Clinton versus McCain, Obama, the Democrats, and Common Sense…

I wouldn’t call myself anything… not a Democrat, not a Republican… not really anything.  I vote for the person I (in my opinion) has the best chance of making the best impact on the nation.  I do tend to lean toward the Democrats, and have voted with them in my short voting history.

This time around, I will be leaning toward Barack Obama, and Democrats in general.  It’s probably important for me to establish that bias.

 

I’ve been watching the whole Democratic nomination process with a mix of fascination and horror.  Mostly horror.  I’ve heard it said numerous times before that the Democrats are the best when it comes to shooting themselves in the foot and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.  I never thought I would actually see it.

Now, I do actually like John McCain.  I think he’s a good man.  And I would have been perfectly fine with him winning the election in 2000.  But this is a different time and place than 2000 was, and he seems to have almost sold his soul for the Presidency… something that I cannot back in good conscious.  So to see Hillary Clinton practical give the Presidency to McCain is just apalling.

Her run for the White House currently reeks of a need to fulfill some sort of entitled position.  She reeks of it.  It’s hard to say that because prior to this year, I really did like her, and come November, there’s still a good chance I’ll vote for her.  But to watch her current strategy of fear-mongering and negativity… it puts some doubts into my mind.

And therein lays the problem.  By grasping for a win against Obama, she is now being seen as dragging the entire party’s chances down just because she feels she is entitled to the White House.  I look over and watch as Romney and eventually Huckabee gave up their fights to allow McCain more time to mount his presidential campaign and I wonder why the Democrats have yet to do that.

By this point, it’s a statistical guarantee that Obama has this in the bag (at least from the view of the normal, everyday voters and not the super-delegates).  But if she keeps this up, and actually manages to coral the super-delegates to change the will of the voters, I fear that the Democrats’ chances will implode and they’ll lose their best chance at the office in years.

After that point, my only hope will be that somewhere in McCain 2008 is a vestige of McCain 2000, and that all of his pandering was just to keep his chances alive.

Please… Please Say It Isn’t So…

I saw LOST today.  I won’t give away anything, but it was sad.  Tremendously sad.  Actually a mix of hope and sad.

And when you see it, if you see it, I don’t think the ending is entirely what it seems.  (Oh, by the way, I totally knew it the structure of the show was playing out the way it was.)

If the episode of Desmond was one of the best (if not the best), I think this one was one of the saddest (though still great).

I need to take a long moment to digest this episode.

Dedicated Learn-Quest

I need to really start pushing myself on this whole grad school thing.  I let myself slack far too much for my own good, which is really quite sad because if I’m honest with myself, I have a good deal of potential and natural talent (at least in learning things).

I had a goal of taking the GRE around my birthday, but I feel like I’m not ready for it, which is primarily because I haven’t been studying as dilligently as I should be.  I have been going over some of the GRE vocabulary I should know, and practicing that with short story writing and such, but it isn’t the vocab part that I’m worried about anyway.  It’s the math.  The math that I used to be so good at and now probably no less than a fifth grader.  (God I hope that isn’t true.)

On the good news front though, Children’s Hospital is starting up their volunteer program at their Psych Unit, which is something I have been waiting for now.  They have an orientation two Wednesdays from now, which I intend to take.  However, I am having second thoughts about whether I should join that unit, since I’m actually really enjoying the Childlife department right now and I know I’ll miss those people.  Plus, the psych unit is going to be more trying and probably even depressing from time to time compared to the Childlife unit.

But I shouldn’t be in this field if I’m worried about a child’s mental disorder depressing me, right?  And there is only one real way to find out if I have what it takes to deal with that population, and that would be to work with them.

It’ll be a worthwhile endeavor in the end.

My Toon Link Can Kick Your Wario’s Ass!

Super Smash Bros Brawl is out for the Wii!

In college this is what we played for hours in the common room.  This and sometimes Mario Kart… but mostly this.  I remember picking up that controller and playing the original Smash Bros for the N64.  That was probably the most fun game for that system and it began my addiction to beating up on other people using Link or Pikachu (especially when Pikachu wore the blue hat, and was thus known as Blue-Hat Pikachu).

Then came the Nintendo Gamecube and Super Smash Bros Melee, a launch title for the new (at the time) system.  I was on that immediately and through rigorous training, I again became master of Link and Pikachu, and this time added two more to my Smash List: Young Link and Luigi.  (You have no idea how many people I would piss off by using Luigi’s human fireball mode to instantly smash a player off-stage.)  I actually became better with Young Link than with Link because of Young Link’s speed and patented suction spin attack.

So you can imagine how excited I was when the Wii came out.  With it came the promise of another Smash Bros title… and sure enough… we have Brawl.

I’ve been playing Brawl now for the past few days, finally unlocking the Young Link equivalent: Toon Link.

Ah, love.  I can’t wait to get good enough to have a crazy-ass tournament!

How Much I Love Arrested Development!

I’m sitting here, relaxing on Amanda’s couch and watching the Pilot episode for Arrested Development.  I love Arrested Development.  Every year around this time or so, I start up my Arrested Development marathon.

It saddens me to no end that this show ended its run early.  It should still be on the air to be honest.  It’s funny and witty and pioneering in ways.

And it seems like whenever a really great, game-changing thing or show comes along, it gets killed.  Especially when the life of something, such as a show, is in the hands of corporations and executives that have no creative imagination at all.  (I’m looking at you FOX.)

At least this show came on around the time of TV on DVD so I can enjoy it over and over again.  And there are also the rumors of an Arrested Development movie in the works.