Official State of Alaska website:

Palin Announces No Second Term
Lt. Gov. Parnell to be Sworn in July 26, 2009

Palin's Twitter page from Sunday morning:

"Critics are spinning, so hang in there as they feed false info on the right decision made as I enter last yr in office to not run again...."

This brings up the question: Does she believe that she didn't resign... or does she believe that we won't remember that she resigned?

...looking particularly at eleri and smallship1, though I'm sure there are others...

After a year and change of mulling it over, I've decided to embark after all on what would have been my in-cavern project had season two of Uru Live actually become a reality: An in-cavern history of D'ni from the time of its rediscovery, including the events of Prologue, Until Uru and Myst Online: Uru Live. Notionally written by one Sandra Bethany, a journalist who learned of D'ni just after the events surrounding the DRC's latest departure from the cavern (i.e., she was the character I was preparing for my bid at a season-two storyline), the book would be roughly half about the DRC (that is, Cyan canon) and half about the activities of the everyday explorers and especially their efforts to keep things going when Cyan/the DRC couldn't.

Thus I am hoping to get in touch with as many people as I can who have particularly gotten in character/"in cavern" (hereinafter "IC") during the game, and especially those who were around from the early Prologue days. Ideally, I'd also like to talk with some of the Cyan folks about expanding on the backstory, starting with John "Fighting Branch" Loftin and his rediscovery of the cavern.

Thanks for any help you can offer...

You know
That in twenty years or more
You'll still look the same
As you do today
You'll still be a young girl
When I'm old and grey...



I just realized that the last place I saw that poster was on sale in the mall where I bought my first copy of Invisible Touch...

...and very possibly the fate of the entire Middle East — and thereby, the world — lies in the balance.

The people of Iran are trying to take their country back from the ayatollahs who have held it hostage for too long. The new Iranian revolution has begun, and it is being Twittered:

ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection

Voices once silenced are being raised, and even if they'll be silenced again — especially if they'll be silenced again — the least we can do, the least we owe them, is to pay attention.

The launch of the space shuttle Endeavour, scheduled for later this morning, has been scrubbed due to the same launch-pad-equipment leak that delayed the launch of space shuttle Discovery in March. A new launch date has not yet been announced; NASA was expected to hold a press conference sometime during the overnight hours.

More at spaceflightnow.com.

It was the first time I'd seen a red-flagged severe thunderstorm watch; before today I'd thought it pretty much had to be a tornado watch to rate "particularly dangerous situation" status. But the atmospheric setup had a low probability of tornadoes — and a high probability of destructive straight-line winds and large hail.

And most of my family was right in the middle of it.

I decided to call and let my sister Pat know, just to be on the safe side, figuring she might be someplace where she didn't know about the watch. In fact, she was just getting home from a trip with my mom and my niece's twins to the library (the twins had just signed up for the summer reading program). Pat said she'd call my niece, who was out shopping with the two older girls. I told her the storms were about an hour and a half away, looking at the radar. It turned out to be more like 50-60 minutes.

A couple of hours later things had cleared up enough on radar that I felt safe in calling to check up on them. Turns out my niece Kathy had already gotten calls from her husband and someone else (mom-in-law?) before Pat called, so they were already on their way out of the mall. On the way home, they saw a wall cloud (my great-niece got pictures with her cell phone; I'm hoping they'll be posted online) and had to drive around a tree that had fallen onto the highway. When they got to my sister's they immediately joined Mom, Pat, and the other girls in the interior closet.

Summary: No damage to Pat's or Kathy's houses (Mom lives in an addition to Pat's); a tree fell in a neighbor's back yard but didn't fall on anything. Farther away there were houses damaged. Everybody in the family's safe, though.

New York Times: Brainy echidna proves looks aren't everything

If you scroll past the headline "Baylor baseball picked for NCAA postseason" and you think, "Gee, it's nice that they got renewed"...

...you might be a TV geek.

(Actually, my thought was "Wait, what? ... Oh. *resume scrolling*," but that doesn't make for as good a joke.)

Atlantis is home.

Driving back from Houston this morning after starcat_jewel's birthday party last night, and nearly to Waco, I pull into the left lane to pass a couple of vehicles, just at the point where a sign says "Left lane for passing only."

Naturally, the work truck in front of me hits the brakes.

Truck behind me swerves into the right lane to pass us; truck behind him, ditto; I start cursing at the work truck's driver, who hits the brakes again...

...signals, pulls into the left-turn cut, and turns left. At which point I recall that there are several of those along this stretch of road.

At which point I toss a psychic apology toward the work truck, and start muttering about people who put a "Left lane for passing only" sign ahead of an area with left turns...

Watching astronauts board the shuttle on NASA TV and Sean O'Keefe being interviewed by Miles O'Brien on spaceflightnow.com, and listen to Air-to-Ground traffic on the iPod. Life is good. :-)

From Sydney Padua's website 2D Goggles, featuring the adventures of Lovelace and Babbage! (He's a mechanical genius who hates street music! She's a brilliant mathematician trained from childhood to abhor poetry! THEY FIGHT CRIME!)

More icons:

From the Dallas Morning News website:

Among the updates for my iPod Touch:

Google Mobile App
Google
Version 0.3.1448 4/28/09

• Significant improvements to search by voice accuracy for American English
• Search by voice support for British and Australian English accents
• Various bug fixes
• Longer version number
• Ninja

British priests stop saying "Good morning" at Mass because it's too informal. A spokesman for the Diocese of Leeds:

"It is a debate that has been going on in the Church for a long time – are we doing a cabaret or are we actually celebrating the Eucharist?

"The fear is that if some guidance is not given and general decisions are not put down, the interpretation of the liturgy leads to unsuitable things, like strobe lights and girls in hotpants. The aim of the new translation[1] is to bring more dignity to the service."

Jorge of Burgos would thoroughly approve.

[1] The "new translation," ordered by the Vatican, would more correctly be called a transliteration — it has to match the Latin word for word, and how well the English flows as a result be damned.

EDIT: Because I've forgotten what "transliteration" actually means. Thanks, leiacat...

I blink, and my nephew is holding up his sister's infant daughter, chanting the letters of her name at her.

I blink, and my niece is telling me in Facebook chat that the same daughter is talking about taking her driver's test...

... Facebook thinks I'm Canadian.

It started when I got dating-service ads in French on my sidebar page. Now I'm getting ads for other Canadian services: a resort in Cancun that needs Canadian residents; a no-cost evaluation for pardons (doesn't have the word "Canada" or any derivative, but the logo involves a maple leaf); and a link to a site where I can find out about tax credits the government of Canada is offering.

Is somebody trying to tell me something?

...and tries to figure out how to drink from it without getting wet...