Tomorrow, the passed-in-February restaurant smoking “ban” goes into effect across Virginia. The new law prohibits smoking in public restaurants, unless separate, and separately ventilated facilities are available for smoking and non-smoking areas. Exceptions are made for outdoor patio areas (where smoking would not be restricted) and “private clubs”. violations are subject to a nominal fine [...]

All kinds of people, myself included, get hung up on the big, sexy political issues; health care, the economy, gay marriage, abortion, the wars. These issues get a lot of attention because they’re important, but there are a lot of other issues out there that are just as important, but don’t get a lot of [...]

After FINALLY closing a long-standing action item Saturday morning (Hoo-Effing-Ray!), The whole lot of us ventured across town to hang out at the VA Comicon for a few hours and rub elbows (sometimes literally, given the crowds) with fans, creators, and geeks of all stripes. This weekend’s show was a much larger than the usual [...]

Following up on yesterday’s post, a radio station attempting to appeal to me could do a hell of a lot worse than programming a given broadcast hour with this: “Rime of the Ancient Mariner (live)” – Iron Maiden “Listen to Your Heart” – Roxette “Gunshy” – Liz Phair “Your Racist Friend” – JoCo, Paul & [...]

About an hour ago, I typed “the end” on my first NaNoWriMo project, provisionally titled Get Out of my Head!, crossing over the 50k goal in the midst of the denouement. A full eleven days before the deadline. And I owe it all to spending way too much time living in hotel rooms. I’m reasonably [...]

My head and creative muscles are in a somewhat different, distant place right now, between a new project phase at work, my electing to jump headlong into NaNoWriMo, and a few other things not worth mentioning. That said, posts here might be thin on the ground here for a while*. It’s not that I don’t [...]

Really. Yeah, I know most of you who aren’t in Virginia or New Jersey don’t have anything on the ballot of national or even statewide interest, but honestly, mayor, city councilman, alderman, county treasurer, and dog catcher are important jobs too; in fact, they probably have a greater effect on your daily life than the [...]