My apologies for not getting theLogBook updated on time - I’ve literally spent most of my weekend filling PDF DVD orders (!!). Hopefully everyone who’s gotten one has liked ‘em. So help me God, I’m going to go get a new office chair in the next couple of days, so I thank everyone from the bottom of my…well…bottom. It’s a little unnerving to sit down and feel the seat start to slide down to its lowest altitude like someone’s let the air out of the tires. I look forward to not experiencing that anymore very soon! Seriously though, the response to the PDF DVD has blown me away. At this point, my biggest fear is that I’m not going to have duplication nailed down for the second run while the orders keep coming in. I honestly was not expecting it to blast off like it has. I’ve also learned a few things (the hard way) along the way, including how to generate Paypal links that actually do something helpful. I think you guys would be stunned to know just how much I’m making this whole thing up as I go.

Turbo Turtle, a.k.a. Gamera, has disappeared from the yard - hopefully to go kick back in a body of water somewhere. Turns out he was a humongous snapping turtle…not good for Zathras. I really don’t need to step out my door and have one of my toes eaten by a cranky and huge turtle.

Another thing that’s occurred to me today is that everything I’ve been doing pales in significance next to the loss of life in China and Myanmar. I can barely even begin to process the kind of numbers of dead we’re talking about there, much less what can be done about it. Perhaps it’s just as well that I’ve got all these distractions.

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If you run, enjoy or just hang out at any kind of fansite, you might ought to pay attention to this legal case. I’ve got some plans to do a book later this year with material from theLogBook, and you better believe I’m watching this one very, very closely.

While I respect Ms. Rowling as the creator of all things Potter (and feel that the author of the other book perhaps could’ve done more to acknowledge her as such), this case is waltzing right into very dangerous territory. Intellectual property owners seem to spend an awful lot of time catering to superfans (or readers of superfans’ sites - let’s use Gateworld.net as an example), and cutting that particular cultural phenomenon off at the knees would have a worse effect than Paramount setting its internet phasers on Cease & Desist 12 or so years ago - mainly becuase back then, the ‘net was still more or less a curiosity, and now it’s practically another substratus of the world community. Fans will organize and rally against it.

Now, the flipside, to be fair: I’ve been in a copyright lawsuit (as the plantiff, no less), and my understanding of the law is that you’re on pretty stable ground so long as you bring your own scholarship and your own critical analysis to the table in a “derivative work”. A dictionary that probably leans very heavily on someone else’s written work is very likely not on that same stable ground. A book analyzing and critiquing the Harry Potter series would stand a better chance.

But when even the judge is urging everyone to settle? I don’t think anyone’s in any doubt that this case is wading into a minefield.

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So my wife got a new Samsung Hue phone from Alltel - nice little gadget, bluetooth, camera, the whole works, and pretty cheap too. I was even thinking about seeing if father’s day might come a little bit early this year after seeing it in action. The one hiccup she’d really had with it was when she tried to pair her bluetooth headset to it - she couldn’t ever get the two devices talking to each other, and had to go back to the store to do it, where one of their sales/service people took the phone and the headset behind closed doors and got them to work. That really should’ve been a red flag right there.

She wanted me to put the slideshow of Evan pics on there that we’ve both had on our Nokia phones for ages; this was basically an animated GIF that cycles through numerous pictures of the little guy from the day he was born up to the latest round of professional pictures we’ve had taken of him. With the Nokia phones, I was able to just bluetooth the GIF across and be done with it; this also accounted for the bizarre collection of ringtones that both of our phones sported, everything from the Lexx theme to Katamari music to the haunting Torgo theme to Starcon 2 tunes to a gob of ELO MIDI ringtones (don’t ask me how that happened).

Anyway, I couldn’t just send the files across to her new phone via bluetooth. After going through the documentation (custom printed for Alltel) and finding them extremely, almost suspiciously lacking in information about the use of the bluetooth feature, I did a little bit of digging around online and that quickly got my blood boiling. Here’s the deal: Alltel cripples OBEX file transfer on the Samsung Hue phones. You can’t use it. Only they can, on their premises. They’d rather charge you extra for a USB cable and their proprietary software, when in fact neither of the above should be necessary. They don’t want you to bluetooth your own MIDI files to your own phone in your own home. They don’t make money that way. They make money by you buying ringtones, etc. through their store, or through their affiliates who give Alltel a kickback to thank them for letting them sell to Alltel’s customers. They don’t want me beaming a few MIDI files across from my computer.

Via a member of the family, we actually have the ear of one of Alltel’s VPs, so we tried to play the old nepotism card, a phone call which yielded another very interesting fact: Alltel only sells one phone with all the features unlocked, and that’s the Motorola Razr. So hey, if you’ve got one of these unweildly, non-user-friendly bricks, there’s finally a perk in it for you. Yay for you!

In a few minutes we’ll be going to pay them a visit at the store where the phone was bought, point out that we were looking at getting a second one just like it, and then insisting that we can’t buy another one - or for that matter remain as customers of Alltel with any phone - unless this feature is unlocked so the phone works as advertised. I’m not glued to my cell phone 24 hours a day, I don’t txt my bff all the time (zomg!), I’m not really a “power user”. We just like having our kid’s smiling face on our cell phones, and a few oddball ringtones. Is that so wrong? Apparently Alltel thinks so.

I have a gut feeling we’re going to walk out of the Alltel store looking for a new cell phone provider.

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HAL’s eye glows in your honor in my home tonight.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke
1917-2008

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So, today being Super Duper Tuesday, I wobbled uphill to the fire station around the corner from my place, and, as a voter not registered to either party, cast a vote in the Democratic primary for Barack Obama. I’ll admit that I’ve spent much of the past year growing more and more disillusioned with the American political process and its attendant dialogue. When a national dialogue on something as vitally important as who will lead us descends to - and remains at - the level of professional wrestling smack talk, something somewhere is broken, and you can’t lay all the blame at the doorstep of something as nebulous as “the electoral college” or “campaign funding”. Something in the very basic fundamental language of how we, as a nation, approach politics, approach the idea of running for and serving in a public office, has gotten very, very broken. Sometimes I think the media plays more of a role in that dumbing-down of the informed electorate than I’m giving it credit for. I’ve been watching the media on a casual level over the past few months, from my relatively new standpoint of an observer rather than a participant, and I’ve noticed a tendency to go more for Jerry Springer-esque “oh no you di’n't!” feuds - either creating them out of whole cloth or egging them on - than on substantive reporting on the candidates, their platforms, and so on.

With the volley of crap that’s gone on between Clinton and Obama, I will admit to having come within a hair’s breadth of voting in the Republican primary for McCain. But that would’ve been a gut reaction, more of a knee jerk than anything. I’ve been following Obama closely, and yeah, he’s thrown a few head-shakingly, “I wouldn’t have said that” stuff out into the ether here and there (though nothing quite as staggering as Mike “fry all of the state government’s computer systems before handing Arkansas over to a new governor and then deny all knowledge” Huckabee’s assertion that he’s going to, oh, eliminate the only source of income that the federal government has, namely the IRS), but when Obama can get his feet planted on the Earth again, I find that his ideas of where the country should go are more firmly in line with what I think should be done. And in that end, that, more than any label that any given candidate has, should really be the determining factor. However, behavior on the campaign trail can’t be discounted, and shouldn’t be: while a candidate’s platform, and their ability to defend attacks on it, should be the mind’s criteria for picking the right candidate, how they conduct themselves forms the emotional, gut-feeling side of that equation as well. It speaks to their character more than a list of promises of things they’ll try to push through Congress possibly can.

I wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me to, at the primary level or further down the line. She simply doesn’t impress me. Keep in mind that she actually has, in my mind, a very close connection with Huckabee: she used to be in Arkansas. We know Hillary - and Mike - of old. No way. (And before anyone asks “But what if Obama runs as Hillary’s VP?”, I think I have a much better shot of becoming fabulously rich opening a series of franchised ice skating rinks in Hell than of actually seeing that ticket, or vice-versa, on a ballot.) I simply don’t trust her.

I’m sad that Wesley Clark didn’t even pitch his hat into the ring for this one, but I can see where his age might erode any chances of being taken seriously for a Presidency lasting into 2012. As for why McCain has caught my eye: I like McCain’s forthrightness, level-headedness, and ability to answer questions put to him with something bearing a much more close resemblance to straight talk than what anyone normally hears from Washington. I don’t line up with McCain on the issues as much as I do with Obama, but I trust McCain more than I trust Mrs. Clinton.

And if the Huckster actually lands the nomination and wins in November? I’ve always thought living in New Zealand would be lovely.

Anyway, thus ends a rare serious rambling from me. I don’t expect everyone - hell, I don’t expect anyone - to agree with me in an election year. (Remind me to tell you about the time I voted for Hagelin!) But I do hope you at least got out and voted today. I got out and voted today during a tornado watch, with the kiddo. What’s your excuse?

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My wife, bless her heart, became a lot less picky in her viewing habits while she was pregnant and in the first six weeks after our son was born, while she was at home recovering. I’ve already mentioned her propensity for watching E!, but another viewing habit she’s picked up that drives me up the wall is Nancy Grace. Oh. My. God. I can’t stand Nancy Grace. I know she’s got a fan base that would no doubt argue that she’s just dealing with the issues in a straight-talk, shoot-from-the-hip style (which seems to be the defense of any ultra-conservative or ultra-liberal media figures these day - “you just don’t like it because I’m telling it like it is!”). I’m not saying that any of the cases she discusses on her show deal with completely innocent, blameless people, but whatever happened to assuming that innocence until guilt is proven? Some of the topics discussed tonight dealt with folks who seem pretty reprehensible, but all the same, they’re still awaiting trial, and there’s Nancy, going off with little gems like “Who knows what else this guy has done?” Who knows indeed, Nancy? Nobody on your show does. But in the meantime you, a TV host who supposedly has a legal background, are speculating wildly in a nationally broadcast forum in a way that’d get your butt chucked out of any court in the land. (I was about to say that she ought to know better, but oh, look, maybe she doesn’t.) What all of that worst-possible-case-scenario gossipmongering is doing to the jury pool, I have no idea….but apparently there’s nothing to stop us from speculating a bit, is there, Nancy?

I know she’s all about victims’ rights, and that’s fine. Let’s not forget that until a jury hands down a verdict, the accused have rights too. And once again - and this is a fight I had to fight numerous producers, reporters and even news directors on during my years in the teevee news biz - it’s not the media’s place to do the prosecuting. Someone please yank this appeal-to-the-lowest-denominator lunatic off the air, and don’t let her go back to trying to pass herself off as some kind of journalist without reminding her that her job in that role is not to throw people to the lions and wait for the faithful to send up a cheer.

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Another CNN.com screengrab, because you wouldn’t effin’ believe me if I just tried to talk about it.

Okay, that’s it. Obama? Hillary? Where do YOU stand on an attack from Mars? What would Ron Paul do? What about Huckabee?

The most pressing issues of our time, people…are being swept tidily under the rug while candidates get asked dipshit questions like this, and the equally-ridiculous answers get them actual face time.

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I have been a very, very infrequent viewer of The 4400 on USA. My wife’s been following it more closely. I caught a pretty good chunk of Sunday night’s episode last weekend, since she was already watching it, and I realized two things very quickly:

1. I had no freakin’ idea what’s going on in the story anymore.

2. I had no one to root for.

I was really more concerned with the second point than the first, otherwise I would’ve been watching The 4400 all along. I’m sure that if I was more into the story, I’d probably have some insider’s knowledge that the plotline is a lot like Galactica: basically good people having to do some fairly shady things for survival’s sake. I remember, after part 1 of the Galactica episode Pegasus aired, I stomped into theLogBook’s virtual writers’ room and complained that the rapacious crew of the Battlestar Pegasus was one step too far over the line for me: the story had officially gotten too dark. And I think I remember making the same comment about the cluster of six “Others” episodes at the beginning of the third season of Lost - sure I wanted to know more about the Others, but I just wasn’t interested in seeing Sawyer tortured or beaten to a pulp week after week. In both cases, the shows righted themselves after these moments of extreme darkness, and in the discussion of Galactica, it was pointed out to me that, as much trouble had been taken by the writers to show what kind of grey-area, situational-ethics decision making our heroes on Galactica had relied on to survive, the Pegasus crew had to be shown to be even more questionable in their judgement and conduct. I can grok that.

I’m sure the situation is the same with The 4400, but not being an avid follower of the story, I just don’t realize it. What nagged at me is that, unlike Lost and Galactica, I couldn’t tell who was supposed to be the bad guy. I was able to divine the differing agendas and philosophies of the two main characters on either side of the divide, but both of them were exhibiting such reprehensible behavior that I couldn’t see who I was supposed to root for. But what struck me was that my wife, who has been an avid follower of The 4400, said “I don’t like where they’re going with this show.”

I know we live in the age of the anti-hero, in an age where there is no such clear-cut decision that isn’t a questionable one. I know we live in an age where there are worse monsters walking among us than a couple of well-dressed, eloquently-spoken TV characters who have intensely charismatic dialogue written for them that outlines their worldviews and why they oppose…well…whoever the heck it is they happen to be opposing in this week’s episode. And I know we live in a world where players on both sides of any given conflict, however well-meaning their motivations, display reprehensible behavior. The people on TV have got nothin’ on the real life villains on both sides of the playing field.

But geez, people. Give us some hint of who’s on the side of the angels, however misguided they may be. The tale of someone who sets out to fight the good fight, falls and is redeemed is a morality play. The tale of everyone falling and not finding redemption is just nihilism. I’m not asking for characters wearing white hats or black hats, but instead just the barest hint of an honorable motivation somewhere.

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