I have both good and bad feelings about MoveOn.org these days.

On the good side, they were making waves from the liberal front when no one else was. I gave them a bit of cash to get their excellent Super Bowl ad on the air, even though CBS chickened out and refused to air it.

On the bad side, they also aired that Richard Clarke ad without his permission, which probably did more harm than good, and I kept getting emails exhorting me to sign an infinite procession of useless online petitions. The last straw was when they asked everyone to use The Day After Tomorrow as a tool to talk to people about global warming — yeah, it’s a serious environmental problem, but you wouldn’t catch me dead at that piece-of-shit movie.

And yet here I am, about to give them more of my money.

Why? Because of a benefit album called Future Soundtrack for America, compiled by John Flansburgh, one half of They Might Be Giants. TMBG has a song on the album, a cover of the 1840 campaign jingle “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” plus rare or unreleased songs by Fountains of Wayne, Flaming Lips, Sleater-Kinney, Mike Doughty, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, REM, Blink-182, Eliott Smith, and Tom Waits. That’s quite a lineup.

Due out on August 17.

“Every lunch hour, the crew and the cast (the ones that can stand to watch themselves on screen, that is) scurry into the viewing theatre next to our stage to see what kind of magic we’ve created the day before. They have lunch there for us, so we pile our plates in a hurry, and then settle into our seats to watch the footage. Problem is, once the lights go out, it is BLACK in there, and you can’t see what kind of forkful you’re getting, so it’s always a surprise what lands in your mouth. I ate my butter packet yesterday, a nice big mouthful of foil and lard.”
    - Jewel Staite (Kaylee) on filming Serenity, from her blog

Holy crap! I want one.

Link found via boingboing.

Tonight was the first time I’d heard Barack Obama speak, and he blew away even my own high expectations. The man is a rock star.

Text of the speech is here, but you really should watch it for yourself. (Video includes an introduction by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.)

I’ve also pasted my most favorite bit in the extended section below:
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Of course, the day after San Diego Comic-Con closed, a different sort of convention opened: the Democratic National Convention in Boston. I didn’t get a chance to watch much of it today, but I will be glued to the tube tomorrow, as Barack Obama (scheduled at 9:45pm Eastern), Howard Dean, Ron Reagan, and my governor Janet Napolitano all get face time. I’ve promised to tape it for a co-worker who’s out of town but wants to see Obama’s speech.

By the way, if you want to watch the convention, choose C-SPAN. Every other network has pointless, annoying voiceovers and talking-head pundits cluttering up the proceedings. Go for the raw feed instead.

San Diego was the usual mix of exhausting fun and claustrophobic misanthropy. It’s fantastic that I’m able to attend panels with my favorite creators and drink with my favorite people, but the sheer scale and noise and smell and congestion of it all start to get to you after a while.

I can only imagine what it would be like to work a booth or table for all four days. I’m not sure I ever want to find out. As it was, I think I was one of the few attendees who bothered to actually buy some comics at the so-called Comic-Con. Everyone else was there get free stuff, dress up in costumes, and see Famous People.

Speaking of which, click on the link to read about my big brush with celebrity…
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Just finished a 1200-word short story called “Customer Service” that I’ll post here if it passes muster with my editor (ie, Vern). I started writing it on Friday, to perhaps deal with my writer’s block on the longer project.

Tomorrow morning, I’m off to San Diego for five days of nerding. I’m not sure if I’ll have Internet access at any point, so this blog will grow cobwebs in the meantime. But pay attention to the photolog on the left, as I finally have it working properly and I’ll be updating it remotely the whole time.

…I currently have an entry on the popular political blog, Daily Kos, which was promoted to the front page. I posted a link and summary for new poll results from Arizona. Ah, the small victories.

The Cardinals have the best record in the majors and a 9-game lead in the Central, including a 10-game lead over the dreaded Cubs after sweeping them. In today’s game, the Cards came back from an 8-2 deficit to win 11-8 off of three Albert Pujols homers.

This team is amazing right now. And to think I wrote them off before the season because I thought they lacked the pitching to beat the Cubs or Astros.

I’ll be catching the long, grueling one-hour flight to San Diego on Wednesday to attend Preview Night and get some extra nerding done. The next day, San Diego Comic-Con properly starts.

Half the people on my Buddy List on the right will be going. Two of them are moderating panels: Dan Evans has his annual packed-house “How to Break Into Hollywood” panel, and Shaenon is running the ModernTales.com chat. I will be there randomly wandering around, failing to speak on panels, never working a table, and drinking myself into a stupor.

I’m all excited because Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, the cast and crew of Freaks & Geeks, and the creators of Wonderfalls will be in attendance. And oh yeah, some unknowns named Keanu and Jude and Sarah Michelle Wossname will be there, too. Pfft. Whatever.