So I walked my son O and my daughter A home yesterday along with her friends F and M.  F comes over usually once a week, and the two girls play outside, usually with a big rock they have named "Rosie".  Rosie has an elaborate back story that the girls were explaining to M, about how she is a 1,000 year old person who was turned to stone but will soon come back to life.  My son heard this, which resulted in the following exchange:

O: "How do you know she's 1,000 years old?"
A: "It's written in a (weird name here) book."
O: "Well, can I see this book?"
A: "No, it's invisible."
O: "Then how do you see it?"
F: "We have special (weird name here) glasses."
O: "Well, can I see the glasses?"
A: "No, they are invisible too!"
O: "Then how do you know where they are?"
A and F: "We just do!"

O has so earned his Skeptics license!

After this they separated,  and O told me all about how they were lying, because people obviously didn't have the technology to turn into stone 1,000 years ago ("they don't even have it today!"), and we talked about the difference between lying and pretending.

It was a good walk home.

Anyone planning on going to Comic-Con this summer?  I am suddenly interested now that everything is sold out, of course (well, Friday and Saturday).  How is easy is it to get tickets on the secondary market?

It is probably prohibitively expensive and I doubt I will be going.  If you are going would you be willing to do me a big favor?

When you see this on your flist, quote Buffy The Vampire Slayer.


Cordelia: I personally don't think it's possible to come up with crazier plan.

Oz: We attack the Mayor with hummus.

Cordelia: I stand corrected.

NASA is having a vote to name the latest part of the ISS, currently just called Node 3. One of the names in the running is "Serenity" (and it is currently winning too!). Go here to register your vote:
http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/name_ISS/index.html

That's right, it is back!

I had read it was only going to be featured on Xbox for now, but they are showing it on the MSN Video website as well.  Episode 1 and 2 are both available.

Yay!

Yay!!!!!!!

It's that time! Make your predictions on this post, all comments will be screened until after the election. Give your electoral number prediction (you can use this map on NPR to build it). As a tie-breaker, also give your prediction of the number of Democratic senators in the new congress (Democrats only, not Independents).

The winner will be the person closest to the actual numbers, and will have full bragging rights!

Here is a wonderful post on FiveThirtyEight.com that has a quote from Obama that pretty much says it all: The Three Ashleys.

I phone-banked last night for the Obama campaign for the first time. It was interesting, though mostly a lot of answering machines.

Continuing from yesterday, there are more pundits that say that the current situation will probably lead to Democrats gaining even larger majorities in both the House and Senate. Stuart Rothenburg writes that, "another bloodbath looms on the horizon," and Charlie Cook posts, "At this stage, the most relevant question would seem to be: 'How big will the train wreck be for the Republican Party up and down the ballot in November.'"

The Politico front page says it all. You will find articles on how emotions at Republican rallies are bordering on panic, Hispanic voters turning away from McCain, critics are panning MCCain's new proposal to buy home mortgages, and Obama has purchased a full half-hour on major networks for 8:00pm on Oct. 29th.