Arizona Debate

9:37 Home from bowling. Heard some of the debate on the radio. Nothing was being said that was substantially different from what I’ve heard before.

9:39 Kerry is looking right into camera. Is it that someone told him to do so, is the moderator just sitting in front of the camera?

9:40 My God, I’ve never seen Bush’s smirk more pronounced.

9:42 Any Canadians out there with opinions on whether government controlled health care results in poor quality?

9:46 Wait…is that what Bush said? The way that Kerry put it? Did Bush actually say that young people should be able to take money out of SS and put it into accounts? I thought he was just talking about putting money into savings.

9:48 I find that a bit hard to believe, that that tax cut alone would have kept SS going until 2075.

9:52 Okay, seriously. Did Bush have, y’know, a minor stroke on the left hand side of his face? I mean, the sneer is starting to distract me.

9:53 This is the first question to Bush that he hasn’t used to attack Kerry.

9:53: Whoops. Spoke too soon. Got in a shot under the wire.

9:57 That’s an interesting promise, that Kerry will bring the minimum wage up to over $7 an hour. Kerry’s also using the opportunity to target women.

9:58 AW, COME ON. Bush veered jobs over into education, and now he’s veering minimum wage into education? Jesus.

10:00 Holy crap. Two boldly dodged questions by Bush.

10:02 I mean, I hope American women were paying attention to that. Bush’s out and out dodging of the question was not only pathetic, but it really made clear that, hëll yeah, he would want to see Roe v. Wade overturned.

10:04 What the hëll is Bush blinking so much for?

10:07 No, Kerry did NOT talk about a global test in respect to getting permission from other countries to defend himself. Does Bush NEVEr get tired of exaggerating it? Thank God Kerry is meeting that one head on.

10:09 Oh, come on. Bush heard that there wasn’t support for the Assault weapons ban (which I doubt) and therefore decided not to bother to push for it? As if he hasn’t failed to put the full court press to those things that he really DOES believe in.

10:14 I’m not sure if Bush met with the Black Congressional Caucus or not, but he sure as heck didn’t meet with the other organizations Kerry mentioned.

10:17 Jeez, I wish Kerry would find another word to use other than “respect” when it comes to matters of religion.

10:18 Now KERRY swings a question over to education? Oooookay.

10:22 The point isn’t that the country was divided in 2000. The point is that the country was united in 2001 and now is split once again, even worse than before.

10:24 what a powder puff question for the last question in the debate.

10:26 Idear? IDEAR? Kerry can say “nuclear,” but he can’t say “idea?”

10:29 I like the notion that Bush is optimistic. Unfortunately, it doesn’t jibe with many of his speeches that hit again and again sentiments of fear and terror.

I thought Bush’s closing speech was better, but overall Kerry just flat out performed better. I think Bush really hurt himself when he dodged several questions in a row. And I’ll tell you, I was dubious about the whole Bush-listening device thing, but there were moments when it really did look like Bush was listening to someone else talking…Ah well. I dunno.

MAJOR “FALLEN ANGEL” NEWS

DC’s experiment in distributing free copies of “Fallen Angel #1” as a means of impacting on trade paperback sales has proven successful. We’ve seen a thirty-three percent increase in sales on the first “Fallen Angel” trade. Furthermore, it appears to have had a positive impact on the sales of the monthly title. In other words, fans are reading the freebie, liking what they see enough to buy the trade, and then liking the trade enough to start putting the monthly title on their pull list.

This has a two fold result: First, DC–which had not committed past issue #18–has committed to issue #20 in order to see if the upswing continues. And second, they are considering collecting the next six issues (since a number of readers have stated they’re hesitant to start buying the monthly title because they can’t find the back issues.)

So the tide seems to be turning. My thanks go out to DC for taking a flier on Bob Wayne’s promo idea, and to the fans who are being extremely supportive of a series that critics continue to call my best work ever.

For those unaware, “Fallen Angel” chronicles the story of Lee, a.k.a. the Fallen Angel, who works out of a mysterious city called Bete Noire that’s like Casablanca in the Twilight Zone. Surrounded by a cast of sordid individuals, each with their own priorities, the Fallen Angel is a court of last resort for the truly desperate. The current storyline, “Hurlyburly,” running from 15-18, features the Angel’s struggle with the city’s formidable overseers, the Hierarchy, and will climax in major revelations about the city’s origins and history, as well as the death of one of the cast.

See you in the shadows.

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Yanks vs. Red Sox

I think every reasonable person with the slightest sense of history will tell you–with conviction and a certainty–that the ALCS will be Yankees in six. I mean, the Sox will choke. You just KNOW they’ll choke.

So naturally I’ll say Sox in five. Why? Because it would be so nice just to see Red Sox fans shut the hëll up about the Bambino and curses, real or imagined.

(Although the dream World Series match-up remains Cubs vs. Red Sox. The resolution? It goes to seven games, with the final game going into extra innnings, and when the score remains tied at 30 innings the Commissioner declares them both winners because no one can take it anymore.)

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