I'm still holding out for a voice- or twitch-activated reading tablet that I can take with me. Hint, hint, Mr. Jobs.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:08 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2009
So Much Drama
Senate Democrats seem poised to include a public option that includes an opt-out provision for states n the floor version of the health care bill. OMG!
The White House may be trying kill the Senate's progressive tendencies in favor of the weaker public option "trigger" in order to secure Republican Senator Olympia Snowe's vote. WTF?
This is like watching a particularly wonky episode of West Wing, only without getting to watch the urgent hallway conversations. Six weeks ago, all the smart money seemed to be on a final bill that didn't include any sort of public option. But the political process is unpredictable and chaotic. All it took was a butterfly fluttering its wings to change the climate (in this case, a Washington Post headline re-discovering that the public option is popular with voters). There's still plenty of opportunities for Democrats to get spooked and run screaming back to the political center, but for the moment, I'm cautiously optimistic.
Even if a public option with an opt-out provision passes, more battles lie ahead. Governor Pawlenty is already indicating that he would opt Minnesota out of the public option. Of course, Pawlenty knows that he'll be out of office by the time Minnesota needs to make that decision, which gives him the freedom to pander to Republican primary voters. But I hope other state Republicans take the bait. Our state already has a public option (MinnesotaCare) and it's proven to be pretty popular.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:52 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2009
Results Are In
The few of you who actually responded to yesterday's informal poll liked the idea of an advice column. So here's the deal. You send me questions and I'll pick at least one for a Friday post. Questions can cover any topic and your anonymity will be carefully preserved. I have no idea if this will turn into a regular feature; I guess that depends on your willingness to continue telling me about your problems and my ability to write responses that are both entertaining and at least somewhat useful. If nothing else, this could be an amusing experiment.
Go on, tell me everything.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2009
Attention-Seeking Behavior
I used to check my blog statistics every day, but that started to feel like I was feeding my inner narcissist, so I let a whole year go by before looking at them again. I finally allowed myself a peek at Sitemeter stats a couple days ago and discovered that, over the last twelve months, traffic to the Floor actually peaked last October with approximately 2,500 hits that month. Since then, I seem to have settled into the 1,500-1,700 range of hits per month. Not bad, but I'm still getting less hits than some grandmother in Ohio who posts the many hijinks of her cats.
So my question for all of you is this: how can I attract enough hits to pull me out of the blogosphere's basement? I've been kicking around a few ideas.
- Fishnets of the Day (readers submit alluring photos of themselves in fishnets and I publish my favorites)
- Bon Appetit (a weekly feature in which I post video of me sticking assorted disgusting fare--insects, roadkill, Velveeta--into the blender and down my g-tube with a big smile on my face)
- Moonlighting (I take up a second job and blog about my experiences. Possible careers could include medical test subject, strip club D.J., or private investigator)
- Since You Asked (a regular advice column in which readers send me questions and I do my best to pretend I have a clue)
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:58 PM | Comments (5)
October 20, 2009
Verbosity
One of my current work assignments is to review the latest version of the Senate Finance Committee health care bill. The original Chairman's Mark was written in plain language and weighed in at approximately 200 pages. The new version is over 1,500 pages. The substance hasn't changed, but the new version of the bill is written in High Legalese. And as Ezra Klein points out, it's this style of writing that makes legislation so long and difficult to read. Terms have to be defined, different sections of the bill have to cross-reference each other, subsections have to have sub-subsections, and so on and so forth. A sentence's worth of prose is probably equivalent to a paragraph's worth of legislative language. Good legislative language can and should be readable, but by its nature it's long-winded and dry.
And a special plea to Congressional staffers: I really appreciate the fact that you release bills as PDFs, but you might want to consider adding bookmarks to help us navigate through these epic documents. Scrolling through a 1,500 page bill to find a particular section is an exercise in mind-numbing tedium.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 10:11 PM | Comments (1)
October 19, 2009
Running Time
I like to think of life in narrative terms: it has a beginning, middle, and end. But let's take the analogy a little further. What if your life was measured according to the length of a popular movie? How far along would you be in the movie? Using Star Wars as my yardstick (natch) and assuming an average lifespan, I'm almost halfway through the movie. The Death Star is about to blast Alderaan into tiny pieces. But if I assume a shorter lifespan (let's say sixty years, which still seems generous), then I'm at the part where Han, Luke, and Chewie are about to rescue Princess Leia.
It's an interesting way of putting mortality into perspective. I take some consolation in the fact that I haven't missed the Rebels' assault on the Death Star. That part rules.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2009
Critic At Large: Where The Wild Things Are
Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, the book upon which the film is based, never featured prominently in my childhood, so I had only a passing familiarity with the story of Max and his journey to the island of monsters. While the source material is a children's book, I'm not sure this is the kind of film that kids will play over and over on the DVD player in the den. Max's imagination is a chaotic, melancholy, reckless place that is ruled by the peculiar logic of children. The monsters are not cuddly and fanciful Pixar creations; they are mangy and vaguely threatening. And Max's adventures on the island are not carefree and whimsical. Feelings get hurt, often unintentionally. Grand plans go awry. Sadness and loneliness find their way in.
The film's artistry is undeniable, but it didn't connect with me. The plot is necessarily flimsy and the characters are necessarily flat, but I found myself getting impatient with the movie. I kept waiting for some sort of narrative to take shape, but I think that's missing the point. The story isn't about a series of events. It's about one lonely and imaginative boy's state of mind.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2009
It Just Works. Kinda.
I cut my landline a few months ago in favor of a shiny new iPhone. I still love my phone (nothing passes the time on a three-hour flight better than being able to watch a bunch of Firefly episodes), but I'm becoming familiar with the annoyances that come from having only a cell phone. One is rather trivial: remembering to silence the ringer before going into a meeting. I've been in at least one big staff meeting where I've forgotten to do that and everyone was treated to my undeniably dorky sci-fi ringtone.
The other annoyance is more serious. In the last week or so, people have tried calling me only to be kicked into voicemail. This is particularly irksome because I live in a secure building that requires people to call me to get buzzed in. I updated the phone's operating system and things seem to be functioning normally now, but our cellular infrastructure still has a long way to go before it can match the reliability of good old copper wiring.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2009
The Student Has Become The Master
You need to go read my friend Allie's latest post on health care reform, television news, and her crush on Brian Williams. She basically punches mainstream media in the gut for its woeful coverage of the health care debate and then instructs it to get cleaned up and put some clothes on. I'm thinking of taking Allie as my padawan. I will instruct her in the ways of the Wonk. In due time, she will grow more powerful than me until she has a nationally syndicated column and a tenured position at a major university. And then she will strike me down by shooting lightning bolts out of her fingertips. After all, there can be only one.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:12 PM | Comments (1)
October 15, 2009
Exhibit A
I've said before that health care reform is of vital importance to the disability community. To further illustrate my point, I offer the case of Ian Pearl. Pearl has spinal muscular atrophy, uses a ventilator, and received private duty nursing under his father's small group insurance plan. Guardian, the insurer, cancelled insurance policies across the entire state to stop paying for high-cost beneficiaries like Pearl. One Guardian executive revealed the company's naked greed when he referred to these beneficiaries as "dogs" in an internal e-mail.
Pearl lives in Florida, which doesn't provide nursing care as part of its Medicaid program. His family is wealthy enough to continue funding his care for a few years, but that money will eventually run out. Pearl may eventually be faced with the untenable choice of entering an institution or moving to another state that does provide nursing care.
The bills under consideration wouldn't force insurers to offer nursing care as a benefit, but it could prevent this kind of large-scale rescission as a cost-cutting measure. And at some point, the feds really need to look at creating a uniform package of home care services for people with severe disabilities that is largely or completely federally funded.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2009
Hard-Boiled
James Ellroy, the crime writer noted for his L.A. Quartet of books and his American Underworld Trilogy, made an an appearance at the Fitzgerald Theater last week as part of Minnesota Public Radio's Talking Volumes series. I discovered Ellroy a few years ago and the first two volumes of his Underworld series blew me away, so I decided to get tickets for the event. Ellroy has a huge ego--he likes to refer to himself as the greatest American crime writer in history--and it was on full display during the on-stage interview. His description of his writing process was the most interesting part of the discussion. For his latest novel, he wrote a four-hundred page outline before even beginning to write the actual narrative. I find the thought of writing a page a day an overwhelming concept, which probably explains why he's a wildly successful author and I'm not.
He was kind enough to sign a copy of Blood's A Rover for me and I'll review it here at some point, although first I have to finish Gaiman's American Gods for book club.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2009
In Search Of Comfiness
I realized today that I need to make an appointment for a seating adjusted. Over the last several months, I've noticed that I'm slouching to one side even more than usual and that the sweet spot of total comfort has become more elusive. The last straw came today when I was compelled to stick an empty bottle behind my back cushion in order to give me a bit of extra support. I have a bad habit of ignoring minor discomforts until I finally get annoyed enough to jury-rig a half-assed solution and wait for an appointment with a professional. Fortunately, I'll only have to wait a couple weeks this time.
My seating system is over fifteen years old and has already been through a couple revisions, which makes me wonder how much more can be done with this old thing. It's served me well, but I no longer have the body of a man in his early twenties. Well, relatively speaking, anyway.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2009
Wined & Dined
If you've already started your holiday shopping (and really, who hasn't?) in the hopes of finding me the perfect gift, might I direct you to the pages of the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog? I've got my eye on the dinner at the Algonquin Hotel with literary and political luminaries like Malcolm Gladwell, Nora Ephron, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and George Stephanopoulous. The cost is two hundred grand, so you might want to pool your money with all my Facebook friends. I'll hold an essay contest to decide who will be my dinner companion. The topic will be "The Ninety-Nine Ways in which Mark Is Totally Awesome". Extra credit if you can make it an even hundred. Afterwards, I'll post pictures to the blog of John Lithgow drunkenly re-enacting scenes from Ricochet and of me and Stephanopoulous arm-wrestling after dessert.
C'mon, it's either this or a book that I probably won't get to for at least two or three years.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 06:55 PM | Comments (1)
October 11, 2009
Right Of Refusal
We may finally have a proposal on the table that could provide a resolution to the war of attrition on the public option. Under the proposal brought forth by Delaware senator Tom Carper, states would have the ability to opt out of the national public option if they did not with to participate. From a policy perspective, it's an imperfect but workable solution. Perhaps two-thirds of states would likely enroll in the public option immediately, giving the government a substantial customer base and corresponding bargaining power with health care providers. The downside is that some people--especially those in poorer Southern states--might not have the public option available for at least the first year or two after it goes into effect in other states.
I don't like the idea of excluding some people from a public option simply because they have the misfortune of living in a state full of Glenn Beck acolytes and conspiracy theorists, but these states might be prodded to adopt the public option once they see that it's working in other states (without an accompanying boom in communes and without any seizures of private property). Given the toxic politics surrounding this issue, this compromise might be the best way to ensure passage of a strong public option while simultaneously giving conservative the opportunity to realize the real-life consequences of their nihilistic public policy.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2009
The Rising Of The Milky Way
What happens when you combine Auto-Tune with clips from old PBS science shows? You get this surprisingly lyrical music video featuring Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. The sound they create is a melding of trip-hop and nerdcore that Kanye West would be hard-pressed to top. It makes me want to spend the rest of the afternoon on Hulu watching old Cosmos episodes.
Thanks to Kottke for the tip.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2009
Great Expectations
Matt Yglesias is right on when he writes "[h]anding Barack Obama an oddly premature Nobel Peace Prize puts the liberal blogger in your life in a bit of an awkward position." I've spent much of today sorting out my own feelings on the topic. The prize committee seemed intent on expressing their relief that Bush is no longer president, but I don't think Obama is being rewarded just for being the un-Bush. I can't imagine Hillary Clinton receiving this award if she occupied the Oval Office.
Obama has relatively few accomplishments as president thus far, but he still has great potential to leave the world a better place than he found it. Awarding him the Peace Prize is a somewhat clumsy attempt to both acknowledge his potential and pave the way for future successes. Having a Nobel laureate for a president won't make it any easier to pass a health care bill, but it might grease the diplomatic wheels just enough to get us through whatever international crises lie ahead.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2009
Contagion
I don't spend my nights lying awake and fretting about the H1N1 virus, but I do plan on getting both the seasonal and H1N1-specific flu vaccines. A handful of kids and adults in Minnesota have died in recent weeks after contracting the H1N1 virus and I have no desire to let it have a go at my unaugmented immune system. I had a garden-variety flu that landed me in the hospital about ten years ago and I've been punctual about getting vaccinated every year since then. If I had my way, I would carry a syringe and stash of vaccine serum with me wherever I went for purposes of jabbing anyone coming within a three-yard radius of me, but that's probably overkill. Instead, I want everyone who doesn't "believe" in vaccines to wear biohazard stickers on their foreheads so I know who to avoid on a daily basis.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 09:16 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2009
Let's Make A Deal
The Times' Media Decoder blog provides a brief update on the ongoing efforts to reach a settlement in the Google Books case. For those of you who haven't been following this story, Google is attempting to scan millions of out-of-print books into a ginormous digital library. The federal government, along with publishers, authors, and others, has blocked this initiative out of legitimate concerns that Google would have a monopoly over access to these digital books. The parties are now trying to reach a settlement. Most of the post is about the judge in the case setting a deadline for a settlement agreement, but the last graf contains an interesting tidbit. Under the current draft of the settlement, Google will be required to create audio editions of every book it scans. That would be a huge boon to readers who are blind or visually impaired. What's not clear is whether the audiobooks will be available for free. The deadline for an agreement is November 9th, so hopefully we'll have more details soon.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 05:50 PM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2009
Colors
If I'm going to found my own island nation, I'm going to need a flag. Something distinctive that will set it apart from the 193 other flags that are already out there. Something that will instill respect--nay, fear--in the hearts of U.N. General Assembly delegates. Something that will very clearly and elegantly lay out the consequences for illegally occupying a disability parking spot. Something like this:
: 
It gets the point across, doesn't it? Nitpickers will probably point out that this was once the flag of the Benin Empire, which faded from the scene in the late 19th century. I'm pretty sure that a flag can't be copyrighted, so I'm going to appropriate it for my own purposes.
Next step: hire a Project Runway cast-off to make me a badass general's uniform.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:40 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2009
Cause For Concern
As we saw in the last election, people vote with their pocketbooks. Democrats won big because the economy was in tatters and they didn't trust Republicans to make things better. But hopes for a quick recovery have largely vanished and Democrats may be just as likely to feel voters' wrath if unemployment keeps hovering at 10% or higher (and most economists seem to think that's pretty likely until well into next year). To put current job losses into perspective, take a look at the chart below:
The solid red line shows job losses for the current recession that began in 2007. The dotted red line shows what job losses will really look like once the Department of Labor updates its statistics. Our country faces the gargantuan task of replacing eight million jobs and counting. Liberal economists may have been right when they argued that the stimulus package should have been larger, but passing another stimulus just isn't going to happen--not after the Democrats move heaven and earth to pass a health care bill. There are other ways for the feds to create jobs, as Robert Reich points out, but I'm not sure any silver bullet exists to get people back to work other than a gradual restructuring of the economy. A lot can happen between now and next November, but Democrats need to put their collective shoulder to the wheel and give voters concrete reasons to believe they will be better off with a continued Democratic majority. Otherwise, the Know-Nothings (a more accurate appellation for the remnants of the GOP) will be swept back into power on waves of demagoguery and fear.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2009
Final Stretch
I took a break from health care blogging while the Senate Finance Committee went about the ponderous business of crafting its own version of a bill, but expect me to start wonking out in the coming days and weeks as the debate moves from the committees to the floors of both chambers as well the closed-door conference rooms where the real negotiations will take place. I'd love to see every bargaining session broadcast on C-SPAN, but our form of representative democracy has never trusted the electorate enough to be comfortable with full transparency. Still, I'm expecting the floor debates to provide the kind of theater that will have Daily Show writers clapping their hands with unrestrained glee. I also expect that the media will declare negotiations deadlocked at least once before a bill gets signed. I remain confident that a bill will get signed and it might even be a pretty good bill.
I'm not sure how the politics of this will play out, though. Most bill provisions don't take effect for a few years and it seems really awkward to tell voters that they need to hold on for a while longer before they can get health care. I'm sure Obama's advisers are paying attention to the problem, but I hope they come up with something that will provide tangible benefit to people in the short-term.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2009
Consumer Affairs
The credit card companies, which are experiencing declining revenues as more people default on their balances or simply stop using credit, are becoming more reliant on fees as a profit booster. I have firsthand knowledge of this trend after I discovered that, in my haste to get ready for my trip to California, I forgot to pay my Chase bill and my corporate masters hit me with a $39 late fee. I'm a punctual bill-payer, so I called Chase in an attempt to get the fee waived. Both the customer rep and a supervisor flatly denied my request. I just e-mailed Chase with the same request, but I doubt I'll get a different result.
My own experience is a minor nuisance compared to the incessant phone calls my pro bono clients are receiving from credit card companies. For many of them, the calls start in the early morning and don't stop until late in the evening. It's unlikely they'll collect anything from my clients, which only illustrates how desperate these corporations are to maintain their bottom lines.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2009
I Was Blogging When These Kids Were Still Watching SpongeBob
Oh, to be young, articulate, and scary-smart. M.I.T. is employing student bloggers to write posts about student life, which can be read by interested high school students who are considering applying to the school. And check out this snippet from the article:
The M.I.T. student bloggers have different majors, ethnicities, residence halls and, particularly, writing styles. Some post weekly or more; others disappear for months. The bloggers are sought out as celebrities during the annual “Meet the Bloggers” session at Campus Preview Weekend.
Clearly, I was born a couple decades too soon. Imagine the fanbase I could have accumulated as my school's blogger-in-residence. Imagine the groupies! Then again, the Catholic liberal arts college I attended might not have been thrilled with frequent references to fishnets and other such subversive content.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2009
I Blame Tolkien For This
I've written before about my plans to establish an island haven for fellow cripples, but I've made little progress in actually realizing this goal. A group of Chinese little people appear to have appropriated my idea for their own purposes. They've established a sort of little-people enclave in southern China and have turned themselves into a tourist attraction by living in mushroom houses and dressing up like fairy tale characters.
I really need to get on the ball with my island nation idea, if for no other reason than to get these people some foreign aid so that they can stop humiliating themselves. I may be forced to send in humanitarian forces if this kind of thing continues.
Posted by wintermute2_0 at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)