Archive for October, 2008

No, seriously. I don’t have kids.

It seems like people have always thought I’m older than I really am.  I’m sure there are a variety of reasons for that.  The summer after I got out of high school I worked with a bunch of late 20-somethings through 40 yr olds and they always invited me out to the bars with them after work.  It wasn’t until the end of that summer that they found out I was 17, not 28.  All through college people continued to think I was much older - probably because of the bald head thing and the facial hair.

Today really took the cake though.  Liz and I were meeting up at the theater to see Oliver Stone’s latest - W.  While I was waiting in the lobby for her to get off work, a woman kept smiling at me from about 5 feet away.  I eventually did the polite thing and said, “hi.”  I’m not sure if that was a good thing or bad thing.  She wouldn’t stop talking to me.  I kinda feel like she was hitting on me.  Turns out she was there waiting for her high-school-aged-daughter to come out of a movie to give her a ride home.  She apparently assumed I was there to pick up my 15 yr old too.  I told her I wasn’t waiting for my child, then had to repeatedly reinforce the fact I don’t even have kids.  Let’s just say I felt saved when Liz finally showed up and I could walk away.

Indecision 2008

It’s not often that I talk about politics.  I definitely have my opinions, but I don’t often try to push those on others…especially ones I don’t know.  You’ll probably be hard pressed to find me knocking door-to-door or standing on a corner with a sign about any issue.

I’ve always considered myself a Republican and it’s only in the past 5 years or so that I’ve started realizing there’s more to life than having the biggest military in the world and making sure that certain religious issues are going the way I want.  This year is a big year for an election.  I feel whomever takes office will be at a turning point for our nation.  The past decade has seen some radical changes in economics, military might, world leaders, and global perception.  Couple that with the current economic crisis, health care issues, ongoing education issues, etc, etc. and there’s a lot that could go well or poorly.

On top of all this, 2009 is the first year there will be either a non-white man or a woman will be part of the executive branch.  It’s about time if you ask me.  I don’t always keep up on all the updates, who said what, latest speeches and policies.  One thing I do try to keep track of is the debates.  The hard part is deciphering all of the “make you feel good” statements from what the candidate can actually accomplish.  This time around it’s been strikingly apparent to me that McCain is just an angry old man on the verge of boiling over.  He constantly interrupts, attacks, doesn’t keep to the time limits, and seems disrespectful.  I’m not saying that Obama isn’t guiltly  of some of the same things, I’ve just noticed it consistently from McCain.

Yesterday Rolling Stone printed an article about McCain and his maverick-ness.  It’s a long read, 10 pages to be exact, but I think it’s worth reading.  I’m sure many will dismiss the content purely because of the source, however, most of this stuff I’ve heard before from many other more reputable news sources.  Everybody knows how McCain acted while he was in the Navy.  It should be common knowledge that his father and grandfather were two of the greatest Naval Admirals this country has ever seen.  I also know my mother’s opinion of him as a politician from Arizona because we used to live there when I was a child.

Oh, and Palin - don’t even get me started on her.  I firmly believe McCain is wondering why his people told him to pick her as a running mate.  I don’t care that she’s a woman or the way she speaks or the fact that she hasn’t been in politics very long.  More and more stuff, scandalous stuff, just keeps coming to the surface about her.  Even if you ignore that, it’s hard to ignore her lack of knowledge when it comes to things a vice president should know like Supreme Court cases, laws, processes, or even just having a general opinion about the war in Iraq.  She scares me.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I still consider myself a Republican, but there’s no way I’m voting McCain/Palin this year.

Robert Forster

Last week I totally thought Mr. Petrelli sounded like Max Cherry from Jackie Brown.

Brick Walls

Since moving to New Hampshire, I’ve had the pleasure of living somewhere with exposed brick walls.  This was and is pretty cool, but the one complaint I’ve had is all the debris that seems to fall from them.  For a while I’ve been thinking I should attach the hose to the vacuum cleaner and try to clean them up a bit, but haven’t done it.  This week Liz took some initiative (aka avoiding homework) and worked on the living room a bit.  Today I worked on what I had access to in my offce/old elevator shaft/the Lebowski Podcast Headquarters.  You’d be surprised how much dust and stuff is just sitting there on the brick ledges.

Is this a common thing for interior brick walls?

Chicken Ranch Pizza

All the pizza here in New Hampshire is pretty lame so I’ve had to resort to making my own.  Moving to Indiana I thought I was in the doldrums of pizza creativity, boy was I wrong.  You should check out the Northeast!  Instead of typing, typing, typing about this pizza, I decided to tell a story in pictures instead.

VP Debate

Does anybody else have trouble not seeing Tina Fey whenever Governor Palin is on screen?  Fey even has the voice down.  This debate came off so much more like a high school debate to me.  There were points, counter points, and nobody was interrupting each other.  Biden seemed to be at east the whole time and there were definite moments where Palin seemed flustered to me.  Biden also seemed to have done his homework and was ready with details, reasons, and statistics for all his answers.  I think my favorite part was when he acknowledged Cheney as being quite possibly the most dangerous Vice President our country has seen.  Now I can’t wait to see what SNL has for us next week.