osheas::blog

more music charts

After a loooong week in San Jose working the CLA 2008 conference, we’re back home catching up. Even better, we have NO travel plans for at least two weeks! We actually had a lot of fun. Here’s a photo of us in action:

We didn’t have to wear those outfits the whole time, thank goodness.

Here’s my exciting link of the day: there is now an OFFICIAL Monty Python YouTube channel! No more crappy clips cadged from old VCR tapes - the gang has posted really high quality versions of classics like the Penis Song and the Ministry of Silly Walks.

What a year: Obama wins AND we get a Monty Python YouTube channel! Life is good…

After a nice week of no travel, we’re leaving tomorrow morning for San Jose. It’s all work: the annual California Library Association conference. The preparation is always more difficult than the actual event so it will be kind of nice to get up there and get started.

But before turning off the computer for the night, I have to tell the quick story of Chuck’s Thing on the Roof of His Mouth. It’s been there for about seven months, doing nothing much but hanging around and being a fairly unobtrusive bump. Our regular doc saw it when we had physicals and was so unimpressed by it he said, “Don’t worry about it  it’s nothing!” Oddly enough though, when Chuck had an abcess on, uh, the Area That Must Not Be Named, the antibiotics he took made the bump a bit smaller! When he went for his dental checkup however, the dentist noticed it, asked about it, and sent Chuck off to an oral surgeon (the dentist didn’t know what it was either, but found it more intriguing than our regular doc had). The oral surgeon also didn’t know what it was but being an oral surgeon said, “Let’s cut it out!” So that’s what happened last Friday. I missed the really gruesome money shot right after the surgery, but caught a good shot Saturday. the followup shot is from tonight.

Chuck saw the oral surgeon today and he was quite impressed with the healing. The consensus still is on its being a thing, but better a thing gone than a Thing on the Roof of Your Mouth. Oh, and he can’t eat croutons for a few more days.

For the first time ever, I felt emotional, engaged, involved in an election. There were tears in my eyes when Obama gave his acceptance speech, something that has NEVER happened to me before. But the sense of victory is tempered by the fact that Prop 8 passed here in California. Under this bogus proposition, gay marriages are declared once again illegal. *sigh*

We have a road yet to travel as long as any of us continue to be disenfranchised and disrespected. I guess few victories are unambiguous. To all our friends who were dissed in this election, we stand with you. Change is here and will keep on coming. The tsunami of history is on your side.

Jott has become disappointing now that it’s gone to a mostly pay service. Never fear! There’s a new free kid on the block called Dial2Do and it works almost identically AND it’s free (for now). You can import your contacts from a variety of Web-based address books.

It’s that point on Election Day where all things are possible. Right here, right now everything can go just as I hope. If they do, it will be the first time in a very long time where the candidate I supported - believed in - won. Vote, America!
And now for something completely different, and this.

It’s out! It’s free! It’s very cool! It knows where I am!

After working all day, I have to go pack in preparation for a trip to Orlando. Nope, sorry, it’s a working trip, not  a vacation. So it goes. But I have to do some linking before heading out. if this election does nothing else, it sure has generated some funny video!

• Bush Endorses McCain and Palin
• Paris Hilton Gets Presidential with Martin Sheen
• Ron Howard’s Call to Action

Okay, gotta go pack now!

McCain and Obama are debating one last time tonight. Meanwhile, the stock market is down 700+ points today. I’m voting for Obama but I also think that no matter who is elected, they’re going to have a tough time of it without raising taxes in some way. So here’s my idea: institute a federal sales tax, say, of 1-2% on everything - everything, including Internet goodies. No fuss, no muss, no weasling out of it because you have a really good accountant. I know, I know, it’s not very complicated and there are no earmarks or entitlements or other doublethink nonsense. But just think about it - it’s an easy way for everybody to pay their fair share AND actually generate revenue rather than just spend it.