My day trip to Duluth was enjoyable. My colleague Beth and I delivered a good presentation on employment and disability issues for a mixed audience of social workers, service providers, and even a few students. We had lunch at Grandma’s, a Duluth landmark. I wish I had more time to check out the city, but I did get the opportunity to sit on the shores of Lake Superior before I headed back to Minneapolis. Here are a couple pictures from my excursion.


It was good to get out of the office and see some of Greater Minnesota, something I need to do more of now that I’ve lived here almost ten years. We Minneapolitans tend to think of the rest of the state as a vast expanse of farmland sprinkled with resorts. That kind of attitude isn’t fair to the people who live outside the metro area. Maybe a place that doesn’t have a dozen Starbucks in a six-block radius should be commended rather than denigrated. Of course, I’m sure people in rural Minnesota have their opinions about us cityfolk, but that’s a topic for another entry.
Now I’m going to plop myself in front of the TV and watch the VP debate. The Republicans are acknowledging they got outspun last Thursday and are preparing to play hardball. To which I say: Bring it, bee-otch. There’s always a chance that Cheney could outplay the newbie Edwards, so I’m hoping John-Boy has his Litigator’s A-Game ready.

I said that I wanted to see Kerry close the gap in the polls and I got my wish. In the latest Newsweek poll, Kerry holds a small lead over Bush. It’s only one poll, but it will hopefully contribute to a more general meme that Kerry has the momentum.
I saw Shaun of the Dead with a friend last night. It’s a slacker version of 28 Days Later, combining humor with some effective scares. If you liked Evil Dead 2, you’ll like this movie. It also has one of the most…er…vivid disembowelment scenes I’ve seen in a horror movie. I usually don’t react much to blood and gore, but this scene elicited a respectful “Dude!” from me.

One of the best comments I read about last night’s debate was in the Boston Herald:
He reminds me of Fredo in `The Godfather.’ I can hear him saying: `I’m smart. I know things. I’m not stupid.’ ”
And while we’re at it, there’s this from the LA Times:
But words continually fail Bush. Mostly because he doesn’t try very many. With the TV cameras trained on the stripped-down debate stage, his bare-bones communication style sometimes played as monotonous rather than resolute.
Want some comments from the right? Here’s what some right-wing bloggers are saying:
But, candidly, I don’t think it went that well for the President. I think Kerry helped himself tonight. He came across as a credible candidate, and he was usually on the offensive. Powerline.
ONE LINE ON THE DEBATE: Kerry won. Hands down. By a lot. That’s all for now Oxblog.
Kerry did well in terms of his persona; I went in expecting a pompous windbag and he wasn’t one. Bush did less well in persona; fragmented, repetitive…” Winds of Change.
The pro-Kerry post-debate spin seems to be firming up. Will it be enough to give Kerry the Big Mo going into October? Hard to say. But we need to step up our ground game. Voters need to be registered. Rides on Election Day need to be arranged. To borrow a phrase from the President, getting a Democrat elected is hard work. Let’s do this thing.
My sister is taking the LSAT tomorrow, ten years after I took the damn thing. The exam is supposed to measure one’s ability to “think” like a lawyer. If being an attorney was all about solving logic puzzles, I would have turned in my license a long time ago. So send her some good karma, if you believe in that sort of thing.
Man, I’m tired. With all the excitement last night, I stayed up way past my bedtime. I should work on the book tonight, but I’m beginning to question my ability to string sentences together. Perhaps I’ll update the sidebar…

I’m leaving shortly for a party to watch tonight’s debate presentation Kabuki theater. I’m discouraged at the hyper-formalized structure of the debate. I want to see some drama, some bons mots, some heated exchanges, damnit. Not this tightly orchestrated political music video. Perhaps I’ll be surprised and get my wish. Then again, you should be careful what you wish for.
And if things do go really bad, at least there will be plenty of alcohol on hand to dull the pain.

I got around to watching Freedom Machines last night, the recent POV documentary on assistive technology. It did a nice job of covering the various types of technology that can benefit people with different types of disabilities. But it only brushed deeper issues like the reluctance of schools and other bureaucracies to purchase AT devices and the artificially high prices (in my opinion, anyway) of that technology. But I suppose those are issues that can’t be as easily discussed in a documentary which has as its main focus the actual people who use the technology. And it’s difficult to understate the transformative nature of assistive technology. I can’t imagine life without my HeadMaster. Without it, this blog would never have happened and I probably would have had a lot more difficulty finding employment.
The specs for the extended edition of ROTK have been made public. Fifty minutes of additional footage. I’d better start my Lord of the Rings viewing marathon in the early afternoon. Who wants to join me? I think we might be getting a plasma screen television in my building’s party room. For the association dues I pay, they should put a private friggin’ theater in every unit.