I never would have thought I would hear “running for office” and “XKCD” in the same sentence, toss in “Kansas” and I’d be sure I’d never hear it.
I’d be wrong…
My name is Sean Tevis [photo]. I’m an Information Architect in Kansas running for State Representative. I’m going to win. This is my story (XKCD homage style) so far…
This looks too good not to see.
Coming this week, … through the tubes!
Neil Patrick Harris - Doogie, Kumar, Your Mother, et al.
Nathan Fillion - Firefly
Felecia Day - The Guild (and a math degree from UT!)
Josh Whedon - the creator
Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.
What are these things?
The short answer is they are the cute salable mascots for the 2008 Summer Beijing Olympic Games.
The longer answer is they represent The Olympic Flame, The Giant Panda, The Tibetan Antelope, The Shayan Kite, and The Chinese Sturgeon.
The most recent answer is that they are The Bearer of Incendiary Strife, The Lord of Angry Earth, The Creature of Righteous Unrest, The Bearer of Unfortunate Wind, and The Bringer of Torrent and Flood.
Those are much more fun, don’t you think!
It seems the more superstitious of the Chinese suspect that these mascots are the causes of recent strife in China, respectively, the most problematic and protested olympic torch relay in history, the Sichuan earthquake, Tibetan protests, a train crash, and widespread flooding.
I am sympathetic, to these natural and man-influenced disasters, but I am quite humored that these cute, neo-corporate, marketing tools may be at the root cause of it all.
Somehow life is easier to bear for humans when there is some supernatural power causing all the problems.
Here’s your quiz of the day: what are these five things?
Answer tomorrow. (Please refrain from posting spoilers in the comments - wry hints and jabs thoroughly encouraged.)
Recently, my friend Virginia O informed me that her sister Elizabeth was demolishing her house and had some last items for sale. Well, this sounded like a good opportunity, and I had some time, so I checked it out.
Particularly Virginia had mentioned a stove/oven. I have been needing a new one for a long time. I had wanted a gas stove, but the current connection was for an electric, and that seemed to be the easiest road to take.
So, I took the stove , it fit in the back of my Subaru no problem. When I got home, moved the old beast onto the back porch, did a 10-year cleaning of the area, and pushed the new oven into place, I found out that 220 volt plugs have changed in the last (insert correct number) decades.
I had to return to the house to pick up an entertainment center, so when I returned, I extricated the plug that was previously in use for the stove, and later installed it at my house.
It works great, and I first tested it out baking a store pizza on my long-unused pizza stone. Trés magnifique!
As mentioned, I also picked up an entertainment center. Mine works fine, but I’ve been using it for eight or so years, and it leads a bit to visual clutter, and also allowed a full cover of dust because of its openness.
The new entertainment center is actually a wardrobe from Mexico. Given that I live in an old house with a limited amount of closet space, it could actually be put to that use, if I wanted to. But, It works well as an entertainment center.
If my television was an inch less deep it would be perfect; as it is, it touches the TV when closed and doesn’t close perfectly.
I didn’t appreciate the full heft of the piece until I got Kevin and Conn over to the house to pick it up. It’s an extremely solid piece. We ran it into several things, with only colored markings to indicate what they might have been. The marks only add to its rustic charm.
Apparently the piece was hauled back from Mexico on the top of an Isuzu with great drama. I’m glad it made it and happy to have the piece now.
I made a point to drag all my heavy trash out to the curb on Sunday so that I would not have to keep it for another month. I also cut down some limbs with my new tree pruner, but not as many as were on the list.
The trashed stove/oven/microwave, the fallen ancient television antenna, and the water heater with a giant rusted hole in the bottom all disappeared from the front curb in about an hour.
The limbs on the other hand are still there this evening.
A little sleuthing leads me find out that they’ve changed the heavy trash days in my neighborhood.
Looks like I’ll have a pile of limbs for another week. Perhaps I’ll cut them up a bit; perhaps I’ll add to it.
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