Truth.

perhaps...

On third waffle, I've decided to delete my last post where I talked about a photo of some random guy's poor--or insensitive, at least; take your pick--choice of Halloween costume. I didn't really need to use the picture--of a guy whom I've never even met--to make this point:

Racism is racism. And it's not funny.

Found Gayness...

Serious question here:



Does anyone else find the choreographed, pre-boxing match stare-down thing incredibly homosexual?

Just kiss him already, eyeesh.

President Obama...

It still feels exciting to write it: President Obama.

I've hardly slept at all since the results became clear last night, but still I've had to pinch myself a few times just to make sure I'm not in some kind of dream world. I'm truly happy, hopeful, and humbled to have been a small part of the movement that put the first African-American President into the oval office. It is exactly because that movement even existed in the first place that I am also proud today to be an American; as President Obama said during his DNC speech, his life's story would not even be possible in any other country on this planet.

This video is of Mahalia Jackson's performance of "The Lord's Prayer" at the Newport Jazz festival, 50 years ago. Somehow, today, it seemed appropriate to share:




To my conservative friends: if there's anyone in the world who could understand your feelings of disappointment and resentment at this moment, it's a guy--like me!--who picked Kerry and Gore the last two times around. It gets easier, I promise...but please, take heart: given the slate of crises facing the U.S. right now, more than ever, our country needs everyone to come together around a common sense of pragmatism, not pep-rally style "us vs. them" politics.

To my liberal friends: yes, the victory was sweet, but we're all still on the same team. I'm sure you remember how bad it felt 4 years ago when Bush was re-elected... That being said, let's try to cut the "nanny nanny boo boo"/"told ya so" stuff this time around. Doesn't help anybody.

This country has a lot of work to do. Let's all--conservative, liberal, whatever--just pray we've chosen a man who is up to the task of digging us out of this whole we're still in.

Why Am I Voting For Obama?

So I was asked a couple days ago: why Obama?

McCain wants to make sure this guy's taxes stay low--so he might be able to take an extra trip to Aruba this Spring...



and Obama wants to make this guy's taxes lower--so he might be able to heat his house this winter while eating something other than ramen.



(Oh yea, and the pre-Bush levels to which the cigar smoker's taxes would rise? The same as they were under that socialist swine of a President, Ronald Reagan.)

Bell's Palsy is Nothing to Laugh About...

There's an interesting article and video on the LA Times' website about an 11 year-old girl with Bell's Palsy. Check out the video, about 35 seconds in, where the girl's mother is shown talking about her daughter's condition. Eyeesh, if my mom had hair and makeup like that, I wouldn't be smiling either.

*And for the record, the girl looks cooler than shit sans smile.

iTunes is my Church

I had a pretty productive--in music nerd terms, mind you--day today. If you'd examine the screengrab of my iTunes library's stats below, I think you'd be impressed.



That's right. Even after cleaning out and deleting 4.8 gigs of superfluous, duplicate files from my hard drive's music folder...I STILL have sixty days, twenty-three hours, thirty minutes and thirty-nine seconds of pure jams in my iTunes library. O'Doyle rules.

And that's not it: I also got around to installing the latest iPhone update, which contained a rather important bug fix, which allowed me to finally use more than one custom ringtone on the ol' iPhone at once; instead of just having the same, boring ringtone for everyone in my phone.

Banjo Jimmy's ring is now The Seldom Scene's bluegrass version of "Hail to the Redskins." (He also is a 'Skins season ticket holder, so double appropriateness points there.) Whenever Dubs or Jake call me from their cells, I'll hear Wolf Parade's "I'll Believe in Anything," although that might not be too often, considering Jake's living in Portland now, and Kent hasn't had a permanent (or domestic) address for over a year. Art's calls are signaled by "2080" by Yeasayer, which we've been jamming out on for, like, over a year, NBD. Kristin's calls ring as "Astro" by The White Stripes, just because they're her favorite band ever, and "Conquest" just wasn't available as a ringtone. Yale and Ronno are assigned to that "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" song by that Scatman John guy from the 90's, simply because that song is way funnier to the three of us than it possibly could be to anyone else. Blue Öyster Cult's "Godzilla" now rings for Fink, because he has the musical tastes of a middle-aged rocker, despite the fact that he's in his 20's.

And "Wagon Wheel"...you know who you are. =]

Ugh, Sarah Palin...

Thanks to a stop over at my internet friend Tania Rochelle's excellent--check it out if you haven't!--blog The Stone's Colossal Dream, I now know that the single highest-paid staffer on John McCain's payroll during the first half of October is...Sarah Palin's makeup artist. Who earned $22,800 during said fortnight. Seriously: how is it that, with straight faces, this woman's handlers are able to buy $150,000 wardrobes for her and pay her makeup artist the amount of money for 2 weeks' work that most "real" Americans take closer to 52 to earn...and still have the gall to claim that she "understands the problems of day to day life in America"?

As my friend Mugatu once said, "I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!"

Lo Siento

To the 3-4 people who may actually read this blog of mine, apologies for the recent lack of fresh posts. I shall remedy this immediately.