Every now and then, petitions do pay off...

Emma Thompson will remove her name from Polanski petition, and good for her! Already one of my favorite actresses...although my appreciation is tempered by the fact that she had to be talked into it. Still, great news.

Oh, and the elections?

Gail Collins nailed it. I don't have much else to add.

I will say that I'm less than delighted with Bill Owens winning in NY-23. He's anti-choice and uncertain at best on gay rights (the official Republican nominee was actually better on both issues), and we really don't need another Democrat like that in the House. Besides that, the whole thing did start with Obama nominating a Republican to be Secretary of the Army, which is a wonderful way to reinforce the already-widespread mentality that Democrats just aren't capable of handling national defense. But at least Owens is a dependable vote on health care, and I can't deny the symbolic value of picking up a seat that includes territory last represented by a Democrat when Ulysses Grant was president, not to mention that the Republicans are now down to two districts out of 29 in New York. It wasn't that long ago that they had almost all the districts outside NYC. That brings the total Republican share of the Northeast House delegation down to 16 out of 92 if I've counted correctly. Has the mainstream media stopped clucking about how Democrats can't win in the South yet?

Work updates, and an invitation

I do try to keep this blog focused on my personal life (stop that laughing - travel, politics, music and occasional angst about stuff in general...that is my personal life), but, well, there hasn't been much of one lately, as work has been quite hectic. No complaints there, given how hard it is to find a job these days. In any case, that, coupled with the fact that my job involves spreading the word about my company's services all over the world, has gotten me thinking I should put out a plug for those services here.

You'll notice I don't mention the company by name. Although I probably wouldn't get in any trouble for naming it here, I do want this to remain mostly a personal-issues blog, so I'd rather it not turn up on a Google search of the company name. But I can and will link to it here. I'd like to encourage everybody to create an account for yourselves. It is free for consumers, with no hidden costs whatsoever, and you can start saving information about your purchases (such as date of purchase, warranty expiration dates, and even saving a copy of the receipt) right away. At participating stores, they'll enter the information for you at point of sale and even register the warranty online. Odds are there are no participating stores where you are unless you live in Singapore; but if I do my job, there will be soon. Now is a great time to get in on the ground floor.

Note we also maintain a blog, on which almost all the recent updates are from me, so you can see I haven't been as silent as you think on the web lately! We are also on Twitter, and yes, all the tweets so far are from me. I hope you'll give us a try, wherever you are, as we will be reaching out to retailers near you shortly. (Next stop, the US beginning in December - I might even get a trip to San Francisco out of it, which you will of course read about here!)