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After Mad Men introduced me to the long history of American political ads, I went on to
discover that such a history is also beautifully archived by the nonpartisan web site The Living Room Candidate, which hosts ads from every
presidential campaign since 1952. Looking at them makes clear just how many good ideas
we’ve abandoned — and how many similarities remain. For example, 48 years later,
this Kennedy piece is
still incredibly catchy. I’m a sucker for a good jingle, so I really wish that this style
of ad was still in fashion — though, come to think of it, a “Yes We Can”
comparison can be drawn.
Also, most ads directly reflect prevalent styles found in film and TV at the time — the
pace and execution of this 1968 Nixon
“political broadcast” montage of violent images, for example, is reminiscent of
Pablo Ferro’s Dr. Strangelove trailers. Except with
less Peter Sellers, more voiceover and more paranoia about dirty Commies ruining the country.
And celebrity endorsements are nothing new — though, now as ever, their ability to affect
the outcomes of elections remains hard to gauge. Behold Broadway star, TV host and
“Ambassador of Love” Pearl
Bailey endorsing her candidate of choice in
1976: Gerald Ford.
We haven’t come terribly far over the past 50 years — the styles may have changed,
but everyone’s still trying to sell hope and fear in equal amounts. It’s worth
remembering over the next few weeks, when the Obama and McCain ads promise to grow increasingly
ever-present and vitriolic, that really, all these ads are the same. It’s what the
candidates actually stand for that matters.
pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=48f19776796c7a5b004cd784ctxt=wwwr1.2.1.0maxX=391maxY=283"
border="0" alt="man with head in the ground.jpg" title="man with head in the ground.jpg"
width="391" height="283" /VCs and angels sent out a series of "look out!" warnings to their charges
last week. Now we're starting to see slightly more positive takes from other investors to their
startups: Something along the lines of "Look out! But take advantage of the openings"./p pJohn
Borthwick, who heads up the a href="http://betaworks.com/"Betaworks/a incubator/"business
acceleration platform" (investments in Twitter, Tumblr, someecards, etc.) sent out his own memo out
to his portfolio companies Saturday afternoon. The following is an abbreviated version (John
suggested we use the art to the right):/p p----------------/p pOut east, a downturn has been
evident for a while, and most of you have already started to make adjustments to your plan. But two
things did change this week:/p p(a) The credit crisis and the crisis of confidence in our markets
got way worse.br /(b) Silicon Valley woke up to the fact that something had changed./p pThe first
point is the one to focus on. The second is a distraction./p pYou need to think about things
differently. Things have changed and your priorities should change. I broke up our thinking into
two blocks. The first is what you should be thinking about in terms of your business. The second
outlines some thoughts on what this means for the market./p p style="text-align: left;"span
style="font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial;" divimg
src="http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2ik=0188ed3493view=attth=11cee0fd2cc03b77attid=0.2disp=embrealattid=0.1.1ctxt=wwwr1.2.1.0"
border="0" width="493" height="220" //div /span/p div style="text-align: left;"br //div pstrong#1.
Priorities for you and your business:/strongbr /br /Things look ugly, but with distress comes
opportunities. Scarcity drives innovation. Always has, always will. Do more with less: A trite one
liner that you need to make part of your companies DNA./p pThere will be more emphasis on user
value, more ways to make money from that value. We will finally fess up to the fact that many of
the ad models of web 2.0 don't yield results, and we will invent ones that do. All around there
will be more innovation./p pIt's counterintuitive, but during an up cycle people accept
conventional wisdom, and during a down cycle people challenge it. That's good. Very good. And the
cycle will winnow competition.br /br /strongFollow the money /strongbr /Many of you are running
your businesses very cheaply right now and break-even is within reach. Get there./p pOne of the
headline shifts that is taking place is that people (partners, investors, the market) are going to
shift focus from audience + revenue to just revenue. This happened in the last downturn and a lot
of entrepreneurs didn't adapt to the shift till it was too late. Cash is king. Cash gives you
flexibility and options. Once you get to break-even the whole world will look different./p pMaking
money, like everything you do, takes work, time and attention. It will take longer than you expect
and it happens in ways you can't plan. Start working on it now. If you have just raised money or
are raising, get it closed. The cost of capital is going up. Think runway, cash and revenue.br /br
/strongWatch your spend, make necessary cuts now /strongbr /If you think a piece of your product
needs two developers to build it, do it with one. Be excessively creative in thinking about
revenues and trying those ideas. Rethink *all* your projections, looking at how reductions in cost
and accelerations in revenue strategies affect the numbers. Then redo them again. You'll be
stronger./p pFace reality as it is, not as you wish it was. Change the mix of sales and
performance-based employees. Think about what you can outsource -- and how you can distribute your
costs. It's hard and it requires different workflow, but when it works it can change your whole
business makeup./p pAnd if you need to make cuts, make them now. Don't cut 10% now and then another
10% early next year -- make the change in one fell swoop. Piecemealing your way through change
kills momentum, hurts culture and the team and is a chickenshit way to run a business. Figure out
what your runway looks like and do more with less. Figure out how to extend your runway till you
get to break-even. br /br /strongKnow your data/strongbr /You have heard me rant about this before,
but you have to know what's going on. Know your data really really well. Financial data, your burn,
your cash flow, revenues, runway and site usage data. There are a lot of things you can do to
improve everything from burn to traffic. But first you need to know where you stand. So every week
you have a picture of your position. Make this a habit./p pI used to hate to do this, but once you
make it a habit it becomes a tool. During an up cycle you can follow instinct, and usually your raw
instinct is what you should follow. But during a down cycle your instinct can lead you far astray.
br /br /strongCompete/strongbr /Take the offensive. Many of your competitors are not as well
positioned as you. This is an opportunity to take share. These points are in order of priority --
once you know where you stand, where you are making money, what your burn is -- think aggressively
about growth and market share./p pThis is my favorite slide from the Sequoia deck (link to the deck
is below):/p div style="text-align: left;" divbr //div divspan style="font-size: 13px; font-family:
Arial;" div divimg
src="http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2ik=0188ed3493view=attth=11cee0fd2cc03b77attid=0.1disp=embrealattid=0.1.2ctxt=wwwr1.2.1.0"
border="0" width="488" height="397" //div /div /span/div /div pstrong#2. Big, broad
changes./strongbr /With the economy heading into the worst setback most of you -- most of us --
have ever seen, it's time to think about big, broad changes. It's been a long week, but let me try
to anticipate a few.br /br /strongMomentum and change /strongbr /Some of our business is based on
momentum. That's taken a turn for the worse. You have to adjust fast -- that's your job. As humans
we accept change as something that someone else needs to adapt to. But that's not true for your
business: You have to change, not someone else. And remember a Welsch maxim: Control your own
destiny or someone else will. Change before you have to.br /br /strongCost of capital/strongbr /The
cost of capital has gone way up. Don't panic, just make sure you realize the rules have changed.br
/br /strongAdvertising /strongbr /There will be a flight to quality; a
href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/how-bad-will-the-ad-market-get-time-to-get-out-the-history-books"this
always happens/a. But this time I think it's going to be more than that. For TV and print this has
been an unusual year: The shift to online has been stemmed first by the Olympics and second by the
election. But year-over-year growth in ad spend has been down across the board (see slide 32 of the
sequoia deck, linked below). Expect the next year to be ugly and different. I think spend will move
online, very fast, and print may right downhill. And people will look for ROI -- real measurable
results. Monetizing social media is hard. Much to do here, much money/share to make/take.br /br
/strongBeyond advertising/strongbr /Much of Web 2.0 was about advertising to the tail -- the
wonders of Google and AdSense. The truth that most people haven't spoken up much about is that (a)
neither Google or Yahoo did a great job of monetizing much outside of search and (b) the Google
business is still mostly in the head of the curve, not the tail./p pThe scale focus on
auction-based ad buying has distracted us from other business models. This week I had a bite with
the CEO of Hi Media (who bought Fotolog): They are an ad network, but they are now making a lot of
money on payments. And a significant chunk is via "microfame" payments -- Fotolog users voting each
other up in a href="http://flog.fotolog.com/rank"popularity based boards/a. In September, some
users spent more than $2k each voting on these boards. Many of our companies are experimenting with
payment models -- Tipjoy, Ideeli, IILWY, Covestor, SomeEcards ... there is money to be made here --
from payments to item sales to t shirts. Businesses to be built. br /br /strongThe elephants will
dance/strongbr /Pieces are going to move on the chess board. Big pieces. This shouldn't be your
focus, but things are going to have change around your business, and they might affect you. Yahoo
is going to be sold or bought. Ebay will either be sold or bought or broken up. Facebook is going
to have to change (cut spending, focus on revenue) or it will be bought. Same for Linked in.
Microsoft, News Corp. TWX and other media companies will be buyers. What does Google do in this
cycle -- freeze or be bold? The newspapers -- do they act out of fear or freeze up? Telco's and
cell cos; cable cos -- do they jump upstream?/p pWhy should you care? Because as these pieces move
around the chess board, they may well affect your future. So watch carefully. If Paypal -- which by
some estimates is now 50% of the value of Ebay -- gets spun out of ebay, then they will accelerate
services beyond advertising. Etc. etc. So consider the moves the elephants make. The equation for
them, public or private, has changed. br /strongbr /Openness/strongbr /I think this cycle is going
to drive another significant shift in how open and interconnected the Web is. This is good news for
you, and this is bad news for the Facebooks of the world, who tried to replicate the walled garden
strategy of Web 1.0./p pThink about what happened through the last cycle. Start with AWS. In the
1990s, Internet companies had to own everything top to tail. Today you can use Amazon and other
services to pop up a new box for hundreds of dollars, if that. Thats a huge shift, and it's also a
shift towards interdependency./p pWe are all now dependent on the Amazon's of the world for parts
of our infrastructure. I think this turn of the cycle is going to drive a lot more openness. This
in turn ties to the market figuring out how to rapidly establish bottoms-up standards. This is
about working with others and figuring out how to do things without having to do all the work. br
/br /strongbetaday/strong/p pNext week at betaday [Betaworks' portfolio companies presenting to
investors] will be a great opportunity to present your companies to many potential business
partners. These partners now more than ever will want to know how your business scales, earns
revenues and profits. Take this opportunity to have clear responses to these questions. There will
be a greater emphasis now on this, so be prepared to specifically and persuasively answer these
questions -- before they get asked. Think about your burn, how you can do more with less. Think
three years out, not six months./p div style="text-align: left;"strongBibliography/strongbr / br /a
href="http://bit.ly/22BJrj"Silicon Valley Finds It Isn't Immune From Credit Crisis - WSJ.com/a/div
div style="text-align: left;"br //div div style="text-align: left;" div div style="margin: 0px;"a
href="http://bit.ly/3BbqV3"Sequoia Capital deck startups and the economic downturn/a/div /div br /a
href="http://bit.ly/1fVGrx"Inside Details of Sequoia Capital's Doomsday Meeting With its Companies
- G.../a/div div style="text-align: left;"br //div div style="text-align: left;" div div
style="margin: 0px;"a href="http://bit.ly/26hbqA"VC dean Alan Patricof warns against panic, urges
entrepreneurs to seize the.../a/div /div /div div style="text-align: left;"br /a
href="http://bit.ly/dcl0T"Master of 500 Hats: Fear is the Mind Killer of the Silicon Valley
Entrepren.../abr /br /a href="http://bit.ly/4DsSUw" Angel Investor Ron Conway Emails His Portfolio
Companies Over Financial Mel.../abr /br /a href="http://bit.ly/1wE8K2"Benchmark Capital Advises
Startups To Conserve Capital, Look For Opportunit.../abr / br /a href="http://bit.ly/ppHcO"How Bad
Will The Ad Market Get? Time To Get Out The History Books/abr /br /a href="http://bit.ly/FvwGK"
News Corp. Estimates Cut in advertising/a/div div style="text-align: left;"br //div div
style="text-align: left;"strongSee Also:/strong a
href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/vcs-angels-to-startups-look-out-for-that-meteor-that-just-hit-you-"Sorry
Startups. Party's Over/abr /a
href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/sequoia-s-startup-advice-save-cash-slash-costs-stay-alive"Sequoia's
Startup Advice: Save Cash, Slash Costs, Stay Alive/abr /br //div pa
href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/xux2TgVAJ-ODLDxfqS6pVNRHyBQ/a"img
src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/xux2TgVAJ-ODLDxfqS6pVNRHyBQ/i" border="0"
ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=08n8tuMK"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=08n8tuMK"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=SSCEJeNj"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52"
border="0"/img/a a
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src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80"
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src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131"
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src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336"
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src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=JLF6VWte"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50"
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VILNIUS (AFP) - Polls opened Sunday in Lithuania's general election, a vote expected to mark the
comeback of two disgraced populists, ex-president Rolandas Paksas and former political star Viktor
Uspaskich.
Three days before the Canadian elections, the party leader of the New Democrats has spoken out in
favor of BitTorrent sites, calling them ”fundamental to
democracy.” At the same time, isoHunt, the largest Canadian BitTorrent
site advises its users not to vote for the Conservatives, considering their stance on copyright
issues.
In the first part of our interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose at the Future of Web Apps
conference, CNET News asked the Web start-up poster boy about everything from the company's Series
C funding round to whether he's concerned about when those election stories stop rolling in.
a href="http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jzQtw1kATj1xCqPcAmwgCKDtNpDQD93M2FQO0"John McCain served
on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing
death squads in Central America in the 1980s/a. a
href="http://www.coha.org/2008/06/a-hidden-agenda-john-mccain-and-the-iri/"As the head of the IRI,
he helped finance coups against democratic governments in Haiti and Venezuela/a. Were those
governments fairly elected? a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2479"The 1984 elections were
perhaps the freest and fairest in Nicaraguan history/a. a
href="http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=652_0_1_0_C"Aristide...won the first free and
fair election in the country’s history with 67 percent of the vote/a. In Venezuela, all of
Chavez's victories in elections a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3009"were monitored and
certified by a variety of observers including the Organization of American States, the European
Union and the Carter Center/a. br /
In the first part of our interview with Digg founder Kevin Rose at the Future of Web Apps
conference, CNET News asked the Web start-up poster boy about everything from the companys Series C
funding round to whether hes concerned about when those election stories stop rolling in.br[a
href=http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10062214-36.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0 title=linklink/a]
[a href=http://digg.com/tech_news/Getting_global_with_Digg_s_Kevin_Rose_part_2 title=moremore/a]
Thomas Lifson / American
Thinker: This
could be the game changer — Someone with the unlikely name of
Molotov Mitchell has produced a 10 minute and 52 second video [watch it below] that could well
change the terms of the election — if enough people watch it. Illuminati Productions
has posted it to YouTube.
Why is McCain existence such an asshole? Great. We’re exclusive about a week into the general
election campaign. The Caucus: Senator John McCain mocked Senator Barack Obama here today at an
airfield rally, repeatedly occupation him a “y...
A group of San Francisco first-graders took an unusual field trip to City Hall on Friday to toss
rose petals on their just-married lesbian teacher - putting the public school children at the
center of a fierce election battle over the fate of same-sex marriage.
p2pnet news view #124; P2P #124; Politics:- Four days to go before we#8217;ll know if Stephen
Harper, Stephane Dion, Stephane Dion/Jack Layton or, if the wildest of wild possibilities (and
IOHO, the best of all possible outcomes) somehow becomes reality, Elizabeth May will lead the
country for the next little while. What#8217;s the score so far? British [...]
pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/pc/" rel="tag"PC/a, a
href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/ps2/" rel="tag"Sony PlayStation 2/a, a
href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/xbox360/" rel="tag"Microsoft Xbox 360/a, a
href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/firstpersonshooters/" rel="tag"First Person Shooters/a/pdiv
align="center"a href="http://news.bigdownload.com/gallery/secret-service/1090718/"img hspace="0"
border="1" vspace="4" alt=""
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/10/gam_secretservice_490.jpg" //abr //div
This might just be the first time in American history when participation in the presidential
election overshadows the viewership of emDancing With the Stars/em, so it makes sense that a game
developer would want to capitalize on all the Head of State hubbub -- enter Activision, and a
href="http://news.bigdownload.com/gallery/secret-service/1090718/"their recently announced,
bargain-priced shooter/a emSecret Service/em. The title will pit you, an agent of the esteemed
presidential protection outfit, against a number of inimical extremists who attack Washington D.C.
on Inauguration Day. br /br /Very few details about the title were shared in the press release the
company just dropped, though it was revealed that the story and level design will be crafted by
former Creative Director for Naughty Dog, Daniel Arey. Parties who are interested in taking a few
bullets for our Commander in Chief will be able to enlist on the Xbox 360 ($39.99), PS2 ($29.99)
and PC ($19.99) when the game hits store shelves "later this year".p style="clear: both; padding:
8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"nbsp;/ppa
href=http://news.bigdownload.com/gallery/secret-service/1090718/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a
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div style="margin-bottom: 10px; font-size: 10px;"posted by Neil/div Got to Cornwall about 4:30 am
(I slept for an hour or so in the car, then read a script). Dropped off by car and driver at hotel.
Glad to see someone up and about to check me in. Take my bags to front desk, tip driver handsomely.
Driver drives away. Night-porter slowly establishes that I'm not actually staying in that hotel,
but another several miles away, and that driver was a bit overenthusiastic in dropping me off at
hotel. Also that you can't get a taxi in rural Cornwall at five in the morning so I am stuck there.
I sit in the lobby and write span style="font-style: italic;"Batman/span. Somehow, in my jet-lagged
state, this all seems quite normal.br /br /My cellphones do not work in this town, and they are out
of charge to boot.br /br /After three quarters of an hour the night porter turns up and takes me to
a hotel room, magicked into existence just for me, and everything is suddenly wonderful. I sleep
for six hours, have a long bath and then go down to see my friends who are having a joint 50th
birthday.br /br /I eat the best Cornish pasty I've ever had for breakfast, and wash it down with
cider (the alcoholic sort that doesn't taste even faintly alcoholic, so be wary) and listen to the
seagulls and am happy. Also run into several old friends, which is good.br /br /Am now in the hotel
office, as my room doesn't quite reach the internet.br /br /...br /br /I mentioned the Andre Norton
case on this blog some time ago. The case is now resolved -- see a
href="http://scrivenerserror.blogspot.com/2008/10/8a10a.html"Scrivener's Error/a. Can I point all
of you who read this who are writers -- or who know writers -- or who may one day be a writer -- at
a
href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html"http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2006/10/important-and-pass-it-on.html/a.br
/br /I heard from Marcus at Blackwells that they're down to the last 60 seats for the Hallowe'en
reading event...br /br /br /blockquotea
href="http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/editorial/shops/instore_events.jsp;jsessionid=45C461969E0A42E86D7BC84609D457AC.bobcatt2"Friday
31st October, 6.30pmbr /The Old Theatre, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, WC2A 2AEbr
/br /Blackwell Charing Cross Road are very pleased to announce an exclusive London event with Neil
Gaiman, to celebrate the launch of his fantastic new novel, The Graveyard Book.br /br /Join us on
the 31st October, Halloween, for a talk and signing at the Old Theatre, London School of Economics,
Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE, starting at 6.30pm. As it's Halloween, dressing up is welcome (but not
compulsory). There will be a prize for the best costume, as decided by us, and the winner will also
get a chance to pose next to Neil for a photo. Make sure to wear something that lets you fit into a
theatre seat, and is comfortable enough to deal with a long signing queuebr /br /Tickets are priced
at £8 and £6 (concessions), and will entitle you to £2 off either edition of the
book on the night. Tickets can be obtained by visiting Blackwell, 100 Charing Cross Road, London
WC2H 0JG, or by phone on 020 7292 5100 for posting to your address. We expect the phone lines to be
very busy for the first couple of days, so do please bear with us!/a/blockquotebr /br /Here's a
href="http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/hollywood/last-night-neil-gaiman-intervi/"an interview from
the LA Weekly/a, backstage in Santa Monica, and here is a
href="http://pinkisthenewblog.com/home/2008/10/the-graveyard-shift/"Pink is the New Blog at the
same event/a (with added Blueberry Girl).br /br /...br /br /Lots of people have written in to ask
about the Bela Fleck recording of the Danse Macabre that he did for span style="font-style:
italic;"The Graveyard Book/span.br /br /(It was the musical piece that preceded Bill Hader's lovely
"Vincent Price", for those of you who were at any of the readings.) It's on the audio book of span
style="font-style: italic;"The Graveyard Book/span --the one you'd buy at iTunes or on CD.br /br
/Some people asked about the cellist playing with him; others wanted to know if it would be
available as a separate download. According to Mr Fleck:br /span style="font-style: italic;"br /The
cellist is Ben Sollee, a great young player from Louisville./spanbr /br /There are no plans to do
anything else with it at my end, because it's Bela's music and he recorded it, and if anyone's
going to put it up for download or something I think it ought to be him, not me. Bela Fleck's
website is a href="http://www.belafleck.com/"http://www.belafleck.com//a. (I love this blog. I sigh
that it would be lovely to have a Danse Macabre on banjo, and the best banjo player in the known
universe reads it, writes in to ask if I'd be interested, and then records it and it's even better
than it was my head when I suggested it. I mean, honestly, how cool is that?)br /br /Here's the
magical audio widget, for any of you who would like to hear some of it...br /br /object
id="harper_v1" align="middle" width="230" height="450"param name="allowScriptAccess"
value="sameDomain"param name="allowFullScreen" value="false"param name="movie"
value="http://harperaudio.gigya.s3.amazonaws.com/harper_v1.swf?gid=Amazon"param name="quality"
value="high"param name="wmode" value="transparent"param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" embed
src="http://harperaudio.gigya.s3.amazonaws.com/harper_v1.swf?gid=Amazon" quality="high"
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pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
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style="visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px;"
src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bHQ9MTIyMjc4NDU5NjUzMSZwdD*xMjIyNzg*NjYyODkwJnA9MzU2MDIxJmQ9SEErJm49YmxvZ2dlciZnPTImdD*mbz*5NzIyMWZlODkzYTg*ZmY1OTQyYWFlZTI2M2FmMzgyMQ==.gif"
border="0" width="0" height="0" /br /br /...br /br /span style="font-weight: bold;"Dear
Mr.Gaiman:br /br /I'd like to inform you that apparently you have killed (not only perhaps Amanda
Palmer but also) the third installment of Phonogram:br /a
href="http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?p=1652"http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?p=1652/abr
/br /But no bad news should be given without a good one. The Coraline movie official site is up!:br
/a
href="http://www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/coraline/"http://www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/coraline//abr
/br /Best,br /- Sambr //spanbr /br /Life has no obligation to be likely, does it? Or even
convincing.br /br /I like the a href="http://www.filminfocus.com/focusfeatures/film/coraline/"span
style="font-style: italic;"Coraline/span website/a though. And am wondering what's going to happen
over at a href="http://www.theothercoraline.com/"http://www.theothercoraline.com/br //abr /...br
/br /And finally, a reminder from Anne K.G. Murphy:br /br /blockquotespan style="font-style:
italic;"In most states, the deadline to register to vote by mail has justbr /passed (see a
href="http://www.eac.gov/voter/docs/state-reg-deadlines.xls/attachment_download/file"http://www.eac.gov/voter/docs/state-reg-deadlines.xls/attachment_download/file/a)br
/but it's yet to come in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware,br /Idaho* (mail-in today!),
Iowa*, Kansas, Maine*, Maryland,br /Massachusetts, Minnesota*, Nebraska, Nevada (mail-in has passed
butbr /you can still walk in and register), New Hampshire*, New Jersey, Newbr /York (today!), North
Carolina (mail-in today or at one-stop stationsbr /until Nov 1), Oklahoma (mail-in today!), Oregon,
South Dakota, Utahbr /(walk-in), Vermont, Washington (walk-in), West Virginia, Wisconsin*,br /and
Guam.br /br /*in starred states you can also register on election day, if you missbr /the mail-in
deadline, which is also true for Montana and Wyoming,br /whose mail-in deadline has passed. North
Dakota does not have voterbr /registration, according to that reference, so I guess North
Dakotansbr /just walk in and vote.br /br /Please consider helping the votor registration effort
with such a postbr /on your blog.br /br /thanks!br /br /--Anne/span/blockquote div
class="label_list" style="margin-top: 20px; padding-left: 15px; text-indent: -15px; font-size:
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uppercase; letter-spacing: .1em;"strongLabels:/strongnbsp; a
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uppercase;"copyright/a, a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/travel" style="color:
#999; text-transform: uppercase;"travel/a, a
href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/pasties" style="color: #999; text-transform:
uppercase;"pasties/a, a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/magical%20audio%20widget"
style="color: #999; text-transform: uppercase;"magical audio widget/a, a
href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/wills" style="color: #999; text-transform:
uppercase;"wills/a, a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/bela%20fleck" style="color:
#999; text-transform: uppercase;"bela fleck/a/div
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
