Okay, I confess. I’m bad, bad blogger. I do not deserve to even have a blog, but it’s my webspace and I figured out how to install and configure WordPress all by lonesome (tough job, that…or not so much) - so I am going to continue to have a blog. Like a mistreated spouse or a disheartened electorate, you’re just going to have to accept my apologies and promise that things will improve. Really baby, I mean it this time.
Until I can get rolling with that promise though, I’ll just give you a nice long braindump in this one post. Ready? Okay.
Halloween rocks…
This past weekend, we held the second annual Halloween party at our place. It was lots of fun, and we had a lot of guests. Chips and dip were eaten, much imbibing was done and we managed to dirty every single shot glass we own (which is…well, no small number).
We only managed to get a few pictures, but I’ve put those up in Ye Olde Coppermine Gallery. Expect that particular album to grow a little, as other folks who had cameras at the party will probably be sending me their photos sometime soon (hopefully).
Our friends Chris and Amber came down for most of the weekend. We hit the bar on Friday night to celebrate Amber’s 21st birthday, then they stayed over and attended the party on Saturday. Amber got this good picture of Chris, Jessi and myself - which happens to also be the only decent picture of my costume to be captured during the party.
I was supposed to be a Cthulhu cultist, patterned (loosely) after this drawing. Of course, me being as large as I am and not a leatherworker, I had to make some changes. I think it turned out decently enough, although the mask was a bit less shiny in person than it appears in the photograph. The only major downside was that it was impossible for me to wear my glasses and the mask at the same time. Having not gone without my glasses for any period of time since the age of 10 (aside from showering and sleeping, of course), I found that without them my eyes still tried to focus in on everything…resulting in a really killer headache after about five minutes of wear. So I spent most of the night without the mask, donning it only for photographs or to show friends as they showed up for the party.
Jessi (in the middle of the photo) is a Deep One, and Chris is obviously a bottle of Captain Morgan (his favorite alcoholic refreshment).
Anyway, that was our weekend. We had a great time, and I hope everyone who joined us did as well.
Holy crap, this is really scary
I’m going to encourage everyone to head over to Ars Technica and read this article by Jon Stokes about the vulnerabilities of modern e-voting systems in the United States. You know how they say that you’re not being paranoid if everyone really is out to get you? Well, you’re not being paranoid if the scariest election scenario you can think of is actually possible.
“What if I told you that it would take only one person—one highly motivated, but only moderately skilled bad apple, with either authorized or unauthorized access to the right company’s internal computer network—to steal a statewide election? You might think I was crazy, or alarmist, or just talking about something that’s only a remote, highly theoretical possibility. You also probably would think I was being really over-the-top if I told you that, without sweeping and very costly changes to the American electoral process, this scenario is almost certain to play out at some point in the future in some county or state in America, and that after it happens not only will we not have a clue as to what has taken place, but if we do get suspicious there will be no way to prove anything. You certainly wouldn’t want to believe me, and I don’t blame you.”
Are you scared yet? If not, go back and read that quote again - then read the article. Then download the .pdf of the article (Ars link, my mirror) and send it to your Congressperson. Srsly.
Speaking of politics…
For us Americans, Election Day is rapidly approaching. Since I don’t know when I’ll be able to post again, I’ll get this out of the way now.
GET OUT AND VOTE NEXT WEEK, YO.
Seriously. I don’t even care who you’re voting for - even if they’re Republicans ;)
Do yourself a favor before you decide on who you’re voting for, though. Visit Project Vote Smart and find out a bit about your congressional candidates (they have both State and Federal legislators listed).
It’s very handy if you have a hot-button issue that you are particularly keen on. For example, I keep track of civil liberties issues pretty closely and would be hard pressed to vote for any national legislator who voted in favor of any number of “national security” bills that have corroded our freedoms over the last four years.
Anyway, get educated and go vote.
If you’re sick of the Republicans but don’t trust the Democrats to fix things, I’ll include my obligatory plug for the Libertarian Party here. They’re not a panacea to what’s ailing us, but read a bit about their positions and look up some candidates and your area (maybe take the Nolan Test…although it’s certainly not definitive). You just might find out that we have something to offer you afterall.
Egads, it be fire (err…sort of)!
This morning, we were evacuated from our building for a couple of hours. I guess some knucklehead working on the ductwork caught some insulation on fire and the airhandling system sucked all the smoke into the rest of the building.
Nothing more interesting than me having to eat in the other building’s cafeteria happened, though. If you want to read about it, you can hit up this Indianapolis Star story or this WTHR story (I’m actually in this video for second or two…right around the 1:39 mark - look for the big fat guy in a yellow shirt).
That’s all for now. I’ll see if I can get back to posting regularly. Have a good one!
