F $%K!

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/10/30/voting.machines/index.html

this makes me nervous.

Obama and McCain Dance Off

so yeah I'm sure the world has seen this but I just saw it today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzyT9-9lUyE

McCain looks terrifying while dancing.

someone did a good job with the special effects.

devils advocate

Here is a very intelligent opinion against Obama I found in a reader comment below an article, and one I can see the merits of bringing up...

"It seems unfathomable to me, that a person with a past of associations with a myriad of questionable entities and characters, of whom no one, outside of a personal circle of friends, has any inkling of a true history, could be now in contention for the highest office of the land. Be it by chance or by design, it falls to the American voting public to ferret out the true political agenda of all the candidates, so as to safeguard and preserve the integrity of the position to which they aspire. The very lack of information with respect to a candidates past, should give sufficient pause, when considering their worthiness. To otherwise neglect to properly vet or exercise one’s personal due diligence, is a travesty to the principals for which our country has always stood."

My response to this is that who in politics doesn't associate with questionable entities? It comes down to whether those questionable entities are in line with your own personal agenda, which we all have.

Yes Obama's ties are most certainly liberal. The man is of mixed race and has seen a world I will never know. I guess the question I have to ask myself is, do I believe his agenda will hurt me or help me in my own personal pursuit of happiness.

Here is what I want. I want to make good money to travel the world more. I want a loving wife eventually. I want to play music forever. So far nothing Obama says he stands for seems to really threaten that. If his agenda somehow raises my taxes a few percentage points (even though he said it wouldnt) so be it. I'll just get creative and make more money somehow(or save more money).

I also want to consider the environment. We are looking at a bleak future without a HUGE focus on it. I dont mind a few more dollars of my paycheck going towards real change in this arena. I don't see McCain really caring about this. Historically Republicans are not environmentally conscious people. I think Ill side with that rather than his rhetoric.

I want someone who brings respect back to US from the international community. We are not an island. We have serious enemies and we need friends again.

I actually don't mind the concept of universal healthcare or some sort of hybrid version of it. When I was in Spain, Marta got sick and we went to a clinic that was government based and she got an exam quickly, drugs to make her better and it was all covered and a completely painless process. Most countries are far superior to ours in their healthcare so maybe its time to look around and see there is a better model.

I don't know. Sure Obama is liberal but the last 8 years of staunch conservatism seems to have culminated into a giant clusterfuck. So there you have it. Questionable entities aside, and going on what I have been told, Obama is the better choice. If it comes down to a tanking economy or a sometimes unfair redistribution of wealth, who wouldn't pick the latter.

shows a go

i dig the UT 21st street CO-OP

It reminded me of treasure island at Disney World. Like a treehouse community where people cook and clean in shifts and live in really cool loft style apartments. I've never seen anything like it. I missed out doing something like that in college.

The stage is small but we'll make it work. Parking is a bitch so I don't know if that will affect turnout. The website splash page is an awesome view of whats to come.

www.legsagainstarms.com

So help me....

if McCain wins because of something like this I am going to Canada.

glitch




PS I love this picture (the guy's shirt says Baby Boomers)

tooting my own horn...

no sooner did I mention the McCain spending spree do I see it on the Daily Show.

For the first time I am on top of current events before my favorite shows are!!

Palin responded. I would love to think the Daily Show is powerful enough to reach them but something tells me it was a combination of sources.

This blog not included of course

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/palin_clothing

Check out what the makeup artist got paid. I am in the wrong business.

Spread the Word

Grandma is signing the papers very soon. If you want to see the house before it becomes rubble now is the time to start planning for it. I wrote something about my memories of it awhile back.

here it is

I'm going back to Houston the 8th to walk around and probably get choked up a bit. Anyone who wants to join me can.

We have a show (!!!!) the 7th by the way. You should have seen our last practice. Merriam Webster was there to take a picture for his "rusty" entry. We told him he could also use "sucked"

I need a video camera for my trip to Houston. Damn.

let me politicize once more for today

Apparently Palin (the GOP) has spent 150K on clothes and makeup, McCain has $520 shoes and 7 houses. His wife is estimated to have 100 million or something like that.

Not trying to sound all class warefare here but can a man(and woman) with access to that kind of lifestyle really empathize with my problems?

I love how Palin is trying to appeal to Joe six pack...

Yes Joe six pack, run and vote for a man with shoes that could pay off your truck for the month. Maybe you can stay in one of his houses when you are foreclosed on.

Chris rock said it best: (paraphrased)

which one do you vote for...the guy with one house or the guy with 7 houses. Which one is going to fight the hardest to keep his house? I'm voting for the guy with one house.

I also like how McCain says that alternative fuels are a big concern to him. Doesnt he have serious ties to big oil? Do you really think he would stab those guys in the back like that?

A breakdown of Palin's wardrobe spending can be seen here:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14805.html

Finally I will quote the article and call it a day (politically)

"A review of similar records for the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee turned up no similar spending."

Anytime McCain says something about Obama's unprecedented spending on his campaign just point at his shoes or Palin's jacket from Neiman Marcus and ask him to repeat himself.

Obama in double digits

I was talking to my friend Marta from Spain and she said that everyone in Europe is watching this race. They want Obama to win it and said she believes the numbers are looking good for him.

I concur. Latest polls are showing a potential landslide.


http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews1604.html

still I wont breathe until I know for sure and Palin has her bags packed for Alaska.

Harold Maker

I was just thinking about my grandpa. Right around the time of his passing he put up a hummingbird feeder. I just felt like writing something for him today.

hummingbird

its been a week and he hasn't shown
but i can wait a little more
these lazy days just move so slow
beside the water by the shore

when I was young I had a gun
and trigger happy hands
conquests of the innocent
trying to be a man

I built this house into a home
my wife beside me with a nail
We worked until the sun went down
5 children made the sale

it wasn't long before it came
my cells just couldn't win
you cant ignore this kind of thing
you cant forget there is an end

But I have some time to spare
and the weather is so nice
I don't regret the things I've done
you cant reason with a child

these memories now make my day
under this October sun
Waiting for the hummingbird
I've put away the gun

Your Warm and Fuzzy for the day

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/20/centenarian.votes/index.html

surprise surprise

she didnt flake.

but i was a little wimp and couldn't look at her for half the conversation. so much for my being cool.

new challenge. maintaining eye contact and sexual tension in the daytime, completely sober.

I think its funny. I had so much confidence and cockiness about this date going well. Then her rock solid self esteem and beauty reduced me to a shifty dork. I have some friends who call that "failing the beauty test" I wouldn't say I failed. I had her almost coughing up coffee from laughing at some points but I was not the badass she met that last Friday. Oh well. I cant hide my short attention span and squirminess forever.

Date score. I would say a 7.

Saw a guy I went to high school with at the coffee shop. He approached and we chatted a few minutes. Apparently the guy lives here in Austin and is a filmmaker. When I went back up to the bar where he was sitting to get a beer he said..."wow man you bagged a hottie." I didnt tell him that she was scaring the shit out of me. I just nodded.

aren't you guys supposed to be conservatives?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/16/AR2008101603436_pf.html

holy crap...a real date

by real I mean in purely the most shallow possible way.

I met a girl last Friday, had a decent conversation with her and got her number. (something I am pretty good at). Its the flaking afterward that is all too familiar to me. So needless to say my expectations were below low for a return call.

"Well did she?"

Yes pretend friend having this conversation with me! She returned my call at work today, said she couldn't make it tonight but would like to meet for coffee. I said Sunday at 2. She said sounds good.

"Yippee"

This wouldn't be a big deal to me either but this girl is ridiculously hot. Like, had I not been feeling saucy the other night she would have scared the hell out of me kind of hot.

"Oh yeah?"

Like, I-just-moved-to-Los Angeles-and-I-am-working-as-a-waitress-until-my-big-break kind of hot. and well read too. Im not a complete pig. Shes also a good girl who said she waits a long time before sex. I joked with her and told her its because she meets dork guys all the time.

"Was she a total stranger?"

She was friends with a girl who was friends with a guy I sort of know.

"Uh...So how did you approach her?"

I rolled up with a smirk and gave her and her friend shit for most of the conversation before letting the guard down and showing any remote level of niceness. She ignored a guy who drove into town to see her (of course) and had that little spark in her eye as we talked that I don't see near enough. The conversation finished with her saying "you're probably bad for me." I am rarely that guy for a girl.

Seriously if I can do this with girls of this calibre I am way underestimating myself. Of course she could be a total weirdo and nutcase and still flake....very real possibility she will flake actually, so I am keeping a level head. But if this turns out to be a good date, wow. Go me.

"Yeah man shes probably going to flake"

Shut the hell up you jealous bastard.

Obama's official response to allegations....

Obama: Bob, I think it's going to be important to just -- I'll respond to these two particular allegations that Sen. McCain has made and that have gotten a lot of attention.

In fact, Mr. Ayers has become the centerpiece of Sen. McCain's campaign over the last two or three weeks. This has been their primary focus. So let's get the record straight. Bill Ayers is a professor of education in Chicago.

Forty years ago, when I was 8 years old, he engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group. I have roundly condemned those acts. Ten years ago he served and I served on a school reform board that was funded by one of Ronald Reagan's former ambassadors and close friends, Mr. Annenberg.

Other members on that board were the presidents of the University of Illinois, the president of Northwestern University, who happens to be a Republican, the president of The Chicago Tribune, a Republican- leaning newspaper.

Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign. And he will not advise me in the White House. So that's Mr. Ayers.

Now, with respect to ACORN, ACORN is a community organization. Apparently what they've done is they were paying people to go out and register folks, and apparently some of the people who were out there didn't really register people, they just filled out a bunch of names.

It had nothing to do with us. We were not involved. The only involvement I've had with ACORN was I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.

Now, the reason I think that it's important to just get these facts out is because the allegation that Sen. McCain has continually made is that somehow my associations are troubling.

Let me tell you who I associate with. On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. If I'm interested in figuring out my foreign policy, I associate myself with my running mate, Joe Biden or with Dick Lugar, the Republican ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or General Jim Jones, the former supreme allied commander of NATO.

Those are the people, Democrats and Republicans, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House. And I think the fact that this has become such an important part of your campaign, Sen. McCain, says more about your campaign than it says about me.

Mommy, Miss Hoover became a man

http://www.kcra.com/cnn-news/17714619/detail.html

hilarious.

Viva Tejas!

click me

Margot and the Nuclear So and Sos

just saw an amazing band last night. 10 people on a tiny stage who created orchestrated pop with every known instrument known to man. Suitcases banging, violins and cellos, steel guitars, random drums. Brilliant. This was their last tour ever. its a shame. Here is a song that has moved me immensely. Listen to it. It ends too soon and has me repeating it for ages.

http://www.myspace.com/margotandthenuclearsoandsos


Bookworm

I'm in a book
for you to read and then throw out.
I wasn't born,
I was just dropped into your arms.
Well mom I've been bad,
and I want to come home.

And you couldn't breathe,
with all those doctors at your side.
But you're talking to me,
saying I wish that I had died.
'Cause I'm being prodded,
crushed in your hands,
I want to come home on the F train.

And you were just a paper boat,
floating through the gutter.
Lost at sea,
drift to me,
and into someone's nightmare.
A home is a highway,
your pillows a rock,
I'm in a rusted car,
bound to get lost

rather than sling mud...

lets hear some specific ideas to help us out gentlemen....

oh wait. here we go.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081013/ap_on_el_pr/obama

starting to like this guy...=)


PS Is anyone else scared of electronic voting? Am I just getting old or is it a little frightening that my vote is transformed into a digital file? I saw previews for a whole documentary on the subject.

Not like my vote counts in Texas anyway. heh.

Why I Detest Politcs

The more I follow politics the more I question how any decent human being could get anywhere without being dubious. I assume you have your well-meaning agenda somewhere buried in there among your encompassing quest for power and prestige, but I really am starting to think that morality and fairness are not character traits of someone in a high stakes political race. (everyone knows this but its starting to become VERY apparent to me lately)

Example:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/11/campaign.wrap/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Watch both videos, the first with Palin talking about abortion and the second with McCain telling people why they should not be afraid of Obama.

If you didnt follow politics much (from both sides) you would be touched by both speeches. Palin defending the rights of unborn children (using her personal story of her child with Downs Syndrom) and McCain showing a touching nod to Obama's character.

But If you noticed that the last few tirades against Obama by McCain were full of audience members shouting "Terrorist" and yes even "Kill Him" while McCain allowed these comments to go unaddressed. The media jumped on this claiming that this was not the campaign of a stand-up American.

Low and behold now we have McCain backtracking and talking about Obama as being someone who would be fit to be president, just not as good a one as he.

Similarly, you realize Palin is only giving this touching story near the election to bolster conservatives who are disheartened by The Republican ticket and need a rock and a hard place decision maker like abortion to force votes their way. fuck all this.

Dont fool yourself. There is no reason other than pure desire to win this election that these speeches are being given. My bias comes out but I honestly have not seen this kind of nonsense from the Democratic party as much. Of course if they were on the losing end of the election who knows the crap they would say.

And that is why I hate politcs.

dow at 9000 - Media helping?

So I cant help but think that the media's constant sensationalism only hurts us as a country in tough economic times. Yes things are spiraling out of control but when you go to CNN.com and notice some of the same continual hyperbole it starts to make you wonder...

could this be exacerbating the problem just a teeny little bit? Impossible to quantify but I don't doubt it. The fact is I know people who are actually making more money than they normally do right now. They are the ones buying when everyone sells, selling when everyone buys and cleaning up. My boss is doing fine, maybe a bit slower sales than usual but nothing worth freaking out about.

Historically the fact remains...The market always bounces back. I just don't know how much suffering each of us are going to have to go through before we see a correction. Is milk going to be $20 a gallon? Will part of it be because news organizations pay their bills by reporting on catastrophe in the most bleak manner possible.

This just in...toilet paper is now $250 a roll. You are shit out of luck.

buy gold now

i think its time to stop thinking of paper money as worth anything at all.

http://www.betternetworker.com/videos/view/rich-dad-2008-predictions-part-4

this is my marketer friend Mike's website and an interview with some folks back earlier this year about the current crises we are going through right now.

They say gold and silver is where its at. Or face a middle class implosion. Save up people because its already $900 an ounce..

comfy

I received my brand new memory foam mattress today. Years overdue. Very comfy.

Met a girl in line at the courthouse today. There was a definite positive shift in energy in the conversation. She was talking about moving and living on the third floor and how that kind of sucked.

I said "what with all those gymnastics you do" [knowing smile]

subtle. but very effective. she got it. it could have gone either way at that point.

were going to have a drink sometime this week. Some days I want to hug myself.

sarah palin

gotta give my buddy kevin credit for finding this article. Rather than just steal it from his site, Im going to post a link to his blog to read it because its a good blog anyway.

http://thatbirdhouse.blogspot.com/2008/10/rack-me.html

6 months at my job? Really?

Has it been 6 months?

I say this a lot to people I know but the passage of time is really starting to freak me out. I already have a fear of getting old, I can only imagine how long a year will seem when I am 60.

I graduated in '04 so I have been in Austin 4.5 years already.

I still vividly remember having a beer with Craig on my 21st birthday in Houston. That was 9 years ago.

When you are a kid people tell you to enjoy being young. But a year feels like an eternity. You count the days until your next birthday where you can clean up with presents. "Don't be in a rush to grow up" You don't understand the advice at all.

I know in ten years I am going to look back on the months around this period of my life and shake my head at how quickly they went. Its kind of sad and beautiful at the same time.

There is truly no time to waste. Time is the only currency worth concerning yourself with. Its dispersed in little packets of 24 hours per day and if you piss it away on a life less than you deserve its no one else's fault but your own.

At the end of my life I can see how that will be the biggest tragedy of all. More than fortunes wasted, broken hearts or some other crushing defeat. Wasted time. Hesitance, procrastination and complacency. Terrible things.

differing opinion on the bailout

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/01/paul.qanda/index.html

I honestly don't know people. Could the bailout be a bad thing? Should we allow the market to correct itself? Is this simply a cleansing? Will the bailout simply cause more problems and lead us into a depression?

Glad I'm not responsible for the decision. Too bad it will probably affect me eventually.

lets be healthy

I woke up this morning around 7 and decided to go for a run. It was cool out and I thought it would invigorate me.

Wow I am out of shape. The run gave me a massive headache right around my ear. Weird. Then rather than waking me up and leaving me refreshed and ready to start my day...I went back to bed until when I usually wake up. Funny stuff.

Im still going to try to keep it up. Seems like the right thing to do.