Excellent dinners two nights in a row? I'm going to die.
I don't know what I did to deserve these last meals, but I will face my impending death with honor. ... Because it's too good to be true. Something's wrong. I must be dying or something. Tonight was a small meatloaf (who doesn't like meatloaf?!) with green onions, brown rice (I LOVE BROWN RICE) and mixed vegetables. The peas were green, which made me want to cry tears of joy because the past few times we've had peas, they've been kinda gray and kinda gross. THESE PEAS WERE DELICIOUS. ;A;
So, we're, um, we're just gonna put everything that happened last night behind a cut. What. A. Night.
The Presidential Election
Mom went to bed super-early and Dad was out working at one of the polling places, so it was just me. I started tuning in to election coverage at about 10 PM, and Romney was in the lead by however many electoral votes. I screamed "NO!" when I saw North Carolina turn red. I wasn't surprised, just disappointed. I tried to ignore it after that because I didn't want to get myself too upset. But what I forgot was that if it was 10-something on the east coast, then it was only 7-something on the west coast. And what's on the west coast? California with its 55 electoral votes, just over 20% of what's needed to claim the Presidency.
It went a little something like this:
Please note that this is not entirely accurate, as several midwestern states, as well as Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico, all went blue.
At 11, I started watching The Daily Show's live coverage, and sometime in the interim California had been called, so the numbers jumped way the hell in the opposite direction. And as the western states were getting tallied, Governor Romney's total remained steady and President Obama's total kept getting higher and I squeaked when I saw it tip from 268 to 273 when New Mexico was called. Jon Stewart announced it shortly thereafter.
AND (mostly) EVERYONE BREATHED A SIGH OF RELIEF.
There was still the slightly ugly issue of Romney leading the popular vote, but that was taken care of by the end of the night: the difference turned out to be more than 2.5 million in President Obama's favor. It was really funny, though, how suddenly all the people who were overjoyed with the Electoral College saving their candidate twelve years ago turned on it so quickly when it looked as though it would work against them this time. Oh, the quirks of life!
I'm also happy to report that the company I keep is handling the results very maturely. Yeah, a lot of people were upset. A lot of people had some bad reactions, but no one made any personal attacks on any candidates or any demographic of voters, and for that, I'm grateful. Oh, and you know what else was interesting? The amount of third-party support I saw from people I know (and myself!), and from people from around the country, too. While most states were between 1.5% and 2.5%, one in twenty-five New Mexican voters chose a third party candidate, and a couple of states were over 3%. Might third-party candidates be able to get more attention in the future?
The Colbert Report came on after The Daily Show, and they reran at midnight so I caught up with the internet. Dad finally walked in about 1:00, just in time to catch President Obama's speech. It was a good speech, he had me right up until the end when he mentioned... shit, what was it? Augh, time to get on with this post.
Ladies in the Senate
There were plenty of other things to vote on yesterday, too. Lots of local things that are boring, but HEY SENATORS ARE IMPORTANT! Kirsten Gillibrand (I voted for her) won here in New York, and I couldn't be happier because I think she's done a great job following Senator Clinton. This will be her first full term (Senator Clinton stepped down in 2009 to become Secretary of State, and Gillibrand has held it since). And I think every sitting female Democratic Senator was re-elected, which is pretty damn awesome.
Five other women became first-time Senators last night, upping the total for the 113th Congress to 20 ladies (from 17. Both are records). Three of particular notice are Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, who is their first female Senator, and the first openly gay Senator in the country. Ever. Surprise, she's a fierce defender and promoter of women's rights; in Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, who will be the first Asian-American Senator ever (she was born in Japan). She's also a Buddhist, that's pretty cool; and up in Massachusetts, Elizabeth (fucking) Warren, who was like the only person who knew what they were talking about in the financial crisis. The other two newcomers are Deb Fischer in Nebraska (a Republican, and Nebraska's first female Senator in nearly 60 years), and Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota (the first female Congressman from North Dakota, ever).
But wait, there's more!
A lot of stupid lady-hating, vagina-fearing, rape-dismissing MONSTERS lost their bids last night, which is fucking AWESOME. I'm glad voters held their wits about them in that respect, and thought about it all for more than, oh, two seconds.
Marriage Rights
To summarize, because I'm starting to run out of time before midnight and I'm getting hungry again: Washington, Maryland, and Maine all voted for whatever marriage equality thing they had on their ballots. Minnesota, while not voting for, voted not to make it illegal, which is better than nothing, and a step in the right direction. All four states did the right thing last night. And with Maryland and Maine, that knocks out almost all of New England. Plus us, HELL YEAH northeast US! :D We're so blue, no wonder I could never live anywhere else. XD
Weed
I'm not a huge proponent of this. I'm not really sure where I stand (though I think I lean towards decriminalizing, at least). Washington and Colorado both voted to completely legalize the recreational use of cannabis in their states and I believe Massachusetts also approved it for medicinal purposes. Of course, it's still illegal at the federal level. As is the case in California, I'm not sure how it works, but it looks like we're slowly coming around on that one, too (which is quite surprising, all things considered).
A New State?
Well, now I'm starting to hear conflicting reports, but for the first time ever, Puerto Rico has voted to seek out statehood. Puerto Rico's been a Commonwealth of the US since 1898 (when we got it from Spain), and it's been in a sort of limbo state since. They've never really wanted statehood, never really wanted independence, just sort of hung around. So now it looks like they made a decision. If that's the case, and Congress were to approve, we'd have 51 states, which is pretty neat. Here's what some proposed flag designs would look like (I'm partial to the first, since we've had a rectangular design since 1890. It won't be terribly jarring to go from 6-5-6-5-6-5-6-5-6 to 9-8-9-8-9-8).
That's getting ahead of myself, though. I'm starting to hear that there wasn't quite a vote in the right direction (who even knows anymore?). The governor of Puerto Rico is against statehood, and the Republican-controlled House will probably not want a Democratically-aligned Puerto Rico barging in. And also Puerto Rico is somehow a financial liability (which I don't really understand because they're already kinda part of the US so aren't we already eating any liability?). But it'd be pretty neat! When I was a kid, I always wondered what it was like when Alaska and Hawaii became states. I asked my parents and grandparents, but they didn't really remember (it was 25 years before, wtf). To see it for myself would be kinda grand.
I think I covered everything. There was just so much shit that happened last night, it's a bit overwhelming. I've done this post in pieces, so I know I didn't say everything I wanted to or should have, and if you've read all this and know more of what happened, I would appreciate some feedback or additional information. Thanks!
Jesus, that was draining. Okay.
So today. It's snowing. Barely a week after that stupid hurricane (which was barely a week after the New England earthquake!), we get snow. And not the usual half-inch of snow we're accustomed to here in the city, a LOT of snow. There's four inches of snow on my roof alone, never mind what's fallen in the streets, and it's still coming down. This is more snow than we've got all of last winter, many times over. What the holy hell, Mother Nature.
CAN IT JUST BE JULY AGAIN NOW, PLEASE? THANKS! :( At least the heater's on and it stopped being frigid in my bedroom (even if I'm bundled in blankets and socks and my hoodie every night. At least it's not comforter weather yet). I really hope this doesn't fuck up the trains again because I was gonna go skating on Friday (though I might be able to in the street, haha).
Finally, in sports news, the Mets have let Jason Bay go. Augh, finally. He was nothing but a liability and a mediocre outfielder, but it's the METS so I wasn't surprised we held onto him for so long. Of course, he'll benefit from a post-Mets breakout, as so many players do, and hit like 30 HR and 100 RBI like he did in Boston and Pittsburgh, and push his average up over .300.
Okay, gonna get seconds on dinner. I'm also slowly PKMNing.
So, we're, um, we're just gonna put everything that happened last night behind a cut. What. A. Night.
The Presidential Election
Mom went to bed super-early and Dad was out working at one of the polling places, so it was just me. I started tuning in to election coverage at about 10 PM, and Romney was in the lead by however many electoral votes. I screamed "NO!" when I saw North Carolina turn red. I wasn't surprised, just disappointed. I tried to ignore it after that because I didn't want to get myself too upset. But what I forgot was that if it was 10-something on the east coast, then it was only 7-something on the west coast. And what's on the west coast? California with its 55 electoral votes, just over 20% of what's needed to claim the Presidency.
It went a little something like this:
Please note that this is not entirely accurate, as several midwestern states, as well as Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico, all went blue.
At 11, I started watching The Daily Show's live coverage, and sometime in the interim California had been called, so the numbers jumped way the hell in the opposite direction. And as the western states were getting tallied, Governor Romney's total remained steady and President Obama's total kept getting higher and I squeaked when I saw it tip from 268 to 273 when New Mexico was called. Jon Stewart announced it shortly thereafter.
AND (mostly) EVERYONE BREATHED A SIGH OF RELIEF.
There was still the slightly ugly issue of Romney leading the popular vote, but that was taken care of by the end of the night: the difference turned out to be more than 2.5 million in President Obama's favor. It was really funny, though, how suddenly all the people who were overjoyed with the Electoral College saving their candidate twelve years ago turned on it so quickly when it looked as though it would work against them this time. Oh, the quirks of life!
I'm also happy to report that the company I keep is handling the results very maturely. Yeah, a lot of people were upset. A lot of people had some bad reactions, but no one made any personal attacks on any candidates or any demographic of voters, and for that, I'm grateful. Oh, and you know what else was interesting? The amount of third-party support I saw from people I know (and myself!), and from people from around the country, too. While most states were between 1.5% and 2.5%, one in twenty-five New Mexican voters chose a third party candidate, and a couple of states were over 3%. Might third-party candidates be able to get more attention in the future?
The Colbert Report came on after The Daily Show, and they reran at midnight so I caught up with the internet. Dad finally walked in about 1:00, just in time to catch President Obama's speech. It was a good speech, he had me right up until the end when he mentioned... shit, what was it? Augh, time to get on with this post.
Ladies in the Senate
There were plenty of other things to vote on yesterday, too. Lots of local things that are boring, but HEY SENATORS ARE IMPORTANT! Kirsten Gillibrand (I voted for her) won here in New York, and I couldn't be happier because I think she's done a great job following Senator Clinton. This will be her first full term (Senator Clinton stepped down in 2009 to become Secretary of State, and Gillibrand has held it since). And I think every sitting female Democratic Senator was re-elected, which is pretty damn awesome.
Five other women became first-time Senators last night, upping the total for the 113th Congress to 20 ladies (from 17. Both are records). Three of particular notice are Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, who is their first female Senator, and the first openly gay Senator in the country. Ever. Surprise, she's a fierce defender and promoter of women's rights; in Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, who will be the first Asian-American Senator ever (she was born in Japan). She's also a Buddhist, that's pretty cool; and up in Massachusetts, Elizabeth (fucking) Warren, who was like the only person who knew what they were talking about in the financial crisis. The other two newcomers are Deb Fischer in Nebraska (a Republican, and Nebraska's first female Senator in nearly 60 years), and Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota (the first female Congressman from North Dakota, ever).
But wait, there's more!
A lot of stupid lady-hating, vagina-fearing, rape-dismissing MONSTERS lost their bids last night, which is fucking AWESOME. I'm glad voters held their wits about them in that respect, and thought about it all for more than, oh, two seconds.
Marriage Rights
To summarize, because I'm starting to run out of time before midnight and I'm getting hungry again: Washington, Maryland, and Maine all voted for whatever marriage equality thing they had on their ballots. Minnesota, while not voting for, voted not to make it illegal, which is better than nothing, and a step in the right direction. All four states did the right thing last night. And with Maryland and Maine, that knocks out almost all of New England. Plus us, HELL YEAH northeast US! :D We're so blue, no wonder I could never live anywhere else. XD
Weed
I'm not a huge proponent of this. I'm not really sure where I stand (though I think I lean towards decriminalizing, at least). Washington and Colorado both voted to completely legalize the recreational use of cannabis in their states and I believe Massachusetts also approved it for medicinal purposes. Of course, it's still illegal at the federal level. As is the case in California, I'm not sure how it works, but it looks like we're slowly coming around on that one, too (which is quite surprising, all things considered).
A New State?
Well, now I'm starting to hear conflicting reports, but for the first time ever, Puerto Rico has voted to seek out statehood. Puerto Rico's been a Commonwealth of the US since 1898 (when we got it from Spain), and it's been in a sort of limbo state since. They've never really wanted statehood, never really wanted independence, just sort of hung around. So now it looks like they made a decision. If that's the case, and Congress were to approve, we'd have 51 states, which is pretty neat. Here's what some proposed flag designs would look like (I'm partial to the first, since we've had a rectangular design since 1890. It won't be terribly jarring to go from 6-5-6-5-6-5-6-5-6 to 9-8-9-8-9-8).
That's getting ahead of myself, though. I'm starting to hear that there wasn't quite a vote in the right direction (who even knows anymore?). The governor of Puerto Rico is against statehood, and the Republican-controlled House will probably not want a Democratically-aligned Puerto Rico barging in. And also Puerto Rico is somehow a financial liability (which I don't really understand because they're already kinda part of the US so aren't we already eating any liability?). But it'd be pretty neat! When I was a kid, I always wondered what it was like when Alaska and Hawaii became states. I asked my parents and grandparents, but they didn't really remember (it was 25 years before, wtf). To see it for myself would be kinda grand.
I think I covered everything. There was just so much shit that happened last night, it's a bit overwhelming. I've done this post in pieces, so I know I didn't say everything I wanted to or should have, and if you've read all this and know more of what happened, I would appreciate some feedback or additional information. Thanks!
Jesus, that was draining. Okay.
So today. It's snowing. Barely a week after that stupid hurricane (which was barely a week after the New England earthquake!), we get snow. And not the usual half-inch of snow we're accustomed to here in the city, a LOT of snow. There's four inches of snow on my roof alone, never mind what's fallen in the streets, and it's still coming down. This is more snow than we've got all of last winter, many times over. What the holy hell, Mother Nature.
CAN IT JUST BE JULY AGAIN NOW, PLEASE? THANKS! :( At least the heater's on and it stopped being frigid in my bedroom (even if I'm bundled in blankets and socks and my hoodie every night. At least it's not comforter weather yet). I really hope this doesn't fuck up the trains again because I was gonna go skating on Friday (though I might be able to in the street, haha).
Finally, in sports news, the Mets have let Jason Bay go. Augh, finally. He was nothing but a liability and a mediocre outfielder, but it's the METS so I wasn't surprised we held onto him for so long. Of course, he'll benefit from a post-Mets breakout, as so many players do, and hit like 30 HR and 100 RBI like he did in Boston and Pittsburgh, and push his average up over .300.
Okay, gonna get seconds on dinner. I'm also slowly PKMNing.