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The
Zippopotomus
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I lean back on a camp chair at
the top of a big snowy hill, and watch some guy ride down the
hill on a bright green plastic sled.
pulchritude (pull'-krit-tood)
adj. physical beauty.
- Old School :|
Old college frat theme,
old and stale, very much like
college frats themselves.
War Protests Around
the World
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Queen Of Wands
"I coach for the U.S.
Physics Team. One of the students this year brought copies
of Fluxx and Chrononauts, which were absolute hits. We found
ourselves playing at lunch, at dinner, after dinner (when the
students should have been studying and I should have been working!),
and before class. I'm amazed I got all my exams graded in time.
I'm not amazed that I didn't get enough sleep."
-- email from Andrew Lin
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The Blizzard of Toy Fair /
The Arrival of Marlene |
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This
has been the snowiest winter we've had in these parts in years.
I didn't update this page last week because we were still in
New York, snowed in during Toy Fair... and as I work now on this
week's update, it's snowing again, adding yet more to the previous
layers which have yet to fully melt away.
The blizzard that struck DC last week was just starting when
we began driving up to New York City for Toy Fair, and 2 days
later, it arrived up there with all the same ferocity. Luckily,
we were all moved in and the trade show underway by then, and
since the Big Apple is a city that can handle big snowstorms
without flinching, they never even had to shut down the event.
Even so, the second day of the four day show was nearly frozen
out by the 20" of snow that fell out of the sky that day.
Since our hotel was very close to the convention center, we had
no real trouble getting to the Javit's Center in the snow, and
most of our exhibitor peers did likewise; but the buyers and
other attendees we were there to see mostly stayed away that
day. Still, we did good business at our booth during the other
3 days of the show, and it was fun in its way to have time for
once to wander around and look at other companies' booths without
feeling like we were missing the chance to meet with someone
at our own booth.
I suppose I should have some photos here of amazingly tall
snowdrifts, but most of the photos I took last week were of our
booth at Toy Fair. As you can see, we decided to adapt our Halloween costumes from last
year into a booth uniform, and I think we looked really cool.
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Our full-time staff on this expedition consisted of myself,
Kristin, Alison, and our newest crew member, Marlene, who's taking
over our sales department as of this week. On the right is Alvaro,
our free-lance sales associate, who lives in NYC and joined us
on the first day of the show. As usual, his gregarious enthusiasm
was an inspiration to the rest of us.
Anyway, it turned out to be a fine show despite the snow...
in fact, it was kind of fun! By comparison, we had a lot more
trouble dealing with the snow when we got back home than we did
while in New York.
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We're
very excited to officially announce that Marlene Bruce (known
to my readers as Ember)
is now a full time employee of Looney Labs! We have been overworked
and in need of help for a long time now, and when the opportunity
to hire Mar came along, we took a hard look at our finances and
decided that the money is there to hire some help. Few people
we know offer the combination of skills Mar brings to the table,
and since we've known each other for most of our lives, we know
we'll be able to work well together.
I've known Mar since she and my little sister were kids and
best friends. Many years later (back in 1995) Kristin hired her
to do marketing and graphics work at a new startup called TSI-TelSys which Kristin
had just left NASA to help build. They made a great team and
had a great time helping to build that company together for just
over two years, but when things got tight and the lay-offs began,
Mar was let go. (Kristin continued to work there until she jumped
off the cliff to work full-time at Looney Labs in early 1999.)
Mar moved on and had a series of up-and-down experiences with
other start-ups, including most recently a new novelty items
manufacturer in California. And when she started talking about
moving back home, we brought her on as our part-time
webmaster, and started scheming to get her on board full-time.
Beside the good personality fit, Mar is just who we need right
now, for many reasons. Her web design expertise (gained working
with evolt.org and elsewhere)
will be of great usefulness to us as we refine the interfaces
and functionality of SuperFRED. Her experiences at UnderOneLeaf.com
will be vital as she takes over the sales department. Her background
in art and graphics work will be great when she has time to help
me create marketing materials, and her Macintosh knowledge will
be useful as she helps us in maintaining our network of computers.
She even earned a teaching certificate years ago (although never
became a teacher) which will be great when we dig in to work
on the Educational
Ideas section of our web site -- and she's even a drug
law reform activist! She's the ideal employee for our hippie
game company, and we're thrilled to have her help.
Incidentally, she's also been dating my brother Rash
for well over a year, and although they are now separated by
the width of our continent, Rash has long-term plans to move
back here as well. Mar seems so much like a member of the family
already that it just seemed obvious for us to hire her when she
decided to move back to Maryland. Welcome aboard, Mar!
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Have
a great week! |
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"This is no simple attempt to
defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes,
represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly
a turning point in the recent history of the world. This nation
is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine
applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine
of preemption -- the idea that the United States or any other
nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently
threatening but may be threatening in the future -- is a radical
new twist on the traditional idea of self-defense." -- Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) |
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"Let there be no doubt about what's happening:
The federal government is waging war on American citizens via
storm troopers carrying gold federal badges. They don't
give a damn about the law, the sick people who are helped by
marijuana or even the concept of guilt or innocence. They
care only about enforcing the edicts of distant kings in Washington,
D.C. In the past, a hardier stock of Americans decided
they had had enough of that, staged a rebellion and wrote a Constitution
so it would never happen again. But it is happening again,
and the worst part is, this time around most people don't even
care... It's becoming more clear every day who the criminals
in the war on drugs really are." -- Steve
Sebelius, "A
War Against The People" |
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"Art has power. Art unmasks.
Art tells lies in the service of truth. (Whereas governments
lie in order to conceal truth.)" -- Bernard
Weiner, "Artistic
Sign Language: Signs of the Coming Bush Fall" |
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