This blog post has been making the rounds all over my F-list, and I hesitate to add to it, but I actually PLAYED D&D while SERVING in the Army, and VOTED for McCain in the Republican Primary in 2000. It's not like this is the last straw or anything, because the former Maverick from Arizona long ago lost my vote. It's not like this is the first time that McCain's memory might be faulty, and that is a legitimate concern in selecting a chief executive. But where the hell did the gamer reference come from? Does this blogger know something we don't? If folks highly placed in the Obama campaign, maybe even Barak himself, played back in the day, that just makes me feel even better about voting for him.

Tags: gaming, politics
Current Mood: geeky

"Sex being called on account of laundry is always wrong."

Tags: unicorns
Current Mood: tired

Since not all of my friends are on hughcasey's LJ, I am brazenly stealing this link from him. Here there be Legos!

Tags: humor
Current Mood: awake

Development Goals and Basic Accounts

Last week we updated our development goals for 2008. Generally we noted a number of cool enhancements and investments to LiveJournal that we are working on, including improved search, usability, and site development.

We also wanted to let you know how we hope to accomplish all these things, and how we plan on paying for them. In order to accomplish our stated goals for this year and beyond, we need to increase the revenue gained from both groups of LiveJournal accounts: paid subscription accounts and ad-supported accounts.

As of August 28th, all users will be able to choose to downgrade their account to Basic through their Manage Account page. Additionally, we will start showing advertising to visitors who are not logged in to LiveJournal when they are looking at Basic Account journals and communities.

Basic Account users themselves will not see ads on any Basic journal or community while they are logged in to their account. If you want more information about this, take a look at our new post on lj_2008 where we outline our reasoning.

Indian Flash Fiction Contest

In other news, we are excited to tell you we've launched "Quick Tales" LiveJournal's first initiative for users in India, in celebration of India Independence day, August 15th. "Quick Tales" is a flash fiction writing contest in which we're partnering with Caferati.com, one of India's largest online literary communites. The contest's winners will receive some great prizes and it is open to anyone with a mailing address in India. We hope that users with an interest in Indian writing or just India will watch LiveJournal's india_writing community. That's where the finalists and winners will be announced, so keep an eye on it towards the end of September! If you're in India then enter the contest - if your story is slick and quick (under 500 words) then you could be the lucky winner!

Meanwhile, back at LiveJournal Inc.

We have updated and redesigned our corporate site. The goal of the redesign was twofold: first, to update the look and feel (Dystopia users will appreciate it!); second, we want to provide a destination for prospective employees, partners, and members of the press where they can access important information about the company. Kudos to our design team.

Project Runway got it horribly, horribly wrong this week. And just in case some of you that are fans of the show haven't seen the latest episode yet, I'm not going to say anything else now.

Tags: project runway
Current Mood: annoyed

Tags: rocky
Current Mood: geeky

Birthday Meme: Look up your birthday in Wikipedia. Pick 4 events, 3 births, 2 deaths, and 1 holiday.

My Birthday: June 18

Events:

618 - Coronation of the Chinese governor Li Yuan as Emperor Gaozu of Tang, the new Emperor of China, initiating three centuries of the Tang Dynasty's rule over China.

1429 - French forces under the leadership of Joan of Arc defeat the main English army under Sir John Fastolf at the Battle of Patay. This turns the tide of the Hundred Years' War.

1815 - The Battle of Waterloo leads to Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the throne of France for the second and final time.

1983 - Space Shuttle program: STS-7, Astronaut Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.

Births:

1901 - Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaievna Romanova of Russia. (d. 1918)

1942 - Sir Paul McCartney, English singer and songwriter.

1980 - Antonio Gates, American football player.

Deaths:

1536 - Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII. (b. 1519)

1928 - Roald Amundsen, Norwegian explorer. (b. 1872)

Holiday:

Seychelles - National Day.

Tags: meme
Current Mood: geeky

The McCain campaign has been running ads lately trying to use Obama's "celebrity" status against him. The latest one says that the "real" Obama will raise taxes and increase government spending, which magically equates to fewer jobs.

Exactly how does that work, Mr. Maverick? McCain himself said that "all options" were on the table to balance the social security books (and only delusional people think that can be done without cutting benefits or raising taxes, and will probably take both), and his website says McCain wants to increase funding for veteran's benefits, build 45 new nuclear plants, invest two billion in developing clean coal burning technology, and spend an unspecified amount on enhancing border security. All are excellent ideas. But that sounds like higher taxes and increased government spending to me. So by this logic, McCain's presidency would also result in fewer jobs.

And that is assuming that higher taxes and more government spending means a reduction in employment. I seem to recall a large government program that put people back to work about 70 years ago that turned out pretty good. And Reagan's military spending in the 80s, particularly on the navy, helped stimulate the American economy and created jobs for thousands of workers of all skill levels.

I hate political ads that think we're all stupid.

Tags: politics
Current Mood: good

You'll get it after about twenty seconds.

Tags: humor, politics
Current Mood: amused

olympicgames08
The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games Community.