Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

Well, sort of. I had it on and listened while I cleaned my kitchen floor. (It was quite dirty and needed at least an hour to clean, even with a steam cleaner.) Sen. McCain had the gloves off and he was no-holds-barred that night. Sen. Obama just took it all in stride.

Some of the things I heard -- or heard about -- that still bother me, three days after the debate:
1) At no time during the debate did McCain discuss the middle class, or even say the words "middle class". I know, that's not the GOP constituency. But it's a significant part of the country.
2) When referring to people who supported abortion rights, McCain used the label "pro-abortion". Excuse me? The accepted label is "pro-choice". Ask any card-carrying member of NARAL if they are pro-abortion, and I'd wager that most will vehemently tell you they're not.

As for the GOP commercials that have been airing recently -- the ones that don't feature McCain saying "I approved this message" -- I think they should change their tagline to "The Republican National Committee is responsible for the flinging of this piece of elephant dung." I remember one senator from Illinois who had no executive experience. His name was Abraham Lincoln.

This meme came from daisy_knotwise. I've done this one before. Time to do it again.

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (evenif we don't speak often or ever) please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me.

It can be anything you want - good or bad - BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE.

When you're finished, post this little paragraph in your LJ and see what your friends come up with.

Apparently the problem is bigger than I originally thought. The parent company of WDTN -- LIN TV -- pulled their station's signals from Time Warner Cable systems in 11 different markets. Not just Dayton. Not just Buffalo. If your station is listed on LIN TV's page on Wikipedia, you're probably affected.

Here's MediaWeek's take on the story.

And here's LIN TV's version.

Time to get those rabbit ears.

Shout-outs: Happy birthday dragonfeydaile!

Last Friday, Time Warner cable dropped the signal for my local NBC affiliate (WDTN-TV, Channel 2) after they couldn't come to terms. In the interim, they've replaced the empty channel with HBO Family.

I'm not too happy about this. 2News is my favorite local news. NewsCenter7 is too white-bread-and-mayonnaise for me, and Dayton's News Source (on ABC22 and Fox45) are a bunch of amateurs.

I don't know what to do except wait. I'd rather not drop the cable; I'm locked into a 2-year plan.

Was trying to check email with the desktop, but it's running a virus scan right now, and Thunderbird crashed before I could read any mail.

The laptop keyboard lost the 8ik, "column" of keys. They're kaput. So I'm having to make do with an external keyboard, one I've had since 1990. The F7 key has broken off. I tried to glue it back on with Gorilla Glue, but it didn't take. I thought about chucking the external keyboard in the trash. Right now, I'm glad I didn't.

In the meantime, I got kitties. Marcus was sleeping with me again. I love when he does that. It's too cute!

Shout-outs: Happy birthday jodimuse!

My previous observation about logic vs. emotion by political parties was based on a very small sampling from several years ago. Since 9/11, things have apparently changed.

I don't read a lot of political blogs. However, if I read a political post by filkertom, I often observe a very visceral reaction without a lot of logic contained. I don't get that emptional charge when I read something by billroper or owlsforodin.

Many of the people I used to work with over the years were engineers and computer/IT types, and they typically skew toward the conservative side. They're even more conservative if they work in the defense industry as active-duty military, retired military, civilians, or contractors.

I am on moveon.org's maliling list, and I occasionally respond to their calls of action. I've noticed that a lot of their posts (besides asking for money) urge their readers to Act Now!

I also tend to avoid political conversations with conservatives, since I'm not good at quickly recalling specific examples to defend my position.

I would like some specific examples to refute my initial observation. I'm a logical kind of guy.

Mercury. my gray cat, is licking the screen and chasing after the mouse pointer on the screen. Silly cat.

He likes to keep me company while I'm on the computer. So much so that I have to put the keyboard on my la while he lays in front of the monitor.

Anything silly your cats have done today?

5 days after the storm and some people are still without power. This cleanup is gonna take a while. And we'll have plenty of firewood next year!

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones this time around, since my power came back on early Monday morning. I attribute that to having the wiring to my condo complex underground. I had phone service throughout the entire power outage, and as far as I know, my cable TV didn't go out either.

Needless to say, M was bored without the power, so we went driving around on two separate occasions. I remembered that traffic lights without power are like 4-way stops. M wanted Spaghettios for dinner, so I put some in a saucepan and heated them up on the gas grill outside., That night, I had my battery-operated camping lantern in the house with me while I listened to a battery-operated radio and lit a few candles. I didn't fire up the propane lantern; that's strictly for outdoor use.

mariasmom didn't have power until Wednesday, so her and M spent Monday and Tuesday nights with me.

zorya_thinks reports that she's still without cable TV and high-speed internet. Which has me wondering: how many Time Warner customers in the area have digital phone? Is it working yet? And how many people are going to switch back to regular phone service after this is all done?

It's not likely that a wind storm of this magnitude will come through again, but I feel I should be prepared for it anyway. I'm trying to think what I still need.

Help me load the jukebox for an upcoming virtual Halloween Party and/or Witches' Ball. What are your favorite Halloween party tunes?
Here are mine:
Oingo Boingo, "Dead Man's Party"
Ministry, "Every Night Is Halloween"
Bobby "Boris" Pickett, "Monster Mash"

Let's hear 'em!

From The Daily Kos: McCain campaign admits mailing 1 Million bad ballot applications to voters in Ohio

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that "About one-third of the absentee ballot applications received at the Hamilton County Board of Elections have been ruled invalid because Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign printed a version of the form with an extra, unneeded box on it."

This is verified; read the original story. "Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner says that if the box isn't checked, circled or initialed, the application is no good. Those voters are essentially admitting they're not eligible, she said....'The outrageous partisan maneuvering by Secretary Brunner is putting the integrity of this election at risk, and it needs to stop immediately,' said state Republican Chairman Bob Bennett."

I don't like this one bit. The election process should be sacred and non-partisan. Instead, there's the appearance of corruption inside the county boards of elections. To paraphrase Mr. Bennett, the outrageous partisan deception by the Republican Party is putting the integrity of this election at risk. This is clearly unacceptable, for any county in any state.