Weekend Wrap-Up

Saturday sk and I went to Portland to hear Scott Andrew drop some folkpop on the Red and Black Cafe. It was good to hear an extended set of Scott's tunes, and it was great to witness the energy he pours into performing. (Scott's take: Tour Diary: Portland, OR, and Matt's photo: Red and Black Cafe.)

The TV reduction is going very well. We moved the TV out of the living room entirely, and we've rearranged the furniture. It's amazing how peaceful a room becomes without the dark, reflective screen sucking away the energy. I watched the McLaughlin Group on Friday night, but nothing since then.

Of course the election was the biggest topic of coversation with equally-stunned friends over the weekend. My strategy is to make positive changes here at home, and then I'll think about how they can be extended to the outside world. sk's strategy is to do more volunteer work in the community, and make a difference in some areas that will be affected by the election results.

I haven't taken any photos lately, but I need to get out with the camera while the fall colors are here.

election reactions

Some stuff about the election that, if you read my blog, you've probably already read; but I'm posting here anyway: I feel terrible. My first resolution under the final reign of Bush: watch much less TV. I've already been cutting back, but I think it's time to eliminate the box from my daily life as much as possible.

obscene

nope, it was the obscenities.

thoughtful silence

What this site lacks in actual posts, it makes up for with thoughtful silence. I'll be holding my breath all day tomorrow. Hopefully when I finally exhale it'll be a sigh of relief instead of a steady stream of obscenities.

ps. what matt said, vote.

Internet Veterans for Truth

You know all those political video clips you've downloaded over the past couple of months? The group of folks at Internet Veterans for Truth has a good collection of them in one place. Let's Blogroll!

More info at waxy: Internet Vets for Truth.

Hello again

Server moved. New DNS settings propagating. It's good to be back online.

onfocus server offline

This site is going to be down for a few days while the server physically moves closer to home. This site should be back up on Wednesday, October 27th. I set up a temporary blog*spot blog in case I *really* need to blog during this time: onfocus II.

Newshour MediaWatch

The Newshour with Jim Lehrer is the only nightly newscast I've seen that tries to seriously cover the media itself. (And they do it infrequently.) Last night they had a segment about fact checking. It mentioned that being "balanced", or having 1 fact-check for one side and then 1 fact check for the other side in coverage isn't accurate if one side is actually lying or exaggerating more than the other. It's great to see this kind of critique happening on a major newscast because it helps viewers evaluate future news coverage they see (including Newshour coverage).

Related? Bush Supporters Still Believe Iraq Had WMD.

I voted!

Thanks to Oregon's mail-in ballot system, I voted early last night. (Actually, I dropped it in a ballot-box at the courthouse.) The only drawback to Oregon's system is that I don't get one of those "I voted" stickers.

I voted

(And I didn't vote for Kodos this time.) It was especially gratifying to vote for Kerry and against Oregon's Measure 36.

Orkut at OSU

Hey fellow Oregon geeks, Orkut Buyukkokten from Google (yeah, his namesake Orkut) is going to be speaking at OSU on Monday night. The talk is called: Google: A Computer Scientist's Playground. See ya there!

Yosemite Blizzard

A few groups of hikers were rescued in Yosemite this morning after a blizzard snowed them in. SFGate: Three groups of missing hikers rescued. Sadly, two men scaling El Capitan weren't as lucky.

Area Man's Television Sends Distress Signal

Note to self: don't broadcast on 121.5 MHz. Area Man's Television Sends National Distress Signal (aka Mystery signal traced to TV). Television malfunctions, hilarity ensues.

Update: This story is now international news. (Corvallis is world-famous for a malfunctioning TV!)
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