Random Thoughts

I knew I'm good at slide puzzles, but when Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing said that he couldn't solve this puzzle, I thought it might actually be tough. Instead, it was one of the most simple I've seen. Am I missing something?

Hey! Who is that with Jeremy?. Via Mark Evanier.

Anglicon 17 has a guest! Her name is Virginia Hey, and she was in The Road Warrior and played Zhaan on Farscape. Now, let's cross our fingers and hope that the curse of Anglicon doesn't hit her. See, Anglicon has this curse that is wonderful for the guests, but awful for the con. Once a guest has been confirmed, that guest will suddenly get a much-higher paying job for the same weekend... and the con contracts are written so that if the guest gets a job like that they can take the higher-paying job instead of being forced to come to the con. Anyway, Anglicon 17 will be October 15-17, 2004 in SeaTac. This year's theme is "Victorian Explorers of Time, Space & Magic". I think I'm going to prep a Girl Genius mad scientist costume for the masquerade. The musical guest will be the talented Heather Alexander.

Elayne Riggs reports that photomosaics are hot on the 'net right now. Bush-worshippers will probably not want to visit her links.

Johnny B is doing more AIT/Planet Lar reviews, which I'm avoiding reading until I read the books I got. Larry Young is a very wise marketer, as he's going to have someone on the comics blogosphere talking about his books every day for a long time to come.

The nominees for the Hugo Awards have been announced. I liked reading the retrospective nominees for 1953... some good stuff there.

Happy first birthday to Billmon's Whiskey Bar.

Kevin Drum, ex-Calpundit, discusses the oddness of handedness. Hey, he can't do politicals all the time.

You can now watch Condi Rice say "Nobody told me I was supposed to actually do anything!" at C-SPAN.org. But you really don't need to, as that just about sums up her testimony. Why a National Security Advisor expects to be told to do her job is well beyond my ken, but that's what she says.

Jim Henley linked to a terrifying first-hand account of one soldier in an ambush in Iraq. I was going to link to it also, but the note, on LiveJournal, was locked so most people can't read it.

"This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency." - Washington Post. Question: If you had a full-time job, and took 40% of the time off, wouldn't you be fired?

Read this article, then look at the date of the article, and tell me again that no one in Bush's administration had a clue that anyone might use a plane as a weapon. This link and the vacation one both via This Modern World.