All Hail the (Crimson) King!

So, after a grueling 6 hour drive to Old Greenwich, CT...I finally met the Wordslinger, Stephen King. A very surreal experience for sure, but what should I really expect after 18 years of waiting for the last book?

Felicia Stafford, the first fan in line, entered the store singing "Happy Birthday."

"Thank you. I'm going to be 25," said King, 58.

...

Flipping through a copy of "Dark Tower VII," King expressed his pride in what he considers the series' unique combination of Whelan's illustrations and his text.

"One of the things I wish people would talk about is that for a mass-marketed American book there is nothing like it," King told Whelan. "Harry Potter doesn't compare."

Pics are finally up (after my PC decided to die this weekend). Let's just say the price for finally gaining the Dark Tower is paid in roses. Of course. Ka is always satisfied, eh?

More articles: Sara and King (think it was her birthday)

NASA: Oops?

After waiting a long time to watch this live over the web, I come back to my desk from a last-minute meeting to this depressing news (complete with video if you wanna watch the big boom):

The Genesis sample return capsule's drogue and parafoil did not deploy as planned today, and the capsule impacted on the ground in the Utah desert.

$260 million down the drain. Ugh. Ok, my work day just got a lot better by comparison!

Politi-blog of the day:

Some good blogging on the Republi-crap being thrown around after the RNC (my emphasis):

"...Republicans have the gall to accuse Clinton of not having pursued the terrorists or faced down Saddam. They themselves excoriated Clinton for having the temerity to fire cruise missiles at him, though ... I challenge you to go and find all that support for the war on terror Clinton was supposed to have from your party. I mean, seriously, weren't your people the ones who said that Clinton was just firing the missiles off to distract from their all-important investigation of him and Monica Lewinsky? One wonders what could have been done with either one of those problems, had the president not been fighting for his political survival on matters so sordid and so separate from the function of his office.

In a week or two, we will commemorate the third anniversary of 9/11. Three years in which the president, given the opportunity and the resources of the greatest nation on this planet could not find and root out the man most responsible for the deaths of almost three thousand of our fellow Americans."

Two-sided Kerry? How about stubborn one-sidedness?

This about sums up all this election crap so far. From Slate:

I'm no huge fan of John Kerry. He sees two sides of every one-sided issue, and four sides of every two-sided issue. But the alternative is a president who sees one side of every issue, no matter how many sides it has. Given how many sides there usually are, and given how little effort Bush makes to learn about each issue, the odds are that, on average, he'll pick the wrong side. The record of the last four years shows that he has done precisely that. But because Bush refuses to "waver," as Schwarzenegger charitably puts it, we keep going in the wrong direction. The only way to stop such a president is to vote him out of office. Fortunately, an election is coming.

Why didn't I think of this one?

Sheesh. Outsourcing can be a two-edged sword.

Programmers are outsourcing their software modules to cheap and efficient labour in India. This way they get the best of both worlds- more money and more time. They earn doubly - one from the outsourced job, other from the new job they undertake.

This guy gets major kudos:

Says a programmer on Slashdot.org who outsourced his job: "About a year ago I hired a developer in India to do my job. I pay him $12,000 out of the $67,000 I get. He's happy to have the work. I'm happy that I have to work only 90 minutes a day just supervising the code. My employer thinks I'm telecommuting. Now I'm considering getting a second job and doing the same thing."

New house!

Ok, as of the 16th, we're in the new house, so check out the pics if you haven't by now. Combined housewarming/annual-end-of-summer party to be around September 18th. It's before Sept. 21st, so technically still in the summer, ha!

(FYI, furniture in the pics is the previous owner...mine's not that nice. yet.)

It's Miller Time!

Guard your stash when you go camping in the Washington area, apparently:

"We noticed a bear sleeping on the common lawn and wondered what was going on until we discovered that there were a lot of beer cans lying around," said Lisa Broxson, a worker at the Baker Lake Resort, 80 miles (129 kilometers) northeast of Seattle.

Blogging from Deep Creek Lake...hopefully

Blogging from Deep Creek Lake in western MD...hopefully photo updates to come on the right. -->

UPDATE: Eh, no picture messages on the extended network out there. Had to send 'em all on the way back. Check them out!

The sky is falling! POW!

Possibly kick-ass Perseid meteor shower tonight and tomorrow. Chicken little unavailable for comment.

In other news...POW!:

Maybe he's pulling a "pre-emptive strike" on the opponent BEFORE they take the ball away?

No Nader, please... (redux)

Pic of the day...as both "Fahrenheit 9/11" director Michael Moore and political satirist Bill Maher plead Ralph Nader to drop out of the race.