October 2009
Plants + Zombies vs People
Submitted by junglemonkey on October 21, 2009 - 8:21pmThe Pirate and I have been playing the video game "Plants vs Zombies" lately. So much so that I finally declared a one-week moratorium on the game, just so that we could catch up with sleep and chores and regain our children's affections.
But yesterday, during Day Without Electricity, I felt like I was back at it again - fighting a neverending battle wherein every time I thought I was getting ahead, something else popped up to thwart me.
Let me back up.
The Runup to November
Submitted by junglemonkey on October 21, 2009 - 8:54pmRight now, I have a little more than a week before the advent of National Novel Writing Month. For the second year in a row, I'm a Municipal Liaison (a local contact who organizes things and provides moral support to the new). In addition to the organizing and leaving home in order to be social, I have to write a novel. How do I gear up?
Chairman Mao = Carl Icahn
Submitted by junglemonkey on October 27, 2009 - 10:03pmIn 1958, Chairman Mao implemented the Great Leap Forward - a scheme that would advance China's economy so quickly that by 1988, it would be as large and powerful as that of the United States. The Great Leap Forward abolished private property, putting tools, food, buildings - everything that kept China running and fed - into the hands of collectives. Each collective was asked to produce everything it needed - not just its own food and clothing, but the means of production themselves. They had to smelt their own metals to create steel for tractors and building.