BT Fans with a Plan...

...or a role-playing version of Barry Trotter, at least. Check it out at Hogwarts By Night.



Kate and I saw two movies yesterday; there's a big multiplex near our house and once there, we like to double up--I may start agitating for a triple sometime. First we saw "The Incredibles" which was very, very enjoyable. First half struck me as kinda slow, but the second half was great. And as usual, the story and design was excellent. Unfortunately, the preview of Pixar's next feature, "Cars," made Kate and I both want to throw up repeatedly, with increasing power. The popularity of NASCAR is inexplicable enough--pro wrestling with pollution--but to have next year's Pixar movie hijacked by it adds one-time insult to ongoing injury. NASCAR's not my tribe.



We also saw "Shaun of the Dead," which was a very funny, very English send-up of zombie movies (I was half-tempted to write "zombie culture," but then I've already talked about NASCAR).



Those of you who are still concerned about the possible theft of Tuesday's election are encouraged to go to Blackboxvoting.org. I'm planning to make a donation, as a first step towards a cleaner 2006 and 2008. Also, there's a fascinating ongoing discussion about these issues on Democratic Underground. Something I didn't say last week was this: if you can convince a Democrat that something is the will of the American people, he/she will conform to that reality. This is a nice thing about Democrats, but it's not what we need right now. This country NEEDS Democrats and liberals and progressives (because they're three different groups, as Friend Anonymous' comment made abundantly clear) to come together and dispute the vision of reality that the GOP is pumping out so relentlessly. And as many, many people have said, we can't depend on the so-called liberal media to help us do this. They're already congealed into "sigh--the country is being run by the mob instead of smart people like you and I, reader". Not only is that incorrect, it does nothing but harden this bogus Red/Blue divide. People should be judged by what they do--vote for Bush--not for their cultural signifiers. When we speak against the war, or against Enron, or against privitizing Social Security, we're fighting for everybody, not just people in New York, Illinois and California. In other words, it's not just NASCAR or nothing: how about hybrid-powered NASCAR?