NaNoWriMo!!! The Insantiy of November!!

It's October 28, only four more days until November!!! Or five, or three, depending on how you count. I don't know.

What's so exciting about November?!! After all, it's only another month, and a month with bad weather at that, right? WRONG!!! November is the month were thousands of formerly sane people take leave of their minds and begin a month long sabbatical into insanity. They will all attempt to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. And I am proud to say that I am one of them.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) was started in July of 1999 by Chris Baty in the San Fransisco Bay area. That first year there were 21 participants. In 2007 there were over 100,000 participants from around the world!

The goal of NaNoWriMo is quantity not quality. It doesn't matter how horrible your writing is. You just write and write and write and get all your ideas out. You can go back and fix it later for just for one month the focus is just on writing and no editing.

I did it last year and it was really fun!!!! So now I'm doing it again. No doubt there is some corner of my brain that is yelling at me for being so crazy, but at least for now, I can't hear it. Perhaps I'll think differently when it's 3:00am on November 29th and I still have 5000 words to go, but I don't think so. I like writing and no matter what happens on this insane journey I'm sure I'll have fun.

I should warn you, posts here will probably be pretty slim during the month of November. I'll be crazily typing away at my novel, but I'll try to write a quick post now and then just to let you know I'm still alive.

Sliding on Water

Picture from: National Geographic News

I just saw this article today about a small aquatic snail that can squeegee along on the surface of water. The snail is so small and light that it doesn't sink. Scientists have been perplexed at how the snail moves along the surface of the water because the water is slippery and the snails can't grip it, much like humans trying to walk on ice. Scientists recently discovered that the snail makes small rippling motions with its foot and creates traction for itself.

I found this very interesting! It can't be applied to humans, because to have spread our weight around enough so we don't sink, we'd have to have each shoe as large as a football field. However, it's really interesting how the snails evolved to do this.

Go Fire!

The Chicago Fire are beating the New York Red Bulls 4-1! (soccer) The Fire are already guaranteed a spot in the play offs. New York is in the hunt for one of two wild card spots. They still have some hope if they lose tonight (which they look like they'll do) but they'll have to rely on D.C. United either loosing or tying. Chris Rolfe of Chicago got a hat trick in the first half alone. His second goal was really, really pretty. He received a cross from another player, bounced it off his chest, then volleyed it straight into the goal without the ball touching the ground.

Oo. New York just had a really good scoring chance but the Fire goalie just had a big save.

I'm sort of rooting for the Fire. If New York looses then D.C. United has a better chance of getting in. I'm not sure why I like D.C. but I do for some reason. They had a really good season last year but this year they've had a lot of injuries to all their good players and they didn't play well either. It's rather doubtful that they'll get in though. Oh well.

Chicago just scored again! It was a first career goal for one of their players. Good for him. Now the score is 5-1. And they just almost scored again. Wow. Now it's a corner kick . . . that didn't end up being very dangerous. I'm pretty sure Chicago will win though. :)

Arg. A N.Y. player just ran through the defense, got past the goalie, and passed to another guy who got his shot blocked. Yikes, a close one. That was some bad defending.

There are only 10 minutes left now. A win for Chicago.

Ready - Set - COOK!!!

Photographed at the IKA International Culinary Olympics
Erfurt, Germany

(How on earth are you supposed to eat that thing?)

From October 19th to the 22nd chefs from 53 countries will compete in Erfurt, Germany in the Culinary Olympics.

I had no idea such a thing existed. I guess I shouldn't be surprised since competition and food always seem to go together. Who can cook the best apple pie? Who has the best stuffing? Iron Chef America on Food Network. And all sorts of increasingly weird competitions. After all that, Culinary Olympics sound be no surprise.

The chefs will compete in teams for their countries, creating huge masterpieces of sugar shaped like dragons or dainty plates of carefully placed appetizers. Surprisingly enough, most of their points come from presentation and style, taste accounting for a small portion of the judging. I suppose the judges can't taste all the entries of 1,600 chefs but isn't food for eating not looking at?

I like my food plain. Food is fuel. But I do admit, all the artwork created at the Culinary Olympics is definitely very pretty to look at.

3rd Presidential Debate, and World Cup Qualifying

The third and last presidential debate is going on right now. By now, I've heard everything that the candidates are saying. They have set messages that they have to deliver and they keep repeating them. Say McCain attacks Obama. Then Obama goes into his planned 'absolutely not true' response and throws in a couple attacks on McCain along the way. Same goes when Obama attacks McCain. It's getting sort of old . . .
However, Obama just had a nice speech on education which I really agreed with. Get more parents involved, give credit for community service, lower costs of college. :)

In general these days though I'm rather tired of all the mud throwing and politics. There was a strip in the comics today where one of the characters put in an absentee ballot just so he could get his vote over with.

Oh, but the moderator (Bob Schieffer [not sure on the spelling of his last name]) is doing a much better job then his predecessors. He is actually interrupting the candidates and chiding them when they don't answer the questions. He also asked some very good questions and follow up questions.

The U.S. soccer team just lost to Trinidad and Tobago in a world cup qualifying match. The game was in Trinidad and Tobago, and it was airing during the debate. I actually watched more of the game than the debate. The home crowd was very supportive of their team. Trinidad and Tobago scored first, then the U.S. caught up, then the U.S. fouled in the box on a corner kick. Trinidad and Tobago scored on the Penalty Kick and the final score was 2-1. It's not terrible for the U.S. since they've already got a spot but now they might be put in a harder group than if they had won. Trinidad and Tobago is ecstatic. They lost to the U.S. 6-1 or something like that the last time they played so this was a big change.

Crazy!!

Yikes!!!! The Gophers (football!!!) beat Illinois!!! 27-20!!!! Crazy!!!! There is something seriously strange going on when Minnesota beats a team that creamed Michigan. Speaking of which, Michigan lost to Toledo, who I've never even heard of before. There are some very sad Wolverine fans out there right now.

That's all for today :) I just had to get that out there.

2nd Presidential Debate

I'm watching the re-run of the second presidential debate right now. It's sort of interesting watching the debate right after listening to the experts, news people, random people, undecided voters, and everybody else debate the debate on the post debate discussions.

We're on the second question now. It's from Oliver Clark, he asked about the bailout, what does it actually do?

McCain is talking about how he left his campaign suspended and went to Washington to make sure that tax payers were covered, and how Fanny May and Freddy Mac made lots of risky loans with encouragement from Obama and his 'cronies' or friends. This rescue package means that they will stabilize the market, they'll buy up the bad mortgages. Ect. . .

Obama is talking about how the credit market is failing and how companies can't get loans at the moment. They will have to cut jobs and stuff because they can't get enough money through loans. That's why they had to take action and set up the bailout. The biggest factor in the economy problem was the deregulation. Obama is saying how he wrote to people in Washington and said they had to deal with it and nothing happened while McCain said they should keep deregulating.

Blah blah blah. . . the candidates were just asked if they thought if the economy would get worse before it got better but neither of them are answering. They just go off into their speeches that they've said a hundred times before. . .

Somebody just asked something along the lines of "Why should we trust you with our money?"

Obama is going off on a Bush-was-really-bad speech. Now he's talking about making investments in college, independent energy, and stuff.

McCain, ". . .The system in Washington is broken. . ." and then he starts boasting about his bipartisan record, and saying how Obama doesn't have a good record. He's saying how he has a good record while Obama voted for earmarks, and extravagant spending, and stuff. wow, he mentioned energy independence too. But then he said offshore drilling, and nuclear energy.

The moderator just reminded them to keep on track with time. And the next question is what will be your order in terms of priorities for Health Care, Energy Independence, and Entitlements.

McCain is answering first and he says he will work on all three at the same time. Then some more classic lines. But he's pretty sure he can do all three at once, and he said we have to do all of them at once.

Obama said we (as a country) have to prioritize just like a family has too. Energy has to be at the top of the list he said because not only do high gas prices hurt the average person, it is also a security problem because some of the money going towards foreign oil is going to countries who aren't friendly towards the U.S. Next Obama said was Health Care. Now he's going back at McCain about the earmark thing. Throw mud, throw mud. . . .

As president what sacrifices will you ask the American people to make?

McCain: we will have to eliminate some programs. Defense spending is one example. "I believe we have to eliminate the earmarks." Spending is going to be cut, he recommends a spending freeze except for veterans programs.

Obama: "A lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11..." how the country was able to come together. There is going to be the need for each person to think of how they use energy. Including offshore drilling?? (Not sure I like that) Obama said that each of us should start thinking about how we use energy. Make cars, business more energy efficient. Young people are eager to be involved. Military family families shouldn't bear the full burden of the country.

The debate is going on. I'm not really hearing anything new. Townhall is an interesting format. The candidates have chairs on the stage but when they talk, they usually get up and walk around talking to various members of the silent audience. It's definitely different from them just standing behind a lecturn.

Btw, McCain keeps saying "my friends" it's sort of getting on my nerves. And just so my critisism is spread around, Obama's tie loks sort of strange. Is it supposed to be blue, gray or purple? I can't tell.

It's getting late, I'm going to keep watching but I'm getting really sleepy. . . .

Politics and Problems

If you watched the Colbert Report on Oct. 1st you'll know what this picture is about

Image from: http://brandstrategy.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/campbells-soup-i-1968-print-c10089337-1.jpg

The Senate voted on their version of the bailout plan yesterday. As expected it passed. Not only passed but passed by a margin of 74 to 25 and both senators from MN voted for the bailout. There are a bunch of 'sweeteners' added on to the bill to make it more appealing for the house and general public. Sort of a interesting idea. It's like large scale bribery. Anyway. . . the house is going to vote on the bill again tomorrow. It is yet to be determined if the revisions made by the senate will make the bill more appealing to the house.

Speaking of which. I was watching part of the Colbert Report for the first time. It was ridiculously funny. The theme of the day was reporting on the future. How McCain's campaign had released an add saying he won the first presidential debate before the debate actually took place. And various other things like that. I must admit that whoever came up with comedy was a genius.

And tonight is the Vice President's debate. There has been a lot of media hype about it. How Sarah Palin is going through a rough time, how Joe Biden is known for putting his foot in his mouth, etc. Everybody has a different idea of what the candidates should do to each other and behind it all the media people are gleefully dancing around stirring up any little fact they can find and inflating it to epic proportions.
I think it might be anticlimactic given all the attention being paid to it. These people are vice president candidates. They probably don't want to do anything that will reflect badly on their running mate (at least I hope they don't). They probably won't go out and do all sorts of risky things that could easily backfire. At least that's what I think, but I'm hardly an expert.
I will be watching tonight's debate though. If I'm not bored to tears in the first five minutes, I'll probably watch most of it. Hopefully I'll be entertained. Certainly the media will do their best to make this as entertaining as possible, even though that wasn't the original goal of debates.