Wise Words From A Cop

I was browsing old documents and found this gem.

Wise Words From a Cop, About Cops:

Watch out for the CSI effect. There is no machine that we can drop an eyelash into and come up with the DNA profile, fingerprints and mug shot of the owner in 2 minutes.

When you see an emergency vehicle behind you with its lights and sirens on, pull to the RIGHT, and stop. We are usually required to pass cars on the left.

When you're driving in the fast lane and you see a cop behind you, don't go 5 mph under the speed limit. We are not impressed by how safe a driver you can be. We're trying to go help someone (or catch that guy in the SUV that just cut you off). Safely move over and let us pass by you, please.

If you get a warning instead of a ticket from a motorcycle cop, go buy a lottery ticket, because you've already beaten the odds.

When you see an officer conducting a traffic stop, or with a suspect in handcuffs, it is generally not a good idea to approach him/her and ask for directions. If you do, don't expect the officer to be nice when he/she tells you to get lost, and don't expect the officer to take the time to explain.

If a cop causes a car accident we usually get a ticket, and sometimes we get suspended. When is the last time you got 3 days off [without pay] for rear-ending a guy at Wal-Mart?

If you think you can fan all the pot smoke out of the car before we smell it, good luck.

We know you've had more than 2 beers. I've never had two beers, then hit six parked cars and driven my car through the front doors of a Toys-R-Us, pissed my pants, and passed out with my foot on the gas.

Here's how to get out of a ticket: Don't break the law in the first place.

If you drive a piece of junk car, this is why you're getting pulled over:

In one week I pulled over 10 cars for minor equipment violations.
5 out of 10 had no vehicle insurance,
3 out of 10 had suspended driver's licenses,
2 out of 10 had warrants,
1 out of 10 had felony warrants,
...and 1 was a known sex offender with his 12 year old niece in the car without her mothers knowledge.

If you've just been pulled over doing 70 in a 35, Do Not greet the officer with, "What seems to be the problem, officer?"

We get coffee breaks too, and sometimes we run into stores and do some shopping during them.

When you're the victim of a burglary take the time you spend waiting for the officer to find the model #'s and the serial #'s of the stuff that was taken.

Some cops are just jerks, but take heart in the fact that other cops don't like them either.

If it's nighttime and you're driving a vehicle with tinted windows and I pull you over, it's not because of your skin color. I usually can't tell if the vehicle even has a driver until the window is rolled down.

Cops make mistakes, and sometimes they are big mistakes.

Some cops are bad, and sometimes they're real bad.

Every time you hear on the news about people running away from a crazed gunman, someone's son or daughter in a police uniform is running TOWARD that crazed gunman.

Yes, it's true, cops usually don't give other cops speeding tickets. Think of it as an employee discount, perk or benefit, and unless you're a habitual speeder all you ever get is a fine.

If your local police agency has a helicopter everyone knows it's loud and annoying, but did you know it can cover the same area as 15-20 patrol officers, and safely chase criminals that are driving 90 MPH through city streets? Many times the guy has no idea it's there and slows down.

Your 5 year old kid getting pushed down by another 5 year old kid IS NOT a police matter; talk to the other kids parents.

If your kid won't do his homework or do his chores, 911 is not the answer for a uninformed second-string parent.

Police work is...writing reports.

If you rob a gas station you're only going to get $20, but I get to see a K-9 dog use your arm as a chew toy. For all I care you can keep the $20.

In one year of patrol work in a large city only about 10 minutes would be cool enough to be on the television show, COPS. But if COPS was about report writing and accident reports each show would be a year long.

Every traffic stop could end in gunfire, but we have to be polite and professional until that time. [For emphasis: CHP Officer Andy Stevens, CHP Officer Earl Scott, Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Jeffrey Mitchell...all shot and killed during the proverbial -- and non-existent -- "routine" traffic stop.]

I've taken about the same amount of men/women to jail for domestic violence, so NO, it's not always the man.

People love fire fighters.

If you find crack pipes in the ladies purse, there is a good chance they belong to her.

Cops know you pay taxes and that your taxes pay cops' salaries. Cops also pay taxes, which also pay cops' salaries so, hey, this traffic stop is on me. Now sign here; press hard, you're making five copies.

And as they say, here endeth the lesson.

Gone With the What?

I am not alone!

As far as Gone With the Wind goes, I'm in the deep minority in not caring too much for it. It's beautiful at times, and the first two hours it's tolerable if not particularly engaging, but by the time the last few hours roll around, I always felt as if the film was more intent on inflicting misery than portraying it. Anyway, it's nice to know I'm not the only one.

Arguably the most over-rated movie in the history of the industry. Now I know there are at least two people in the world who agree with me.

Lord iPod, Zune Approacheth. Launch the X5!

It's been fun watching the iPod versus Zune fight from the outside. I don't own a digital audio player (DAP) -- sorry, a digital media player (DMP). I am vaguely interested in getting one, though, because my car doesn't have a CD player, and the CD player in the motorcycle is on the fritz and I don't want to fix it. Easier by far to get a DMP player, a cassette adapter, and voila, huge mobile song collection on the (relative) cheap. (As a bonus, I can then have the CD changer ripped out of the motorcycle and gain luggage space. w00t!)

What's entertaining about all this is the flame wars that all the fanboi's are engaging in. Not having a dog in this race, I have a few observations.

First, the iPod pretty much (but not entirely) created the market, but when it first came out there were lots of cries of, "Oh how this or that sucks!" It's easy now to look at an established empire and go, "Oooh, pretty!" but it wasn't always so. For example, when first released the iPod was a Mac-only product; there was no Windows-compatible software. (A reversal of the current Zune situation, where there is no official Mac-compatible software.)

Second, I doubt if Microsoft actually thought its first generation Zune would be an iPod killer. When the Allies landed at Normandy, they didn't anticipate Germany's immediate surrender. Same here. This is the shelling of the beaches and a first landing. If you think of this in any other way, you are deluding yourself. Look at pretty much any product in Microsoft history (e.g., Windows, Internet Explorer, Media Player, XBox) and you will see this pattern again and again.

Third, every single DMP on the market has some degree of suckage. You love your iPod? Great. I don't. It's a functional toy that does a great job playing music and other audio content. It is less than spectacular playing anything else, especially video. (Who wants to squint while watching TV?) The exact same thing can be said for every DMP out there, including the Zune. And on the personal opinion front, I think the Zune is much nicer looking than any iPod.

The Zune fails almost precisely where the iPod (and others) fail: It bolts you to proprietary desktop software for adding content, especially purchased content; the Zune to whatever the heck Microsoft calls their service and the iPod to Apple iTunes. In a world infested with Digital Rights Management (DRM), if you purchase content from iTunes you are trapped playing that content on an iTunes-compatible device (i.e., the iPod). Why this is surprising to "reviewers" is a mystery to me. Why they mug the Zune for its inability to hack Apple's DRM is an even greater mystery, especially given the existence of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The purpose of DRM is to restrict when, where, and how you can play paid-for content. One of the purposes of the DMCA is to prevent development of software that can circumvent DRM. Any reviewer who slams Microsoft for not violating the DMCA in order to violate Apple's DRM is ludicrously ill informed. The Zune review at Ars Technica said it best: The Zune software's inability to import protected files from iTunes demonstrates how odious DRM is, not how lame the Zune software is.

Now, that doesn't mean there aren't legitimate problems with the Zune desktop software, but when I updated my copy of iTunes to version 7, woo boy, let's talk issues. I'm at v7.0.2 and the issues persist.

But, you might ask, why in the heck am I running iTunes if I don't own an iPod? Good question. The bad answer is that I was considering the purchase of an iPod. Then I looked at the Zune. Now I must look elsewhere because for me, the suckage of both the iPod and the Zune exceeds the joy of owning either.

Quite frankly, I do not plan on ever buying from the iTunes store or the Zune Marketplace, because I won't buy DRM'd music. Period. I think DRM violates fair use in so many different ways it boggles the mind. There are places to buy DRM-less content. Better still, you don't buy reduced-quality 128-bitrate files, a la the iTunes Store. eMusic offers 192K variable bitrate (VBR) mp3's; other places offer lossless downloads, or even FLAC (free lossless audio codec).

I have happily ripped my CD existing collection using CDex (currently using LAME 3.96 to create 192K VBR mp3's), and will continue to do so as I acquire newer CD's. I have and will rip CD's that my family and friends bring over, because fair use says that I can, no matter what the RIAA fantasizes to the contrary.

Thus, iTunes shall soon be but a memory. For ripping, I have the aforementioned CDex. For playback on my PC, I have my long-standing #1 choice, Winamp (with the ClearOne skin), and I've got Windows Media Player 11 as a fallback. And I'll soon be experimenting with Democracy.

As for what DMP to get, in my perfect world, I would hook up the player via a USB port, my computer would awaken and see it as a mass storage device, and I would simply drag and drop files onto it. Then the player's software would go, "Zoot alours, new things!", scan the new files, and present the playlists. Voila, simple.

But my perfect world seldom exists, and it's never that simple. You can use many of these things as mass storage devices and you can just drag files onto them, but then the internal software goes, "Huh?" rather than "Zoot alours!" and it's all downhill from there.

Which means that neither an iPod nor a Zune will satisfy me, while a Cowon iAudio X5 just might. It installs as a mass storage device, so I can just drag and drop files. It not only plays MP3's, but also FLAC and even Vorbis Ogg. There are some issues with the user interface, but there are also ways around the limitations. (E.g., use Winamp to build a playlist within the player, which is easy to do since Winamp "sees" the player as an external HDD.) The 30GB iAudio is even priced less than the equivalent iPod or Zune, and all the reviews say it kicks major ass in terms of playback quality.

Now I just need to scrape together the money. Should be able to buy one by Christmas!

(Of 2007.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

May your stuffing be tasty, may your turkey be plump.
May your potatoes 'n gravy have nary a lump.
May your yams be delivious,
May your pies take the prize,
May your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off of your thighs!

Happy Thanksgiving!

And for your amusement...

Why do Democrats want to reinstate the draft?

They say:

"There's no question in my mind that this president and this administration would never have invaded Iraq, especially on the flimsy evidence that was presented to the Congress, if indeed we had a draft and members of Congress and the administration thought that their kids from their communities would be placed in harm's way," said Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.

As the article then points out:

Rangel, a veteran of the Korean War who has unsuccessfully sponsored legislation on conscription in the past, said he will propose the measure early next year.

What the article doesn't point out is that Rangel introduces the legislation...then votes against it. He is, in other words, making political hay. He is, to put it politely, full of shit.

Radicals want a draft because they know their history. They know that the anti-Vietnam war movement was driven primarily by a hatred for the draft. When the draft ended, so did the vast majority of anti-war protests. In order to stir up more current anti-war protest, they need a draft to piss people off. So you get manipulative, disingenous cretins introducing legislation to reinstate the draft. Then they vote against it. How principled of them!

The military doesn't want a draft. A draft means they must accept anyone who is drafted; you have to find a place for him/her/it. Right now, the only branch of the military that occasionally can't meet its recruitment goals is the Army. The Marines aren't having a problem. The Air Force and Navy actually turn people away.

So if Rangel (and his ilk) were honest and felt that we needed a bigger military, the first thing they'd do is vote to increase the size of the military, which would increase the recruitment goals, which would get more people into the U.S. military.

That's step one, even if you're silly enough to actually think the draft is a good thing.

For myself, I agree with the late, great Robert A. Heinlein (the writer who whack jobs insist on calling "fascist"):

No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and in the long run no state ever has.

'Nuff said.

More damage to the legal system

Appalling:

An elderly man who killed 10 people and injured more than 70 others when he drove through an outdoor farmers market was sentenced Monday to probation by a judge who said he believed the crime deserved imprisonment but the defendant was too ill.

Yes, law must be tempered with compassion and mercy, but...

• He killed 10 people.
• He injured more than 70 others.
• There are hundreds of families ruined because of this man.

The judge, in this "sentencing", shows amazing "compassion" for the victims and their families. I've seen diagrams of this "accident" scene and the jaw goes slack, the mind boggles. The judge's reasoning for his sentence is, to put it ever so politely, unpersuasive.

The evidence showed that George Russell Weller maintained sufficient awareness of what he was doing to avoid hitting cars. Instead, he aimed at people. (Softer targets, I guess, spare the paint on his own car, lower his insurance liability.) The jury didn't buy his "excuse" of "pedal confusion". Even the judge noted, in the record, the defendant's lack of genuine remorse or even a decent, honest apology.

Yet...he walks.

Santa Monica, Los Angeles County, and the association which ran the farmers market will pay a stiffer penalty than the driver.

Felony probation means he gets to go home for Thanksgiving, something his victims can't. He gets to be home for Christmas, something his victims can't. He'll celebrate the New Year, something his victims can't.

For this Thanksgiving, Christmas, and years to come, Judge Michael Johnson has delivered a bitter present to the victims and to the system of law he represents. Congratulations, Judge!

Microsoft Office 2007

Thwack!

I started with that word because, to my amusement, the spellchecker in Microsoft Word 2007 says I spelled it correctly. How many word processors or spellcheckers are you aware of that can spell "thwack"?

Games aside, and I haven't been playing much of them lately, I justify owning a computer by writing. Just because it's been 20 years since I sold anything doesn't deny me the claim. So I'm always looking at what the latest writing software is like.

When I leapt from my Smith-Corona to computers, I used an Atari running LJK Letter Perfect. Not a hint of WYSIWYG in that program, but it was fast, pretty easy, and the standard for real Atari-based writing. When I dabbled with Apples, I discovered WordPerfect, and when I migrated to MS-DOS machines, WP was there waiting.

At the same time, though, dark forces hovered in the shadows, softly whispering a dreaded curse word. That word being, uh, "Word."

I have long hated Word. It has taken me years to get used to its idea of "styles" and, more often than not, they still trip me up. I've never enjoyed the interface and I despise not being able to really see what format codes are being applied (its "reveal codes" feature is a joke). Yes, I understand that WP is based on a much older model for document formatting, that Word is more "modern", but when it comes to creative writing, that older model is perfect, and also explains why lots of creative writers continue to use WordStar. (A program that once threatened to drive me insane; who in Hades invents those keystroke combinations?)

To remain current, though, I've always updated Word and WP. I've had a copy of Word via the Office Suite since Office 95. Of late, I just buy the Student & Teacher edition because I'm a student, damnit. (Honest. I can show you my student ID.) That version is fine because I really only need Word and Excel.

Now, along comes WP X3 and Office 2007. Sigh. Goodbye WP. All things must end, and my romance with you has hit its dead-end. There are three reasons.

First, WP X3 is bug-ridden. At least for me. You may have a stable version and a stable install. I don't. Ugh. And it adds little to nothing over WP v.12, except for being a little big prettier.

Second, Word 2007 opens WordPerfect files almost perfectly. Good enough that I can work on the formatting. This means the megabytes of existing files I've got are easily accessible.

Third, I've installed a copy of OpenOffice which opens both Word and WP documents, thus creating a second back-up for file access. I'm not enamored with OO Writer, though, because it's way too much like pre-2007 renditions of Word and not enough like the stuff I like about WP, so why bother?

Oh, there is ODF, Open Document Format, which would remove my paranoia about any future inability to open documents. And I'm all for that. So this is tempting, but hark, I read that Word 2007, via an add-on, will support ODF.

So what is it about Word 2007?

It's clean. It's that simple. Well, that and the document map, which works now. At least well enough for me.

The reviews for the Office 2007 products -- at least of the beta versions -- have focused on the change from traditional menus to "ribbons". This is a massive change, and actually something I don't like too much. Trying to find an old menu choice via these ribbons is a regal pain in the rump. Fortunately for me, I'm one of those that happily only uses 10% of the software's capabilities, so I can find what I need relatively quickly and just won't worry about the rest.

The neat thing, though, is I shift can into draft view, hide the ruler, and hide the damn ribbons. What I'm left with is stark and minimal, a bare set of icons (that I can customize) and a thin row of menu choices. The result is a screen that visually gets out of my way. I've tried coming close with past versions of Word and WP, but this is close to perfect.

Bonus: Along the bottom I have a status display that gives page count, what page I'm on, line number, and a running word count. Plus a simple bar for adjusting the zoom, or changing view modes (e.g., from draft to page). I am frankly staggered by how clean this all looks.

As for document map, I started playing with it in the beta version of Word 2007, and even then it was better than what I saw in previous renditions of Word. In my copy of Word 2003, for instance, the text in the document map was too small, impossible to read unless I blew everything up full screen. Which I hate. And yes, I'm picky.

For my latest novel, I built an outline with chapter headings and key events that would happen in a given chapter. I flag those as level 1 or level 2 within the outline. In Word 2007 I select "view document map" and that outline appears in a vertical bar to the left. Voila, I can jump anywhere in my document I want with a single click. It is, as advertised, a map of my document.

As I finish a chapter I remove the little event notes and the outline collapses to just the chapter heading. Perfect! Alternately, I can flag key paragraphs for later reference, revision, edits, or just to make it easier to find a key scene.

So I'm hooked. MS has me, again, as a customer when this thing ships the end of this month. And the Teacher & Student is now simply the Home version. And I have a home. And that student ID card.

Oh, and as for that file format thing, for the near future I'll just use the "old fashioned" .doc format which my other versions of Word can open, that my copies of WP can open, and especially what OO Writer can open. That will suit me fine until the Word 2007 .odt utility comes along. Simple!

Never thought I'd be enthusiastic about Word, though. Will wonders never cease?

Best. Bond. Ever. Period.

The heading makes it obvious, I went and saw Casino Royale on opening night. I've been thinking about it since and have come to the simple conclusion that it's the best Bond film ever, period, end of story, the end.

This is an origins film. As in: See...how Bond earns his Double-Oh status. See...why he likes Aston Martins. See...what he likes to drink. See...why it's a Vesper martini. See...why Bond is a cold, calculating killer, a blunt instrument in service to the Crown.

Daniel Craig simply is Ian Fleming's James Bond. He's utterly believeable from Frame #1. This is made more so by the way one of his early opponents just prances about a construction site, while Bond heaves and grunts in pursuit. I loved it how after a fight, Bond looked bruised, his knuckles and face cut. Even when he reappeared all "cleaned" up, there were signs of the fracas. And Craig just tosses 'em off (with a grunt and a little whince) and pushes on.

Excellent.

Now, saying this is the best Bond film doesn't mean that, as a film, it doesn't have some issues. The plot is murky, the motivations of the "villains" pretty much unknown. In fact, the villains remain a mystery throughout, which just means they'll be back in the next film. There is also a lull near the end before the wham-o finish and I've heard two lines of thought. One is that it is straight Zzzzz-City, while the other says that it makes the finishing act all the more poignant. I lean toward the latter and was amazed that they kept that cold, cold line in the film.

Things of note: The cinematography is excellent, of the sort that keeps you in the action and in the know without drawing attention to itself. David Arnold, doing the music, at times sounds like he's channeling John Barry at the height of Barry's Bond involvement; in other words, the music is awesome.

I was happy to sit in a packed theatre and I hope Casino Royale does well at the box office, well enough for the producers to commit to another film and include Craig along for the ride. If so, I'll be back in line again.

A Bond worth waiting for?

I like James Bond. I'm a fan. Not a great fan, mind you. I don't have every nuance memorized. For a while, though, I couldn't wait to see every film at the theatre on opening day.

That lasted until Pierce Brosnan took over. Ugh. I waited for cable -- not even video and/or DVD -- and I've never bothered to see the last two films. The previews put me to sleep. He sucked in major, big-time ways. He was tolerable in Goldeneye, but that movie also showcased who should have been Bond, i.e., Sean Bean. After that brief glimpse of promise, Brosnan should have been recycled.

So, I was intrigued when I saw that they had cast Daniel Craig as Blonde, James Blonde, The New Bond for Casino Royale. And I actually got excited when I saw this trailer. And now there's this review...

Bond is back, baby. Boy howdy is he back. And he’s going to be the most divisive Bond ever. When they set out to reinvent the series and went back to the well of the original text, man oh man did they go back. This isn’t the James Bond you’ve come to love over the years – rather, it’s the James Bond from the printed page. The “…anonymous blunt instrument wielded by a Government Department” that Ian Fleming both described and wrote about. And Daniel Craig and Martin Cambell do one hell of a job breathing new life into a long dying franchise.

And I love the question the review asks:

Are you ready to buy into a serious Bond, a bond that feels closer to the bastard child of Jason Bourne and Sean Connery’s Bond than it feels like any other portrayal?

Oh, hell yes! (And the reviewer agrees, too.)

Bond is supposed to be a bad-ass. He's a killer, that's the whole point of being a double-oh. Sean Connery, in Dr. No, sets a guy up and then blasts him in the back, for crying out loud, with no more regret than you'd give swatting a bug. Timothy Dalton, for all his faults, came close in both The Living Daylights and, especially, License to Kill. He's a killer!

Bond can also drink. Casino Royale not only introduced the world to James Bond, but also to his drink, the Vesper Martini...

"A dry martini," he said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet."

"Oui, Monsieur."

"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a,large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?"

"Gosh, that's certainly a drink,", said Leiter.

Bond laughed. "When I'm -- er -- concentrating." he explained, "I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made{....}"

Finding Kina Lillet is pretty much impossible, but I tried this with the only Lillet I could find and... Wow, a man's drink! In comparison, I am a wimp who will gladly stick with tequila. Anyway, back to the movies....

There is no Q, the gadgeteer, in this film. There are no fancy toys. Bond drives an Aston Martin, but it's just a car (albeit, with obligatory hidden compartment, from what I understand). Other than that he has his wits, his personal skills, and his mission. It's damn-near a straight on spy story. And imagine that, it doesn't lean on bizarre plots to conquer the world, strange gizmos, and limp one-line jokes.

Now I really want to see it.

Stranger Than Fiction

Saw Stranger Than Fiction last night and was amazed by how much I liked it. I am not a Will Ferrell fan, though I've liked most everything I've seen Emma Thompson in. It seemed an odd pairing and the previews looked too cute for words.

Too cute by half, since the previews make the film look like a straight comedy, which it is and isn't. It isn't in the sense of rolling on the laughing, but it is in the classical sense, and I leave it to you to figure out what I mean.

Also in the cast is Maggie Gyllenhaal, and she's casually delightful as always. And surprise, Queen Latifah is perfect in a minor but nonetheless key role. I should probably also mention Dustin Hoffman, but why? He's little more than "okay".

The plot is simple: Ferrell is an IRS agent who begins hearing Thompson's voice as it narrates his life, in all its dull, repetitive details. At first he thinks he's going crazy, but becomes panic stricken when the narration casually announces he will soon die. The twist is when we discover that Thompson is a well-known author suffering writer's block. The narration that Ferrell hears is her writing, and his death is necessary for the conclusion of her latest novel.

The previews make it look like this is just another over-the-top Ferrell comedy, but it isn't. He is visibly restrained, as an IRS agent should be. It's a somber and sobering performance because the Thompson's narration begins to make him examine his closed and hollow world. It also compels him into a relationship with Gyllenhaal.

This isn't a perfect film. While gently done for the most part, it is often far from subtle. And while we're told that the novel that Thompson is writing, the end of Ferrell's life, is possibly the finest work of her career, we get no hint as to why that it so. Hoffman just declares it and we move on. Little disappointments like this are speckled throughout the film.

Nonetheless, is a touching little film. I'm amazed at how good Ferrell can be when he's not just running about and shouting. Thompson's performance of a neurotic, withdrawn writer is perfect. And Gyllenhaal's free spirt, while a bit of a stereotype, is still nicely rendered. It all comes together with a touching conclusion that says a great deal about living and writing, that both are subject to revision and rewrites, and there's little or nothing that we should take for granted.

All in all, a good film with a hint that it could have been great.

Saddam Hussein to do a dance

And from Iraq....

An Iraqi court on Sunday sentenced Saddam Hussein to the gallows for crimes against humanity, convicting the former dictator and six subordinates for one nearly quarter-century-old case of violent suppression in this land of long memories, deep grudges and sectarian slaughter.

Shiites and Kurds, who had been tormented and killed in the tens of thousands under Saddam's iron rule, erupted in celebration — but looked ahead fearfully for a potential backlash from the Sunni insurgency that some believe could be a final shove into all-out civil war.

Saddam trembled and shouted "God is great" when the hawk-faced chief judge, Raouf Abdul-Rahman, declared the former leader guilty and sentenced him to hang.

Saddam, described by many a moonbat as a "securlar leader", said, "God is great." Wow, who knew that he and I could ever agree on anything.

Let the writing begin!

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) 2006 is underway. Couldn't get in last night, so had to post my count this evening. See me here. Maybe I can finish this sucker by the end of the month, maybe not. Either way, I'll have a running start.

Yeehah!