Since my last post, I have won--and received--what I pledge will be my eBay last typewriter for a while--a Monarch Visible #2 from 1910. It looks good, and works decently, but the sheet metal side panels its seems to have once had are missing. Still, it is a good enough example of the Monarch (another machine made down the road in Syracuse) that I don't regret the missing parts. Until I looked at a vintage Monarch ad, I wasn't even aware that it lacked anything. And it types smoothly enough that I am using it to write a letter to my friend in prison (unwired, but not unbound).

The Howard Dean meet-up Wednesday night was great--the best ever turnout. Even some members of the media covered the event--the O-D (our local daily) and the Life & Times (the paper that will actually print my letters to the editor) showed up, to our delight. In fact, the group has ALREADY OUTGROWN the lobby of the Hotel Utica--half the group couldn't hear the other half speak, because the circle of chairs had grown too wide. Sue and I were also delighted to drink some beers with the proprietor of the website republicansareidiots.com, who, it occurred to us, would be a good congressional candidate against our local entrenched, ferret-faced Bush idolator. Our man is funny, smart, and knows where all the bodies are buried, so to speak--and whether he wins or not, would present a real and useful pain to the ferret-incumbent. If Dean is going to be President, he will need a Democratic congress to help clean up the mess Awol C Minus has made of this country.