Nicholas Kaufmann's Journal

Looks like "Kill Brian Keene In Your Blog Day" was a rousing success! At last count, our poor victim met with a whopping 46 untimely demises. If you know of any more that aren't on the list I linked to, please let me know and I'll forward the information to Brian.

While there are no immediate plans to collect these vignettes into a fundraising anthology the way we did for Jack Haringa Must Die! last year, stay tuned for further developments should they arise.

In other news, I see my nemesis, the abominable Maurice Broaddus, has turned his evil attentions in my direction once more. Among his many nefarious accomplishments this past year, Maurice has diabolically sold an urban fantasy trilogy called "King Maker" to Angry Robot Books, a new imprint of HarperCollins dedicated to modern adult science fiction and fantasy. The first volume is due out in the spring of 2010. I know I'll be watching closely, and reading even closer. I have to keep a sharp eye on my nemesis at all times!

And my polling place was virtually deserted. This has got to be the most apathetic local election I've seen in a while. Of course, things may pick up after work, but I suspect there will be low voter turnout all day. New Yorkers on the whole, I think, are just feeling blah about our mayoral choices and that's trickling down to all the local races.

It's a given that Mike Bloomberg will stay in office for a third term, but even though I don't think Bloomberg has been a terrible mayor (his illegal holding of protestors without access to lawyers or family during the 2004 Republican National Convention in NYC notwithstanding) I couldn't vote for him. You have to play by the rules, Mr. Bloomberg, and twice now New Yorkers voted for term limits. You can't just stack the city council with people who want you to be king so they'll overturn the term limits we voted for, dig?

So I decided to vote for someone else as a protest vote. I couldn't vote for Democratic candidate Bill Thompson because he's corrupt and I didn't want him to accidentally win. Green Party candidate Rev. Billy would be a disaster as mayor. The Rent Is Too Damn High guy is anti-Semitic. The conservative and libertarian candidates can go screw themselves, as far as I'm concerned. Daniel Fein of the Socialist Workers party thinks the Cuban revolution was a smashing success, so he's right out. In the end, I decided to vote for Francisca Villar, the candidate from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, whatever that is. But I liked her because she's a Biology student at Lehman College and figured I'd throw my protest vote her way because she's got a lot of moxy for running for mayor while she's in college.

For Public Advocate, I held my nose and voted for Democrat Bill de Blasio, though I was tempted to vote for Maura DeLuca of the Socialist Workers party because she has cute hair and lists her occupation as "Sewing Machine Operator."

For Comptroller, I couldn't bring myself to vote for anyone. Democrat John C. Liu is a dirty liar, and the Republican, Conservative and Rent Is Too Damn High candidates can go screw themselves too. So I left this one blank. When are we going to get some better choices?

For Brooklyn Borough President, I voted for Democrat Marty Markowitz. Marty is like the crazy, drunk uncle who embarrasses everyone at family events but you kind of love anyway. Plus, the only other option was Republican Marc L. D'Ottavio, and his whole platform seems to be that Brooklynites should stop whining and just accept all the big chain stores that are driving out the mom-and-pops that have been here for 30 years because it'll be good for the economy. Yeah, that's gonna win us over.

For City Council, there was literally only one guy running, Democrat Stephen T. Levin. This happens in New York City a lot for some reason. Anyway, my cousin's boyfriend works for Levin, so I voted for him. Now maybe I'll land a lucrative construction deal!

The selections for Kings County District Attorney were even funnier than for City Council. Charles J. Hynes ran on every party ticket--Democrat, Republican, Working Families, Conservative, the Socialist Workers Party, Libertarian, you name it, their candidate was Hynes. Jesus, no wonder we're feeling apathetic.

Seriously, this is the best we could do for New York City's future? Don't we deserve candidates we can actually get behind, people who can vote for instead of against?