The Tease of Things I Don't Need

(Considerably past the)
Mid-Weekend Check-In

A weekend of little things, including boring domestic tasks hardly worth noting.

Yesterday I turned up names and addresses for a handful of potential Legends recruits, wrote up letters of invitation and sent those off along with some other things I wanted to get into the mail.

I'd slacked on my presidential duty as recruiter for most of this term following a small push at the start, and with the 20th anniversary -- depending how one reckons it -- coming up either with the October issue or the December one. See, over the years there were some shifts and delays and a little (actually, surprisingly little) time was lost. The October issue is closest to the actual 10th anniversary of issue #1's mailing back in 1986, but December's issue - #120 - is what we'd expect the 20th anniversary of a bi-monthly APA to be. More voices is better, and finding people who are looking for interaction in print on paper on a bi-monthly basis in an age of Internet publishing and instant access, where something from two months in the past is regarded as dusty, that's the challenge for me.

I've also started to get my zine together for the next issue. Deadline's October 7th and if I'm going to take a shot at this year's 24 hour comics day I'll need the zine out of the way.

Late in the afternoon son Nick and I headed out to Zern's, a spot we hadn't been to in at least a year. A combination of mart, farmer's market and cooked & raw foods, along with some produce we concntrated on the mart portion and I started to pick up a few early items for Christmas.

Last night was a mix of reading (some on paper, some online) and email, most of it to the accompaniment of music. Prior to that I cut up melons, blended in blueberries and red grapes so there would be a large container of fruit salad in the refrigerator for people to hit over the next couple days. The time bled away. I'm moving so slowly. Thinking so slowly.

Today... more reading -- I simply can't get myself moved to spend time commenting on anything dominating the news. The battle over prisoner treatment/torture doctrines is already retilent of the GOP spinning it into a show of patriotic fervor and Deep Concern in part to energize part of their base while making the ill-informed and easily duped, on-the-fence voters feel there's not such a need for them to go out to the polls with a "throw them out!" fervor. That gasoline prices are continuing to drop and anyone could realistically claim this isn't an orchestrated move to reduce voter tensions and create a false sense of prosperity so that the GOP machine can stay in place and they can all but gaurantee two more years of freedom to achieve record-setting profits... well, I can't help those people. To those who know better, make sure you're registered to vote in the mid-terms and try to make sure the right people among those you know are also registered.

Meanwhile, I cannot get the interest up to even look up exactly what the Pope said about Islam. In a better world all of these religious fanatics (and my definition for that would be a wiiiiiide net*) would be exiled onto their own continent (can we offer the Aussies some new place to move? A lot of nice real estate across the globe will open up under this plan) and armed to the teeth so they could each help the other meet their beloved God all the sooner. A heavily reduntant system of geosynchronous observation satellites would monitor that continent and many of the world's nuclear-tipped ICBMs would be trained on it; the first time there's any attempt to move off it we vaporize the lot of them. They're a plague lot, and it's beyond our current capabilities to save them so we have to look out for the rest.

Really, I'm much more interested in items such as using material sciences to reproduce the oxygen extraction from water of diving beetles than I am of the above, at least for today.

I've already made a very early, hit-it-as-you're-hungry dinner, having baked and sectioned sweet italian sausage (on a broiler pan, so as to drain off much of the fat and oil), blending the sausage into a sauce in a crock pot, and made up a couple pounds (pre-cooked weight) of angel hair pasta -- something I'm going to get a plate of once I send this post up the pipe.., if you know what I mean. (Sorry. My wife has Whose Line Is It Anyway? on almost every time it's broadcast, and even with the headset on some of it bleeds through. It can be a funny show, but when it's on often enough that I know sections of it verbatim, well, the improv angle loses its kick.)

More domestic stuff, including a mixed shopping trip with Travis, lie close ahead. Checking in on my mom is part of the day's plans, too, and - as much as I don't want to - I have to get in a couple hours at work in order to reduce the otherwise iron clad guarantee that Monday morning will explode in my face.

Since 2pm's charging me with a battleaxe in its mitts, I'd better get to all that there stuff.

* If your God, speaking in your Holy Book, through your religious leader or just in your pointed head tells you to kill someone, then please step to the right and head towards the ships that are waiting for you. If you want to kill someone, well... then you do. But own that decision. Don't hide behind God, his proclaimed prophet or - especially - his son. Talk about making baby Jesus cry.