Pumpkin Seeds: A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That Edition

1. So, this time around a Democratic Senator decided to show a little backbone as California's Barbara Boxer stepped up and joined the House's challenge of the certification of the electoral college results, specifically in regards to the issues in Ohio. Unlike in 2000 where not a single one stepped forward to support members of the Congressional Black Caucus fighting to have the voting irregularities in their mostly minority districts investigated. Not John Kerry, not John Edwards, not Bob Graham, not Joseph Lieberman, each presumably looking forward to their own challenges for the nomination. Mind you, the idea was not to overturn the vote in Kerry's favor, which almost everyone has agreed was a highly unlikely result, but to shine a bright light on the problem and secure a committment from the Congress to deal with it. To, you know, make sure every vote really does count next time!

2. Interestingly, members of the House searched for weeks for a Senator to step up alongside them and reportedly contacted Senator Barack Obama, hoping to capitalize on his rising star, but he declined to join the challenge. Strike one, Mr. Obama.

3. It's been months since I've been on the poetry slam list, or any other similar list, but ever since I launched Comic Book Commentary, I've become really active on several comic book forums, particularly Newsarama's lively boards. It's been good for generating traffic over to CBC, as well as being an entertaining outlet for my particular brand of electronic cantankerousness. If you think poets can be whiny and annoying, they have nothing on fanboys crying over changes to their favorite characters or books.

4. Speaking of comic books, I just bought 199 of them in a handful of eBay auctions over the past week! Including the full run of Christopher Priest's Black Panther that Salomé got me for Christmas, that's going to add a fourth long box to my expanding collection that also includes two short boxes! Sometimes I think she's encouraging my collecting to justify us buying a house in the near future...

5. Isaac & India UPDATE: Isaac, 4 years old, knows everything and will tell you so. India, 2 years old, has hit her Stripperella phase. Without the pole dancing, of course!

6. They've finally released a legitimate DVD version of The Fifth Element, one of my fluctuating Top 10 Movies EVER, available next Tuesday!

7. If the Mets manage to sign Carlos Beltran, while the Yankees gamble on a two-year contract to Randy Johnson instead, I predict the Mets will own the back pages by the All-Star break. The Yankees decline, which really started in 2001, will hit full throttle this year. Mark my words.

8. Miami next week, though it's a tightly scheduled business trip, is still Miami in January, aka SCHWEEET! Colorado the following weekend to hang with Eric, while the opposite extreme weather-wise, includes the possibility of watching the Jets (my team) play the Steelers (his team) in the playoffs together, aka SCHWEEET! Of course the Jets need to get by the Chargers this weekend to make that happen, something I'm not the least bit confident about, but I'm going with fate working things out in my favor anyway. Jets 24, Chargers 13.

9. Besides winning the SLAM THIS! Fantasy Football Championship - did I mention that already? - my NY Jets in ESPN NFL2K5's Franchise Mode repeated as Super Bowl Champs, whooping the Vikings' tails 38-13. Sadly, Wayne Chrebet retired after the season, not unlike what I suspect the real life Chrebet will be doing this year after suffering another [mild, this time] concussion last weekend. He's my football version of Graig Nettles and John Starks, someone whose stats will never fully reflect what he contributed to his team.

10. THIS JUST IN: Make that 202 comics from eBay this week! Just snagged three more, the 2nd and 3rd appearances ever of Moon Knight, with two copies of the latter. Enough!