Melançon Enterprises • a multidivision multinational since 1980

I am not a gamer, this is not the perspective that i'm coming from at all, but key parts of Jane McGonigal's vision unites well with the aims of Visions Unite.

Specifically:

• Always being able to give a person something they, personally, can do
• Making the possible believable.
• Achieving that epic win after great individual effort and collaboration with others.

All of those mean connecting people (both into smaller dream teams of compatible, complementary talents and into a large number of supporters).

I'm more interested in bringing what makes games satisfying to self-organizing to make things better, than to making games a vehicle to saving the world, which is the direction she goes in, but please, watch:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/799

I am trying to find exactly when Paralympic recap coverage is today, and if it is possible to watch online to share the link with people, and a site-wide search for paralympics turns up nothing and your schedule lists nothing before 8pm!

Very disappointed with NBC.com.

Fortunately you can read that the time that the Paralympics recap is being shown today is 3pm EST (yes, on NBC) at
http://usparalympics.org/news/2010/03/09/nbc-sports-and-universal-sports...

http://www.rootsvisiondesign.com/kasey/index.html

A radical friend has recently been "won to supporting Israel" (as if there were some sort of binary choice). A major factor is the treatment of women in societies around Israel being worse than in the state of Israel itself-- well, let's say the 1967 boundaries since the charge of human rights violations against women in particular is implicitly making Palestinians worthy of occupation. Honor killings in particular were mentioned, and I needed

People with a (relatively) intelligent opposition to equality, and how (not?) to respond.

There is a problem-- I do identify emotionally with the left, even if my very simple economic theory is the most minor logical extension of normal and basically right-wing classical and even neoclassical economics.

If I'm to talk persuasively to all those who place themselves as libertarian and conservative, I need to get out of that headspace a little. It really has nothing to do with the actual economic facts or even much with the moral standpoint.

Couldn't find paper in my semi-reorganized room to start a list of Need before India— er, Europe so here it is, digital-style:

Need to Do

• Clean room suitable for renting it out!
• Process business cards into something
• Mow front lawn
• Get ONE patch in
• Presentations

Need to Bring

• Stefan's clothes
• Three pairs of pants
• Floss
• Full toothbrush
• Extra SD card?

Snoozles Hostel
Galway
Forster Street, Galway, Ireland

(The Galway Hostel said they had no space, and wouldn't let me plug my computer into their hall outlet for a minute to find a place.

At Snoozles, I walked into the nice large lobby, plugged in my computer, and found out they have excellent unrestricted internet. And they let me stay indefinitely on the couch there without a hassle at all. And the walk-in price? Exactly the same as the internet price! And the cheapest in Galway. Super win.)

http://www.snoozleshostelgalway.ie/

Here is a hilarious example of Ning failing. On Constance Steinkuehler's great Field hands post about organizing against home foreclosures the second comment is from Kurt Squire:

thanks for posting. I don't think that folks saw the post (I didn't and I'm the group leader and married to you). I'll send out an alert.

OK, not all the vegetables. I put in two point one hot peppers and realized I had better stop, and start adding things to soak up the capsaicin.

Everything chopped on the big wooden cutting board with the big excellent knife that Dan and Shannon bought me for my birthday.

Carrots, baby small ones left and larger baby ones sliced. Not many carrots, really.

Wisdom is the ability to distinguish your business from what's none of your business.

A community's water supply is the community's business, not Dannon's or Nestle's. Consensual sex is the business of the participants, not any religious body. Conversely, the living standards of the members of a society are that society's collective business. Of course it's not as simple as I'm trying to make it sound.

http://mejeffdorchen.oblivio.com/moments/moment_imbecilical.html

(I've called this "decisions should be made on the lowest level practical.")

There is a full-out squatter community in Providence, just off Dyer Street, under an onramp for I-95!

A half-dozen fairly good sized, decent condition tents, but pretty clear with all that's accumulating around them, stuff, that people are living there.

Andrew's committed to quitting smoking in return for the following bribes:

10 days - $100
6 months - $300
1 year - $600

This comes after Dan's ceremony and, before that, my taking a cigarette and smoking some to prevent him from (my first ever, and last).

L.L. Bean does not offer a lifetime warranty.

At some point I must have misunderstood their marketing ploy, "Guaranteed. You Have Our Word."

Our products are guaranteed to give you 100% satisfaction in every way. Return anything purchased from us at any time if it proves otherwise. We do not want you to have anything from L.L.Bean that is not completely satisfactory.

At the very least, it sounds like it's up to me, right? They should have kept the original promise, , which sets expectations much better:

Jasmine white rice

Tofu
3 onions

Cook in sesame oil.
Big scoop of minced garlic.

Frozen vegetables:

• Bag
  • Corn
  • carrots
  • green beans
  • lima beans
• Trader Joe's bean mix
• And peas.

Cayenne pepper

Sauce:
Rice vinegar
Bragg liquid aminos
Sugar

Served with vegan gluten free cupcakes

Note: This recipe does need to be started at least the night before.

Loosely based on this barebones South Indian Masala Dosa recipe, what Shannon and I did to it turned out really well. Here is our version; naturally you don't have to follow every idiosyncrasy (based in part on what we had on hand) directly.

Many of the ingredients (such as urad dal, mustard seed, green chili peppers, and curry powder) were bought at Natick Indian Grocery Story.

my submission to http://change.gov open for questions (their round 2 which seems in part an attempt to keep questions about ending marijuana and other drug prohibition out of the top 5).

Abuse of poor rural students advocating for better funding of teaching schools and widespread human rights violations in marginalized but organized neighborhoods mark Mexican government's so-called anti-drug operations. Meanwhile, violence associated with the illegalized drug trade also increases.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/12/michoa...

Visions Unite... with People Who Give a Damn?

With the caveat of not trusting any polls too much, especially as the demographic slices get smaller...

Why Prop 8 Won, by Richard Kim

Effective activism. Now he needs back-up.

Impostor disrupts lands bid