My sister lives in Wilmington, North Carolina. I hope Earl doesn’t hammer them. Between my sisters, either one or the other get threatened every hurricane season. My other sister lives close to New Orleans.
Which reminds me–I watched several shows about the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The one that really stuck with me was the interview of NBC Brian Williams. He was describing how he was in the thick of things. He saw the suffering, the hopelessness, the fear, but also the goodness in the majority of people. He saw the looting, the lawlessness. Several times he had the police surround his team as he reported because he feared he would be taken out by thugs in the street behind him.
Click here to see a clip of it. It still horrifies me that the Bush administration was so inept at handling the catastrophe. Spain even sent a rescue crew over to help before our own government responded.
17 Aug 2010 -
Alex J. Horton 
Banzai Girl is a graphic novel written, illustrated, and published by Jinky Cornado. As usual, I will be going into the Characters, plot, and Logic of the story.
Characters: There’s only one character who’s even worth mentioning, and that’s the main character, Jinky Cornado. No, that is not a coincidence, the creator put herself into the book. Jinky’s an enthusiastic, optimistic high school girl, with supposedly big plans for the future.
We’re introduced to about three other characters by name, but they have NO relevance to the plot what-so-ever.
Character Rating: 0/10
The Plot: Um… I don’t think this story HAS a plot.
Plot Rating: 0/10
The Logic: I guess that some of it made sense…. somewhere. I can’t remember where though.
Logic Rating: 0/10
Overall Rating: 0/10
Closing Comments: Sorry, Jinky, but this just wasn’t that great. Good art style though.
I just got a little Maltese the day before coming to the RWA convention, and I want to be with my baby! He is the cutest ball of fur ever! It feels like a dream (well, partly because I haven’t seen him in a few days). I found my bundle of joy in Hammond, LA. So I think it is only fitting to give him a Cajun name, and Mom helped me come up with Bourré (Boo-ray)! Isn’t it fun! He is as white as a ghost, so Boo is a fun name. At first I wanted to call him Data (like from Star Trek), then Aunt Rayma came up with Boo and eventually it evolved into Bourré. I’m thinking his full name will be Data Bourré.
I will post pics after the conference. Hee, he is inspiring me to add a doggy to the book! He will have to model for me.
We are in sunny California visiting relatives. Audrey and Chad went to tour Blizzard Entertainment. My 
cousin, Kevin Crook, took them. He’s been with the company for 12 years, when there were only 50 employees. Now there are over 1,000 in Irvine. He was the first legal consultant they hired. Everybody knows him. Audrey and Chad said it was awesome how everyone called out to him. And he is such a wonderful guy!
He set Chad up with a senior lead programmer who talked about how to get on with Blizzard, Chad’s dream job. Kevin and the lead took them out to eat at a wonderful Italian restaurant. They got the tour, and got all sorts of paraphernalia, which was fun. And Chad said they had a huge map of the world which showed every user that was online playing World of Warcraft.
They get their ideas for a storyline from a single sketch. Audrey said the art was unbelievable. One guy had art from ceiling to floor all over his four walls. You couldn’t see any space left. She couldn’t get over how detailed his pencil drawings were. She is motivated to start drawing again and practicing.
Chad got a decoder to protect his account from getting hacked. A couple of months ago he was hacked and lost everything. The company gave him back what he lost. Anyway, that’s a real problem because now a friend got hacked too. All of his characters were naked. The hackers sell the WOW gold and weapons for actual money to other players. Isn’t that insane?
Anyway, Chad hopes to get an internship with Blizzard next summer. I hope he gets one.
Yikes! I’m taking a college course on Foundations of Informational Design and Technology, and I had to record my voice. I’ve been having a heck of a time, but I did figure out how to use my webcam. UGH. I look like a bug with glasses and I have the biggest headphones on I’ve ever seen. Maybe that you’ve seen too!
Check it out!!
Intro
I ran over a branch in the middle of the road downtown yesterday, and it jarred a memory from me. Which is silly, because it is so easy to crunch over a measly little stick! It isn’t like I have never done it before.
Anyway, I think it sophomore year of high school. I had become friends with a kid from the youth program that I had been attending with friends. I had picked him up and we were driving through town. We were probably going to go to Bueno, the current hang out for us teens. So, I cut down a road, but I had forgotten about the construction! Dang it! I hate construction!
Here we were, a dead end, so what do I do? Rough it! I jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right. There was barely-there curb, which my little car easily mounted. My friend gasped as the car bounced on the terrain then settled onto a new road going in another direction.
He turned to me excitedly, and exclaimed that was the coolest move he had ever experienced. He kept gushing how I had casually pulled that stunt without a moments notice. He didn’t have a friend that drove like I did. I felt embarrassed, but thrilled at the same time. It wasn’t such a big deal to me, my house was in the country (if that is any constellation).
So I will try to remember to take the bumpy treks I come across in the future, and maybe I will have another fun experience awaiting me.
Look at this cool blunderbuss I found. It was showcased at the Steampunk festival in Sunnyvale, California. I would have loved to attend.
Read more about it and other gadgets at wired.com.
