A question for anyone who lived in NYC in the '80s and has a better recollection of local politics t

According to this site, Ron Lauder gave to Bill Green's campaign in both '82 and '88.

Wasn't Lauder the Democratic nominee against Green in '84?

I'm confused, since I recall that it was also a pretty nasty campaign (I volunteered for Green -- who was a pro-choice Republican who managed to thrive even as his district voted consistently against Reagan and Bush, lasting until the 1992 election made his party affiliation too much of a curse). If it wasn't Lauder, who was his opponent (and did Lauder run for something else around that same time)?

Alas, I can't get any help from Google, Wikipedia, or the NYC Board of Elections site. And I don't exactly trust my memory from when I was 12 that well.

Happy Halloween!

I'm dressed as the Earth-2 yendi, who looks just like the regular one, but has a totally different backstory involving robots and aliens who was created when a psychic worm took bites out of the multiverse eons ago. It's a great costume. Trust me.

Past costumes have included God (based on Oz's costume from Buffy), my evil twin, a clone, Mystique, and Reep Daggle. They've all been nearly-perfect.

Some Friday Amazon deals

Amazon's Deal of the Day for Halloween is the complete Addams Family TV series for $26.99 (61% off).

The Video Game Deal of the Day is Guitar Hero: Aerosmith for the Xbox 360 for $29.98 (40% off). Note that the Wii edition is also listed on that page, but appears to be sold out for now.

The MP3 Deal is Halloween a Go-Go from Little Steven's Underground Garage for $2.99 (which includes Tegan and Sara, Donovan, The Electric Prunes, and, (naturally) Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band).

The Halloween-themed Friday Five deal -- MP3 Albums at $5 a pop -- includes albums by Vampire Weekend, Slipknot, My Bloody Valentine, David Bowie, and Carl Orff.

For those who want to pay even less for their music, there's a free Light in the Attic label sampler, too.

The widescreen edition of Batman Begins is $4.99 (67% off)!

You can get the complete Seinfeld for $139.99 (51% off).

And finally, Season 1 of Pushing Daisies is going for $18.99 (37% off). As I mentioned yesterday, this is the best show currently on network TV, and it needs all the support it can get. If you liked Wonderfalls (which will be crossing over with PD in a few episodes!), or Dead Like Me, or season 1 of Heroes, you should see what Bryan Fuller's been doing lately.

And now, a pronunciation lesson from noted psychiatrist Dr. Samuel James Loomis

Go here and go to the 3:45 mark, where he'll tell you exactly how to pronounce "Samhain."

Really, who are you going to believe? Hundreds of linguists and scholars who actually know how Celtic words are pronounced, or a fictional psychiatrist?

Grr.

We watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall last night (thanks to our nifty library), and quite enjoyed it.

Some idle Googling during the movie led me to this article about co-star (and SNL actor) this article about Bill Hader..

I'm certainly happy to discover that Hader's a big Neil Gaiman fan (he also mentions China Miéville and Phillip K. Dick in the article), and he sounds like a great guy from the article.

Writer Dave Itzkoff, on the other hand, appears to be an asshole, judging from this glorious opening sentence:

WHEN an adult immerses himself in a comic book or a fantasy novel, it’s usually a harmless act of juvenile regression.

I could rant for a few paragraphs on this one, but there's nothing new here, and I strongly suspect the article (from a year ago) has already been shredded elsewhere (Itzkoff certainly has been). Let's just leave it at this: Hader seems like someone I'd enjoy chatting with. Itzkoff doesn't.

Back at work

For those wondering, I'm not 100% better, but I'm back at work and mostly functuional. The guy on the same side of the room as me was out sick for the same two days, and is also back. So if the rest of the office gets sick, we can blame each other.

Mostly just congested now, and a little weak/achy.

Hunh.

According to the rollover, the Doodle (custom Google image) in use for Halloween was designed by Wes Craven.

MTV gets even more pathetic

MTV's copy of the video for Weird Al Yankovic's Don't Download this Song censors the names of file-sharing sites.

Yet another reason the RIAA gets none of my fucking money.

(Also, MTV's even playing videos? What do they think they are? A music network?)

Link-Dump Friday

1. What's the current state of music/MP3 blogging and take-down notices from the RIAA? Not good.

2. theferrett nails it, as he so often does.

3. Over at The Whatever, John Scalzi has tons of funny political lists.

4. nihilistic_kid writes on his work as a term paper artist.

5. King of the Hill has been cancelled. Mind you, I haven't watched it regularly since season 2 or 3, but I'm still kind of surprised.

6. The original ending of Little Shop of Horrors (aka, the version from the stage show) has leaked online.

7. The Addams Family, the Musical! If it captures the spirit of the first two movies, I'll be happy. If it's like the awful made-for-TV movie with Daryl Hannah, I'll be morally obligated to castrate anyone involved in the project. And no, I don't know how they can base it on the cartoons and not the tv show or movies and still expect anyone to care, unless they change the name.

8. JMS is writing a remake of Forbidden Planet. I bet he first fifth will be okay, the middle three fifths will be incredible, and the final fifth will be sucktastically awful, and excused as being the studio's fault.

9. Iron Chef America, the game! Yes, the site has an animated Cat Cora, Alton Brown, and Mario Batali.

10. Finally, a number of writers answer the question is science fiction is responsible for the lack of public interest in space exploration?

Exhausted

Halloween is over.

Thank fucking god.

Not that it was bad, but I'm still sick, and so is 'song, so neither of us had much energy for walking around. We each took half a shift. Elayna scored a zillion pieces of candy, but our pathetic sidestreet was overlooked by all but about twelve trick-or-treaters.

Elayna decided at the last moment to go as a classic ghost -- think Charlie Brown. We had some old sheets that we could afford to ruin. Yes, she went old-skool. :-)

At least five houses gave full-size candy bars. Which, no matter what the marketers say, are the real "fun-size." The tiny ones are "bite-size" or "where the fuck is it?? "Fun," in relation to candy, is not fucking synonymous with "small."

Most annoying event of the night: a tie. First, two house had decorations, had porch lights on (and even screen doors that were propped open), but did not answer the door. *grumble*

Second, a group of seven teens that we saw at one of the last houses on the night had only two kids in costume. Yes, I know that part of being fifteen or sixteen is that you're too "cool" to wear a costume. But that also means you're too "cool" for candy.

Favorite part of the night: The guy dressed as the Ghostface Killer from the Scream movies who stayed dead still in front of his house, holding a bowl of candy. Both Elayna and her friend poked him, assuming he wasn't really a dummy, but he kept still, even when Elayna grabbed her candy. When her friend reached for some, that's when he shouted "boo."

Speaking of Forbidden Planet

(Which I did, earlier today)

It's on tomorrow (Saturday) on TCM. 6:15 PM.

Bwahahaha!

The Onion nails it:
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