Portsmouth composer and musician Roger Rudenstein has released an opera in MP3 format, entitled The Devil and George Bush, as the latest installment in his Nightmare of Reason protest-commentary series. The basic plot summary is that a computer techie is trying to take over the world with the help of the devil. Appearances by Tom Cruise, George Bush, and Dick Cheney punctuate the action.

In a report from the field, intrepid investigator (and Portland voter) Deirdre Fulton texts in that the line for voting at Portland City Hall is an hour long, most of the time. (So we can guess when she'll be back to the office, then...)

Word on the hall is that mornings are better - voting begins at 9 am. Something to consider if you're intending to vote before Election Day.

Oops. In this week's round up of who's running for Portland School Committee, I left out Christopher Breen, who's running against Marnie Morrione as a write-in candidate for District 5. Breen serves as vice-president of Print Graphics, and has two children who attend Scarborough schools, according to this Forecaster article

Todd Palin shows up in a GOP mailer sent to rural Maine...making Al Diamon's October 22 column even more relevant.

Jeff Inglis adds:

While the flier suggests that the next president will have control over whether snowmobiling is allowed in national parks, it's certainly difficult to argue that snowmobile access is the most important decision the next president will make.

Portland Phoenix managing editor Jeff Inglis will be on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program this afternoon from 2:40 to 3 pm, talking about the importance of voting and taking calls from listeners.

Inspired by a piece I wrote about "RickeyPAC" (see "Who's Your Rickey?", October 17), and based on the effort of a group of friends of mine to convince another friend to vote, NPR is including our effort in their coverage of the run-up to the presidential election.

Richard Connor, the only person with any newspaper experience in a four-man team trying to buy the Portland Press Herald, offers a candid look inside how he and his news organizations make decisions. In his column in the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader this week, Connor explains that he tried and failed to convince his "editorial board" to support John McCain over Barack Obama.

Ray LaMontagne's latest album, Gossip in the Grain (RCA), is at number 3 on the Billboard 200 this week. (Only Kenny Chesney's Lucky Old Sun and T.I.'s Paper Trail did better.)

Didn't hurt that the album got a ton of attention, starting with Sam Pfeifle's review in the Portland Phoenix, and then rapidly moving to the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and then a spot on Late Night with Conan O'Brien:

Funny the things you uncover when you're not really looking:

I knew we had a Portland Phoenix RSS feed for our news and arts stories (it's at //thephoenix.com/rss/Portland/Portland). And I knew we had one for the AboutTown blog itself (//thephoenix.com/blogs/AboutTown/rss.aspx)

But here's some stuff I didn't know we had:

What a number - 970! Nearly a thousand entries for a juried show in Portland, Maine. It staggers the imagination, but much of the art world of the twenty-first century is indeed boggling.

Republican vice-presidential nominee has blamed the Alaska state troopers on her gubernatorial protection detail for her family's continued persecution of her ex-brother-in-law, Alaska state trooper Mike Wooten, which has turned into "Troopergate." She did so last week, in a segment of an interview with a reporter from WMUR, the ABC affiliate in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Their day has come at the Maine Irish Heritage Center (the former St Dominic's Church, at 34 Gray Street in Portland). It has been closed since May 2006 (when the bell in the church tower fell to the ground, seriously damaging the structure). While originally, MIHC leaders hoped the repairs would take less than a year, it has in fact been more than two, but at last it's ready to go!

So I was innocently websurfing a few minutes ago when a co-worker approached my desk with a giant box addressed to me. It's contents were a mystery -- until I opened it, obviously, to find TWO LIVE LOBSTERS. Um, hello.

The package was from "Linda Bean's Perfect Maine," a new seafood brand headed by the granddaughter of LL Bean.