Sam Roswell

Feel that people should ditch the SUVs?
Then be consistent and ditch the doggies.

flag@whitehouse.gov
flag@whitehouse.gov

Uncle Sam’s Long Arm

Take out your calendar. Notice how tax day and Election Day are conspicuously far apart? And note all the holidays involving gifts, booze, and sleep-inducing meals (turkey good . . . losing . . . consciousness) interspersed between the two occasions? Mightn’t this be to encourage forgetfulness and reduce buyer’s remorse? Of course, as they used to say in the old Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown commercials, this is “dismissed as coincidence.”

Whatever. I say let’s have Election Day on tax day. Let’s get what we’re paying for. Sign the check — for the full amount — and write in your preferred candidates on the back of the same check.

Yup, those DVDs we so very thoughtfully gave the UK were in fact Region 1, NTSC formatted. Luckily Gibbs was there to "snigger" at the investigating journalist. He's good at that.

UK to US:
Pen holder fashioned from the oak timber of HMS Gannet, aka HMS President, sister ship to HMS Resolute.
Framed commissioning paper for HMS Resolute.
First edition of Martin Gilbert's seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill.

US to UK:
Twenty-five DVD AFI boxed set, including ET, Star Wars, and The Wizard of Oz. Probably Region 1 NTSC formatted.


Brown Family to Obama children:
Outfits from Topshop.
Six British-authored children novels, not published in the US.

Obama Family to Brown children:
Identical models of Marine Force One, from White House gift shop.

"The Geography of a Recession"

I understand that writing books takes time. I understand that people are, but shouldn't be, impatient jerks. But if you insist on ending each of your books (or chapters, for serial publications) on a cliffhanger, then you get no sympathy from me for the nasty things that people will write to you or about you when you don't publish the next part quickly (or misestimate its publication by a significant amount). End after a climax, not before, and with the important surviving characters in some relative amount of safety, and most people will not be nearly as high-strung about waiting for the next book. And they'll still buy the next book, if you're a good author.

If you feel you have to keep ending books on cliffhangers to get people to buy the next book, then don't whine when people gripe at you to finish the next part.

Cher: Republican Rule Almost ‘Killed Me’
If we could only have been so lucky...

EDIT: On a similar note, GRRM is taking a second shot at an RPG based on the SOIAF setting with Green Ronin (the first attempt was with Guardians of Order). This time a non-d20 custom system is being used, which actually looks pretty good. What do you think, a good option for gritty medieval fantasy gaming?

( Read more... )

He wants to carry an open microphone on his person, so all the intelligence agencies of the rest of the world will always know everything he says.