1. This morning a nice guy in one of my classes thanked me for being honest with him about why he should consider voting against Ohio Issue 1, said he had to vote his conscience nevertheless, and hoped we could still be friends. I replied that I appreciated his integrity in being honest with me, that we could still be friendly (there's no point in hating), and that I didn't think I could truly be friends with someone who would vote to make me a second-class citizen.
2. This evening I spent a little time in gay.com's Dayton 1 chat room where I learned that at least two ditzy faggots there did not even know what Issue 1 is. One said he spends too much time chatting with his online friends to read newspapers. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that straight people haven't done any research on gay issues, but I naively hoped that gay people at least would be less apathetic.

local copy -- click for a larger view

This is incredibly something-ist (elitist, classist, academicist?) and is probably meant more as humor (snopes.com debunks an urban legend on a similar theme) than something serious, but it makes a lot of sense to me. Of course the fact that I learned about it on a university listserv probably says something about this viewpoint too, but I don't care -- I still agree with it. I'd point you to a blog entry or an article, but there isn't one, just this graph on a webserver that doesn't have an index page (though there are references on google to the site).

What am I talking about? This chart showing which states were blue and which red in the election along with the average IQ for each state. All the states with average IQs over 100 voted for Kerry; none with average IQs lower than 99 did. Bush has a mandate, all right, but not an incredibly bright one.

Update 11-09-04: Cartoonist Ted Rall, who happens to be an ex-Daytonian, has a column out today that explains why Kerry voters are smarter than Bush voters.

Sold for $48 at a public autction held at the National Hotel, the lot which was to eventually gird this post and beam, Greek Revival home was purchased in 1835, by constable Ebenezer Henderson and his wife, Mary. In 1836, they built the home they were to reside in for the next 17 years.

Hamilton Bates, moving here when a foreman at a machine shop, eventually owned Hamilton Bates & Sons, manufacturers of woolen machinery, blacksmith's drills and washing machines. Various members of his family continued their residency here after his death in 1884.

You've missed it, and I almost did, catching Being Julia on its last day at the Neon. Based on a novel by Somerset Maugham the film gives Annette Bening a chance to shine, which she does, achieving a happier ending than does Bette Davis in All About Eve, the classic mentioned most in reviews of this movie. I did think Bening was fabulous (isn't that a typically gay adjective), but it wasn't she who caught my eye, nor was it her younger lover T O M (you have to see the film to catch that reference) played by Shaun Evans. No, it was another Tom, her son, a little hottie played by Tom Sturridge. There's a fun bit where he tells his mother about his having sex earlier that night for the first time ever, and he doesn't get what's so great about it. Perhaps it's just that he hasn't figured out yet, as Bening's older lover Lord Charles (played by Bruce Greenwood, who's pretty hot too) later confesses to her about himself, that he "plays for the other side."

Yes, I still have my tomato plant on my deck. I should have dug it up a while ago, but I'm lazy. However, the result of my laziness is that I now know that squirrels like tomatoes. I already knew squirrels could scurry up and down walls. I caught this squirrel scampering onto my deck, picking up a tomato with his teeth and trying to scurry back up the wall. Unfortunately for him, he dropped the tomato. He went back after it once, but after his second attempt he scurried up the wall without it and spent a few minutes looking down at it, perhaps trying to figure out a better way to retrieve it. I was surpised he hung around long enough for me to get my camera, but after I got these pictures Phineas wanted to see what was up and scared the squirrel away.