THERE IS A NEW BLOG; THIS ONE IS NO LONGER

GO HERE.

Thank you.

That is all.

THERE IS A NEW VERSION OF THIS WEBSITE

AND WHILE BLOGGER has been very good to me, the time has come to move to the grand unified theory entitled:

http://www.areasofmyexpertise.com/

PLEASE update your links.

YOUR NEW RSS FEED is: http://www.areasofmyexpertise.com/rss/

That is all.

THIS IS DAY MINUS ONE

THIS IS DAY MINUS ONE of the publication of MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE.

TOMORROW, when it is published, will be DAY ZERO. Then we will start counting upward.

(ON THAT DAY, I will be on television, and probably tonight as well.)

ALSO, today is DAY ONE of my guest blogging for boingboing.net. Look for STARTLING EVIDENCE regarding the crystal skulls there, later today.

THAT IS ALL.

MY CONSIDERED ENDORSEMENT

AS YOU KNOW, I have known and respected BoingBoing now for many years.

(INDEED, I used to read the PRINT VERSION of it, back when there were "print versions" of things, and back when The Primal Plunge was selling them.)

SINCE THEN, I have been a reader of the site, and a grateful beneficiary of its unexpected and serendipitous largesse.

BUT I HAVE NEVER DARED to write for them, preferring instead the neutrality and ABSOLUTE ANONYMITY of my own imitation blog.

MANY OF YOU may wonder, then, why I have agreed to GUEST BLOG (or really, GUEST IMITATION BLOG) for Mark, Xeni, Cory, and David, starting tomorrow.

SURELY SOME OF IT, the skeptics will suggest, has something to do with my NEW BOOK BEING PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY.

AND THAT IS SO.

BUT I MUST SAY the tipping point came today, with the RETURN OF THE CREEPY GNOME.

APART FROM THEIR many accomplishments and talents, it is this dedication to keeping this MOST IMPORTANT STORY in the public eye that has earned them, this Sunday, my full and humble endorsement.

That is all.

OLD BOINGBOING IMAGE courtesy: Wikipedia, who claim "fair use" in replicating the work of the amazing Mark Frauenfelder. I'll leave it to them to fight it out.

CREEPY GNOME image courtesy: teenagers is Argentina.

NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND

PORTENT COURTESY: Ape-Lad

THANKS GO AS WELL to: the comments, for pointing out the margin errors. I hope this fixes it.

That is all.

LAST NIGHT'S DEBATE

I WAS TWEETING the debate last night like Vin Diesel: FAST AND FURIOUS.

(ACTUALLY, if I were really tweeting like the Diese, I'd be tweeting about D&D).

THOSE OF YOU who were unlucky enough to have followed the whole thing will recall:

A) MY PREDICTION that the pundits would attempt to call the debate for McCain, purely out of a desire for a new plotline.

B) MY ABSOLUTE SURPRISE that the instant polls would reveal such an overwhelming consensus in favor of Obama, especially among independents.

I WAS GOING to write on about how bizarre it was to watch the pundits on CNN all suddenly change their minds about what just happened the moment they learned of those early polls...

(EXCEPT GERGEN, who actually got it exactly right, saying McCain's eye-roll and facial spasm strategy that began at the 20 minute mark would be his undoing)...

AND I WAS GOING to write how I ended up feeling no better than those pundits once it was clear my dire, gut pessimism about debate coverage was proven false (for the fourth time in a row this season).

BUT THEN, while looking for a link to back up my Diesel/D&D claim above, I came across this video.

And now this video is THE ONLY THING IN THE WORLD THAT MATTERS:



THAT IS ALL.

GET READY FOR SOME TOTALLY SUCCESSFUL EMBEDDING

SEE HOW GOOD I am getting?

(at embedding. Not necessarily: singing).



THAT IS ALL

ALAS, JOHN SELLERS

ALAS, JOHN SELLERS did not include any of our conversation on the subject of my first job for Time Out NY: reviewing video games.

BUT I AM STILL very glad to be back in their pages.

That is all.

I AM NOW A PAID BLOGGER

IRA GLASS paid me a dollar to mention me on his blog.

THE EVIDENCE IS HERE:

HONESTLY, I like and admire Ira so much, I probably would have done it for 60 cents.

STILL, this particular dollar makes for a nice keepsake. I think I will give it away as a prize of some at one of my book readings next week.

ON THAT SUBJECT, WERE YOU AWARE THAT I WILL BE APPEARING...

AT Barnes and Noble, Union Square, of Manhattan, Tues Oct 21, at 7PM, WITH Jonathan Coulton

AT the Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline, of Massachusetts, Wed Oct 22, at 7PM, WITH Jonathan Coulton.

AT Politics and Prose, Washington, of District of Columbia, Thurs Oct 23, at 7PM, WITHOUT Jonathan Coulton, who will be going to England for a spell.

AT the 215 Festival of Philadelphia, PA, specifically THE LATVIAN SOCIETY, Friday Oct 24, at 9PM, WITHOUT Coulton, but WITH David Rees and Patrick Borelli.

?

All of this is true.

STAND BY for more true details re:

ANN ARBOR!
The fictional city of CHICAGO!
and the across-the-pond return of COULTON for
SEATTLE!
PORTLAND!
SAN FRANCISCO!
and
LOS ANGELES!

PLUS (though without Coulton):
ATLANTA!
OXFORD!
THE APPLE STORE OF SOHO WITH ELIZABETH GILBERT!

ALSO, there will be some changes to this website.

But for now: THAT IS ALL.

SMEARS

HERE IS THE GREAT BILL SCHER on the subject of the absurdity of launching a smear campaign this late in the game.

BEGIN QUOTED TEXT

McCain can't get back in this race by running against a fictional character. He has to run against Obama, and make a case that he has a better strategy than Obama for getting the economy back on track.

But that would require having a strategy. And he's running out of time to come up with one.

END QUOTED TEXT

(BUT BY ALL MEANS, read on. Bill Scher is one of the smartest and least excitable folks on the political internet, and he also eats deep-fried hamburgers)

BILL IS CORRECT: the time for defining Obama as a crazy, fist-bumping, BLACK!, Muslim, secret agent for Al Qaeda was back when no one really knew him. Like during the primaries.

(And it failed then, too. Because for the attack to be effective, the audience has to ACTUALLY BELIEVE that Obama is a villainous secret jihadist who REALLY AND TRULY CAN'T WAIT to paint the White House black. Surely there are some who actually do believe this science fiction; but most people are not INSANE. They just like acting that way in blog comments--and sometimes, newspapers).

BUT WHAT'S EVEN MORE startling is that the Ayers conspiracy theories and "Barack HUSSEIN Obama" dog-whistling that was once left to rumor spams and whisper campaigns has now been taken up, OFFICIALLY, by the candidates themselves.

THAT IS TO SAY, McCain/Palin are essentially attacking Obama with BLOG COMMENTS.

That is all.