squidbag

10:48

(Note: picture taken in Cayce & Matt's kitchen of recently awakened children - observe Abby's bed-head and Max's dazed look - and Nimbus, one of the house dogs. Snapped at approximately 10:48.)

Thanksgiving vacations should all be as idyllic and as chill as this one.

I took Wednesday off from work, which turned out to be a very good move.  We packed and left, making it out by noonish, and ate a late lunch with my mom and grandmother in Chattanooga.  Aside from an unfortunate incident with a hidden pepper in a dish of obscene pico de gallo, all was well, if a bit rushed.  That night we hit the spot - the spot in this case being the home of Cayce and Matt on the EL in the ATL.

Over the next three days and nights, we hung out, played, read, ate, joked, drove, shopped, and yelled a lot at dogs and small children.  Kids inhabit, and thus, dominate, most of my waking hours, as any parent will tell you.  To live with Matt and Cayce is indeed to live among the dogs.  More than once on this trip I thought to myself, "We should get away somewhere with them where there is an open bar and dogs and kids are not allowed."  However, the simple fact is that we love our dogs and children (I love their dogs so much I brought a large percentage of dog home on my clothes), and we have chosen to spend our lives with them.  But digress, do I.

The time at their home was wonderful, as they are warm and gracious hosts & embarrassingly generous.  We were actually showered with gifts of furniture and wall hangings as we were leaving.  Okay, not literally showered, that might have stung.  Comics were purchased and pedicures were had, wine was drunk and cigars were smoked - there was much talk, and not a little Wii.  Edicts were shouted through a dime store ceramic Chinese monkey.  Matt's last minute turkey pot pies are now on my list of favorite foods, and if I ever get a death row meal there is no doubt that they will be there next to Cayce's pumpkin spice cake.  (My wife's fried chicken, my own chili, Grace's squash casserole, Josh's eggs, and my mom's sausage balls would likely fill this list out, along with some limeade and a freshly pulled Guinness.)  Their dog Blaze is fucking massive now, and they are deluding themselves that he's almost done growing.  He had a fascination with tasting Abby's face while we were there, which was both amusing and annoying.  There were naps and long wasted stretches of time - everything a Turkey Day vacation ought to have these days.

An antique toy clock outside of our room was stopped at 10:48.  There is nothing better for a long weekend's break than a stopped clock outside your room.  "Seemed late when you finally came to bed last night."  "Wasn't but about 10:48."  Got in the shower at 10:48, came out a little past 10:48.  Kids went to bed at 10:48.  "When did you get up?"  10:48.  We ate at about 10:48.  Nothing reinforces timelessness on a vacation like that.  I loved it.  I'm thinking about doing that again at Christmas.

Hope everyone else had as good a Turkey Day as I did.  But you probably didn't.

The Coral Reef Project

To be a much more family-friendly entry than this one, which still gets several hits a week.  From who, I can't imagine, but someone is typing in all three of the operative words into Google on a regular basis.

Last week our small home was dominated by this project. As part of Max's classroom group's focus on the coral reef biome, his individual focus was one of its most mysterious denizens, the jellyfish.  He would have done Grey Reef Sharks but found a paucity of library material, supposedly.  We could have been doing it over the weekend, but we had missed a note.  So we waded into it on Monday night, planning the logistics of how the thing would come together, throwing out my first really bad idea, and with Max spending an hour or more on the initial background artwork, while C dragged books off of shelves in the main library and in Max's room.  Tuesday featured the buying of the spray paint and the first coat, and also the trip to the craft store to get the hot glue gun and the things it would inevitably hot glue.  The heavy research, chaired by mom and with Max as an initially reluctant partner, spilled onto the web, and eventually brought in the Silverman family.  Max got into it around here, I think, and by Wednesday night's final prep was way into seeing the thing through while simultaneously having grown weary of looking at it.  Final coloring and memorizing of salient data was accomplished here, and the payoff was pulling into the circle to drop him off on Thursday morning.

The other projects I saw looked like anemic boxes of half-effort by comparison.  You other children should be ashamed, for it's clear you don't love biomes, habitats, or your chosen creature like Max and his team did.  Max's presentation was also apparently the bomb, inasmuch as he got laughs, taught the teacher something, and ended with an informal Q & A that produced more A than Q.  He thinks he slam dunked this project - the first one of these we've really come together on.

This now ranks in my mind with the to-scale Acropolis I did for 6th grade History and Mrs. Wood's class, and the pinata for Junior Spanish.

Broken Culture

Blame Warren Ellis, for I saw this on his blog first.

Meet Brokencyde, who suck and should be destroyed.  I challenge you to stay on their MySpace for more than a couple of minutes without blood coming out.  These brain-dead posers in the video are as empty as real gangsta rap, but you can tell that they've injected a weird screamo thing into it, rented a Vocoder and pig suit, and went out and made a video in somebody's driveway.  When your inspirational icons are sports mascots and T-Pain, you leave a fuckload to be desired.  It freaks me the fuck out that they have concert dates.   And people apparently show up.  Sad, sad people, devoid of direction, taste, community, real friends or higher brain function.

Apparently, "screamer" is something you can be in a band, if a "band" is indeed what this is.  I wish I had known about this shit sooner.  I am also amused that you can sing (kind of) the word "fuck" but apparently, you can't type it out as a graphic. And who are these easily-led girls who agreed to be in this shitty little video?  Wow.  There's a step ahead for women.  And they can't even dance.  Maybe that's the point, though.  Which assumes there was a point, which I feel is probably giving everyone involved in this waste far too fucking much credit.

My favorite fan on their site?  This guy, who sums up everything that's ever been wrong with teen angst: " We were just hours away from cing you one time but my friend od on morphine =/"  What?  Not even a sad emoticon for your friend?  Just this half-assed slash guy?  Given the choice? Of OD'ing on pure, clean, bright and healing morphine or seeing these punk-ass doorknob suburban no-talent losers in person?  No hesitation.  Real crunk comes from unadulterated opiate-based painkillers, you skinny little bitch people.  I love that the disc is available at Hot Topic, too.  Another symptom of fucking stupid mall culture that needs to be scraped off what's left of my sneaker.

Fuck the BC13.  I have to go wash my brains now.

Morning at the Mall

I spent my Saturday morning at a mall.  Not just a mall, but a huge bloated scab that formed over the theme park of my youth when they tore it down for the acres-massive consumer orgasm waste of fucking space called Opry Mills, just one jewel in the tawdry crown of the Simon Mall Empire.  It's so big it backs up traffic on I-65 when people are trying to get in.  It has absolutely everything.  You can see an IMAX movie. You can buy a fucking canoe, get books, toys, a massage, and a cheeseburger all within fifty paces of each other.  I counted.

One of Max's friends from school had a birthday party at Opry Mills' Aquarium Restaurant.  Don't get me wrong - I love the Aquarium Restaurant, I really do.  The irony is a bit thick, but there we are.  I apologize to Max's fish (who live in the kitchen) when I put the lox on C's morning bagel, so I acknowledge the inherent contradiction in which I live.  I'd like to see the paradox of the Aquarium Restaurant expanded; a steakhouse in a cattleyard, perhaps, or a fried chicken place in a factory farm.  That wouldn't really be an equivalent, though, since as far asI can tell, the fish are treated pretty well.  They look well enough.  Anyway, I like the atmosphere and the food, though I didn't go there today, I just dropped Max off and killed two and three-quarters hours.  In a fucking mall.

And I forgot my book.  Good thing about a mall, you can buy a book.  So I got this one.  It's excellent.  I sat in a massage chair (which hurt my back) for ten minutes and read.  Then I went and got chili fries and a mediocre burger at a Johnny Rockets.  Don't go to Johnny Rockets.  First off, they make an attempt to harken back to an earlier, more innocent time of diners and soda jerks and institutional racism and sexism, and you can kind of tell when you look around. Based on the music, that period in our nation's history was anywhere between 1955 and 1979.  Second, it's overpriced, but you had to expect that from this hard-on of a restaurant, with it's cheap fake chrome and tabletop juke box replicas labeled "FOR DISPLAY ONLY."  Rap on that, Fonzie.  Good luck.  Then you can go jump the shark down at the Aquarium Restaurant.  Third, they crank the interior sound system and do a little dance to Cosmic Bowling lights when "Saturday Night Fever" comes on.  I thought places like this only existed in sitcoms.  Fuck Johnny Rockets.  I left.

I quickly realized that the damn mall was much easier to take when I put my sunglasses back on, so I did.  I walked for a little while.  When I was a kid, I had expendable income and girls I wanted to talk to who worked in malls, so I spent a fair time in them, but really only in the stores where I was buying media or talking to people I liked.  I never just "cruised the mall."  And I certainly didn't do it with a completely vacant expression plastered over my face, phone pressed against the side of my empty fucking head, and roaming with a pack that looks big enough to be a high school athletic society.  They seemed to be completely gender-segregated, which is mystifying, and huge.  Like ten guys, on an aimless death march to nowhere.  Or six girls, pack hunting, all with identical hair and earrings.  At least that seems kind of familiar.

I could literally have bought Nikes seven times.  I could have had a cone of "German-style roasted snack nuts" for seven dollars.  I can only assume these come from what have been classified as inferior races.  I watched a guy make most of a banjo.  I watched a security guard screw with his fucking Blackberry for nearly ten minutes without looking up, and as soon I realized that I could have walked past him with an AK-47 slung over my shoulder, I started thinking about that.  How easy it would be, and why somebody might do that.  I sat on a bench and read for a good long time after that, my guts churning with mall food and some asshole's nervous leg syndrome vibrating the goddamn bench from the other side until I called time out on him.  About the time one of Nashville's preeminent Christian stations started gearing up for a live band performance onstage, I decided it was time to go.

Max had a great time, and to his credit, thanked me for "dealing with the mall" so he could go.

Unitarian Jihad

Found in various places on Facebook, my Unitarian Jihad Name is:

Brother Atom Bomb of Warm Humanitarianism.

Get yours.

You all know it's true.  I am your Brother, and I am an Atom Bomb of Warm Humanitarianism.  Anytime a group of people gets together and discusses the Squidbag, humanitarianism always comes up.  Seriously, though - apparently, this whole thing comes from here, kind of, and you should read it - I found it amusing.  I could never be a Unitarian, since I find even them, from the pointed corner of my white room of religious isolation, to be a little creepily ritualistic and confining.  It's the idea of getting together to worship.  You have to picture me kicking God's enormous big toe, shaking my fist, and in a tinny voice yelling, "You think you're better than me?  Stupid high-hat God, puttin' on airs..."  Probably I would also feel the same feelings about a book club or drum circle, and would find myself ultimately demurring and saying things like,"it's not you, it's me," and meaning it.  In truth, I don't know how you church folk get over resentment at giving up part of your weekends to dress up, stand around, sing and talk to invisible people, much less the rest of it.

I would probably get kicked out of my church anyway, for voting for Obama.

Overwhelmed?

No, it's not that I have nothing to write about.

Just after the elections, of course, and then with my birthday, you would have thought that my output would increase.  This has not been so, and that is because I am just a little overwhelmed at present.  With everything, it seems.  First off, let me say that the generous and heartfelt birthday wishes from everyone were just fantastic, with one exception, from someone who I wish would take a hint and leave me alone.  That exception aside, however, I was made to feel loved and included and dare I say it, special, for a brief time.  Then, to put a stop to my spiraling introspection, I blew my brains out with drink.  Always a solid formula.

It resulted in an evening of abandoning my responsibilities, followed by a day of rest and recuperation.  The two together made me realize a few things: As much fun as I had on Friday night, I miss my responsibilities when I am not on top of them, I feel a palpable absence when I am not fulfilling them.  I also do not recuperate as fast as I once did, and now there are people around who will notice the difference.  To wit; I have had one of the infamous moments of clarity often experienced by those who enjoy chemicals, and do not think I will be doing what I did on Friday ever again.  I won't say it wasn't worth it, because it was.  I just think I'm done now.  Not swearing off booze, mind you - just that thing.  The excess, regurgitation and fighting with cab drivers.  Time, as always, will tell.

Other people's lives have become intertwined with mine in a way I thought I had done a better job avoiding, but now would not trade the world for.  Family and friends seem to change less and less glacially all the time, and gargantuan changes keep signaling upheaval which seems to be lasting.  My children are having an interesting time with school and social stuff in a way that kind of makes me resent that they must be tainted with the rest of the world, as Rousseau-unrealistic as that is.  The temptation, then, is to hole up under a blanket on the couch and snuggle them instead of venturing me and mine out into the open air.  The stresses of simple maintenance and duty weigh on me through all of this, and on the horizon is the season of added extras - a time for piling on stuff that needs doing, that must be accomplished, that needs to be seen through.

Pretty vague, but if you're privy to any of this, some of it will make sense to you.  Basically, I'm ready for shit to slow down for a while.  Let me step back and get a better view of things, let's make some kind of long-term plan, instead of reacting all the damn time.

Further musings as time allows.

The Plan Revealed

Yeah, you fucking suckers, we tricked you.  You should have listened to your "crackpot" emails about Obama.  But you didn't.  They sounded so crazy, you dismissed them.  And we were counting on that.

We got the big Liberal Leftist Militant Black Muslim Atheist Terrorist Anti-Christ Socialist Marxist Obama elected, and within days of him taking office, the SECRET LIBERAL AGENDA will come to pass through a series of executive orders, each more bone-chilling than the last, if you're a conservative American.  First off, Dick Cheney and George Bush will be extracted from secret locations and/or Crawford, Texas, and will be paraded through the street naked in manacles before being forced to submit and bow at the feet of the new leader of the free world, who has two shoes, one for each of them to clean with his tongue.  Dick will then be shot in the face while Bush is force-fed pretzels.  After that, the Republican Party will continue its whirling descent into fractured madness, and will inevitably split into hundreds of tiny social issue based parties - the Right to Life Party, Americans for Jesus, the Anti-Gay Agenda, The Invisible Hand, White People for Change, and so on.

Smaller hate groups, in an attempt to mainstream, will split into more and more minuscule factions, eventually ceasing to exist.  An ill-advised alliance between the Klan and Westboro's Fred Phelps leads to a surprise mass murder by Easter, wiping out the heads of both organizations.  Meanwhile, the ACLU will become a part of the legislative branch of government.

Ann Coulter will be executed live during game three of the Stanley Cup series by the author of this blog, because blood bounces on ice.  Method of execution: gagged and not allowed to speak - eventually, her little head will blow up.  Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh will abandon their careers as pundits, and form a separatist state from part of what is now Montana.  Swift and brutal government action will quash this rebellion, and the empty heads of all three men will be put on gleaming pikes behind the fence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  Barack Obama will consume the hearts of all three men, thus eating their eternal souls.  During this, the Fox News Network will continue to flounder, as its predictions come to pass and it claims the pride of being right as it simultaneously drifts to center to avoid being culled.  This will fail as Rupert Murdoch is extradited back to Australia, and Fox, MySpace, and the Dow Jones revert to American control.  The producers of the Daily Show, together with Rachel Maddow, take over the news division at Fox, which drops its "Fair and Balanced" brand in favor of "Left is Right."  A giant poster of Barack Obama is hung in the square of every major American city.  USA Today ceases to exist, and infomercials are outlawed.  Holy books are only allowed to be sold in specially designated stores.

Churches, the ones allowed to remain, will be taxed for 75% of total revenue, unless they wish to become legal non-profit charitable organizations and can demonstrate on paper that they funnel that amount into previously defined social improvement endeavors, such as feeding the hungry or providing clothing and housing to those in need of it.  Religious broadcasting will become illegal under new FCC guidelines, and preaching will be confined to churches during the hours set aside for such behavior.  Religious schools will have government oversight, and evangelical and missionary behavior will be tightly regulated under new provisions to the First Amendment.  All mentions of deity will be removed from our official documents, history, buildings and currency.  The White House creates a panel on Radical Islamic Exploration, and begins a dialogue with Al-Qaeda, discussing the effects of blowback. The 10 Commandments will actually be smashed by Reverend Jeremiah Wright after American Idol one evening, kicking off a 50 state tour where he eliminates all publicly displayed remaining copies of the Commandments with a sledgehammer bearing the seal of the Office of the President.  Rev. Wright and TD Jakes will both have offices in the White House.

Same sex marriages are not only written into the Constitution of the United States, but the validity of "One Man, One Woman" comes under fire as well.  Abortions are made legal and safe across the land, and many women become pregnant just so they can have a celebration abortion.  The missionary position will be made illegal, as will any vocation which demands celibacy.  The skies will blacken with smoke from your burning houses of worship and your sacred texts, and there will be perverted sex acts in public places.  The streets will run with the fluids of passion.

The Pledge of Allegiance is now illegal.

Hawaii is allowed now to restore its monarchy, all the while maintaining the benefits of statehood.  The breadbasket of the United States is declared tribal lands for all Native Americans, and flyover permission must now be granted by the newly formed United Tribes, who also have jurisdiction over drilling and mineral rights.  A new EPA is formed with tribal elders at its head, and is now given final say over the dispensation of land for any purpose.  While the States are still united, it is a forced arrangement no longer - imperialism is dead.  Our borders are now open for free and easy immigration, so illegal immigration becomes a thing of the the past.  A flood of Mexicans provides for the huge amount of labor improving our infrastructure will require during the changes, and whites quickly become a minority.  A new "White Flight" across the Atlantic Ocean is written about.

Corporations are legally defined as "groups of people working together to produce a good or service for a profit that benefits the individuals in the group as well as the United States" and are then stripped of any other rights beyond this.  Property rights will become a thing of the past, and once a week a group of people in trucks will come and audit the inventory of your homes and bank accounts.  If it is found that you have more than you need, your wealth will of course be redistributed.  Universal health care will become a right, but along with it will come restrictive but perfectly common sense rules about living a healthy life if you want to stay in the program.  Get ready for a sober, non-smoking, vegan America.  On bikes, probably.

William Ayers is made Secretary of Homeland Security, and immediately draws up a "to go" list.  Urban renewal involving large segments of the military industrial complex follows hard upon.  The Black Panthers replace the Secret Service as Presidential Security detail, and each major city is required to have a branch office of Panthers for the purposes of Presidential visits.  Local police forces are now run by the Panthers in coalition with the Nation of Islam, and every citizen must complete three years of domestic peacekeeping service.

What else?  Oh, yeah.  Weed is legal, sex ed will be taught to pre-schoolers using porn, we're giving your job to a black guy, Spanish is printed on everything, your car's a hybrid, Gays and Jews control everything, your kids have dyed hair and listen to crap music, we're putting Hillary in as Secretary of Health and Kerry in over at Defense; in short, it's your worst nightmare.

Moo-hah-ha.

Election Day Aftermath(s)

Euphoria never lasts.  Other stimuli come along, and the responses to them dilute the good feelings until you find yourself awake at four in the morning standing outside looking at the rain, or curled up on the couch watching an old Frank Sinatra movie with Nazis.  Barack Obama is the President-elect of the United States of America, and already malcontents of various stripes have sounded off about this within my earshot, virtual and otherwise.  My advice: If you don't like the President of the United States, you can either shut the fuck up or start a blog and post hurtful and demeaning things about him once or twice a month for the next four years or so, more often when necessary, as dictated by the news cycle or your own personal strong feelings.  You will feel better, and it gives people the option of coming to you to get your opinion, instead of you just offering your half-assed, ignorant, and often racist POV in public forums where decent folkand indeed, myself, can't help but hear you.  It is my belief that making people come to you for vitriol is just more polite than indiscriminately spewing it out there like a toxic fart blast of rage.

See?  I believe in stuff.

I believe I'd be upset if the state I lived in came along and told me that while yes, I was allowed to fall in love with whomever I wanted, they wouldn't officially recognize that relationship.  Prop 08 is pretty fucked up, and what flummoxes me about it is that it was a balloted amendment, meaning that once the people of California were finished being manipulated by their own clergy on Sundays and the Big C Church teaming up with the Mormons' multi-million dollar ad push the rest of the week, they made another bad ballot box decision, (Conan for Governor, anyone?) and decided gay marriage was wrong.  Two things: one wonders how long after a black president is elected this puritanical hogwash will stick around; I'd like Starbucks to start requiring a morning shot of Enlightenment in with every coffee served.  And two?  The next time I hear about the Commie Fag Left Coast run by the Liberal Agenda, I'm going to punch someone in the face.  What a bunch of shit.  Lies.

In my city, I notice a lot more Obama stickers now that he's won.  I know what I think that is, but I don't want it to be true.  I did get behind a woman on the way to work last week for whom I felt really sorry.  She had a little trifecta of Thompson, Romney, and McCain/Palin.  Aw - not a fun cycle for you, was it?  Think about how far the elections are from what she wanted.

Apparently, Sarah Palin's even crazier and more self-important than we thought.  According to various reports I heard over the last few days, she addressed newspeople while clad only in a towel, she cried and threw shit at her handlers, and she tried to buck the chain of command and tradition inherent in the Presidential candidate  / VP candidate relationship.  My favorite one is the one where she refuses to take any responsibility for the campaign tanking.  Uh-huh.  Okay - yes, they ran out of money last Xmas and then cheated to get more, and yes, they had no coherent economic policy ever - but seriously, you don't think Sarah's incompetence and inexperience scared the shit out of the Old Reliable White Men voting bloc in the GOP?  Don't bullshit us, Sarah - you were off the fucking rails.

I enjoyed Obama's first press conference, though I still would like to get ahold of whatever super-cool mood altering drugs he takes to make him that smooth and unruffled.  The media's so in love with his "mutt" comment, they're tempted to take a pass on the Nancy thing.  He apologized, anyway.  Could've used more flags on stage, though.

Finally, I'm sick to death of these sore loser McCainiacs, who are about a rung and a half up the evolutionary ladder from dittoheads.  First off, all of them are saying the same non-sensical things; "Obama hasn't done anything yet, where's the magic, when do we see change?"  Are you collectively really this fucking stupid?  He's picked a chief of staff, talked about how he will use his executive powers to reverse Bush's really stupid shit, and nailed down some of the new economic stimulus stuff.  That's kind of all he can do right now.  I mean, if you guys are so blasted anxious, I'd just as soon see the Monkeyface ridden out of 1600 on a rail covered in blood oil and pretzel dust, but we typically don't do that in this country.  We have that whole pesky "ordered transition of power" thing.  So sit down, and shut the fuck up.  It'll happen - wait for it.  This incapability to experience delayed gratification is evidence that the whole nation is stunted emotionally. It's one of the reasons Xmas starts after Halloween now.

Either way, I'm not sleeping as much.  Could be the change in the air, could be the time change, could be my impending birthday - don't know what it is.  But there is now a possibility that it could work out.

"While We Breathe, We Hope."

Hope and change.  Two words that may come to mean something again.  Two words filled with promise for a different direction for the country that I love, two words which symbolize everything that all Americans should be able to expect from a living, breathing, system of governance of which it is once again possible to believe we might control.  Barack Obama is the President-elect of the United States, and he carries with him the hopes of a nation of people who do not like the way things have been, and still cling to the belief that they can be better.

In truth, I am having trouble processing the new reality of things.  I watched the stirring speech in Grant Park, and I am glad to know that this man is to be the new President, and that the future is wide open - but emotionally, I'm not entirely there yet.  I am too used to being hollowed out by electoral politics, being made (perhaps a bit unseasonally) into a jack-o-lantern inside which burns only my anger at the way things turned out.  Now, I have to abandon being upset, being in a rage at the way it went, because it went my way.  This is what I wanted.  After eight years of feeling the country hydroplaning out of control, pinwheeling chaotically no matter what kind of force was exerted against the wheel, it seems now that the tires have bit, there is traction, and we might be able to get this thing pointed back in the right direction.  Yes we can.  There is hope.

I came home tonight from work, nervous with heartburn, and flipped through channels watching it all come together.  My lovely wife tolerated this, for she is also an information junkie.  From CNN's "Help, Obama Won" appalling holo-reporter, (and this is measured against the equally appalling Mr. Wolf Blitzer) to Comedy Central's rudderless lampoons, to MSNBC's graphic-heavy coverage, (I think I'm in love with Rachel Maddow, by the way) we sat, and we made phone calls, and we looked at maps,  and we waited, and the excitement slowly built.  Again, I should point out, I still can't quite believe it.  I'm not having the trouble Matt was having, but then, Matt had dipped liberally into his own product field.  Slowly, it became clear that the polls were not bullshit, that votes did count, and that the momentum was real.

I was impressed by McCain's concession speech - a profound congratulations and a sincere call to unity marred by a booing audience.  McCain is a man of honor and dignity - his supporters, as I have long suspected, are not.  It was nice to see Tim Russert's boy doing some coverage, and it was wonderful to watch Fox News splash around in uncharted waters, often saying, "We don't really know where all of this is headed."  You're off the edge of the map, Fox.  Here there be Democrats.  Kenya is apparently declaring today a national holiday.  My son crashed on the couch, and had to be awakened to be told that Obama was now the President, a result his school reached in mock elections on Monday.

It's a lot to take in, and this entry's a little disjointed.  Let me finish with the dreams I had this morning.  And then I shall go to sleep.

One was of President-elect Obama and current President George W. Bush getting into a fistfight during the limo ride to the podium on January 20th of next year, and the resultant quandary that this would create for the Secret Service.  The other was idle speculation about relative peace, a US that had regained global respect and standing, and a bright future for my kids.

Hope.  It's a helluva thing.

You VOTE Now.

If you don't know by now...

You must vote today.  Not voting is irresponsible, unpatriotic, stupid, and invalidates your right to bitch for the next four years.  If people fuck with you whilst you are voting, punch them in the face and vote anyway.  Let no one tell you that there's a special "Blackucrat" election tomorrow, there's not.  It's today.  Don't listen to anything except what I'm telling you - the Squidbag never lies unless it's funny, and not voting would not be funny, it'd be a travesty.  Every freak, every norm, every mother's child, motherless children, those hatched, born, crazy, every race, color, religion, creed - you fuckers, unless you've already done it, you vote TODAY.

And Vote Obama.  Anything else is like punching America in the chest.  "Really?  'Cause I was thinking of going with those spunky mavericks over at McCain/Palin."  No, no, no, no, no, no, no.  Obama.  You will not have a hangover in the morning.  And neither will this country.

Must go to sleep now; will be up all night tomorrow night watching returns and sucking information from whomever had it last.