The Day After

Chinese President Hu Jintao on Obama's election

"In a new historical era, I look forward to taking our bilateral relationship of constructive co-operation to a new level."

He just feels too deeply. That's Hu's problem.

You can read more reactions from world leaders here.

I would especially point to the quote by European Commission Chief Jose Manuel Barroso:

This is a time for a renewed commitment between Europe and the United States of America. We need to change the current crisis into a new opportunity. We need a new deal for a new world.

I sincerely hope that with the leadership of President Obama, the United States of America will join forces with Europe to drive this new deal - for the benefit of our societies, for the benefit of the world.

I find it telling that Barroso conjures up the image of FDR and The New Deal, and completely understandable. Perhaps Obama's situation is different from that of FDR (history buffs will no doubt come up with a million ways in which I am wrong), but there are certain parallels, and certain challenges which are much the same. A spiralling economy, a world which seems on the tip of global conflict.

FDR did not live to see the conclusion of the war or the prosperity which followed. But he did live to see his policies and programs help his fellow Americans (my own grandfather supported his family with, I believe, NYA work). But I guess the point is that he used his position to try to prop up the economy on both macro and micro-levels, and perhaps we can learn from that.

He was also a great friend to Allied Europe (obviously), and understood international cooperation, and negotiation. Including doing as good a job as I guess one could have done working with a crackpot like Stalin in order to achieve victory in Europe and Japan.

If Barroso is hoping for another FDR... Well, let's give it a few months before we start calling the man a failure.

But he's also asking that Obama, America and perhaps Europe see opportunity in our current multiple crises. Opportunity, one assumes, to not go back to what led us into these messes in the first place, but a way back out. That perhaps with that whole "leader of the free world" tag comes some responsibility to act the part.

Of course, all of this is academic until January, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be paying close attention to what the President-elect begins to line up for that first hundred days.

I don't want to come across as a negative nelly, but I think since my ill-fated Nader vote, I'm usually fairly pragmatic about politics (but maybe not my ideals). I stumbled across this article by an historian discussing the inevitable disappointment in Obama as he attempts to tackle the challenges ahead and is unable to magically create 100K-earning jobs, free energy and unicorns to cart children to wizard school.

Here you go.

I am reminded of the Clintons' attempts to re-design healthcare, and the roadblocks tossed in their way by their own party. Or Bush's attempts to outsource social programs, etc... Sometimes, things just don't happen.

Obama is in a good place. He carried a lot of people in with him on his coattails. Hopefully Pelosi and Co. can do more with the next two years than the past two they've sort of squandered, and/ or done things that were expedient rather than wise.

But its also a narrow window. Clinton was in office for a short period before Newt and Co. rode into town with their Contract with America, creating a voting majority with a very different agenda from his own. I wouldn't encourage the same monarchy-in-all-but-name status Bush enjoyed from 2001-2006 as both houses rolled over for the man, but no doubt its going to be less of a deadlock than one might see with legislative and executive branches bumping heads.

When you boil it down, I'm not feeling celebratory. Today I'm feeling pretty sober about the responsibilities handed to President-Elect Obama.

I'm not one of those people who says "Gee, this is the toughest time humanity ever had it", because, really... we're humanity. The way we treat each other is abysmal and we're generally our own biggest enemy unless you want to talk influenza or marauding bears or something. Losing value in your house sucks, but not as much as, say, the Black Plague or the Spanish Inquisition. It feels big because it is.

But we are sitting on a pile of pickles right now that it'd be handy if we could sort them out without bankrupting the nation or causing a 2000 year vendetta war. What's key is that we pick a direction (a new direction, because, seriously...) and go with it, while being agile and wise enough to change course when what we're doing isn't working. And a person who will see their role and service as a privileged responsibility.

We won't know until our President-Elect takes office.

But I am optimistic. That's the value of change, in many ways. It provides an opportunity (there's that word again) for progress rather than trying to trying to merely maintain the status quo. Especially when you're looking at a whole big pile of pickles awaiting you on Day 1 of the new job.

What I was glad Obama called out (and which I'm not sure was heard, but, you know dude's gotta try) was that he needs for the citizenry to step it up. He won't be able to do this alone. He asked for service and sacrifice, something we have an odd relationship with in the US (and I do, in particular).

Going beyond the rhetoric, can a person inspire others to greater deeds?

Obama wins

Well, it's done with. I mean, as of this moment, Obama has not yet taken the stage, but John McCain has given an amazing conciliatory speech. It was a reminder that despite the sturm und drang of the election cycle that McCain was more than worthy of his party's nomination and the nation's consideration for leadership.

It's not a secret that I've been no fan of the administration that's been in place for eight years. I've felt that we made a lot of mistakes and much of the recent past doesn't reflect the principles of the America in which I wanted to live.

Whether McCain or Obama, tomorrow would have meant a moment for change to what I believe would have been a better America.

Obama campaigned on more issues upon which I agreed than any other candidate from his first days on the trail. I can only hope that he is able to carry out some of his planned policies. I am truly happy he won.

Well, I just took a break from blogging to watch Obama's speech. Transcript here.

As Obama said (and I'm paraphrasing here) the campaign victory isn't the real victory. Perhaps its a cliche, but now the real work of the next few years begins. Obama himself outlined the challenges ahead for the nation and for himself as the torch is passed. Here's to hoping we're (all of us) up to the challenge.

Perhaps appropriately, while I had just seen Obama crest 297 electoral votes on my laptop, the first person I saw on television announce Obama's victory was Jon Stewart (if you missed this evening's Daily Show/ Colbert Report broadcast, it was by-and-large very good).

That's enough for tonight. I'm tired. You're tired.

Tomorrow is a new and different day.

Here's that line:

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

Vote for REAL change

Vote your conscience. Vote for a more Haley Mills-rich world. Vote Sleestak.



this ad paid for by Citizens for Ultimate Power for Sleestak

VOTE

Someone isn't going to enjoy tomorrow evening. Make sure its not you. Get your voice heard. Vote your socks off.

The picture above is Rockwell's "Vote for Casey". No matter the election, by 8:00 on election night, this image is always at the back of my mind.

random bits

Music:

I keep forgetting to download Girl Talk's latest. Someone remind me to do so (JAL).

Also, I have not yet purchased the new Byrne/ Eno album. I need to do so. Well, NEED is a strong word. I will live to see tomorrow without the record, but... do I really want to?

TAL and Public Radio:

I have not downloaded This American Life to my iPod in MONTHS. Last night I did so, but it seems it only took a few podcasts to my iPod. I am missing the one Randy mentioned to me, I think, which includes a story on a guy who dresses as Superman every single day.

That's commitment, Leaguers. Or commitable.

TAL is one of the greatest programs in any medium. I feel I fail myself when I do not keep up. But I also know I need a full hour of my life to give to the show without any reading, visual or auditory distractions, and finding the time is often very difficult.

Ira Glass, btw, was hilarious during the recent KUT pledge drive. I guess he did this for public radio in general, but he called people he knew hadn't ever pledged to public radio before and confronted them as only Ira Glass can, in his unmistakable voice.

Great radio.

BTW, if you didn't pledge to your local public radio affiliate, get on the stick.

A win for TPR over KUT, btw. My in-laws were getting both in San Marcos, but sunspots or some damned thing are interfering with their TPR reception, so my father-in-law was plotting the installation of a new antenna solely for the reception of TPR as, apparently, John Ailey is not his cup of tea.

Well played, Mr. Nathan.

Election Night Coverage

The GOPers in the readership will groan, but I may stick with NPR's coverage of the election results Tuesday night. And probably the Colbert/ Stewart hour long live thing.

I believe the Comedy Central show ss called Indecision '08 and will begin running at 10:00 Eastern.

Otherwise, I may eschew television as... seriously, John King, I know what a SmartBoard is. Quit touching it and writing on it. It's obnoxious. You're like a five year spazzing out at the science museum.

And by the way...

How sad that Obama's grandmother passed away prior to the election results (provided he wins, which I'm guessing he might based on recent polls).

I was going to write a long thing here about the paranoid conspiracy nuts and Obama's recent return to Hawaii to see his grandmother... but mostly, I just feel bad that Obama has been robbed of his mother and father already. And then to lose the grandmother who cared for him so close to the election...

Election Day Eve

Michael and JAL's candidate of choice

Hoo-Boy. It finally draws to a close in the next 72 hours somewhere (if we're lucky and don't get a repeat of the Waking Nightmare that was the 2000 election).

I was reading Mere's blog and had, what you humans call, an eeee-moh-shun. Mere's post demonstrated the spirit I think we all could consider from this moment forward regarding the election. Here's a link to the original post. You should click over.

So as we approach the election, I thought I'd discuss my rather rudimentary understanding of SCIENCE (which, Leaguers, you can never have enough of).

But... it seems to me that we are all but cosmic dust, coming from The Source, be that of the Big Bang or the Divine or both, depending upon your interpretation (your parsecs may vary). We're cosmic particles, wandering about the mass of particles that happened to congeal at just the right place beyond the sun, and with just the right mixture of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen, etc... to spawn a planet which could sustain life.

In short, we're made of the same stuff. We carry around roughly the same chemical make-up, we all depend upon oxygen and water and food. We're born, we live, we rock out, and, eventually, we return to the infinite. As important as something as pro and con evidence is regarding Supply-Side Economics, etc... at the end of the day, if we can simply agree to disagree and somehow do it without forcing one another back into the dirt in making that decision... we're one step closer to being more than well coiffed chimps with combustion engines. And, in many ways, that's the real magic of democracy.


Randy and JimD's candidate of choice

There's a lot that shuffles out from that ideal of not throwing a coup because Our Guy lost the popularity contest. There's a suggestion of being better than our nature would have us... and that means we move beyond grudgingly accepting our political fate for four years, and gracefully accept the choice of others as best we can, as equals, even as we plan for another try. And, again, there's a lot that shuffles out from the concept of equality that we're still working on, I think. And sometimes we willingly work against that ideal.

Well, maybe most of the time.


Steanso's reason for being such an ardent Obamamaniac

So on Election Eve, we can pause for that same, quiet night that pre-sages the dawn and the chaos of Election Day as, say, Christmas Eve. Perhaps its to a lesser degree, but if we play our cards right, it could be a night of waiting and Hope, in much the same way that Christians embrace the night to such a degree that the warring factions in the trenches of the Western Front in 1914 ceased hostilities, sharing carols and small gifts (and surely there's a lesson here regarding what we really want, what's truly important, and how we get into these pickles to begin with).

We're not in trenches of a battlefield, but what political pundits see as the excitement of the election trail does seem to plow its own trenches in the psyche of a nation that was probably diagnosable as paranoid schizophrenic to begin with.

So Happy Election Eve, Leaguers.

Go out there. Vote. Be at peace with the election results as best you can. I promise, neither of the Big 2 candidates will intentionally drive the country off a cliff (but I'm not promising anything about Nader).

ALSO

The Peanuts characters are running for office on iTunes (I am so downloading these videos)

Apparently Obama does not know the difference between The Green Hornet and Green Lantern. Which is but one part of a many-fold geek gaffe.

a) The Green Hornet's partner was Kato. Originally played by Bruce Lee. If he's comparing McCain to Kato, he just made McCain 10 points cooler by accident. Poorly played.

b) Conjuring up the Green Lantern's side-kick invokes the silver-age image of Tom "Pieface" Kulmaku. It's a bit of stretch to get to the nickname (Tom is Inuit, thus an Eskimo, so "Eskimo Pie", thus... "Pieface"), but I assure you, its that casual racism that used to creep into comics back in the day. Oddly, Tom was never portrayed as much of a stereotype, because I'm not sure there are any stereotypes of Inuit people.

Oh, well. While it's always weak to see a candidate botch a pop culture reference (even one 40 years old), it's not really an area in which I hope Obama has much expertise. That said... if you're going to botch a Green Hornet reference, why bother?

The wacky Obama-poster stuff came from this thing at the Village Voice. I admit, I saw it first at Randy's site.


The League reveals his Candidate of Choice

Long Weekend

Howdy Leaguers,

Football

First things first. Yes, UT lost to Tech on Saturday night, dropping them from the top of the BCS heap to a lower position. 6, I think. Yes, I am disappointed. On the other hand, UT's defense wasn't exactly phenomenal, UT's offense looked lackluster, and Tech looked amazing from beginning to end. So, yeah, you lose games that way.

If Tech doesn't get cocky, they have a real opportunity this season. Huge.

I love my Horns, but... stuff happens.

Anyhow, we're not completely out of it yet. There are a few games left for everyone, and as long as we don't wind up in the Alamo Bowl, I'm happy.

Blurgh.

Hanging with Parents

Saturday the In-Laws drove up to our place, then we all jumped in Jamie's car and drove northward to my folks' new house in N. Austin.

The Admiral and KareBear recently closed on the house they'll be retiring to in a few years. It's a great place, and I'm very happy for them. I've already said here that I look forward to having them here, but it's no less true now that the deal is sealed.

We then went out to The Oasis, Austin's own "great view, mediocre food" tourist destination. I actually think the food is fine, and it is lovely out there if you're not there in late summer.

Anyhow, it's always good to get the parents together, and I have visions of Holidays to come with Jamie and me sitting at the head of the table of family members as I carve a turkey (for some reason I am wearing a red bow-tie and blue sweater vest in this vision).

This morning we drove down to Jamie's folk's place in San Marcos for breakfast. This is the first time I'd been down there since they had moved in. They're pretty well squared away. Boxes unpacked, etc... a few pictures to hang and I think they can call it a move.

And the rest

I de-Halloweened the house this afternoon. We are now officially into the fall and winter Holiday season if the Christmas ads during the NFL pre-game shows were any indication (Jamie did not appreciate my caroling).

Our five Thanksging decorations are out and we're moving into the end-of-the-year hoo0hah.

When we got home from Jamie's parent's house, I looked down at Lucy and thought she looked really fat. I went so far as to inform her she looked fat, before Jamie noticed she'd gotten into the crate of Milkbones and eaten them all. So for the entire afternoon, I've been dealing with a bloated, gassy lab. Seriously, she stinks. Twice I've walked around thinking she left me a present somewhere downstairs. But... it's just post-Milkbone feast gas.

Halloween Costume Submissions now being accepted

Meredith's family has already posted Halloween pics. And, as should come as no surprise, I fully endorse the way she's raising those kids if the costumes are any indication (seriously... costumes are so much better these days)



And I don't know why, but something about Mere's husband's John McCain impression cracks me up. I kind of look forward to Mere running for national office so I can send this photo to the AP.

Steven and Lauren were kind enough to swing by before going out. Lauren was a St. Pauli's Girl/ Oktoberfest Fraulein, and Steven was... Ye Olde Steven of Austin Towne, I fuppose.



The light wasn't terribly great, so this was the best pic we got of the pair. I also thought I'd mention that Lauren made us some terrific popcorn balls, and I'd like to inform her, anytime of the year is a good time for popcorn balls. Feel free to bring those by any time.

I wasn't the only one who was a fan of Jamie's outfit. We had two little girls ALSO dressed as Supergirl come to the house and become very excited when they saw Jamie.


Doot-doo-doo-DOOT!

It didn't hurt that Jamie and I were paired up. We actually had folks ask us to pose for photos (one lady for her baby's scrapbook), and the kids really seemed to like the fact that we were a pair.


Anyway, please send in your Halloween pics.

We had a ton of kids come by. It seems like 85% of the kids who come by must be from other neighborhoods. (A) I see cars dropping kids off, but (B) I never see these kids any other time of the year, and I kind of know who the kids are on our street, and they're all very little, and some of them were our trick or treaters. We went through 7 bags of candy, and were out there with a pretty steady stream from 6:45 - 8:45 or so.

For some reason we don't do the whole doorbell thing on our street. We tend to get set up outside and stay there. It's kind of weird because its the only time we're all out on the street, but you can't talk to each other because you have to stick at your house to actually catch the kids. It's too bad. I've literally met my neighbors four or five times, but its so infrequent, I can never remember their names. I used to be really good at names, but... not anymore.

The costumes this year were actually slightly skewed to the "scary" category. Lots of kids in fright masks, which, in Arizona, you wouldn't get much of, or here either. We also had a lot of girls of all ages dressed as princesses. Some witches. An angel, devil, and one who was both. I don't know if we had any Power Rangers for once. A few Batmans (but none in the outfit from Dark Knight), one Joker, and one kid who was the puppet from Saw.

One kid informed me "I'm not a sheriff or a cowboy. I'm a gambler." To which I replied, "Then I guessed right. I thought you were Doc Holliday." This was met with a blank stare.

Kids. No appreciation for history.

We had a storm trooper or three. A tiny Superman. A couple Spider-Mans. A kid dressed as a tiny hustler/ pimp.

Anyway, Halloween was fun. I'm kind of thinking that if Halloween is on Saturday next year, I might go down to 6th Street or out somewhere afterward. This year I was just totally dragging by 10:00.

Tomorrow the Halloween stuff comes down. And then... yup, in like four weeks I'm going to have to put up the Christmas stuff.

It's still too warm out to even think about that.

Halloween Pt. 2

The Superman Homepage has a Halloweenish banner today!


Click the image for the full-size banner

Or check it out on the site!

EVEN MORE ELVIRA

I'm not sure you got enough Elvira in your Halloween. Here is Elvira's "Monsta Rap" cut to scenes from the film "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark".



Here's a link to Elvira's updated website.

Special Halloween Treat

I don't talk about it a lot, but one of my favorite movies is "Little Shop of Horrors". Sure, its partially because of Ellen Greene as Audrey (a DITMTLOD), but its also just a really fun movie.


Ellen Greene in "Little Shop of Horrors" made my 12 year-old heart pitter-patter

I've seen the play twice, and it has a markedly different ending than the one folks saw in theaters. In fact, it sort of changes the whole movie in a way.

A while back the original ending was supposed to make it to DVD, but there was some weirdness and the DVD was recalled. I've also heard a fire or something ate the footage. I don't really understand what happened and won't pretend to know.

But... it looks like the workprint of the original ending has found its way to YouTube.

If you have fifteen or twenty minutes to kill, here you go:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Honestly, as expensive as this footage looks (especially for the era in which it came out) I can't believe they scrapped it.

Here's Steve Martin in "Little Shop of Horrors"


and click over here for the Skid Row sequence.

Lucy in Disguise

When I was in my first semester at UT, I had big plans to hit 6th street for Halloween with JAL and Michael. Those two had some incredibly elaborate costumes planned, but we were all still thinking a bit about what we would dress (or at least how they would pull off their costumes) in early October. We all got into, I think, JAL's car and headed down to South Congress. This was before South Congress was SoCo, and was more a mishmash of Continental Club, a few thrift shops, some knick-knack shops, and wasn't... well, it wasn't SoCo.

Anyway, I don't know how they knew it was there, but Justin and Michael took me to Lucy in Disguise, the most unecessarily elaborate costume shop I would ever enter.

Lucy's is still going strong these many years later. They have the same insane collection of masks, hats, and, literally, thousands and thousands of costumes. It's fun just to go in and look around. Obviously its a bit late today for running down there and getting a costume, but maybe a hot tip for next year...?

The Statesman ran an article this morning on the shop. Check it out.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Old Ghost Photography pic of The Brownlady



You didn't think I'd let Halloween go by without mentioning Elvira: Mistress of the Dark?

War of the Worlds, 70 years ago

When I was a kid (and continuing into adulthood) I was fascinated by the radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater. I don't recall the genesis of my interest, or how I learned about the broadcast and its after-effects, but I do remember that I spent my own coin to buy tapes of the broadcast when I was in 7th grade or so.

You probably know the story, but Orson Welles' team adapted "War of the Worlds", HG Wells' sci-fi blueprint classic of Martian invasion into a somewhat realistic sounding radio-broadcast, as if a night of musical programming were being interrupted by news bulletins, and finally military commandeering the radio waves to coordinate strikes.

Supposedly people switching over from the Edgar Bergen/ Charlie McCarthy show believed the program to be real, and some fled for the hills and/ or otherwise panicked. Rumor has it one farmer shot a water tower in the dark, believing he was shooting at one of the fearsome Martian tri-pods.

The broadcast itself is fairly chilling as you do, in fact, get a feeling of what this might have felt like to an audience who wasn't clear on what was going on. It's believably well-acted, and the narrative arc of curiosity to calamity sounds entirely plausible, even as the tri-pods incinerate a reporter. To this point, the technique of false news-casts hadn't been used, and caused a major stir in the days and weeks after the broadcast.

Rtaher than rehash in its entirety, its worth checking out what Wikipedia has to say.

This evening, Ball State radio will recreate the broadcast. I may listen in as its simulcast online.

I think you can hear the original broadcast recording here.

Halloween Post for The Day

So... Friday will be your day to:

1) Go out and follow your kids around the neighborhood as they collect sacks of candy
2) be one of those paranoid parents who believes their neighbors stick razor blades into a roll of Smarties, and will refuse to let their kids go from house to house*
3) Believe what you read in your Chick Tracts and stay home, cowering in fear (I'm impressed at the "Haunted House" set up Chick envisions
4) Go out, claim you're a kid and collect candy. It's embarassing that The Admiral does this, but he looks smart in his pirate costume, so nobody wants to stop him
5) Stay in and hand out candy and feel sorry for the kids who don't have any sort of costume
6) Join us as we hand out candy, talk to neighbors, play spooky sounds and then watch scary movies
7) Go to a Halloween party of some sort
8) be a total lame-o and not participate in any way. Yes, that makes you a lame-o, lame-o.

Here's a quick look at being "child-free" on Halloween.

Once the kids thin out and we turn off the lights, I have An American Werewolf in London on my DVR, a 7 hour live Ghost Hunters show to watch, and I may throw on the original Phantom on the Opera or Dracula for some good old fashioned Halloween movietime fun.


Just another night at JAL's house...




*there are almost no actual cases of any children being poisoned, etc... from Halloween candy. Just FYI. To some degree, parents are reacting to urban legends they heard as kids. Snopes covers this so I don't have to.

Comic Stuff You Can Ignore (Dad. Who Admits he Doesn't Read the Comic Stuff)

I've mostly been doing my comic blogging over at Comic Fodder, but things have been so up in the air of late, I haven't had much time to comic blog of late.

But if you haven't picked up your comics yet this week, I'd suggest the following:

Superman 681: Kandor (the bottled Kryptonian city) has expanded in the Arctic. Which means there are 100,000 Supermans running around Earth.

I confess that I actually emitted a profanity aloud when I hit the last page.

Final Crisis: Rage of the Red Lanterns: I don't think you'd have to have been following GL comics to get what's happening here, but Johns just took the whole DCU up a notch in a single comic with this issue.

This isn't an issue for kids. It's kinda gross. But it's also interesting. And the first Red Lantern (yeah, RED Lantern) to reveal himself has an introduction that will go down in history as one of my favorites.

Marvel:

Check it out.

Marvel has created a "Character Cloud". It's interesting information and data management. I've seen a bit of this sort of 3-dimensional storage of data lately, and, frankly, I feel a bit behind the times for not knowing more about how this works and how I can get onboard. It doesn't hurt that I can process the information a bit more easily as I know a lot about this data and I can sort of more easily see how it fits.

I'll be curious to see more in the future how this is employed, but, anyway... it's kinda fun.

Anyone whose been working in this sort of space, I'd like to hear more about the theory.

What to give to the Superman Geek on your list

Some charities are, perhaps, more worthy than others. I know this.

But... (deep breath)

The town of Metropolis, Illinois (home to the annual Superman Festival) is erecting a statue of Honorary First Lady of Metropolis, Noel Neill. Noel Neill, I should not have to tell you, has a lengthy history with the Superman franchise.

She played Lois Lane in both the Kirk Alyn serials AND the George Reeves starring "Adventures of Superman". In "Superman the Movie", she plays Lois's mother in a quick cameo during the Smallville sequence. She also appears in "Superman Returns" as Gertrude Vanderworth (in that opening deathbed sequence).

She's a roving ambassador for Superman and "The Adventures of Superman", partakes annually in the Superman Festival, and appears all over the country signing autographs for Superman nuts. She's in her 80's and still going strong, by all accounts.

It appears that one can pony up $75 for a brick with their name on it that will be at the base of the statue. The cost of the commemorative brick will fund the statue project.

See more here.

Leaguers will know I have a special fondness for "The Adventures of Superman" and Ms. Neill. So, while maybe this isn't feeding starving villages, I'm glad to see Ms. Neill and Lois get their due as part of America's entertainment and storytelling legacy.

Also, the statue looks as iconical (is that a word?) as I think you're going to get for both Lois Lane and Noel Neill.

tip of the hat to Superman Homepage for the story

Obama Sane?

yes, you can get it on a t-shirt

Vote Early

I really didn't have much of a wait when I voted early the other day. There was a line, but the volunteers at the poll were really moving us through the registration portion, and they had a good number of booths.

Apparently Travis County has already seen a large early voting count, and I'm betting your locality will, too. I'm also betting the turnout for this election will be huge, and that can translate into some lengthy lines on November 4th. And while I like exercising my rights and privilege as an American as much as the next guy, standing in the cold in a line before work isn't something I'd do if I could avoid it.

And that's the miracle of early voting (especially if you've been pretty sure how you were voting on all ballot items for a while). I don't know how it is where you live, but Travis Co. seems to have done a very good job of getting a multitude of sites up with convenient hours.

See what your office policy is for giving you time off for voting (or figure out how to dump the kids on someone else for half an hour) and get out there and get to the polls before early voting ends in your area.

Also, make sure you understand how the vote is cast at your polling location. Apparently the same locality in Florida with the hanging chads of 2000 has been through several voting options as they've tried to find a system that works for voters. They've had trouble with people misunderstanding how the ballots of different types scored votes and the stories would be funny if it weren't such a mess.

I'm a bit uncomfortable with Travis Co.'s current system as it doesn't give the voter a receipt or paper trail. I double checked all my selections before hitting "submit ballot", but I've worked in IT long enough to know... that means absolutely nothing unless you have a way to verify your selections after the fact. But for now, I'm taking it on faith that the system is working.

Halloween of Yore

The last time I went trick or treating I believe I was in 6th grade. I don't remember what I dressed up as, but I'm fairly certain I tore up a shirt and covered myself in fake blood (for some reason, as a kid, I always had a tube of fake blood around).

I strongly recall my mother telling me "this is the last year, so enjoy it." It was an odd time. Some things you get to do as a very young kid you just sort of quit doing, but other things, that you're just starting to see the potential for, my folks probably wisely pulled the plug on before a Young League wound up in the pokey.

I was aware that going out for Halloween, as we were, was probably putting our little group in a somewhat tenuous position. While my folks were going to yank me off the streets the next few years to keep me from wreaking havoc, other parents were apparently more open to the idea that their kids should be out and about and beating up kids a year or two younger than themselves.

It was pretty well known that at a certain age, you were to arm yourself with shaving cream and toilet paper (and, if you were the kid who was just a jerk, eggs). So, after 6th grade, I had to stay home. I remember in both 9th and 10th grade I had homework anyway, and by 12th grade, I was going out to see a screening of the original Dracula.

But that night, we were headed out to hit as many houses as possible before heading over to Matt McDonald's house for an all night "sleepover", which, for 12 year old boys usually means finding increasingly horrible things to do to one another over the course of a night (I recall Peabo trying to get me to consume a milk and ketchup shake one night. No, I did not drink it).

And, of course, as the little kids and goblins got tired and headed home, those older kids with the shaving cream started to appear. And I still remember seeing those older kids, maybe in high school (because I didn't recognize them from my bus or anything). There were five or six of us, and maybe three of them. We sort of figured with our numbers we were in the clear, but, alas we were not.

Now, I'm not sure what these guys had up their sleeve. They only had one can of shaving cream, and I can't imagine beating up younger kids was THAT appealing, but I do recall that they came bearing down on us after a minute or two of smack talk. I remember shaving cream in the air and a lot of backpedaling, and that this seemed like it was about to go downhill very, very quickly. All it would take was someone getting a black eye or twisted ankle and it was going to be problematic.

What THEY did not know, until I swung my candy bag around and got one guy in the knee, was that I'd thrown several cans of soup and vegetables into the ol' pillow case. It is safe to say this slowed the guy down a smidge. I had put the cans in there for pretty specifically this purpose, and was delighted to see it was working, and began to swing it at the other guys, who were realizing maybe my other pals weren't going to sit still for atomic wedgies, either. We made good our escape, with a bit of shaving cream on a plastic Dracula cape as the only real sign anything had happened.

I'm not sure if kids still run around doing property damage and whatnot on Halloween. My assumption is that cops have a zero-tolerance policy for Halloween shenanigans. But with Halloween falling on a Friday this week, I plan to bring my pumpkins inside.

And part of me still misses that as par of Halloween. Handing out candy is fun, but it was also the one night a year you got to actually walk around the streets (and after a certain age, without parents), and hopped up on Pixie Sticks and dressed as a ghoul, it seemed like literally anything could happen.

Maybe that's why Halloween has become a holiday for adults as well as kids. Sitting in a cube all day doesn't really lend itself to possibilities for wackiness. But dressing as a mad scientist and hitting 6th street seems to broaden your possibilities.

Anyway, happy pre-Halloween, Leaguers.

13

The 28th marks the 13th anniversary of my time with Jamie.

13 years, which is also more than 1/3rd of my life, as I recently mentioned, and I tend to think every day is a little better than the one before, even when life throws us a roadblock.

So, recently I perfected my time machine in order to go back and discuss certain things with my younger self, in order to correct some issues in my life. However, I forgot that the earth isn't just revolving around the sun at 66,000 miles per hour, the universe is constantly expanding, which meant I wound up in deep space. It needs to be a time AND space machine. Something I would think that, if I'd figured it out, I would have come back in time and told my self the solution by now...

Unless future me is accidentally tumbling through dimensions trying to find the same timeline where he began, instead of hopelessly lost in a maze of possible futures... or possibly not existing at ALL, thanks to the fact that he had already changed his own past...

Anyhoo... that's all academic until I get cold fusion working in my office.

So let's get the list cobbled together of what I would tell the Ryan of 1995 that would be of benefit to him now:

1) Carbo-loading is not a competitive sport
2) If you don't want the short, polite letters from grad schools, you might want to try a little harder in that Speech class.
3) Instead of telling everyone that you don't understand how Google is going to make money, go ahead and get in on that dutch auction. But sell by Spring of '08.
4) This new girl? The one you're thinking must be secretly crazy and so you're waiting for the other shoe to drop and find out what's wrong with her? It's not going to happen. She is what she seems. And better.
5) She isn't going to ever ask you to be anything but yourself
6) She's going to show you what it means to look adversity in the eye in a way that will forever humble you
7) She will know you better than anyone, and she'll love you anyway
8) No matter how tempting, do not vote for Nader
9) Take it easy on your review of "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist". She will threaten to never see a movie with you again.
10) A film degree? BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA

Happy Anniversary, Jamie. I can't believe its been 13 years since you watched me drink a pack of Mickey's to celebrate Bug's birthday. What a rousing start to our relationship.

Sorry the flowers showed up a day early. Tuesday is going to be a little anticlimactic.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (or: "I'm Getting too Old for this $#!&")

I'd read a good review or two for "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist", and while some of the items the reviewer called out as genius didn't sound all that genius to me, I figured that when Jamie wanted to see a movie on Friday night, a comedy was a better bet than grim western "Appaloosa", which I still want to see.

Friday is the one night I dread for going to the movies. It's people getting off work and "going out", but NOT just going to a bar to talk. Instead, they tend to go to the movies to talk. And so it was that the couple next to us showed up, on what appeared to be a first date or a date early on in a relationship.

A minute into the movie, the gentleman explained to his date, at full volume, why he never takes a personal day (apparently, they're for wimps...), and that he doesn't need time off to deal with his personal problems, unlike Michael Cera.

I had to ask them to shut up. Which, I hope, somehow put the first negative spin on what I was hoping would be a cratering evening for the pair.

by the way: HEAVY SPOILERS

Here's the plot to "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist":

High school senior Nick is dumped just before the movie begins by his girlfriend that none of his friends like. Norah doesn't know Nick, but goes to school with his ex. Nick and Norah meet at a bar where Nick's band is playing in a "only in a movie" meet-cute. Nick's pals realize that Norah is perfect for him (why, we are never told) and set them up, while they try to take Norah's drunk friend home to free their pal up to maneuver.

Nick and Norah kinda/ sorta travel around New York looking for a "secret" show by the impossibly hip sounding band "Fluffy Bunny". Drunk girl escapes and causes problems for all. To nobody's surprise, despite a handful of disagreements, Nick and Norah hook-up, which is movie-speak for "fall in love".

The End.

I wasn't a fan of the movie.

If I were between, maybe, 13 and 23, I think maybe I would have found it more entertaining, as the movie paints a very idealized version of teen-age love. And, honestly, in a world of post-Clueless, Mean Girls, American Pie, what-have you... at least this movie kinda-sorta felt at least a bit natural rather than frankensteined from pieces of a Hollywood screenplay morgue.

The acting of the young cast was naturalistic, the actors sort-of looked age appropriate, and it was mostly free of the gelled-LA-thing that permeates so much of teen-fare, no matter where the movie is to take place. This movie is very firmly entrenched in the world of kids from the suburbs of Manhattan who regularly come into the city on weekends to rock out. And one gets the feeling that this world is very real, but as foreign to me as a movie from Bollywood.

I think relate-ability is kind of where the movie started to fall apart for me. And then it all came back full circle with the feeling you were watching friends on a night out who are just being annoying (all too relate-able).

Neither titular character has much in the way of a spine, and is loosely defined as "the nice one" from their little gang. Which means both spend the first part of the movie going with whatever flow others impose upon them (not all bad for a high school "it happens in one night" flick). But when together, the two seemed sort of oddly passive-aggressive with one another, to the point where you don't necessarily see WHY the movie is insisting these two belong together.

Like the Peanuts gang, there's very little in the sense of any adult presence, and no parents are seen (which makes sense, in context), but as the movie is about kids, the lack of any 4:00 AM calls from parents wondering where the heck their angels were didn't make me necessarily feel the movie was disingenuous... but it also informed me that the movie was about those kids you meet in high school who are shocked (shocked!) to hear that your parents care where you are as their parents would never, ever ask.

It's also established early on that Norah and her friend are rich kids, who apparently go out to clubs that serve minors, and who kowtow to Norah because her father is some mysterious but important character (which, when its revealed who the guy is... doesn't really follow that Norah would be a 17-year old given access to any club in the tri-state area, etc... at least not in 2008).

I'm aware there is such a sub-culture, and perhaps things are different in Manhattan amongst the rich kids (that seems to be the case from Metropolitan to Gossip Girl. The movie "Kids" would inform you that a lack of parental oversight is simply commonplace in all five burroughs, cutting across class and race). It just, in no way, felt like a high school movie to me despite the grounding of the kids as high school seniors. Again, lack of relatability. Maybe if they'd been in the first year of college, but...

A large part of the plot revolves around all of the characters trying to track down Norah's pal, Caroline, who is the prototypical drunk high school girl (which is not as cute and funny as the film assumes). The movie makes little effort to make Caroline sympathetic, and so it's a bit odd that the audience gets dragged along for so much of the enabling B-plot.

The other B-plot is the relationship we're supposed to believe Nick had with his ex, "Tris", which the movie maybe doesn't need to explain why Nick was so ga-ga for the girl (we're told she's really good looking), but it would have helped. Especially as the movie relishes so much in showing how she's an awful, awful person. But it would have been nice to see SOMETHING about her Nick was supposed to like. The actress playing Tris also seemed suited better for a "Mean Girls" style flick, and sort of stood out, but I thought that was kind of the point (even if I didn't really agree with it).

Tris is also really awful to Norah before Nick ever enters Norah's picture. This is never explained, and seems, kinda/ sorta unnecessary.

Really, motivation for pretty much anybody doing ANYTHING in the movie is sort of up in the air. We're never really sure why Nick's pals decide that Norah is the girl for him. And as the movie sets up a pretty great number of conflicting moments between its titular characters (all of which Nick must back down from), why these two are supposedly such a perfect pair is kind of left up to the imagination. Especially when both of the characters seem like doormats for everyone else in the movie, and both have someone else vying for their attention.

In fact, I walked out of the movie wondering how Nick hadn't just set himself up to be a doormat for yet another girl, this time with more to hang over his head than the girl who was merely good looking. He sort of backs down to everyone in the movie, and doesn't really stand up for himself to Norah when, really, they're both being bratty, but Norah has no particular moral high ground. One foresees the first-month-of-college phone call in Nick's future where his girlfriend dumps him for a barista named "Iggy" who isn't a total push-over and who introduces her to bands equally as obscure and cool as Fluffy Bunny.

Because the movie is in love with name-dropping of music as only high schoolers can do (and the editors at Pitchfork), there's a suggestion that their mutual love of Fluffy Bunny is some sort of cosmic sign. Your mileage on this may vary. It's not that I don't buy high schoolers buying into this sort of thing, but as an adult... it seemed a tenuous connection at best.

Those looking for the same sort of gin-induced banter and hi-jinks one might have found between Nick and Nora Charles of the "Thin Man" films, you're going to be disappointed. I'm not suggesting that Michael Cera and Kat Dennings don't have good on-screen chemistry as two crazy kids who fall for each other in the scenes where they're not squabbling. But their dialog and interaction is a far cry from whatever the title was suggesting we'd get out of the pair. Luckily, the chance that most of the audience has seen a Thin Man film is nearly next to zero. Crisis averted.

Aside from the building romance, there's just not much plot to hold onto, and part of me was more interested in what the story was with Nick's bandmates and the fellow they'd picked up. (By the way: It's 2008, the black magical friend for teen movies has been replaced by the gay magical friends.)

MAJOR SPOILER BELOW:

The movie decides its important that Nick and Norah actually consummate their newly acquired love. Perhaps not unrealistic for teens in any day or age, but I wasn't entirely on board with that particular decision by the filmmakers, either. Mostly, it told me more about the folks who made the movie than about the characters, and what they saw as a necessary and natural step at the end of the flick.

But one I saw as potentially messy for everyone involved. Nick had, after all, been brooding over a completely different girl about five hours before and learned Norah's last name about fifteen minutes before. Not to mention Norah's somewhat own tumultuous evening. So... I dunno. It just felt... weird. And kind of desperate. As an audience member, I sort of wondered if either Nick or Norah were going to feel sort of weird about things the next day.

I was equally confused as to whether we were to believe Nick and Norah had good sex because they were in love (I think that's what the movie was trying to say), or that being in love equates to good sex. It's minor, but it's a distinction nonetheless.

But it wasn't too hard to imagine Norah not picking up the phone to call Nick the next day and writing the whole thing off.

END MAJOR SPOILER

On the whole, the movie just made me feel old.

Maybe the movie was realistic enough that I just felt irritated with things which irritated me back in the day. And part of me wonders, when I see a movie like this, if I'm just that out of touch. Probably.

Hipster teens will love this movie. Its going to be the hot soundtrack, I'd guess, so full of the hip music of the generation that I am not a part of and which I don't keep up with.

I certainly felt like the old man wishing the darn kids would get off his lawn, wondering where their parents were, if kids in NYC have the carte blanche on public intoxication and getting into bars that the movie suggests, and generally not feeling sorry for attention-starved teenage drunk girls (a demographic for which I had no sympathy the first time around, and frequently abandoned, unlike the film. Which is probably why I resented that subplot to such a degree.).

All of that said... it's a step in a better direction for teen-romance movies. This movie at least had one foot in some kind of reality, even if its not suburban whitebread. And I certainly can't lay claim to any knowledge of what the kids are up to (but if Newsweek is any indication... its all about prescription drugs with the kids), but it also wasn't as embarrassing as other movies.

In the tradition of "all in one night movies", its still a light year behind American Graffiti, and not as interesting or funny as Dazed and Confused. It's nowhere near as schmaltzy as "Before Sunrise". And has less explosions than "Die Hard" parts 1 and 2.

I Work in A Sci-Fi Landscape

Today I woke up early, so I just showered and headed into work, arriving around 7:30, rather than 8:00. Apparently traffic flow at 7:00 on a Friday is completely different from 7:20 on a Thursday, which took, I might add, a lot longer (I made up the time yesterday. Shut up.).

UT alum will recall that the entryway to the PCL opens into a high and wide area, befitting UT's main library (the UGL no longer folds books and is now, actually, the Flawn Center). I was surprised to see that, apparently while most UT staff is off-site, the library is given over to janitors from THE FUTURE.

It was impressive enough to see two dudes walking around with huge Ghostbuster-style contraptions on their backs, that I realized were vacuums. They looked a bit like this, or this, I guess.

But I also saw a device so magnificent... it defied description... It's called the Chariot Vac.

The Chariot Vac is a sort of riding vacuum, with a superior turning radius. I sort of had this vision of getting on one of those while wearing a helmet and carrying a mace to see if you could even get the grad students to look up from their books.

But, mostly, it was seeing the Chariot Vac in motion beneath the twinkle and hum of the flourescents in the lobby of the PCL and its dream of what a huge university library of the future would look like as designed in the 70's projecting to the year 2000.