If I had a photo of me shooting myself in the foot, I would post it here:
For I have now signed up on Plurk and Twitter.
Oh what have I done?!?
Yesterday I met an interesting person who happens to share some of my political views. She recently moved from a place where her views were in the minority and she is finding it much easier to express herself here in Portland. That got me thinking about all the great people I know who do not agree with me on politics and/or religion. Many of them are in my family and some of them I would never discuss "touchy" subjects with. (Sorry about that dangling preposition, Ms. Brunken.)
My friends and family are ready for a change in our nation's leadership. We worked with our neighbors and with friends whom we had never met before to create an enormously popular bake sale for Barack. Not only did we watch community building in action, but we made $1400 in seven hours.
- Get a commitment from a small group of friends
- Send out evites
- Open an account on the Barack Obama website so you can post your event. We had 14 RSVPS from the site. Everything from mountains of treats to all-day help. Outstanding!
- Get Schwag. Schwag= branded merchandise. If you are in the Portland area and need resources because the campaign is all out, email me for help
- Check in with your local Obama HQ beforehand. Get the rules, donation forms, voter registration forms and handouts
- Get balloons & decorations
- Bake some yummy treats
- Move the cars in front of your selling area so you have good visibility on the street.
- Make yard signs/chalk signs and get neighbors permission to use their property to post signage
- Make table top signage
- Get ice and drinks
- Have stuff for kids to do: bubbles, chalk, coloring pages
- Pre assemble yard signs so they are grab-n-go
- Have extra tables and chairs handy. We needed every table I could scrounge for backstock and hanging out
- Get a cash box, change, paper & pens
- Pre plan healthy food for your volunteers. Silly me, I thought I'd be able to cook pizza. Not a chance
- Have 2 people on the money table at all times
- Make sure you fill out donation forms for checks, credit cards (!) and sizable donations
- Invite the kids to yell up business on the street corners. They loved this as much as the goodies
- We priced things "small: $1-2, medium: $2-3, large: Make an Offer". Worked great
- Make regular money drops to a secure location
- Be prepared for undecided/McCain voters. Listen to their concerns and strive for dialog. You are building community not performing on a cable "debate"
- Take photos
- Have fun
- Take the leftovers and money to the Obama HQ volunteers
- Send out thanks and follow-ups
- Put up a sign after the event with a big THANKS and the total raised
- Tell everyone you know how fun it was so they will do it too
Go see this. Go see it now. Noice. Stands up to alternative soundtracks quite well too, and it's released under the Creative Commons, so it's got me thinking on the possibilities. (Thanks to Tycho at Penny Arcade for the pointer and similar urging.)
Ricky Gervais is filming a movie called "This Side of the Truth", starring Louis C.K. and John Hodgman, among others. And he's blogging about, to hilarious effect. After a visit from a reporter:
When he left I shouted at people and had an orphanage closed down because I needed somewhere to keep my plane dry.
Mike Schmidt, one third of the first season of the very successful podcast "Never Not Funny" has started his own podcast, called "40 Year Old Boy". NNF features three extremely quick-witted gentlemen (with occasional guests), sharing anecdotes about their pasts and their lives in the world of stand-up comedy. Mike left the show unceremoniously but apparently not acrimoniously at the end of season one (well, his leaving ended season one really). In any case, he's a genuinely funny, quick-witted man. Give him a listen!
And NNF Primo is awesome too! Well worth $20 a season.
Let me explain. The book begins on Earth, an Earth that is kept tightly shut off from the rest of the universe by the Colonial Union. The CU allows the citizens of certain countries to become colonists, and allows anyone over the age of 75 to enlist in its defense forces.
But no-one else is allowed off-world. No-one. Not even to visit. And the CU doesn't share its technology, instead using it to keep those on Earth firmly under control.
As I lay in bed reading last night, identifying with the people of Scalzi's Earth, I was overcome with intense claustrophobia. The idea that there was a whole universe out there, within reach, that I was being kept from, being kept prisoner on this planet, was unbearable. There was a tinge of agoraphobia too, that there was something unspeakably large in the sky, over me, pushing me down, holding me down ...
Then it occurred to me that this is might be what astronauts feel all the time, especially those that have made it into orbit. Or maybe it's worse for those astronauts who are fully trained but will never get into orbit. There's only a few shuttle flights left before the Space Shuttle program is decommissioned in 2010, where they'll be flying at a reduced rate until the Orion spacecraft is ready to replace them (scheduled to be ready 2014, so probably 2018).
Update: the rest of the book is much more Boy's Own Adventure than the grittier, drier, "Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. I couldn't help but compare them while reading Scalzi's debut, but that didn't stop me enjoying it at all. Just started reading the follow-up, "Ghost Brigades".
Taking (another) quick break from filing the paper debris of my life.
Go watch, is funny!
In 1969, the newly created Corporation for Public Broadcasting was about to have its funding yanked (thank you, Mr. Nixon). Mr. Rogers testified before the U.S. Senate and in seven short minutes changed their minds:
