April 25, 2008

NJ FY2009

Corzine has been getting a lot of flak for his proposed budget cuts. I must admit, it's nice to see a governor tackle the spending problem. The fact is that New Jersey doesn't have enough revenue to cover its costs, so something has to give.

Two years ago, the answer was an increase in sales tax, which was not met with the outright revolt you might have expected. This year, he's trying to avoid raising taxes, and I'm a little shocked by the resistance to this tactic. For a state that's constantly bitching about government waste, you'd think spending decreases would be most welcome. But I think there are more protests against the cuts than there were against the higher sales tax!

Here's the proposed 2009 budget.

A couple things caught my attention:

* The biggest increase is K-12 education aid. Half a billion higher than last year and 35% of the budget! This more than offsets the $190M decrease in municipal aid, so if towns need to raise taxes for services like roads and administration, that's one thing. But they shouldn't be increasing property taxes to cover school costs.

* As always, arts suffer first. I understand the logic, but it's still sad seeing hits against the NJSO, Papermill Playhouse, etc.

* $6M one-time Tamiflu cost!?!

* While K-12 got a nice boost, colleges and universities got slapped. I don't know if that's a comfortable trade-off, since higher education is so important these days.

* I don't understand the obsession with monitoring sexual offenders. The proposal indicates $1.2M more on legislation for this. Why spend extra money on sex criminals? While the prospect of a sexual offender in your neighborhood is scary, is it any worse than a convicted murderer or drug dealer? Yet we're not spending any more on tracking them!

* The new income limits on property tax rebates saves quite a bit of money! $472M total. There must be more people making over 100K than I thought.

And last but not least, looking over this proposal really drives home exactly how difficult it is to run a fiscally responsible state. I do respect Corzine for this attempt at balancing a budget without any revenue increases. At least he's got the right frame of mind.

April 24, 2008

Dexter

This show is exploding my brain.

Thank goodness we're getting the DVDs from Netflix one at a time. Otherwise we'd be getting no sleep. I've never seen anything quite like this. It's dark drama, noir comedy, part CSI, part Sopranos, all slick and gory and disturbing and above all, a character study that evolves and dares you to engage. I think Showtime is giving HBO a run for its money - after Weeds and this series, they're quickly becoming my favorite distributor.

April 21, 2008

NYC Comic Con!

This past weekend was the NYC Comic Con!

We've been attending this Con since the first one in 2006, and it's always a good time. This year, our main goal was original and commissioned art. Also, for the first time, we went on both Sat and Sun, which was worth it. We got our planned commissions out of the way on Sat, so the smaller Sun crowds made for nice leisure browsing. We also stayed on budget and found some sweet goodies (one of which is still being shipped -- yes, it was something we could not physically carry home on the train!).

Vic has pictures of the LOOT at keroo.

Some highlights:

* Though not initially listed on the website, Jim Butcher was signing his latest Dresden book, Small Favor. As a bonus, the hardcover was 25% off. Really nice guy, chatting with each fan and posing for pictures:



* Got to play a brief D&D 4.0 demo. Interesting to see character sheets, even pre-packaged 1st level ones. Overall impression is there are more components for everyone to track (not just wizards have paperwork!) but lower level games are much more fun. The healing surge concept is pretty nifty and appeared to mitigate the "oh noes, we have no cleric!" issue. Spellcasters are easier to play and attacks more intriguing due to saves becoming combat defenses. Not a big fan of the change in skills, which are effectively pre-filled abilities now, but judging from the 15 minutes of play I had, it was a pretty easy transition from 3.5 core.

* Thanks to T.M. Revolution, the longest line of giggly asian fangirls I have personally seen formed on the convention floor.

* David Mack remembered us!

* The Heavy Metal booth had a 50% sale on all books! So I added to my Royo collection.

Some not so highlights:

* Rob Liefeld totally did not show at his assigned artist alley booth. Boo!

* Kotobuyia did not have Shunya Yamashita artbooks on hand. Their vending space was devoted mostly to "western" products like Star Wars and Halo, so I didn't get to see some of their cooler anime pieces. Ah well.

* An awesome Hulk being assaulted by Fin Fang Foom panel by Lee Weeks was way over our budget.

* David Mack originals were way over our budget

* Hell, a ton of stuff was way over our budget!

Overall, it was really fun. The organizers finally got decent space, so the crush of bodies wasn't too bad, except for areas with lines. I prepared lunch beforehand, so we didn't have to wait 30 minutes for a $4 hotdog! And it was neat roaming artists alley to admire the sheer amount of talent. I'm glad we focused on artwork this time, at a smaller, more intimate venue. Got it out of our system, so this summer at San Diego, we won't be stuck waiting in line for artists along with thousands of others!

April 15, 2008

The Day of Reckoning

Every April 15th, I'm reminded of an incident that happened several years ago in Michigan. Someone set fire to several mailboxes on tax day, and speculation was that a number of tax returns were burned up.

There are some real assholes out there.

April 1, 2008

April Fools!

My favorite prank of the day. Nicely done, IGN!