His first name is really Willard!

* Note that "Vermin" isn't a party machine candidate. Will irony never end?

Probably not. Too bad, I might have been tempted.

He came to Colebrook on his Barber Shop Tour, where he discovered that we don't have a barber shop, per se. Imagine his disappointment. He did drop by the newspaper office to give an interview. They ran it after he'd already left town. Had I known he was coming, I'd have gone to see him.

I also saw some "Vermin Supreme" signs, but there were so many other Ironic Hipster Performance Art signs and stickers downtown by this point that I assumed this was more of the same ("US Outta My Mouth" by "disinformed citizens" was one I recall, tho' it's hard to tell the sincerely whacked from the hiply ironic, ofttimes.)

I didn't know you primaried Veeps too. That's just silly.

And, now I'm reminded I'd better brush my teeth.

You know, if CMOT Dibbler ever jumped onto the Celebrity Chef bandwagon and opened a swanky upscale restaurant serving Klatchian Cuisine as chronicled in an accompanying TV Series...

What do you mean? Mr. and Mrs. Supreme were very fond of the name Vermin. It's an old family name. Vermin has a sister, Cucaracha, and a brother, Slimemold.

Reportedly some precincts are running low on ballots and are sending out for more. There's been very heavy turnout across the state.

Must go check copyright date of "Moving Pictures." Was The Food Network just aborning when Pratchett wrote that, I wonder?

(If no one else is going to bite)

I for one want to see who he'd have in his cabinet.

She was surprised to find he was a candidate because he hadn't told her he was planning to run.

His goal is to get one vote.

And there I was hoping that Conrad Veidt would run as his veep...

The article also quotes Vermin Supreme, who claims to be "the only candidate that will fund time-travel research"--jokiingly, according to the Trib.. Hey, I've heard worse campaign promises!

Could you unpack that a bit?

(I do know what the Thor Power Tools Decision is, but why is it significant that he didn't?)

He's a long-time local crank and perennial candidate who grouses loudly about how no one takes him seriously, invites him to debates, etc., etc. I have no idea if he's been on the NH ballot before, but I've seen his name many, many times on Minnesota ballots (for Governor, for Senator...he never aims low).

There appears to be a website with real information about the minor candidates, if anyone's curious who these people are.

James @ 20: They're related to the Gits, aren't they?

So says ethan, Criminal Mastermind.

Incidentally, I am very glad that my state declared a recent set of electronic voting machines illegal because the manufacturer "upgraded" them. A particular set of specs were certified and the maker didn't follow them— bad maker. Anyway, I prefer my county's system, which is basically Scantron with pens instead of pencils. Paper trail AND quick results, non-falsifiable, ballots printed clearly and custom for each election, and it's a system that's been tested for decades. Seriously, why do we need the bells and whistles?

I also like that my state does not allow poll offices to have a majority of any registration. It makes for interesting conversations when you're sitting around.

*In 2004 I ended up helping visually impaired voters fill out their ballots, which means I got to fill out bubbles for most sides of the issues and any number of candidates. It was sad that one lady asked for someone of her party to help so that her ballot wouldn't get screwed up— I, at least, take that sort of position very seriously and wouldn't dream of screwing up somebody else's vote. (Incidentally, I am unaffiliated and was thus acceptible to her, but it was good to retreat behind "I can't talk about that" when she asked for my opinion.)

1. Presidential candidates called "Vermin Supreme".
2. Towns called "Woonsocket".

Vermin Supreme sounds like an example of Baldrick's trench cooking.
"Take the freshly shaved rat and marinade it in a puddle."
"For how long?"
"Until it drowns. Then hold it over a hot light bulb, get within dashing distance of the latrines, and bolt it down."

(yes, Wikipedia, I know--but the articles are accurate enough in these two cases to give you all an idea.)

ethan can set me straight, but isn't Woonsocket the place in Rhode Island where half the people are of French-Canadian descent? It's almost certainly an Indian name, though, like other fine American place names such as Yallobusha, Ittawamba, Ittabena, Loosahatchie, Aroostook, Allagash, Snohomish, and many others too numerous to mention. (I'm not going to bring up the subject of unusual placenames in the UK--and I don't mean the Welsh ones, either--because fish, barrel, firearm, really.)

If you're having trouble with Woonsocket, how do you feel about Chepinawoxet? Or Quonochontaug? Or Misquamicut?

...do you feel better about Moscow?

(This is starting to feel like thread-hijacking. Sorry, Jim.)

More likely it means something like, "Damn, those palefaced idiots will buy the worst swamp land we've got!"

I do think, though, that Woonsocket predates Douglas Adams, so it's plainly not his fault they call it that.

There's a town in South Dakota with the same name, or there was--the Dakotas tend to loose towns, so it may be gone by now.

Hmmmmm...

Ballarat has a lovely sound to it, though.

Serge, I was wondering if you would make that connection. I'm sure they're unrelated...

I tried to get a degree through the criminal system. But I got sent down.

Thank you very much.

In Thurston County there is a perennial candidate who calls himself Prophet Atlantis, and claims, as his profession, "mental health consumer."

There are nights I lay awake and contemplate all possible meanings of that phrase.

Whenever I hear "Woonsocket" I start singing "Moonshadow" with the obvious substitution.

Long Island has a bunch of them. Narragansett and Chappaqua, to name a couple. There actually was a filk about it:

I'm going through towns whose names are mighty strange,
'Cuz when I got to Jamaica I forgot to change!

My own home town is Okemos, Michigan. Okemos was a Chippewah chief long ago.

*Yes, it's of indigenous origin. The derivation from Yiddish 'meshugeneh', though appealing for many reasons, is apocryphal.

The St. Pete Times Did.

And I can't really talk about towns with strange names, living as I do in Mamaroneck (also in Westchester). I've heard some very strange pronunciations of the town name since I moved here.

(I didn't realise we had two places called Mt Buggery, in SA & Vic.)

Hey, I take pride in telling people I was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (it is also true).

I have a book (in a box somewhere) telling the stories behind the place names of Saskatchewan. My favorite is that the capital was named Regina, in honor of the Queen. But they named it Regina after it had been picked to be the capital; prior to that, the city had been named Pile O' Bones.

My associative link to Saskatoon is Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat. It's right up there with Alvin's Secret Code by Clifford Hicks among the favorite books of my youth.

Though the idea of a sign saying "BUILDING A BETTER, STRONGER, FASTER MOOSE FOR THE CANADIAN MARKET SINCE 1923" is also appealling.

71: alas, Australian geology is far too old for there to be much chance of dinosaurs being found there.

Then the place get bought out by SkyNet and next thing you know, the Termoosator is taking over the Earth.

Apparently, in the early years, the industry in Hollywood convinced the Canadians that neither would be helped by the competition. In return for not competing with Hollywood, Hollywood in turn would see to it that Canadian interests were represented. This ended up being handled by a one-man office.

So, as my friend described, you'd have Bing Crosby in one of the 'On the Road', in some scene in a desert. You'd hear a bird warble, and Bing would say something like: "That sounds like a yellow-bellied sap-sucker... from Canada". And this would be the work of our man in Hollywood, earning his pay.

Sounds like he earned his pay on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court too.

When I recently learned the name of the dragon in the film Dragonslayer, I laughed out loud - not because it's a funny name in itself (although it is, a bit), but because "Vermithrax Pejorative" is among the magic words used by wizards in the video game I'm working my way through.

(I had wondered how "pejorative" came to be a magic word.)

Also among the magic words are "klaatu", "barada", and "nikto" - although so far never all three together in that order.

On New Year's day supporters of Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul gathered on the Whisperwind (US) realm in World of Warcraft to march across Azeroth and show their support for their candidate of choice. The rally started outside Ironforge with approximately 240 players [...] and traveled to Stormwind, Westfall, Booty Bay, Ratchet, and finally Orgrimmar.

One wonders whether the Paul campaign might continue in a virtual fantasy land long after the 2008 primaries, convention, and election are past.

Minneapolis in 73, anyone?

(Both campaigns even have airships.)

As for "pejorative" as a magic word, well, they could have come up with worse than that.
Ow!

How many people here were born in a town or city with an interesting name? I can't make that claim, though my maternal grandmother came from Port Wine CA, a mining town that no longer exists.

So no moose were or are manufactured there.

So no moose were or are manufactured there.

Back in the days of penal settlement we had a Female Factory at Parramatta. There were a couple down in Tasmania too. They began as barracks for the women convicts, and developed other functions over time.

Similarly, St. Paul was originally called Pig's Eye.

"What are we going to do tonight, Brain? The same thing we do every night, Pinky... TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

Similarly, St. Paul was originally called Pig's Eye.

You bring to mind a favorite exchange on Usenet's rec.arts.sf.fandom, way back in Ought Four:

Alan Winston: There's a really excellent contra-dance band from there called "Pig's Eye Landing", and I didn't know why.

David Dyer-Bennet: Actually, it's the original name of St. Paul.

Del Cotter: I remember that bit where Jesus says, "Pig's Eye Landing, why do you persecute me?"

Then again, one of these days she's going to be Queen of the Multiverse...

You've met Boney? I thought I was the only one around here ....

And then there's Moose Drool Beer, honest to Bacchus. But do you dare drink it?

Something is rotten in the state of Qraznex.

And if some other fringe group, like, say, the Trancredo Non Immigranti, don't like the result of the election, they can always buy some land in Second Life and settle down to commit atrocities on the natives build their own society, just like the Pilgrims did in North America.

Some day, after waves of despised immigrants have settled in Second Life, a leader will arise to stop the insidious dilution of their culture, and they'll all upload to a completely virtual land where they can magically remove all the undesirables. Thus does technology make all dreams possible, even the ones that leave you drooling on the pillow after they're over.

Also, one of the sites at which I teach ESL is near the village of Ork.

Dave Luckett @80 -- opalised forearm
Wow! What a cool thing to happen to one's remains.

There are lists of "1000 things to do before you die." I'm definitely putting 'opalize' on my list for afterwards ;)

Jim Bacchus? Does this make Mrs. Howell, Ginger and Marianne into his bacchantes?

Oh, Goddess...

Thanks for making me cry at work. Good thing it's lunchtime, everyone else is out of the office.

I am now decided that I have to read everything Bear's written so far, and everything she writes from now on as soon as possible after it comes out. I've read 2 novels and just started a third, and every time within a few pages I've found a really great, and very quotable line. The one I'm reading now is "Whiskey and Water", and on page 7 (of the trade paperback) the line, part of an enumeration of beads and scraps of fabric on a coat-of-many-colors is (paraphrased): "and enough beads to buy Manhattan twice over." It's especially poignant because gur pbng vf orvat jbea ol gur ynfg Zntr bs Znaunggna, nobhg gb tb ba uvf ebhaqf nf thneqvna bs gur vfynaq.

signed,
Rabid Stalkery Fan

Thanks, I found the LJ a couple of weeks ago, but the Shadow Unit site is new to me. I've exchanged a couple of emails with her about the two books I've read so far; I couldn't keep the squee to myself.

Vermin Supreme Videos