I've been reading about other states' propositions that'll be on the ballot Tuesday. In addition to California's Proposition H8 (here's where I say why you should vote no if you're in the state) that's getting all the ink (Mark Evanier talks about it (with a small correction here, and why it's so wasteful to devote so much money and resources toward these propositions). In Missouri there's a proposition to overturn the spending limit at casinos ($500 that's reset every two hours) and Paul Harris writes why this should pass, mainly that the government shouldn't tell people how to spend their money, and it inconviences far more than it helps. And Ohio has a proposition that maintains the interest cap on lending to stop predatory lending practices, and why voting yes will continue to stop it.
And while we're on the subject of the God's Politics blog I haven't mentioned James Dobson's "Letter From The Year 2012" here for a lot of the reasons mentioned here, also I didn't think much of the fear that a more liberal President will appoint more liberal judges to the Supreme Court, while conservitives will appoint those more in line with a way of thinking. This was further reinforced by my research finding that 4 of the justices at the time of the Roe v. Wade ruling were appointed by Nixon, hardly a liberal bastion. And here's their response, a letter written this year that should've been sent back to 2000.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you approve of how the past 8 years have went, vote McCain. If you're ready for a change for the better, vote Obama.

I went to see Zack And Miri Make A Porno today. It was pretty good. If you're going to the movies this weekend and not sure which movie to see, see Changeling. If you can see two, also see Zack and Miri. I don't know why I feel ambient about the movie. I went to the first showing today at the theatre and was the only one in the theatre. It was showing on two screens, so I don't know how many went to the other theatre. It felt like I had my own private screening room, but it would've been more fun to see a comedy like this with others. Maybe I'll try it again when it hits the five buck club at Kerasotes. Another theatre close to the one where I saw the movie today must be feeling the pinch from the competition, as they now offer all matinees for $5, and evening shows at $7. The other theatre has matinees for $6.75 with twilight shows (4-6pm) for $5. I don't know if I will try it again or not.

Every week Buy.com has a sale on a variety of items at prices that anyone can realize is a good deal. You hear about sales online all the time, only to get to the site and realize there isn't a much of a savings, if there's any at all. Sometimes you know right off the top of your head that you can get a better deal somewhere else. Worse, a couple of clicks confirm it for you. Or it's a sale on merchandise that you realize is a great deal, but it's on high ticket items that you couldn't afford to get in the best of circumstances.
But these deals run the gamut, there's something for everybody. Whether you're looking to get the next generation of televisions, they've got a Westinghouse 37" 1080p TV for $569.99. The thing is, that we have a big entertainment center that we spent a lot of money and time putting together and getting into the house (even stubbing my wife's toe bringing it in) that would keep us from getting it. From their detailed descriptions on the page, I was able to measure the spot where it would go in the center, and it's just too big. Plus, we don't have that kind of money right now. But if I did a lot of traveling, even around my neck of the woods, one thing I'd love to get would be this Magellan RoadMate 2200T for only $69.99 after rebate. Not only can it give you the best route to take from point A to point B, but it can tell you the street name to turn on, you can hook up your digital music player to it to play music, and with a subscription you can be appraised of any unexpected traffic jams and best alternate routes to take. And it's about $60 cheaper than the next available merchant, and free shipping if you buy from Buy. So see what they've got on sale. You can find all sorts of good deals for yourself and presents for the holidays.

The Consumerist has this post about locksmiths that makes you think. I didn't realize they were so unregulated. As I wrote before, I had locked the keys in the trunk the first time I went to the Chicago Comicon, and I was so frantic to get the keys out since we were just there for the day. While the price was high, it didn't change from what I was told over the phone, and it was 4th of July weekend. I'd hate to think what would've happened if what was described in this post happened to me. I carry a spare key to get into my vehicle and I do have AAA. Maybe I should make sure I have a spare if I happen to take another vehicle on a trip. Check out the post and see about the other tips they offer. Luck favors the prepared. Or to look at it another way, it's like being Batman with contingency plans and all that.

For those whose hobbies involve the great outdoors, Nikon's All Terrain Binoculars (ATB) line is just the thing to have. They're held in high regard for their precision optics, great ruggedness and incredible value. And if that isn't enough, there's a Nikon ATB Promotion going on now where if you buy a qualify ATB until December 31, 2008 they'll send you a $25 or $50 gift card that you can use to buy men’s and women’s outdoor and casual garments, optics accessories and other high performance gear. Either accessorize your binoculars or yourself with your free gift card. Get a great ATB that'll serve you while you're out and about outdoors, and get great extras to boot with your gift card.

I was on another of my internet walkabouts that started when Mark Gibson pointed me to another blogger named Ben Varkentine. That's how I usually find new bloggers to read.
One of his posts point out that today is Right To Marry Day, where bloggers are to write in support of marriage equality for same-sex couples and against Proposition 8 in California. The high courts in California had ruled that same sex couples were allowed to get married, and as a result, those that oppose it got Prop 8 on the ballots to get it overturned. I've never dealt too much with things like that on our ballots in Indiana, but I've heard comedians and other people talk about how clumsily worded with the double/triple/quadruple/ad infinitum negatives that people don't know how to vote what they think. Fortunately, Prop 8 isn't like that, and voting no to keep it from taking effect will suffice. The first I heard of it was from Mark Evanier's blog where he expressed confidence that it wouldn't pass. Unfortunately, it was gathered more ground that he and others thought, and there is a possibility that it would pass.

Where do I start about what I've said about this sort of thing in the past...? Back when the marriage amendment was being bandied about as having to be added to the Constitution, I had pointed out that as The Daily Show and others have said, the Constitution works when it grants rights, not take them away. The last time it was tried was Prohibition and we know how well that turned out. I have maintained that those opposed to same sex marriage got a copy of the arguments against interracial marriage and crossed out "interracial" with their crayon and wrote "gay" above it. It's the same arguments: what's next, people will want to marry animals? Children? There hasn't been an outbreak (or any case) I heard of of people wanting to do that because interracial marriage was allowed. Ivy McCloud wrote a great entry about refuting those arguments. And it wasn't just interracial marriage where the majority was against it and therefore it is wrong. Women voting was like that, as well. The 19th Amendment (an amendment that granted rights, I may add) to allow women to vote passed in 1920, less than 100 years ago. Arlene Franks wrote a post about the struggle on that. It wasn't all picket signs. And there was this post I wrote about going to see Margaret Cho in Muncie, where opening act Bruce Daniels pointed out that he pays taxes, but he's denied equal rights.
A lot of regular readers here might wonder how it goes with being married to a fundamentalist Christian. Well, we disagree. But the way I see it, if Governator Arnold and Maria Shriver can still make it work... But there are instances where Kathy isn't repelled by the idea. We was watching the syndicated Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and they had a female contestant from California who was playing to get a better house for her wife who had MS. Caring for someone and wanting to get a house were two things she's very interested in. And she liked the picture from Peter David's blog when they went to George Takei's wedding. But she was put off by Julie Brown's song "The Ex-Beauty Queen's Got A Gun" with it's in your face style. I've wrote about the song before, and thought it was great she was able to release it via the web and be the main beneficiary of her music, but the style was in your face, as my friend Kenny once said about the original Star Trek episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" with the last 2 of a race fighting because each is black on one side, but white on the other but the opposite of the other, where they take the topic and beat you over the head with it. One thing that I think would help a lot of people in the discussions on the matter would be to get to the heart of the matter, maybe not be so confrontational. One post that caught my eye was by John Rogers called Learn to say "ain't". It started with advice he was given when he was toiling in the field of standup, but he says the advice can be applied to real world matters, such as political discussions. It is a concept that takes a bit to grasp, and he does a follow up post to clarify it. Basically, it's not a fancy trick or way to fool people, "about boiling your idea down to what really matters. This is not about lying -- this is about telling the truth in a more effective manner." That's one reason why I like to quote the part of Sen. Obama's nomination acceptance speech about how we can all agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters should be able to visit each other in the hospital, and live a life free from fear and discrimination. I think most everybody can get behind that.
There is going to be a struggle until it is accepted. Eventually it'll be like interracial marriage and women voting, where it'll be accepted and people will be amazed when they learned it wasn't and there was a fight to get those rights. Like in Santa Claus Is Coming To Town where history swept away the Burgermeister Meisterberger and his law banning toys in the town.
Final Note: I had actually started writing this around noon, but had to go out to do grocery shopping and take care of some business. And then about the time I finished writing this, I realized that today is the 30th, not the 29th. I still think this is something worth writing about, and even though the date has passed, hopefully some of you will talk about it as well. And if you live in California, vote no on Prop 8. And in the other states with similar initiatives, either this election day or in the future, please vote no on those as well. The United States of America is about granting freedoms, not taking them away. And although my wife and I disagree on this issue, and have discussed it in the past, it hasn't done anything to damage our marriage. Maybe everyone elses' has a chance.

No matter what shape the economy is in, small businesses know the importance of custom business signs to advertise their business, sales, etc. to let customers know what they have to offer them. Instead of making a sign from cardboard and markers (or like in the movie Clerks with a sheet and shoe polish) you can have Build A Sign make one for you that will look a lot better and attract more clientele.

Years of speculating have finally come true: David Tennant leaving Doctor Who at the end of the 4 specials for next season. Everybody's been speculating about his leaving and who would replace him since shortly after he resumed the role. And I don't want to be obsessed with politics, but everyone speculating about the 2012 elections, just stop. We're tired of thinking about this election. But speaking of 2012, if England's hosting the Summer Olympics, get Tennant to light the Olympic torch.
On a lighter note (and we've got a couple of months until the next special/episode) this week's "Retail" Halloween storyline begins here.

Have you got a phone number, but need more information? Maybe you need to find out whose number it is. Or maybe it's a friend's phone number, but for some reason you don't have their address, and at this point you don't want to ask them what's their address. That's where a service like Reverse Phone Lookup comes in handy. You can get the informaton you want.

I went to a preview showing of Changeling that starts showing outside of the major cities this Friday. I had been interested since I found out J. Michael Straczynski wrote the script. I had been a fan since he wrote the scriptwriting columns for Writer's Digest, before Captain Power, even before Babylon 5. NPR has a piece on him, with their resident comics fans commenting. A good piece that reflects well on him and comics.
And that the movie is based on a true story of Christine Collins, who finds her son missing. Even though the LAPD refuses to get involved for the first 24 hours, when they do, and Collins uses her break time at work calling police departments across the country, 5 months later they say the child is found. Unfortunately, when she sees him, it doesn't look like him at all. And the reactions on both parties is too cold. Kathy was more affectionate when she woke me up this morning to take her to work, and she hadn't seen me since I left around 3:30 the previous afternoon. Of course, the police act like they had to make the bad PR disappear than any interest in solving the case, so her insistence that it isn't her son only makes them more determined to say that it is. Even with the assistance of a radio minister (John Malkovich) who rails against local corruption, she ends up being committed as a "code 12" at the mental institution, a woman who inconveniences the LAPD that they want to sweep under the rug. Meanwhile, a case involving a runaway Canadian boy found at a chicken farm and is about to be extradited takes a sinister turn...
This is a movie worth seeing. Even at almost 2 1/2 hours, the time just went by and I was in the theatre the whole time. If you're looking for a movie to see and Changeling is one of the choices, it's worth seeing. And I can imagine with the theme of women being marginalized being hit on in the movie from time to time, if it does win any major Oscar awards that at least one acceptance speech will hit on that again with a sledgehammer.
However, Massawyrm didn't like Changeling because it wasn't Kafka or Ellroy. That happens sometimes when you get an expectation of a movie and it turns out to be something else and it doesn't work out for you. But I can see some of where he's coming from. When I told Kathy about what the movie was about before I saw it, there was some question as to whether the returned boy was actually not her son, or if it was in her mind. I had to explain that that wasn't a path the film wasn't taking.

To the general public, the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Las Vegas isn't golf. But they're actually home to some of the best courses in the country such as Siena Golf Club and Arroyo at Red Rock, among others. What's even better are these Golf Packages where you get your vacation all set up before you leave so you can concentrate on your game.

And if you want to change some part of your package, they can work with you on that, as their packages are customizable. So you can set up the dream vacation the way you want it and just concentrate on having fun and improving your game.

Gang, when I said don't let up until November 5th, I was making the point to keep going until the day after Election Day, not the day this flyer says Democrats are supposed to go to the polls. And the dirty tricks are growing more and more common, such as African-Americans being told they could be arrested if they vote in Philadelphia and back in March college students in Colorado were told they couldn't register to vote in that state if their parents claimed them as dependents in another state (link goes to Time magazine's cover story this week "7 Things That Could Go Wrong On Election Day"). And in this article previously linked in this post there is some factual basis on some people being turned away from the polls for wearing anything demonstrating support for a particular candidate. For instance, Texas has laws against passive electioneering. I would suggest, much as it would be cool like wearing a football jersey to the game or your favorite t-shirt to a comics convention, to not have anything like that to vote and show your support where it counts: in the voting booth. And if your vote on screen doesn't reflect what you wanted, demand that it does. And instead of another rehash of what I've said before (basically speaking of demanding your right to vote, no provisional ballots) here's a link to last night's post, with some respite links from the election.
And I wish to add my applause to Florida Governor Charlie Crist for extending early voting hours in Florida even though it may cost fellow Republican McCain the state.
But like I said earlier don't let up yet. Dick Polman has this reality check (summary: a focus group of Ohio undecided voters conducted a few days ago had 7 of the 12 saying they'll vote for McCain). And Wil Wheaton had this video on his site:

If you don't have any life insurance, or if you're looking to improve or change your coverage, why not see what term life insurance has to offer you? You can shop and compare rates online. Even if you have adequate coverage it wouldn't hurt to see if you could get a better deal.

Geoffrey D. Wessel points out this test animation done based on the comic Transmetropolitan done by Noodle Soup Productions (of Venture Bros fame). It's not bad, as he says. It's different art than the comic, but I don't see how they could pull off that level of art that would lose something on the TV screen, make the animators go mad, or take forever for an episode to broadcast if they somehow kept their marbles. I'd watch something like this because I am such a sucker for comic book adaptations that I'm still there drinking up every last bit of it. Even watching the X-Men movies and going further back watching the Spider-Man live action series where a good chunk of each episode had Spidey traipsing across the same rooftops and the same footage (and don't get me started on the webshooter on his right hand only, and on the outside). There's a reason why they didn't trot those episodes out when the movies came out, even though they were done by Universal and they own the Sci-Fi Channel (and you've seen what they show).

When an artist performs either in the studio or live on tour they want to make sure that the microphones work and there are no problems. Anyone who's seen the Madonna tour film Truth or Dare knows that mic problems can even happen to the best of them (and those who would debate the example chosen, the point is that one doesn't usually associate microphone problems with entertainers of that calibre, but happens to them nonetheless, thus reinforcing the point:) and that they are concerned that their equipment is top notch and is able to get the job done.
That's why many quality entertainers choose Audix instrument microphones to use in their recording and touring. Performing artists such as the Blue Man Group (any fan of the show Arrested Development who's followed the travails of Tobias as he yearned to perform as a part of the group can see that they only want the best performers and equipment) and Christian rock group Pillar (which is one of the ones my wife likes) who insist on an all Audix stage when they tour. So with those professionals and many others who want Audix microphones, there's got to be something to it.

Here in Indiana we don't have any deposits on cans and 2 liters. Some states have them, but they're usually for a nickle. I first heard about it on a family trip to visit relatives in Michigan, where they offer 10 cent deposit. My brother and I tried to think up a plan to bring our cans and 2 liter jugs to Michigan to take advantage of it, but nothing really came of it, like most people who find out about it. There was even an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer tried to capitalize on that nickle difference. But nowadays there's a lot of people riding that extra deposit gravy train to Michigan, and it's draining their funds. They lose out on $10 million a year for environmental cleanup because of that.

There are a lot of things that people can do to spruce up their house. One way is to get new furniture. One thing that would work well with those kitchens that have the islands that stick out is to get some Bar Stools to put on one side. I know that that suggestion might put some people out. My wife and I aren't drinkers. But even she agrees that even with the different styles of Bar Furniture to choose from, there's something for everyone, and in styles that's certainly not going to entice anyone to drink. She really liked the chair and 2 tables that are pictured on their home page, and thought it would look really good in our home. And there were all sorts of kitchen sets to choose from that would really look good in our kitchen. And this is a great site to buy from. They offer toll-free help, and free shipping on your order until December 2008. They have such a variety of styles, they're sure to have one that'll catch your eye.

Apparently the bad weather that stopped game 5 of the World Series last night is continuing. The game scheduled tonight is cancelled, and currently rescheduled to tomorrow night. And although Fox has given The Sarah Connor Chronicles a full-season pickup, don't you think they wish they could cancel the World Series?
Not that I've been following any of this, anyway. I'm just putting it out there for those of you who do. Plans right now is to pick up a pass to see Changeling tonight, which is one of the movies that I've been looking forward to for a long time, because it's written by J. Michael Straczynski.

Are you getting phone calls that annoy you? Telemarketers, debt collectors, phone survey company, or somebody else? Just get a phone number on the caller ID with no other identification? Use www.reportphonenumbers.com to report that phone number and see if you can find out whose number it is. Let others know about it.