Poll on Homosexual Marriage

The American Family Association (aka "those right-wing hypocritical religious nuts who think they know what's best for the rest of us") are taking a poll on whether or not homosexual marriage should be legalized. They claim that the results will be presented to Congress, so go vote.

Current results:

• oppose legalization: 42.39% (149790 votes)
• favor legalization: 49.54% (175065 votes)
• favor "civil unions": 8.06% (28497 votes)

RotK bathroom break list

We're planning on seeing Return of the King before we take off, so this SF Chron list of when to take bathroom breaks could be useful.

Thanks, Secret Santa

As previously mentioned, we're going on vacation all next week, so I'm opening gifts early. Today's score: my Secret Santa sent me For Us, The Living : A Comedy of Customs by Robert Heinlein. Yay, and thanks!

How To Get A Book Deal With Your Blog

Color me depressed by How To Get A Book Deal With Your Blog. I was a professional writer long before I had a blog, and I'm likely to be one long after I stop. And in all that time, I've only ever had one type of comment from anyone associated with a publisher regarding this site: "When you're blogging I know you're not working, so stop blogging and get back to work."

Hell, I'm a pro who has sold hundreds of thousands of books. Why can't I get a book deal that has something to do with this blog?

Colored toys

I can't imagine spending $400 to color my laptop or $50 to color my iPod, but I do have to say that the pictures of the results look really darn cool.

'Low-Carb' Burger

I've been expecting to see this for a while: Carl's Jr. now sells a Low-Carb Burger. What I haven't seen yet but am expecting to see soon is a low carb frozen dinner. Currently, all of them (at least at my local market, which carries plenty of frozen foods) contain potatoes, rice, or pasta.

Doc on presentations

Doc Searls writes about The Problem With Presentations. "It's the story, stupid. Don't let presentation software keep you from getting your story across."

RotK reviews

The "Cream of the Crop" at RottenTomatoes reviews The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. With expectations like these, it'd better cure cancer, end hunger, and bring about world peace.

Novel USB devices

I stole this post directly from Boing Boing, just because it was too cool to pass up. I really want the mug warmer.

This Slashdot post has a a nice roundup of novelty USB-powered devices:

• USB electric blanket [mib.co.jp]
• USB coffee heater [dct-net.co.jp]
• USB toothbrush [impress.co.jp]
• USB fan [tt-hardware.com]
• omg wtf is this! [dreamkitty.com]
• USB 'Desktop safety fan' (?) [skysis.com.tw]
• USB light [gamestech.com]
• USB fingerprint reader [eyenetwatch.com]
• USB police strobe [impress.co.jp]
• George Foreman USB iGrill (knock out da USB fat!) [thinkgeek.com]
• USB electric razor [impress.co.jp]
• USB noodle strainer [impress.co.jp]

Once More, with Hobbits

Once More, with Hobbits is a Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer Musical Adventure. The only thing that could make it better is MP3s, which they say are coming soon. Two great tastes that taste good together.

Expo hotel deal

Because we work hard to keep our readers happy, here's the latest we've found in good deals on where to stay while at Macworld Expo: OSXFAQ has a special at the Renaissance San Francisco Parc 55. $109/night + 9.95 for DSL. They've got a decent deal on parking, too. We're reconsidering those reservations at the Palomar.

Desktop Dean

The geeks shall inherit the earth: check out Desktop Dean, "a FREE Dean for America mini-RSS aggregator. Desktop Dean delivers the latest Dean news, opinion, and announcements right to your desktop."

Windows only (currently), unfortunately. It's also interesting to check out the list of feeds they push.

Two Towers meet the Matrix

We rented the DVD of The Two Towers to prepare for the release of The Return of the King. There's a scene where Hugo Weaving, as Elrond, appears on the screen looking stern with Aragorn. Remembering that he also plays Agent Smith in the Matrix films, before he had a chance to speak, I leaned over and whispered in Dori's ear, "Misterrr Aragorn...."

(Not) Kerry for Prez

Okay, when the Unofficial Kerry For President Blog says:

It's official: I'm withdrawing my support from John Kerry

It's time, and past time, for the candidate to drop out.

Vacation, ho!

I've mentioned our plans for next week to a few people in email, and the reaction seems to boil down to, "Vacation? What is this 'vacation' thing you talk about?" I figured that I'd cover it here once and then point others to it so I don't have to write it multiple times.

Sean, as a high school student, gets two weeks off for the holidays—16 days total with weekends. His paternal grandma hasn't seen him in a while, and so, wanted him to come visit for ten days. So I set that up.

Now, what usually happens when Sean's out of town is that Tom and I look at each other and talk about the cool things we could be doing if one or both of us wasn't working like dogs. But for once, we actually have some time off, and simultaneously at that. Based on past experience, what would then happen is that we'd sit around talking about the cool stuff we ought to do, and about two days before Sean returned we'd kick ourselves for not having done any of it. But before we could take on any of these weighty projects, Holland America jumped in to derail our long-standing tradition.

A quick aside: yes, HAL (Holland America Line) is the cruise company through whom we've taken 3 out of the 4 Geek Cruises we've been on. That means that we took 4 cruises with HAL between 2000-2002 (3 GC's plus our honeymoon), and nothing since. That put us in HAL's "has given us tons of business but haven't seen them in a while, so let's make them an offer they can't refuse" category.

So, HAL sent us offers that came darn close to it being cheaper to cruise than it would to stay home (i.e., about 75% off their rack rate). We looked at a few of their destinations, and this Western Caribbean trip looked like the best bet in terms of timing and costs.

But wait, says I. What about getting to Florida? Airfares these days are outrageous, and it's unlikely that we can get frequent flyer seats around the holidays. But a quick look online tells us that yes, we do have enough miles to get us both from Oakland to Miami for free, and reservations are available, and in a reasonably timely manner to catch the ship.

At this point, it was hard to say no. It's not as if we frequently find ourselves with this many things all simultaneously encouraging us to take a week off: kid taken care of, free airfare, no active projects, and a dirt cheap trip. And on top of that, the vet even had lodging vacancies so they could take care of our cat. So, we're booked (of course, given that everything else fell into place so nicely, I noodged Tom into upgrading our cabin).

Dunno if we'll have net access over the trip, so if all is quiet here while y'all are having a white Christmas, think of us poor souls lying on the deck chairs by the pool, patiently waiting for the staff to bring us another daiquiri.