Nothing to add to what I said yesterday about the quake, except that the U.S. Geological Survey now lists it as a 5.4 rather than a 5.8. Trust me, I don't think the .4 makes a hell of a lot of difference when you are in the middle of the damn thing!!

Very little damage and only a few minor injuries were reported. The news shows and sites here on the 'net are filled with video of folks looking around or running for dear life. Do I care that Judge Judy all but stained her gown running for her life or that the male & female bimbos in the Big Brother house got scared? Amusing video in both cases, but hardly news worthy.

The only thing that happened in our apartment was that a card we had on top of the television fell over. Not nearly the mess I feared would confront us when we got home.

We heard from Dan yesterday, who was visiting Disney's California Adventure park. He said they made folks leave the park while they checked the rides and attractions for damage. He had joked over the weekend about wanting to experience a quake, but said he wasn't really serious and was pretty unnerved by the whole thing.

One quick thing on the political front and I know I'm repeating myself. How can the Presidential race still be this close according to polls? Is anybody paying attention to the silly, old man?

The answer is yes! At least from what I gathered over the weekend speaking to a couple of people whom I like and respect. Obama is not to be completely trusted and he is an elitist. Both of these comments from college educated folks with good paying jobs. We better hope that there will be a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, since we might be seeing a President McCain come next January if this keeps up.

Holy crap! We sure felt that one out here.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey there was a 5.8 quake, followed by a 3.4 aftershock. It was about 7 mi. east of Los Angeles near Chino.

We evacuated the Library for a few minutes and then allowed folks to come back in. Naturally, being Californians many didn't want to get up from their computers at all. Of course, it was our fault (pardon the expression) that they lost some time. *sigh*

Except for some books falling from the shelves we have suffered no damage here at the Library.

I couldn't get through to Donna on her cell, but she called me from her office phone and we compared notes. This may explain why neither of us saw Babie almost all morning. A co-worker said her cat had been acting 'hinkey' all day.

I'll let you know more if anything happens.

Lots of strange stuff went on this past weekend in San Diego and I don't know where to start.

I got through the event with the only damage being a twisted ankle and a broken shutter on my digital camera.

The first from trying to climb out of a taxi Friday night with several bags of action figures and a backpack. I was exhausted to begin with and I think it just my lack of coordination that did the trick.

The second thing I owe to a light saber swing from some Jedi. You'd expect that sort of thing from the Seth, but not from Obi Wannabe! Fortunately, the camera still works but I have to be careful not to touch the lens. Donna sees it as an excuse to get a better camera and I have to admit she took the news of the accident better than I feared.

Bottom line is that Dan and I had a good time, both of us getting a lot of stuff. Seeing what Dan picked up made Donna appreciate the fact that I collect comics and very few action figures. It's costing him a couple of hundred dollars to ship his goodies back home to New Jersey. Add to that the several hundred he spent to get the figures and the others he has pre-ordered at the con. (Personally, I would never buy five of the He-Man figures in order to get the one limited edition King Grayskull! Just speaking for myself, of course.)

I'll be talking more about this over at Shot's Shack the next few days and hope to be able to download the far too few photos I took. With the shutter jammed I could only use the camera on Friday.

Between now and Election Day I'm going to be saying this a lot, so bear with me.

How in the Hell can anybody be taking John McCain seriously as a Presidential candidate? Can the polls that show him within a few points of or actually leading Obama among voters actually reflect reality?

I know that Obama is a scary, black guy with a funny name, but even so he certainly should be more acceptable then a senile, old man whose chief claim to fame is something that happened four decades ago. I won't belittle what he went through, but that and getting folks to forget that he was one of the Keating Five (thanks for getting the American tax payer to bail out the S&Ls John!) should not qualify him to sit in the Oval Office, except for coffee.

Adding either the Anti-Christ or The Exorcist as VP, can only add to the guys scary factor, but apparently there are lots of white folks who are okay with that.

My Morning Jacket - Librarian

Librarian is the name of the album by this group. :-)

Grampa Abe McCain

Vote for me! I'm old and uuumm...can I have my oatmeal now?

Does it even pay at this point to mention the lies and misinformation His Smugness put out this morning? Apparently, he has been planning for this all along and he warned us about the price of oil rising and the like. No surprise to him. Also, it's the fault of Congress (especially those who call themselves Democraticals) that everything isn't working out. Bastards!!

It's all good and we can trust him to have it all fixed before he leaves office. The best thing would be to skip the elections and just hand everything over to John McCain. Why go through the hassle of all that voter fraud, intimidation and another move by the Supreme Court?

Stop whining!!

So can we safely say that the President is a blowhole? Is that still within my First Amendment rights?

Looks like the economy is about to totally go down the toilet and the American taxpayer about to bail out banks and lending institutions that are 'too big to fail' (whatever that is supposed to mean). So naturally, His Smugness has decided to help out his oil buddies and future employers by ending the ban on off-short drilling. Hell, why not? The lame ass seat warmers in Congress, going by the name Democrat, haven't stopped the SOB from doing anything else he wants, so why start at this point?

Yeah, I have a headache and don't feel all that well, why do you ask?

For some reason I was unable to sign into Blogger Thursday, but I wanted to let you folks know how things turned out.

Donna is home and getting used to her medication. Unfortunately, one of the side-effects is possible dizzy spells, which was also one of the symptoms of her heart ailment. Thanks to the major pharmaceutical companies for doing such a great job!

There are no major problems, but there appears to be a portion of her heart which is not receiving enough blood. This is in the tip of the heart (if you glance at an illustration) and her doctors feel that it is not serious enough at this time to operate or do anything invasive.

They want her to have a 'sleeping test' to monitor her outside the hospital. They believe she may have sleep apnea, but neither of us have seen any indication of that. As someone who was thought to have had that myself I think I'd have noticed after all this time.

She will be going back to work on Monday and we'll be keeping an eye on her, as you can imagine. It was wonderful to receive the phone calls and e-mails asking about her. We gratefully appreciate it.

Okay, here it is down to the basics.

Donna had not been feeling well and had an appointment to see a cardiologist today. Monday she was tired and her feet were swelling, but we chalked it up to the cruise. Tuesday morning both feet were badly swollen, she had shortness of breath and it appeared that her lips were bluish. She got an immediate appointment with the doctor (one of the perks of working in the medical field where so many doctors know each other) and was told that she had to be admitted to the hospital.

She spent yesterday undergoing different tests on blood, a CAT scan and with various monitors attached. This morning she will be having a 'stress test' and hopefully will be released by this afternoon.

There does seem to be some irregularities with her heart and the diabetes, plus her other meds are making things diagnosis difficult. Sadly she had a bad night, but I guess we expected that given her being wired and unable to shift much in bed.

I'm concerned, but trying not to panic. I love her very much and hoping that everything will work out.

I'll let you know as things progress.

Oh, man! I am so beat....

Donna and I have been up since around 5:15 this morning, since we decided to do the self-check out option. Had to be all packed and ready to leave the ship by 6:30am. Maybe sitting in the casino, gambling and having drinks wasn't the best idea for Sunday night. :-)

While the cruise was fun overall, we've agreed that we won't be doing a July 4th one again. Seems that a third of the passengers were twelve and under, with little parental supervision. Place felt like a Disney cruise sometimes!

The next thing on the agenda (not counting some doctor appointments) is the San Diego ComicCon at the end of the month! I think Donna will be happy to have the place to herself for a few days.

Donna and I are heading out for a weekend cruise on the Carnival Paradise, so I won't be lurking or posting until next Monday (7/7).

Folks might remember that we took the same ship on the same 3-day package last November with Donna's BFF, Fran. This time out it is just the two of us away for a romantic break from everything. This will get us into practice for the Alaska cruise next month! :-)

Hope that you all have a safe & happy Independence Day weekend. Take a moment to think of the history of this country and the men & women in uniform not able to celebrate with their families.

See you all on Monday!

I had a nice time at the American Library Association annual convention this past Sunday. Ran into a couple folks I know and got all kinds of stuff. I actually had to go out to my car after a couple of hours as my 'goodie' bag was getting heavy, after dropping off all of that I headed back in for another hour or so.

Got to chat with Dave Kellett, who does the SHELDON strip, getting a nice sketch of Arthur in my copy of the 1st SHELDON TPB,"Pure Ducky Goodness". The guys from UNSHELVED seemed busy, so I'll try to catch up with them at San Diego later this month.

Lots of publishers were promoting manga (Viz, TokyoPop, among them) and there were a couple of anime distributors showing off their catalogs. I must have about thirty catalogs from different publishers and I plan to go through them, as well as actually reading some of the manga, comics and prose novels I was handed. I have at least two DVDs and some audio CD samplers that I grabbed.

The biggest prize was totally unexpected and I don't really know if I should mention it, since I don't believe that it was supposed to be a give-away. I'll just say that it sometimes pays to act the total fanboy, which I have down pretty well after all these years. I'll only mention that it includes a PVC figure of one of my favorite comic characters and a reprint of one of his mini-series.

Somewhere on the 'net there are supposed to be photos of me with IRON MAN, a couple of pirates and a pic of me holding a copy of the aforementioned SHELDON TPB. They were all seperate incidents, so as not to confuse you. It's possible that I might also show up in other photos of the Anaheim convention, since there were a lot of exhibitors taking video and digital pictures of the show.

The CS6 Numa Numa Project

This is how I spent almost ten years of my life. Things haven't changed.

FTN!!

How could I not post this? I also heard that there may be a Mr. Peabody & Sherman live-action movie in the making. We'll see!

Talking Points Memo had this article today, with a link to the original Washington Post column from Richard Cohen that explains the 'real' reason that John McCain is getting off easy. Now it all makes perfect sense! Recommended read!!

If you do head over to TPM check out the two items regarding Albania. Coincidence?

A Tribute to George Carlin

Nothing says more about the man than he did in his own words.

Always remember!

I was deeply saddened to learn earlier today of the passing of George Carlin. The man was brilliant and except for his attempts at a sitcom or two, he seemed to succeed at just about everything he did. Writer, actor, comedian.

Like most guys my age, I listened to Carlin's albums over and over until I could do entire bits by memory. Along with those of The Firesign Theatre and Cheech & Chong, the Carlin albums helped to form my adult sense of humor, as the Stooges did that of my youth.

Wherever or whenever you are, Mr. Carlin, I hope you have room for your stuff!

When I get a chance, either here or over at Shot's Shack I'll probably post some video clip in memoriam.

This should come as no surprise, but here's the article from the New York Times discussing the oil deal being wrapped up in Iraq.

I can't even joke about this and the fact that it is one those great "no bid" contracts makes it even more obvious that this has been one of the goals all along.

Have you no shame, America? Was it worth the over 4,000 U.S. troops that lost their lives? Will cheaper oil make us safer and cheer the families of the dead?

I suppose it should not have been a surprise, but I was disappointed to learn that the New York Mets have fired Willie Randolph as their manager.

There were calls from fans and the NY sports press to let Willie go at the end of last season and the bad early showing of the team increased those calls. Still it seems odd that the Mets ownership would do this after the team won the last two games.

I'm sure this won't be the last we'll see of Mr. Randolph and I would like to see him bounce back, perhaps leading a NL team next season to victory over his former employers.

I also don't expect to see any manager picking up the pieces at this point and do a much better job. We'll see.

While I'm on the topic of baseball. Go Red Sox!!! If they could only play as well on the road as at Fenway there would be no stopping them.

I hope you all enjoyed your Sunday, whether you celebrated Father's Day or not. We relaxed and did some domestic stuff, then ended the day tossing some burgers on the grill. We had spent a couple of hours down at the pool on Saturday evening, but were more in the mood for air conditioning and our recliners last night.

My sympathy goes out to any of you in the mid-west who are having problems with flooding and the weather in general. I see that the mid-Atlantic is going to be hit today or tomorrow and I'm certainly glad to be missing out on that. I'm sure those of you in Iowa and other effected areas are all looking forward to G.W. flying out to tell you how he and Homeland Security are going to help out, now that he is returning from his latest overseas waste of time. Seeing video of the flooded homes and businesses immediately makes one remember New Orleans, but have our fingers crossed that things might go a bit better for you this time around.

I had to pay $4.53 the other day at the pump and I'm afraid to see what it might be Wednesday when I have to refill. Donna and I were laughing at some guy complaining about paying $4.10 somewhere, wishing we were only paying that much! We're already seeing some supermarkets raising the prices on some items, especially California tomatoes which have been declared safe.

As you can see, nothing of note to pass along, but did want to let you know I'm thinking of you!