I'm back in Tweed now — it seems the power died while I was gone. I'm expecting to have my satellite access restricted shortly — 2013 emails are currently downloading, and judging by how long it took my POP server to respond, it's a rather massive pile. I can't wait to see all the photos from yesterday's BBQs. If you can get your pictures in to me today I'll try and slip a couple pix in.
Anyway, I had an awesome weekend in Toronto — thanks to everyone who came bowling, as well to those who came and helped ID people in the scrapbook. I'm going to blitz that today and get all the corrections in place hopefully.
Saturday, October 26, 2002
First of all — wow — I'm on a highspeed low-latency connection for the first time in a month+, and I'm blown away at how fast everything is. I know it's only about a second of latency in general on the satellite, but having effectively ZERO latency is awesome… As much as I really don't want to be in the city, this really shows me that I need to be to continue this development. With a low latency connection I can really feel what the server is doing.
Anyway, today is ID party and bowling day… Details are in the events section (and linked from my main description above). Late arrivers for bowling are welcome.
I guess everyone knows the sad news about Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane crash… A short recap of the events leading up to it, which you can interpret as you see fit:
- Wellstone is called on to vote for or against war on Iraq. He's anti-war, but all of his advisors tell him it's political suicide to vote with that attitude, especially considering he was facing a close election. He votes what he believes, and casts his vote against war. Luckily his constituents appreciate the vote, and it helps him and he becomes more popular. (full story).
- Bush et al (who had taken an active personal role in this campaign because of Wellstone's prominence as one of the few vocal anti-war Senators) were not thrilled about his vote, and even less thrilled about his public's support of it — it made it clear that average Americans, if they felt they were allowed to, were in support of an anti-war platform. Shortly after, Wellstone is killed in a plane crash. (full story).
Like I said, interpret it as you see fit, but I think the message was sent very clearly about what happens if you successfully oppose this war. (If you'd like more on Wellstone, most of cursor's links today are relevant). This next part I'm going to tell you about is where it gets really freaky.
While the liberal churches are on the whole opposed to the war, as well as of America's extreme support of Israel (another $10 billion was just pledged for “support of Israel”, right?), the far Christian right are extreme supporters both of Israel and of war in the Middle East. If you want the answer why, read Revelations (ie. the “conclusion” of the Bible).
For the apocalypse to happen, Israel must be rebuilt as a Jewish state, which along with war in the Middle East will bring about the second coming of Jesus and the triumph of heaven. (full story). The crazy punch line is that Bush's extremist Christian team has been quite publicly saying this since day one… Does no one care that the country is in part being run by religious lunatics who are doing their damndest not to bring about world peace, but to bring about the apocalypse?
First of all, I've posted all the relevant details about the bowling and ID party event. The specific location info for the ID party has been IM'd to everyone on the list. If you're signing up late, just ask one of them as I'll only be only sporadically before then. The book's still pretty grobschnitt but it's at the point where I'm comfortable putting it up for a final edit run.
On the train ride up to Toronto (that's right, I have to commute to my own event!) I'll be working on the index for the scrapbook. The index is an online companion to the scrapbook — it allows you to type in a username and it'll tell you every page that it's on. Not only that, but you can type in a page and get extra info on all the photos (like full credits, background info, etc.). You can even make comments about pictures — it's an interactive index.
The index also shows the pages, so as to make IDing easier. Please note though that it uses a password system, so you can't access it unless you get the book. It's sort of a goofy system, but I think effective (it'll say things like “on page 337, one the 2nd line in the right column, what is the first word?”).
Now, here's a pile of pages… I should say that about 200 hardcovers and 100 softcovers are pre-sold. If you just want the softcover you don't have anything to worry about probably as I'll run a total of 500 books with the softcovers flushing out the run. But if you want a hardcover, you need to reserve it within the week!
One thing I like about this scrapbook is that it's so damn big (2200 images and 40,000 words of text at last count) is that I can post sample pages pretty much endlessly without running out or spoiling the book.
Thursday, October 24, 2002
OK, two more photos (I'm counting the last two as one as it's the same general group). The first is from the Philly bowling, and the second and third are from NYC… Please make sure you say which photo set you mean (in the Whatever forum). Good luck!
Update: In the first pic I still need 7, and 10. In the NYC pix I need 20. The rest are all ID'd (thanks again!).
Thursday, October 24, 2002
Below are the ModProm photos that I couldn't identify. I shouldn't really say “couldn't identify” — for most of the people I'm pretty sure I know who they are, but I don't want to make a mistake since people look different than in real life when they're all dressed up.
Anyway, if you know any of those, please post your answers in the Whatever forum (then there won't be too much repetition). I'll have a few more ID's to do later today (don't worry there will be lots left over for the party).