Blimey, it’s been a while.  Sorry for being away for so long, and Joe, sorry for not replying.  I hope you are too doing Nano.  Well, day one has gone spectacularly well, and I have already done my word count for today and tomorrow, and have finished my first chapter.

I had forgotten just how much fun it was.

I will blog more soon but I am a bit written out at the moment.

“I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire,—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” - Hamlet, William Shakespeare.

Yes, I am having one of those days.  Had a phenomenally lovely weekend and the return to work has gotten me in this kind of mood.

Well, after about a week of setting up, tweaking, installing, uninstalling and threatening physical violence against a reasonably inanimate object, I have finally gotten my computer set up at Ellen’s.  The only thing left to do now is to install Google Chrome, although I haven’t fully decided to do that yet.

The main problem I was having was the lack of sound eminating from the PC, no matter what I tried.  At Jonic’s behest I finally crumbled and got a new sound card.  Which I then utterly failed to install properly, and the gorram thing wouldn’t tell me what I had done wrong.  Eventually though, I conquered all, and celebrated last night by watching The Culture Show Metallica Special on iPlayer.  Now though, I have gotten my Last.fm back online, and shall start to scrobble away with intensity.

So now I really don’t have any excuses not to do some writing(apart from a full stack of unread items on my Google Reader), and I find myself re-invigorated and ready to go back to the film script I half abandoned about a year ago.  I showed it to Jonic, who cut it apart mercilessly, but that’s what I needed, so here I go…

I am going to re-post an article from Talking Points Memo as I think it just sums up the Republican’s sense of unjustified entitlement and lack of self-awareness.

Finely Aged Whine

09.03.08 — 10:50AM

By Josh Marshall

There’s quite a tear-jerking piece in the Post by Howard Kurtz today about the McCain campaign’s wailing about the media treatment of their botched veep roll-out …

Sen. John McCain’s top campaign strategist accused the news media Tuesday of being “on a mission to destroy” Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by displaying “a level of viciousness and scurrilousness” in pursuing questions about her personal life.In an extraordinary and emotional interview, Steve Schmidt said his campaign feels “under siege” by wave after wave of news inquiries that have questioned whether Palin is really the mother of a 4-month-old baby, whether her amniotic fluid had been tested and whether she would submit to a DNA test to establish the child’s parentage.

…

Schmidt, a former spokesman for President Bush and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, talked openly about his frustrations in an interview with The Washington Post. He said the McCain camp is in the middle of the worst media “feeding frenzy” he has ever seen.

 

Schmidt, by the way, is one of the most hard-boiled GOP operatives and Rove proteges around. I guess he and his McCain colleagues missed the whole Rev. Wright episode, Clinton impeachment episode and, what, maybe twenty other episodes over recent years.

It’s also notable that while virtually all the aggressive questioning of Palin has been on her troopergate scandal, her manifest lack of qualifications, ties to a political party that embraces secession, etc. Schmidt focused on stories that if you look closely were actually never written. Yes, there was a storm of speculation on blogs. And maybe reporters followed up with inquiries. But who published any of it? Think about that for a second.

The McCain camp is using the rumors about Palin’s family as a cudgel to beat back entirely legitimate questions — which may amount to a feeding frenzy — about Palin’s political record, alleged pattern of abuse of the power of her office and political associations. When you see Steve Schmidt getting weepy, believe me, you’re getting played.

I mean seriously, when you don’t vet a candidate in such a visible role, the media is going to do it for you.  The arrogance of the Republicans in thinking they can win over Clinton Voters with a gun-toting creationist pro-life nutbar is simply staggering.  I mean, look at the photo (stolen from Jonic’s onehundrenyen lite feed) and tell me whether you really think this woman is going to win over Hillary’s base.

Went for a very enjoyable drinkie with the Jonic last night, although I am suffering the effects a little this morning.  I was tickled to find though, that three of the top 5 most read stories on the BBC News website this morning were:

Man’s ‘pants’ password is changed
Leaking mushroom soup halts plane
Spider forces family out of home

Why look at depressing news stories when you can enjoy the absurdity of life?

I have some writing tasks for work today, which elevates the standard of my day somewhat, no matter that they are just puff pieces (Jaffa Cakes taste test, anyone?) so apologies for the brief post, but anyone requiring something more substantial can look at the last post.  Just stare at it for a bit, it’s really long.

*Edited due to colour incompetence.