Game On

Ok, despite all the fun I've had watching Gov. Palin on SNL, and laughing at how ridiculous her silly Midwest+Alaska=Palin accent is, it's pretty apparent to me how terrifying she is as a politician. This morning on the train I was reading Washington Post's Express, to which I'm now nearly-certifiably addicted.

Page one: Picture of Tina Fey, and huge voter turnout in Florida! This page makes me happy.

Page two: Funny story about a cat show. I'm a crazy cat lady, this makes me happy.

Page three: Headline about how Sen. Obama keeps 9 point lead over Sen. McCain, and another story about how Sen. Biden's health records show he's in excellent shape. Needless to say, another happy page.

Page four: the following headline -- "PALIN: BAN GAY MARRIAGE"

Anger anger anger anger anger! I actually think I growled at the newspaper. I read the article with a scowl on my face, and it didn't ever quite leave me, even after Pearls Before Swine brought a killer whale onto their baseball team on the second-to-last page.

Here's a version of the full article from the Associated Press. It makes me sad and angry. Just like Sen. McCain said at the last debate. The American people are angry, I'm angry, the American people are angry, blah blah, something like that. I think we're supposedly angry about the economy?
If the American people are angry, it's for the wrong reasons. We should be angry because people like Gov. Palin are in contention for positions of very serious power. We should be angry that people who promote marriage between teenagers simply because they don't know how to use birth control, but believe that two happy, consenting adults shouldn't have the same right as those punk idiot teenagers have the power to influence any law anywhere, even if only in one state. But the whole country!!

We can't just sit back and let that happen. Game on.

Clearly, our current president is of the same persuasion. However, he hasn't done anything about it. I most certainly believe that it would be one of the first things on her agenda, no matter where she may be on Pennsylvania Avenue, whether it be in the White House or the EEOB next door.

To help soothe my angry angry brain right now, I have a delicious lunch. Grilled chicken with tomato, basil, and melted mozzarella. Baby carrots. Chicken noodle soup with veggies (including garbanzo beans!!). A piece of whole wheat bread. A cup of deliciously cold water. AND. Oregon Chai. yum yum.

Obviously this hearty lunch serves to nourish me for the next two weeks. It's going to be rough and it's going to be awesome.

Game. On.

Two Weeks Out

THIS IS PERHAPS THE MOST HILARIOUS THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE




SUPER awesome. She just shouldn't be President, or even Veep. Gov. Palin, that is. On the other hand, OBAMA/FEY 2012!!!!

Update:

Here's the Weekend Update Palin Rap, which makes me love Amy Poehler just a little bit more. Oh wait, a lot more.





Gosh I sure do hope she doesn't become vice president. [/strange midwestern twang]

I'll update on the movie "W" later.

The Option Period

This is a post of schedules. Boring Boring Boring.

First, my potential spring 2009 class schedule!

Mondays/Thursdays
11:20-12:35 -- US Foreign Relations Since 1914
12:45-2:00 -- Ballet
2:10-3:25 -- Latin America: History, Art, Literature
3:35-5:15 -- Chamber Singers (100% definite)

Tuesdays/Fridays
8:30-9:45 -- First Aid/CPR/Medical Emergencies (with the worst professor ever but I'm obsessed with First Aid)
9:55-11:10 -- Beginning Golf!!!

I register on November 6, which is only a week after registration opens, so that should all be open. And full of seniors with the same goal as I have - to slack off as much as possible because your major and general education requirements are done or nearly done!
I'd be taking more that one history class except there are NONE THAT ARE GOOD. also, back to the lazy point.

My bosses are going to hate it! I can only work 25 hours a week (that is, if I'm working my ass off) and they have previously mentioned that they are under the impression that I'll be in the office 32 hours a week. Which is ridiculous. There is no way that someone can fulfill all these requirements:
a) go to school full time (15 credits in 6 classes)
b) work 80% of full time
c) have an HOUR long commute each way, with no car
d) dance 2 nights a week
e) be captain of Mock Trial, likely compete in the region
f) prepare for a European tour with choir
g) eat, breathe, relax, play with kittens, clean apartment every once in a while, have friends?
h) survive

I don't know if all those were in the correct tense, but Requirement F brings me to my next point!!

Tour Schedule!
May 15, 16 -- Budapest, Concert in St. Elizabeth's Church
May 17 -- Debrecen, Concert at Debrecen Univ.
May 18, 19 -- Sibiu, Concert at Philharmonic Hall (Tricked you, that's not the Hall, it's just a pretty panorama of Sibiu)
May 20 -- Brasov, Concert in the Black Church
May 21, 22 -- Bucharest, Concert in the Choral Temple

I love Europe. After all, that's where the history comes from.

ALSO EASTERN EUROPE HUNGARY AND ROMANIA I'M OBSESSED

The Disaster Show

Yes. It's Monday at 8:25am. Yes. I'm already late-ish for work, but it can still be salvaged. Yes. I'm a couple of weeks late in changing my contacts, so yes, I'll get new ones and my eyes will be happy. Yes. I don't have my glasses on so I can't quite see. Yes. There's a bottle of red nail polish there... falling... aaaah


NO! NO! NO!



Now I look like a murderer from trying to clean up the blood red nail polish from my bathroom floor. Oh, did I mention I don't own nail polish remover? No?

Undecideds

In the cab coming home I wrote a really great blog post in my head, and then when I got home I discovered I lost one of my favorite earrings, and so now I'm cranky. and calling Hawk and Dove first thing tomorrow morning. If I have to trek to Capital South just to retrieve it, it will be worth it. I just hope it's there.

I'm cranky.

Life on Mars

A couple people sent that to me today, and I had been looking for it since I saw it in someone's GMail Chat status last week.

Lindsey sent me the link to this, which is Wolf Blitzer laughing at Saturday Night Live's genius spoof sketch of Katie Couric interviewing Gov. Palin, which is really verbatim from the real interview. I suppose Blitzer's reaction is somewhat similar to mine when I saw that Tina Fey's jokes were actually Palin's real words, except that my face was plastered with a look of horror, more than amusement.



And here we have a picture of my kittens.

Ok Zoe looks a little wall-eyed but she really isn't.

Happy debate watching tomorrow!

The Dover Test

A few minutes ago I was on the phone with my mom and she was telling me about how she saw Miracle at St. Anna yesterday. She mentioned so casually that it's about the Buffalo Soldiers, as if that simple name drop wouldn't automatically cause Bob Marley to endlessly loop through my head!

The kittens are busy climbing in and out of my dresser and onto the window and all over me and on the table and over my dirty laundry and over me and on my desk and through my bookshelf and over me. Such is their life. It's most certainly a difficult one.

Natalie just sent me this, which I think is a super awesome story!! You should read it and worship Barack Obama's bones. Oh, I mean, vote for the esteemed junior Senator from Illinois in his bid for the American presidency.

The penultimate item for the evening: I have no idea how on Earth I found this, but it is freaking hilarious. It's a clip made by Pres. Clinton in his final days in the White House in 2000 (sigh... how I miss those wonderous times of a balanced budget and simple sex scandals). SO FUNNY. I guarantee, you need not care an inch for politics and you will find this funny.

And finally, Tina Fey again at her finest:

The Debate

Ok, first I have to get this out. I just read this article on CBS News. It's all about bad things that are happening as people are trying to vote and register to vote. This is a particularly horrifying segment:

In late August, a notice by a Montgomery County election official aimed at clarifying the voter registration process for Virginia Tech students actually mislead (sic) potential voters, creating a firestorm. It read in part,

“The Code of Virginia states that a student must declare a legal residence in order to register. A legal residence can be either a student’s permanent address from home or their current college residence. By making Montgomery County your permanent residence, you have declared your independence from your parents and can no longer be claimed as a dependent on their income tax filings.”

The statement also warned that students could lose their scholarships as the result of an address change.

The article says that VA elections officials clarified and told kids that it doesn't change their status as dependents, and it doesn't disqualify them for scholarships. Because DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS that would all be awful if true.

In other news, the VP debate on Thursday was not the train wreck so many of us expected, or rather, hoped for. She seems to have a talking switch with two positions: robotic, or silly. On the other hand, Sen. Biden made my heart hurt sometimes. I love him.

Overall, Gov. Palin "held her own," which means she met the very very low expectations that the American public set for her. I feel like for three solid weeks all she did was memorize-- oh, I mean, prepare. Well, in that three weeks she also had time to stumble her way through a couple of really abysmal(ly hilarious) interviews.



Dear Tina Fey,

I love you.

Love,
me

Constituency of One

Newsweek blog about accusations that Sen. Obama is all talk and no walk, and what Sen. McCain's campaign actually is.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/09/17/on-wall-street-obama-is-all-wonk-and-mccain-is-all-words.aspx

I clicked on the link because I wanted to find out what "Obama is all wonk" meant.

I wish I could find a good quote or a chunk of a paragraph to copy and paste here, but so much of it is really good and shouldn't really be taken out of context, so I'll just leave it.

I finally got my wireless set up in my apartment, so I will update more later. Unless, that is, my kittens seduce me into going to bed as soon as I get home. I strongly feel that this might happen. In which case, updates after an epic cuddle-and-sleep night.

Duck and Cover

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler on Saturday Night Live last night as Gov. Palin and Sen. Clinton.

Since it's NPR it's a legit video, it won't disappear like the YouTube versions keep doing. I knew we should have watched SNL last night at Niki's but since Sen. Obama cancelled (due to Hurricaine Ike, I was pissed off for a sec and then I realized that it was probably a smart move on his part) we didn't watch. Also there were like 18 people in her apartment so it would have been impossible to hear. Instead we played Balderdash!

Funny how we played board games when we were little, and then they got "uncool," and now that's pretty much what we do at parties. Balderdash, BS, Taboo, that weird card game that I can't remember, and hopefully soon Apples to Apples.

This is my blog in a word cloud! I wonder why I say "got" so much. I'm obsessed with this site. I'm entering as much as I can, other blogs, my resume, blah blah. so cool.

I'm too lazy to mess with the formatting on this post, so it's just going to be this way. I have to go pretend to like my brothers at my fraternity's welcome back picnic. It's good, because I get free food, but I would rather have free food and cuddle with kittens at the same time, instead of having to go outside in 95 degree, super humid weather. With "Battlestar Galactica" still written all over my leg from last night.

I just realized how glad I am to not be allergic to cats, because then I would be sad when Rhett rubs himself all over my face and gives me smelly cat-breath kisses. As it is, that makes me really happy.

Lord John Marbury

Kittens!

So floppy

Kitten assembly - ur doin it rong!

I just met the richest man I may have ever met, and he looks like a Klingon.
Our office manager: "It must be nice to be richer than God"

Galileo

Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?

pleasesaynopleasesaynopleasesayno

Angel Maintenance

ZOE ROMERO

Listening to Vienna Tang, sent to me by Maeg. very similar to Girlyman, but just one of instead of three (cue to Lindsey, look her up).

One of the most common things I experience these days is waking up to a completely trashed apartment. Friday night (Saturday morning) I went to sleep with a pretty neat floor, considering. Saturday morning (afternoon) I pull myself out of bed and see a deck of cards AND half the box of Taboo cards scattered allllll over the place.

RHETT LYMAN

D. sent me this, from a Wired blog, which is really funny.

Also there is this DailyShow clip and commentary from Sociological Images. not that I don't agree with the commentary in the blog, but it is quite funny. And I can say that, because I'm from a town the size of Wasilla, Alaska. Er... yeah. Not when Gov. Palin was mayor, but presently.

Ex-Hurricane Hanna was mostly just a bit of rain and wind, for about 20 hours. Maeg and I ran errands (BestBuy, ACE Hardware, TJMaxx, Cosi yummm, Safeway), and by the time we left ACE, the rain had already stopped and when we were walking to Safeway, it was sunny and we were too hot. I really enjoyed the rain while it lasted, but Maeg's umbrella didn't as much.

I had a dream last night that Natalie and I lived in a treehouse our sophomore year of high school. The other night I had a dream that I went to Hogwarts. Funny how now that I'm not in school, I dream about school all the time.

I'm starving, and I need to clean my apartment, buy an ironing board and toilet paper, and figure out how the hell not to be late to work tomorrow. Eventually I need to find my card reader so I can post more pictures of kittens, there are more on my Facebook though.

I want Cosi again. crap.

Opposition Research

This is copied directly from here, an AP article by Jim Kuhnhenn, released today from St. Paul. I'd copy and paste the whole thing, but all you have to do is click the link, so don't be lazy. Read it.

Regarding one of my "favorite" moments so far from the Republican National Convention:

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

Edit:

"Maverick my ass. Doing adventurous things is past his bedtime." - Natalie, re: Sen. McCain

Welcome to Wherever You Are

I'm in a weird weird mood today, and I guess for the past couple of days. I've been so so so busy every night, starting the second I leave work to the time I finally convince the kittens to stay still and nod off. I rush home to feed them and then run off to meet people or take care of things, and as soon as I'm out of the metro, I spend every second returning phone calls that I've received during the day- from the vet, the animal shelter, the doctor, family friends. It feels good to be efficient but it's a little hectic. Yesterday I was home for five minutes between 8:30 am and 10:15 pm. Then I obviously spent 2 hours playing with Zoe and Rhett.

My sister sent me a funny story today. Hee hee

There's a reason for this post. I wanted to write about my weird mood, but I can't put it into words. The best way I can describe is that I'm dying for something exciting to happen. I mean different than whatsherbutt speaking at the RNC tonight. I mean I want to go somewhere and do something and meet some people.

Words suck.


Craving o' moment: Chipotle
Obsession o' day: Josh and Donna

The Black Vera Wang

I've recently become obsessed with Mark Harmon. I'll have to start watching NCIS.

THE TICKETS:

Democrats:
Barack Obama and Joey Biden

Love love love love this ticket.
(are you kidding me? JOE BIDEN'S MOM FOR PRESIDENT)
Nothing more to say.

Republicans:
John McCain and Sarah Palin

I used to think that it was so smart for the GOP to put up McCain for pres. I still believe that, but less so now that I have realized he's 72. 8 years ago would have been better. 8 years ago he wouldn't have picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, because 8 years ago she was still just a hockey mom and only had a couple kids and was 36 years old.
Two things younger than John McCain - (1) Sarah Palin's home state, Alaska, and (2) Sarah Palin's parents. That's right, John McCain is the age of a great-granddaddy. well, in 4 months.

I'm sure there are people that love Gov. Palin. I'm sure she's a lovely person and a wonderful mother. However, I'm truly terrified of her, and would really rather she not be a heart beat away from an office in the West Wing.

I love my kittens. Almost as much as I love Mark Harmon.

Just kidding, I love my kittens more. They are, coincidentally, much more cuddly to me than Mark Harmon.

My musing of the day:
What would lawyers do without Portable Document Format??? Probably die off quickly, is my guess.

Bartlet for America

Back in the District. My apartment is still super depressing, as it lacks furniture and sunlight. The first situation I plan on rectifying, but the second, I fear I can do nothing about.

I'm sitting in Katzen for the internet; I was waiting for Professor Abraham but gave up on that about an hour ago. So now I'm just here.

DC's hot and full of bugs. I love days like today, when there's no humidity; it feels almost like Central Oregon. I wish I had taken pictures when I was down there this summer. I only took pictures of the kids. I don't even think I have any on my phone.

Sunriver

I take that back, I have one. When I was driving down, I decided to take the Mercedes convertible (!) off of the highway in Sisters and see if I could find my old house. We lived there for I guess about 3 or 4 years when I was pretty little. I don't remember that much about it, other than that it was pink, and there was a huge air conditioning unit on the side, some ponderosas in the front yard, and the house number was 12345 McKenzie Drive, except that the numbers weren't in that order, they were mixed up.

I found the house, and it was for sale. $534,000. They've paved the driveway, painted the exterior (no longer pink, now classy brown with dark red), and ripped up the carpet and finished the floors. I grabbed a flier to give to my mom. I took out my phone, and took only one picture, of the deer napping shade of the the front yard.

Mandatory Minimums

Mini-Super Tuesday is coming up, March 4.
I'm pretty sure the general consensus is that if Sen. Clinton doesn't win Ohio AND Texas, her campaign is pretty much over. Which is sad. It's kind of unclear at this point what exactly is going to happen though.

Green Skittles taste like toilet cleaner. Disgusting.

The Crackpots and These Women

The 2008 United States Presidential Election has officially gone Batshit Insane.

1) Sen. Obama has won the last 10 primaries. Ahead in the count by 150 delegates. Where did this come from?? Sen. Clinton's campaign is on rooftops screaming about how this was not supposed to happen.

2) Sen. McCain potentially had an affair with a really hot lobbyist (who totally looks like his wife). This is kind of a big deal? and has taken the press away from...

3) Sen. Clinton accused Sen. Obama of plagiarizing a speech material from the Governor of Massachusetts. However, Sen. Obama has stated that he and Gov. Deval Patrick are close friends and borrow words from each other frequently. So, that move does seem a liiiiittle desperate, but when a person can get kicked out of college and have their entire career ruined for plagiarizing and it's no big deal for a presidential candidate... I see her point.

Unfortunately I couldn't watch the debate, because I had rehearsal. Classic.

I like the knowledge that no matter what, we will have a U.S. Senator be elected President in November, which has not happened since Nixon in 1972.

Other than that, the rest of my life really sucks.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations. - from President Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Mr. Willis of Ohio

Tomorrow is Hawaii and Wisconsin. Word on the street is that Sen. Obama is leading Sen. Clinton in Wisconsin by a few points, but you never know.

I've signed up to go to Ohio next weekend (March 1 already??) to campaign for Sen. Obama. Not sure if I'm going to actually go or not. It's been kind of frustrating to see his supporters turn into a cult.

Too much to do this week. Rehearsal got cancelled tonight but all I've done since 4:50 is eat dinner, drool at apartment floor plans online, and fantasize on ikea.com. I have to decide what to do for my little tonight, write a lab, read a book, read a long chapter, read the rest of the universe, write some papers, in that order. I wish school was more learning and less work. Also, Mondays suck.