(no subject)
I've had my ear to the ground on this election pretty much since 2004's disastrous outcome became clear, but I've recently started to scrutinize it very closely. As a blanket statement, I am thoroughly disgusted by the potential Republican offerings. McCain, formerly a fairly reasonable candidate back in 2000, has fallen a long, long way in the last 8 years. Romney is a corporate scumbag and doesn't even make an effort to hide it. Huckabee is possibly the worst human being I've seen in the public spotlight. I will be very disappointed and pretty much inclined to abandon hope for the direction this country's going if any of them are elected, but Huckabee has the real power to make me immediately begin Canadian immigration plans if he's elected. I realize a lot of people (was I one of them?) said this in '04, too, but Huckabee is so scary as to make me really, truly mean it. Bioware, I'm looking at you.
On the Democratic (or, in the modern era, the part that isn't completely insane) side, we've basically got two candidates: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I want to just bask in that for a moment. While both have their faults, for once I am confronted by two fairly electable people that I could support. I have deep-seated issues with Clinton that involve censorship and "protect the children" bullshit, and I have a few misgivings about Obama as well, but all things considered, these are two really strong candidates. And, if either of them is elected, it's unprecedented: it's either the first non-white president, or the first female president. Either way, an enormous step forward.
I've gone on at length about my borderline gay feelings about Obama. The man oozes charisma. However, whether or not he's got the expertise to do more than that, or to find people that can, is an open question. Obama says all of the right things. Whether or not he can execute on them is what worries me. Clinton says some of the right things, some of the wrong things, but I'm fairly sure she has the political killer instinct to execute on whatever she chooses.
Facing the numbers, it still seems like it's going to be a toss-up between Clinton and Obama. McCain is becoming a very clear leader on that side of things, so my guess is we'll see a match-up between Clinton/Obama and McCain. Honestly, a match-up against anybody else, and I see a Democratic shoe-in. But McCain...hell, I've still got fuzzy feelings about the guy from 2000. And I damn well know that he's betrayed those at this point. That's going to give him a lot of staying power, which worries me.
In cheerier news, today marks two years that Cody and I have been dating! I've got some special plans for this evening, too, which she will hopefully be happy with. Nothing extravagant, for those of you whose ears just perked up. And then tomorrow is her birthday party, which is shaping up to be freakin' huge. Should be a load of fun, despite the immense amount of preparatory work we'll have to do (chief among those items being cleaning--ugh).
Work has been crazy as hell, but I'm still proud of what I'm doing, and I know the specific stuff I'm working on is very appreciated, so may day goes fairly smoothly.
I've also been playing a stupid amount of Mass Effect. I told Cody when we got it (actually, our roommate Calvin bought it "for us") that she should play it first, and I would try to wait. I didn't really have a lot of interest at first, despite my adoration of BioWare, because of a number of other concerns. Of course, her exuberance for it got me sucked in. And that's precisely what I was afraid of. One night, I plunked down to play at 7pm and didn't stop until 3am. It's that bad. Despite her fangirlish glee about the game, I've already overtaken her in amount of play time. I kind of feel bad about it, truth be told, but as with any addiction, the need to play overrides any good sense on my part. Alas.
Also, MacAllan 12 is a delicious Scotch. I'm not as big a fan of the MacAllan 15, though it's growing on me. The 12 has a sort of vanilla/spice palette, while the 15 has a more chocolate/orange palette. Cody likes the 15 quite a lot. It's certainly better than any blended whisky, though I think the extra $15 it costs probably isn't worth it. I'd love to try the MacAllan 18, which seems to have a similar palette to the 12, but it's $150 per bottle! Cody has said she plans to get me some for my birthday, so that's something I'm certainly looking forward to. I also need to try a bottle of Laphroaig, which everyone and their mother recommends to me.
Please ignore the video of the 'music' entry -- it's just the song that's interesting.
On the Democratic (or, in the modern era, the part that isn't completely insane) side, we've basically got two candidates: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. I want to just bask in that for a moment. While both have their faults, for once I am confronted by two fairly electable people that I could support. I have deep-seated issues with Clinton that involve censorship and "protect the children" bullshit, and I have a few misgivings about Obama as well, but all things considered, these are two really strong candidates. And, if either of them is elected, it's unprecedented: it's either the first non-white president, or the first female president. Either way, an enormous step forward.
I've gone on at length about my borderline gay feelings about Obama. The man oozes charisma. However, whether or not he's got the expertise to do more than that, or to find people that can, is an open question. Obama says all of the right things. Whether or not he can execute on them is what worries me. Clinton says some of the right things, some of the wrong things, but I'm fairly sure she has the political killer instinct to execute on whatever she chooses.
Facing the numbers, it still seems like it's going to be a toss-up between Clinton and Obama. McCain is becoming a very clear leader on that side of things, so my guess is we'll see a match-up between Clinton/Obama and McCain. Honestly, a match-up against anybody else, and I see a Democratic shoe-in. But McCain...hell, I've still got fuzzy feelings about the guy from 2000. And I damn well know that he's betrayed those at this point. That's going to give him a lot of staying power, which worries me.
In cheerier news, today marks two years that Cody and I have been dating! I've got some special plans for this evening, too, which she will hopefully be happy with. Nothing extravagant, for those of you whose ears just perked up. And then tomorrow is her birthday party, which is shaping up to be freakin' huge. Should be a load of fun, despite the immense amount of preparatory work we'll have to do (chief among those items being cleaning--ugh).
Work has been crazy as hell, but I'm still proud of what I'm doing, and I know the specific stuff I'm working on is very appreciated, so may day goes fairly smoothly.
I've also been playing a stupid amount of Mass Effect. I told Cody when we got it (actually, our roommate Calvin bought it "for us") that she should play it first, and I would try to wait. I didn't really have a lot of interest at first, despite my adoration of BioWare, because of a number of other concerns. Of course, her exuberance for it got me sucked in. And that's precisely what I was afraid of. One night, I plunked down to play at 7pm and didn't stop until 3am. It's that bad. Despite her fangirlish glee about the game, I've already overtaken her in amount of play time. I kind of feel bad about it, truth be told, but as with any addiction, the need to play overrides any good sense on my part. Alas.
Also, MacAllan 12 is a delicious Scotch. I'm not as big a fan of the MacAllan 15, though it's growing on me. The 12 has a sort of vanilla/spice palette, while the 15 has a more chocolate/orange palette. Cody likes the 15 quite a lot. It's certainly better than any blended whisky, though I think the extra $15 it costs probably isn't worth it. I'd love to try the MacAllan 18, which seems to have a similar palette to the 12, but it's $150 per bottle! Cody has said she plans to get me some for my birthday, so that's something I'm certainly looking forward to. I also need to try a bottle of Laphroaig, which everyone and their mother recommends to me.
Please ignore the video of the 'music' entry -- it's just the song that's interesting.