It took me long enough, but I finally ordered myself a copy of Derrick Ferguson’s DILLON AND THE VOICE OF ODIN and picked up the brand spankin’ new FRONTIER PUBLISHING PRESENTS #1.

You can get your own over at the Frontier Store. And if you act now, you can get a free Dillon and the Escape from Tosegio chapbook! And tell ‘em Jason sent ya.

So I stopped by the studio on my way to the library to do some reading and noticed the computer in the booth was down. Now, this computer is the one that holds all of the station’s music and feeds the livestream. So we had ourselves some dead-air and Lord knows when it started. So I’ve popped in a safe disk, will probably start another in about 5 minutes and then leave it at that, 80 minutes later we’ll be dead again unless one of the station folks stops by and fixes things.

Then again, I’m not sure it can be fixed today. It seems the computer is having a “reading disk error”, and considering there is no disk in any of it’s drives, I’m assuming that’s the C:/ drive disk. Which means that computer’s fucked.

Which means that whoever on the faculty end handles ordering our new equipment should do so sooner rather than later. Cause the order’s in, they just need to do the paperwork.

Joy.

Commonwealth Watch shared the link to the Virginia State Board of Elections site where you can see the results of yesterday’s electronic filing of fundraising reports. CW says:

Just from glancing through a couple of the GOP primary races with an anti-tax challenger, the theme seems to be VCAP/Prominent Conservative Donors v. Leadership for Virginia/Senate Leadership. It looks like Parrish took a $1,000 check from Chichester, so we’ll eagerly await any new campaign materials from Chapman that informs GOP Primary voters of this fact. My mind is swirling with ideas already.

Leadership for Virginia’s contributions (according to SBE this morning)

Joe May - $5k
George Oder - $10k
Harry Parrish - $10k
Paula Miller - $10k
Bobby Orrock - $10k
Edward Scott - $10k

Virginia Conservative Action PAC contributions:
Steve Chapman - $6,420.60 in kind
Chris Craddock - $1,000 (another $7,531 in kind)
Mark Jarvis - $11,000 (another $6,667.40 in kind)
Chris Oprison - $13,500 (another $7,058 in kind)

Again, though, this is just electronically filed and up on SBE as of this morning. Keep your eyes on VPAP throughout the week for the full results, especially Shaun’s.

Is anyone really surprised that this is not just a Tom Delay thing? This kinda activity is as old as the nation itself. Is it right? Well, if the family member is actually WORKING for the politician and they’re being paid competitively within the position, then, yes, it’s very right. If they’re just getting money for the hell of it, well, then you have a problem.

The DCist said it best:

First in War, First in Peace, First in the National League

Sure it’s early. But I’ll take it.

My biggest issue is the only way I can listen to Nationals’ games is if they’re playing the Braves. Stupid Richmond radio.

President Clinton rebuked Couric for repeating Republican claim of Democratic “obstructionism” of judicial nominees

COURIC: Right now it seems the most effective thing that Democrats are doing on Capitol Hill is blocking various nominations, at least from their perspective. Like, you know, John Bolton, or — U.S. ambassador to the U.N. — or head of the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency], or the head of the FDA [Food and Drug Administration]. How can the Democratic Party retool itself so they’re not simply seen as obstructionist in terms of the president’s agenda?

CLINTON: Well, first of all, I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think Mr. [John] Negroponte [nominee for national intelligence director] will be blocked. I’m not sure Mr. Bolton will be blocked. There are policy reasons on the environment and food safety for debates on the others. And on judges, that’s just a hoax. I mean, the Democrats blocked 10 out of over 200 judges. The Republicans wouldn’t even give a vote to 40 of my Court of Appeals judges — four times as many, just on the Court of Appeals, never mind all the others that they wouldn’t have voted. So, this image that, I’m sad to say, you know, you just perpetrated it, it’s ridiculous. The Democratic Senate has been nowhere near as obstructionist to President Bush on judges as the Republican Senate was to me. Not even close.

How can the Democratic Party retool it’s publicity so they’re not simply seen as obstructionist in terms of the president’s agenda?

It’s all about spin and the Democrats have been losing in that area for years.

So I’m all set with my classes for Summer/Fall. Just need to get that whole financial aid thing out of the way.

Anyways, here’s what the rest of 2005 looks like for me:

Summer A:
SPAN-101-002 4.00 ELEMENTARY SPANISH MTWRF 0800-1025AM

Summer B:
SPAN-102-003 4.00 ELEMENTARY SPANISH MTWRF 0800-1025AM

An entire year of Spanish in two months. I hate life. But it must be done.

Fall:
ENGL-391-001 3.00 TOP: GRAPHIC NOVEL R 0700-0940PM
HIST-107-001 3.00 SURVEY OF EAST ASIAN CI TR 1230-0145PM
HIST-300-003 3.00 INTRO HISTORICAL STUDY TR 0200-0315PM
PHYS-291-001 3.00 TOP:OUTREACH-RICH ELEM TR 1100-1215PM
SPAN-201-907 3.00 INTERMEDIATE SPANISH MW 0700-0815PM

Upper-level History selections seemed pretty sparse this time around so I’m just getting some of my other requirements out of the way. The Graphic Novel class looks interesting because, well, it appeals to my inner dork. Hell, my outer dork. It’s taught by Tom DeHaven, author of Durby Duggan’s Depression Funnies, among other things. I just cite that one because I’ve read it.

I wrote a computer science paper for the hell of it.

Ah, here we go again. Better today, had more fun with it and feel better about it than yesterday’s.

OneWord

More…

Wow, two days in a row. I might start making this a habit.

Not that good today, stumbled a bit in the middle and had to kinda rush at the end. Ah well.

Try it yourself before reading my post at OneWord:

More…

The guy a couple houses down from me is out on his porch, playing his steel guitar and singing real purty like. Makes me ashamed to even go touch my guitar and pretend to be a musician.

Today’s OneWord was interesting. I was hurting for something to say for the first ten seconds but then it came:

More…

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050407_old_star.html

An old star that’s been reborn has surprised researchers by flying through the process 100 times faster than predicted.

The star is a white dwarf, an aged Sun-like star that has used up its nuclear fuel and collapsed. A teaspoon of its material would weigh about 10 tons here on Earth.

The star, named V4334 Sgr, in the constellation Sagittarius. It is better known as “Sakurai’s Object,” after Japanese amateur astronomer Yukio Sakurai, who discovered it on Feb. 20, 1996, when it became suddenly bright. It’s the first such outburst observed in modern times.

Theory predicts the star’s nuclear furnace had re-ignited for one last blast.

Hey, folks, just your friendly neighborhood J~ testing out this
“update by e-mail” thing Blogger offers. Let’s see how it does and
looks and all that jazz. As you were.

UPDATE: Wow, that’s kinda ugly, isn’t it? Okay, last resort, but don’t expect me to do that too much. I mean, if I have access to my e-mail I probably have access to Blogger and such…

A great panorama shot of St. Peter’s Square at the time of the Pope’s death.