Over at Lincolnite.com, Mr. Wilson posted about the 9th anniversary of the October 97 blizzard.

I was living in England when that hit, and I remember going to the computer lab and loading up the Daily Nebraskan website, as I occasionally did, and being greeted with this photo (thanks to Quentin for finding it):

I thought Lincoln had been bombed or something. Many interesting stories came out of that week or so with no power and toppled trees. Mr. Wilson’s blog post includes a link to a site with quite a few more photos as well.

Sara and I spent the weekend at her parents’ house in Missouri, where most of the network TV originates from Kansas City. Being near the end of October, every commercial break was packed with political ads from Kansas and Missouri.

One huge difference I noticed between these ads and the political ads in Nebraska was that the identification of the political party was nowhere to be found. Same with yard signs and stickers. Here in Nebraska, people are “Conservative Republicans for Change” or “Family Republican for Congress” or whatever. It may be explained by something as simple as state campaign laws, but it sure does suggest that Nebraskans - for all their claims of being independent populists - are far more likely to blindly vote for a party than their neighbors to the south and southeast.

And speaking of political ads, last night I caught the new Pete Ricketts “Clicker” ad.

It’s an interesting approach to take, attempting to get him off the hook for his pretty embarrassing existing arsenal of TV ads and fighting the opinions of 56% of voters who view him unfavorably. But like all of his commercials, it’ll likely backfire, because it essentially criticizes the viewers for disliking his commercials.

Like he has no choice other than to make ridiculous claims and accusations with animations and silly voices. Like the seniors he’s supposedly talking to who are worried about health care can’t figure out that his faithful alliance with corporate Republicans might not be in their best health care interests. Like the families who are worried about high taxes can’t figure out that eliminating the “death tax” will result in revenue shortfalls that will only come back to them.

He’s very consistent - I’ll give him that. We viewers / voters are too stupid to really understand issues for ourselves, so we need someone like Pete to talk down to us and tell it like it is. I mean, no one could possibly be campaigning on a platform of “Conservative Change in Washington” without thinking his audience is completely clueless and ignorant.

Today I went to a gas station to get my Journal Star, and as I got out of the car, I slipped and fell backwards into my seat. The cause for such slippage? There was a banana peel on the ground. I literally slipped on a banana peel. In real life. It really works.

I’m hoping sometime later today I’ll step on a rake and it will smack me on the forehead.

Lincoln will have its own 24 Hour Comics Day at the Hi-Way Diner at 2105 Highway 2.

Check out 24hourcomicslincoln.com for more information on our gig and check out 24hourcomics.com for more on the challenge itself (and if you’re not in Lincoln, maybe a venue where you are).

UPDATE: Gunscribe has some photos and a write-up on his blog, From the Heartland, from his visit the other night.

Aaron, John, Andrew, Marcus and Justin all finished their comics by about 6:30 a.m. I ended up pooping out after losing my momentum and finished the night at 18 pages. I’ll get it finished probably sometime this week (known as the Eastman Variation, taking more than 24 hours to finish) and try to get everyone’s stuff posted to the 24 Hour Comics Lincoln site.

I drove down 13th street today when some big machinery off to the left caught my eye. And then the giant hole in the Douglas 3 caught my eye, which made me feel a little stupid for not noticing that sooner. Pretty soon, it’s going to be a block that makes me think “Why can’t I remember what that used to look like?” But this is what it looks like as of about 1:00 this afternoon.