Introducing Train Action

Ranting about how much certain members of congress suck is all well and good, but we've been looking for more ways to increase the activism on the blog.

Train Action will be a clearinghouse of candidates endorsed by the blog, ones that we feel are worthy of sending a few dollars to help their cause. If you feel the urge to donate, doing so though our site will allow us to see how much Train readers raised for a certain candidate.

I've never given a sizable amount to a candidate (I think $20, multiple times to Donna Edwards is my record), and there's no pressure to do so (my job as a low level cog in a labor union hardly gives me that kind of income, either). But in the current era of fund-raising, a few contributions of 5 or 10 dollars can make a huge difference in boosting a candidate's ability to get more money from the people who actually do make those 100 and 500 dollar donations.

The nuts and bolts of this effort will be done by Act Blue, which is a great site that exists for the purpose of allowing site's like ours do things that are out of our league technical ability wise.

We'll be introducing our first candidates soon, and we're open to suggestions. Let me know if you have any questions/ideas suggestions in the comments, or at thetrainofthought @ gmail.com

1,000

After two plus years, we've somehow managed to total 1,000 posts.

We've spanned one absurd primary season, a general election, JN's yearlong adventure in China, the glory of the PUMAs, the first year the Obama Administration, and of course, the hilariousness of fucking with the teabaggers.

Thanks to you, the reader who gives us reason to believe that we're not just endlessly typing away into the vast abyss of the internet.

Our traffic varies, but we've grown to the point where we now average between 40-70 unique visitors a day, something I would have never thought possible two years ago.

Hopefully we can plan some sort of real world 1,000th post party where we can exchange profane rants in person, as our founding fathers would have wanted.

Keep reading, keep commenting and thank you for your support of our endless vituperation!

Follow The Train of Thought On Twitter

If you're on twitter, you can follow the blog @train_o_thought.

The feed will notify you of new posts, and news about the blog.

And while you're at it, feel free to follow myself, DCJonesy and 6.54 on twitter at @ManWithoutPants, @DCJonesy, @nhvzr respectively.

NEW MEDIA! WOOOOOO!

Twitter Happens

This weekend DCJonesy and I are traveling up to New York to visit 6.54 and celebrate his college graduation. Since posting posting on the blog will be light until we get back, I figured now is a good time to let you know that we've both joined twitter, and I'll be posting random stuff on there over the course of the weekend. Twitter may seem lame, but there are at least 30 things a day that I'd could write posts on if there was time, and this way I can at least give them a link or a mention in 140 profane characters or less. So check us out.

Me (JJ) : www.twitter.com/ManWithoutPants

DCJonesy: www.twitter.com/DCJonesy

Note: I have no clue what the image at the top of the post means, it just came up when I googled twitter, hoping to find a ridiculous picture.

Happy New Year

What do you want to see from The Train of Thought in 2009? What did you like or dislike about our blog in 2008?

Leave any thoughts in the comments or send them to thetrainofthought@gmail.com

Back to Business

It has been a long week as 6.54 mentioned, but the good news is that commenter wb (who also happens to be my dad) is very much on the road to recovery. Thanks to everyone for all their love and support, it’s really meant more than you can imagine.

Also thanks to those who’ve kept the blog moving during my unexpected absence, and I’ll resume normal posting again shortly. I hear the government is rushing to authorize 700 Billion dollars to help those affected by the financial crisis, so as you can probably guess you'll be seeing some more about that on this site in the near future.

What? You say the government’s only bailing out the rich people affected by the crisis?

SHOCKING!

From the first ever Train of Thought board meeting...

(Minus Rb, who was unable to attend. A framed picture of Cobi Jones filled in as his representative)
DCJonesy, Nick, JJ and Jack, pictured as Peroni, Guiness, rum and coke, and... well just plain bottle of rum. Either Jack didn't have a drink and grabbed the nearest bottle to cheers with... or the insanity of the upcoming Beijing Olympics may have started to drive him over the edge.