The above is a quote from the one, the only, Dave Koltash.  I felt that it needed to be preserved for all eternity on the internets.  And don't worry, it actually wasn't anything bad, just odd to walk past the room and hear that come from his mouth.

Well, the elections happened (and Brittney broke up…is it sad I didn't know she was married, and by extension didn't know to Justin Federline?  Although I do like that they are calling him Fed Ex), and I'm mostly happy.  I didn't follow them as much as I should have, but I researched all the things I voted for, just not the other races, I left that to the newscasters.  By the way, Comedy Central's coverage was very good, and a lot of fun (and the cheering for Pa was awesome!).

The best part is of course that the campaign ads are done.  While there may be a few thank you ads in the weeks to come, it's over!  Now, to all the republicans, democrats and third parties:

Republicans: If you voted, you can complain…when things happen.  Until then, calm down.  You were in power for how long, twelve years or something like that (congress, not even looking at all the Bush years), if you wanted some agenda pushed, that would have been a good time, and besides you still have a month or two.  Oh wait, congressmen (all) don't work that much, that's right.  Also, just because democrats think differently than you do, does not mean that they are stupid, illiterate or the reason for all the worlds problems, nor does wanting to end a violent conflict mean they do not support the troops.  There has been an alarming increase of facebook groups dedicated to hating the left side of politics, and it's very disheartening to see.  Welcome to the democratic process, people vote for what they want.  If you don't want to accept that fact, please find yourself a nice dictatorship to live in.

Democrats: If you voted, you can complain.  Also, just because republicans think differently than you do, does not mean that they are stupid, illiterate or the reason for all the worlds problems, nor does wanting to end a violent conflict mean they do not support the troops (yes, there are some republicans who think the war should end, both sides should take note of that).  Oh yeah, and don't screw it up, things are going to change again in two years anyway.

Third Parties/Independants: If you voted, you can complain.  And congratulations on having two seats in the Senate!  Hopefully that will be a trend that continues.  Sit back and enjoy the two big parties arguing about stuff, and just think what it would be like to be in a small European country with twenty-some major parties!

Other than that, I just got back from my first Commissioner's staff meeting, which was fun.  I'm still a bit apprehensive, but I'm excited at the same time.  We'll see how things go, I'll keep everyone posted.

In the meantime, I'm off to SVC to help with Koinonia 4 this weekend, have a good one everybody!

Quick updates:

I was given a fun hat yesterday!

I really have no interest in the PS3, but I love this ad.  I don't think it will be very effective, especially outside of the hardcore-gamers (and even with them, I don't think it will be too effective either), but I really like it, so I wanted to post it here.  Again, shameless plug, if you're reading this at my webpage, the video is embedded in the page, so go on over to www.michaelcrane.net and take a look around!

Let's see, update time.  Halloween was good, we had a bunch more kids than we typically got, so that was exciting.  It still annoys me when older "kids" go out to get candy and they don't dress in costume.  At least make some sort of effort to celebrate the holiday (although I do like halloween in general, I think it's a cool holiday, even as its evolved).  The worst is when people deliberately ask for more candy, just plain rude if you ask me, but then again, I'm just the guy holding the bowl (and here's a bonus hint: If you're a small child, you'll get more candy from me anyway, so older "kids," you're out of luck!).

I went out to University of Scouting, which was surprisingly a lot of fun!  I met up with a whole bunch of people I hadn't seen in a while (two of my old camp directors, Al H., Shirley D.) and a bunch of people I had just seen the weekend before at Camp Twin Echo (I also passed on my idea about the opening to the Athens Olympics being used for the 2009 Conclave, and it is a possibility!).  The training was good, although I didn't like one of the trainers, I didn't think he was very effective.  The information was a little daunting though, I'm still a bit nervous, but I think I can handle it.  I'm pretty sure most of my nervousness stems from having just come from such a bad situation in a unit, I'm projecting it to be like that all the time in all the units with me trying to sort through it all.  I know that that's not the case, just scared I suppose.

But it will be cool, I'll be able to help out units (I'm hoping to work with the Venture units, from what the other commissioners were talking about, it seems I have the best grasp on that particular program), and the rest of the District's commissioner staff is awesome, and such a wealth of information, it really will be great!

A bunch of us decided that we should participate in this years National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  The premise is that every day, people say they are going to write a novel, but people never finish them.  November is set aside for people to actually write that novel they've been thinking/talking about.  The goal is to write 50,000 words in the month, and if you do (and verify it on the site), you are declared a winner.  Being a winner then grants you the bragging rights to talk at fancy parties about your book.  I'm probably crazy for doing it, but it's been fun so far, although I did start two days late, and the group of us (12 of us from the Myst/URU forums) are having fun urging each other on.

I don't think it's great, there really isn't a plot as of yet.  It's a hodgepodge of seven characters, all of which will at some point meet up and interact with at least one other character.  But for right now, I'm letting the characters tell the story and seeing where it takes me.  I may send it off to one of the publish your own work sites on the net once it's all done, just to have a bound copy for posterity's sake, but other than that, don't look for it to be published anywhere, it's more for me (and the bragging rights!).

Other than that, still more applying and resumes and all that fun stuff.  Hopefully I'll post again before the weekend, but if I don't, I'm going up to SVC to help out with Koinonia (and very excited for that too), talk with everyone soon!

Wow, great weekend.  I was up at Camp Twin Echo for a service weekend with the OA.  The weather was horrible (at one point, I compared it to mudfest '97).  We had all four seasons on Saturday (the day we were all out working): we had about four seconds of sun, sleet, snow, tons of rain and of course the hail.  I distincly remember looking up at thinking, "Oh…that is hail.  I wonder why Alandra is pissed off?"

My "favorite" would of course have to be the powerful thunder during the snow and hail…We lost power (we were in cabins, which I wasn't expecting at all, but thankful for.  Of course, the Ordeal candidates were outside the first night, but in tents that they brought, and then scattered in open bunks in cabins the second night, which made for not a lot of sleep for regular members sharing facilities…), which made the ceremonies and dinner awesome (candlelit), but did provide problems, such as no hot water for showers and the inability to finish cooking what was already in the oven, on the stove.  Thankfully, there were enough back-up generators to finish the food (for over 200).

My crew and I went around the camp to designated fire pits (most of them, about 20 or 22 in all) and scattered the ashes and rebuilt the circles as needed.  It was a lot of fun, and I had a decent crew, even if they all seemed to have varying forms of ADHD (except one of them).  We got that finished and then went to work cleaning up the basketball courts.  We didn't have a chance to finish it all, but got a good chunk of it done, and it looks so much better (although still missing one hoop, but we did find it, so it just needs reattached again).  The renovations to the dining hall look great and Ranger Larry was very appreciative of us, and it was great to see him again.

The current plan is to rotate service weekends to Twin Echo and Guyasuta one year, followed by Anawana and Baker the next, with two weekends at Heritage each year as well.  I think it's really good the lodge is getting out to all the camps.  Not because Heritage is running out of 'meaningful' projects, as many leaders say (this is wrong, ask any staff member, any job done at camp is meaningful – for instance, at Fall Ceremonial the dam had to be weeded to keep it safe and intact), but because we should be at all the camps.

It really was good to see some old friends, and reconnect with some people I haven't had much chance to talk to lately.  Planning is starting up for Conclave 2009 being held at Heritage (note to self: Canoe idea needs mixed with the video from the 2002 Conclave and the opening to the Athens Olympics), and the lodge is working on reopening two of the three circles at Camp Twin Echo (the one behind the Adirondaks and the old Vigil circle).  To do so, they (at my suggestion) are going to try to contact old staff members such as Ray D., Bob S., and Jeff P.  In addition, Ranger Larry (who of course bopped me upside the head) found a copy of the minutes from the last national meeting (held at CTE)…the plan is to make a copy, frame them and take them to Conclave this year with the Enda-mobile (Bill's car with the giant lodge flap wedged in the sunroof) as a way to make an entrance.

So anyway, that was my weekend, and I'm happy to be back home.  Commodore got a bath (he needed it from before, and when pulling out the car next to him at CTE covered him in mud), and thankfully, the weather today was great to do it.

And today marks the end of a six year search for a piece of music.  When NBC played their miniseries "The Tenth Kingdom" they used a song for promo, but I haven't been to locate it, or even who sang it or what it was called.  I recently watched the miniseries again and it once again sparked my interest in the song (I would probably try at least once a month to find it for the last six years).  I stubmled upon a yahoo group dedicated to the miniseries and asked about the song.  I had my answer and after much searching, found and verified that it was the song I've been looking for at garageband.com.  (It's "Let Me Go Back" by Loni Rose, and was also used in the season finale of Real World 9 on MTV the same year as it was featured on NBC).  It's not something I would typically listen too (very earthy and kind of pop-ish), but I'm so happy to have found it, and it always makes me think of the promo spot, which was great (if I can ever find it on youtube I'll post it, but no luck).

Speaking of much and youtube, the new PostSecret book is out, but to see some of the postcards from the first book, check out All American Rejects, "Dirty Little Secret"  And as an added shameless plug, the readers on my website (as opposed to LJ or FaceBook) get the youtube video embedded in the entry, not as a link…mostly becasue I don't know how to do it on those two sites…but you get the point!

Ok, enough of me rambling, talk with everyone soon!

So I find it interesting that the Order of the Phoenix movie (next summer) opens first in France and not England.  A full two days before the UK (and the US and Canada, but I don't want to be too ethnocentric).  It just kind of strikes me as odd.  I wonder if there is a holiday weekend it coincides with, or avoids?  I'm just going to assume that the people at Warner Bros. know what they're doing!

I think I posted it once before, but there is a site that shows public art projects of super mario question mark blocks thath people have set up around the world.  I think it would be a really cool grassroots marketing effort by Nintendo for the launch of the Wii and Super Mario Galaxy to sponsor some sort of competition (granted, some people have gotten in trouble becasue the boxes were 'suspicious' so I can understand any reluctance.  But there is a cool video of people's reaction in Los Angeles:

I don't know if anyone else watch's NBC's show Heroes, but if you do, check out Hiro's Blog, it's histerical!

My dad and I finished my light table and I rearranged some stuff and I was able to use it today.  It's so awesome, and works just like how I wanted it to!  If I had a digital camera, I'd post a picture, but I can't, so just imagine a piece of plexiglass at an agle on tall legs with a light shining through it.

I was watching the news coverage of the Westmoreland County emergency drill, and as they were talking about using the most advanced equipment, they showed a clip of a guy walking past in his hazmat suit…with duct tape holding the mask on.  sigh…

Also, on a side note, the guy from the 1-800-PETMEDS commercials creeps me out, its something about his voice, it just sounds creepy.

This happens a lot (and just happened): When you're at home at night (others asleep) and not expecting any phone calls, and the phone rings, what is the first thing that enters your mind?  I think "who is in the hospital, and what do I need to do?"  Well, not at our house!  No, we have a fax machine that thinks our number is another fax machine, so we pick up and hear *beeeeeeeep, screeeech beep*.  Again, sigh…

I saw The Prestige with some friends tonight, I really liked it.  The theater was packed, which was awesome (aside from midnight premiers, I don't see it very often).  Although, by the end of the movie, we were all discussing which one of the characters (Batman or Wolverine…yes, that's how we discussed it…ok, Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman) we were rooting for, it's a tough call!  Go out and see it with friends, so you can discuss afterwards!

Just a test to see if youtube videos will play here:

Well…today it was announced that tag is not allowed, at least at one school south of Boston.  Yes, the school board is afraid that kids might get hurt and their parents will sue the school.  Sigh.  Read the article here if you're interested, or just want to die a little bit inside.

In other crazy news, Major League Baseball started a program to create coffins and urns with team logos on them, as well as designating the deceased "fans for life."  The company also does things like Harley Davidson and Betty Boop.  They are looking into doing things like NASCAR and the NHL, but started small this year with just three MLB teams (expanding to all the teams next year).  As odd as it sounds, I can think of at least three people who would pay for this.

I went out with my dad today to buy the wood for my light table, which will help tremendously, and will be fun to put together of course!  I said earlier (I think) that I finished "The Eye of the World," I'm now into it's sequel "The Great Hunt," which is great, pretty soon I'll be done with it too (that's ok, there are 12 books in the series, so ten more to go)!

Did more work on the website the last few days.  I think I have everything I want uploaded to my portfolio.  I found some extensions to impliment comments and "community builder" functions.  I'm still thinking that Community Builder gives me more than I need for the site, but we'll see what people think.  I'm still looking for some sort of content rating system, I'd like to add a book review section where visitors can add their own reviews and comments. (for a good laugh, check out this link, it is the worst reviews of the greatest literary classics at amazon).

My dad and I are building a light-table, which will be awesome.  I'm doing wedding invitations by hand for a friend and the table will help tremendously!

Other than that, not too much, drove home from Pittsburgh last night and got a huge headache by the time I was home, I think it was becasue of the headlights, still kind of hurts today, eh, oh well.  Back to cleaning, typing and uploading I go!