Check out the short film / trailer "Grayson". A hell of a filmmaking effort, and very inventive. I hope to get back into trying to do movie-type things after this damn election, and this filmmaker is an inspiration.

I hadn't heard about this, but it's pretty interesting. In December of 2002, a freighter called the Tricolor sank in the English Channel, going to the bottom with a couple thousand Saabs, BMWs and Volvos on board. They've raised it, and are cutting it up for salvage. Very cool pictures here.

Brilliant.

I'm at the Sheraton in downtown Cleveland, overlooking Lake Erie and the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame. Hurricane Charlie is bearing down on my house in Tampa, and has just been upgraded to Category 4. That's like - one worse than 3!

Read this Q&A with John Perry Barlow, in which he renounces his Republican-Libertarian past, as well as his Libertarian-Libertarian past, and relates the thought process behind him becoming a Democrat-Libertarian. I had an interesting email exchange with him years ago (probably circa 1998), after I wrote to him regarding an interview of him that I had read. I wrote something along the lines of "I don't agree with you on XYZ, but when you said ABC, I was totally with you. Thanks!" Six months later, he writes me back - "Thanks for the kind words. What about XYZ did you not agree with? I'd like to find out what you objected to." I had never expected him to write me back, and I couldn't remember what the points of the article were or what he'd said, and couldn't find the original piece online, so I never responded. Still embarassed about that.

Weather update - Hurricane Charlie is bearing down on the Tampa area, and is expected to hit sometime Friday evening. My flight to Cleveland is at 8AM this morning, so I may or may not be getting out of town ahead of it. We shall see - updates to follow.

A word about the weather here in Florida. We're apparently scheduled to get our ass kicked by a hurricane in couple of days, but in the meantime it is incredibly hot and moist. I should point out that it's always hot and moist, but you notice this sort of thing more when the A/C dies in your house. I got home around 10:30 PM, after a pleasant meal at a chain restaurant with my co-workers, only to discover that my usually-welcoming house was hotter inside than out. My two room-mates were nowhere to be found, and I suddenly knew how it might feel to be the guy on the bomb squad who didn't get the "for the love of God, don't go in there!" order. One of my room-mates is staying with family this evening, it turns out, and the other has actually taken a hotel room for the night. Both of them were incredulous (via telephone, when we spoke) that I would even entertain the thought of staying in the house.

Indeed, it is too hot for any man to stand - especially a man raised in the temperate North, where although it may become hot, after the sun falls it becomes tolerable to live. I sit here, shirtless, in front of this computer at half past three in the morning because it is too hot to do anything else. I have gone out on the porch to enjoy the breeze a few times, and have received many mosquito bites the size of dimes and nickles on my neck and torso for my trouble. The thought of climbing into my bed with only a meagre fan to cool me is unattractive at this point, watching television in the living room - on the leather sofas - is unthinkable, and spending the night outdoors would be suicide.

Please allow me to run down a partial list of the reasons that simply opening my bedroom windows to receive a breeze is not an option:

• Nobody in Florida has screens on their windows, because they run their A/C 24 hours a day.
• The windows on the average Floridian house (including this one) haven't been opened since they were installed. They are closed with locks, and several coats of paint.
• If I could open the windows, the house would be invaded by Florida fauna such as:
• Mosquitos
• Those insects that look like mosquitos X10 and don't bite, but instead cruise clumsily around every room making a high-pitched whining noise.
  
• Cockroaches.
• Cockroaches with wings (I am not making this up - imagine the ugliest, grossest cockroach you've ever seen, and then give it the ability of flight. It sounds like a Blackhawk when it flies past you).
• Rats.
• Fire ants.
• Lizards.

If I leave my laptop sitting out at the office or at home for more than a few hours, ants make it their home, and all of this is normal! Currently, I am trying to decide on the best strategy to cool myself off and enable me to go to bed. I'm considering running a cold bath and lying in it, or perhaps holding my face and hands in an ice-cube filled basin for as long as I can stand it.

I suppose the message here is implicit, but please don't mind my reiteration - DON'T EVER MOVE TO FLORIDA.

Watch "Rocket Brothers". Sad, moving, and beautifully simple animation in this music video by Anders Morgenthaler.

Sweet - the 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' story is starting to implode. John O'Neill, pwned by John Kerry and - um - the truth, once again.

Hooboy - my high school senior portrait was bad, alright - just not as bad as these...

Via Kos - Donna Brazille hits it out of the park. Heh, awesome.

Lyndon Johnson ordering pants, recorded in the Oval Office. Choice line: "And another thing - the crotch, down where your nuts hang - is always a little too tight, so when you make them up, give me an inch that I can let out there, uh because they cut me, it's just like riding a wire fence."