Whahappa?

Today has totally kicked my ass.

I woke up relatively okay. Felt pretty rested, which is an unusual thing for me. It's cold, which is always good. I reread what I wrote last night and decided it was good. But then came time to do things related to today. That's where it all fell apart.

I could write. But my attention span is even less than that of a gerbil today, and my brain keeps wandering. I haven't even gotten as far as opening the files today, which is never a good sign.

I could do homework. I tried. I got a paragraph written on my new essay and then was hit over the head with a baseball bat of TIRED. Just like that, I felt completely exhausted. We're talking "the return of fucking mono" tired. I passed out for about an hour and woke up feeling only marginally better, in that my head wasn't flopping around like my spine had been snapped in two.

Still no motivation, however. I'm just sitting here, marveling at how dark it gets at only 4pm now, feeling the cold, and wishing I could do ... something.

TEH FREEZE

Holy Jujube, it's cold today. Almost 9.30am, and it's only 28°. Irritatingly, there's no snow, but frost o' plenty, so it's like simulated snow.

I'm so freaking cold, I may actually allow heater.

Why?

Could someone please explain why my brain hates me so much that it, out of nowhere with no justifaction whatsoever, decided to torture me by putting the chorus of Madonna's "I'll Remember" on infinite loop? It's just the same four or five lines over and over and over and over ...

Why I Suck.

Lots of reasons really, but here's one of the latest, and it's called "Thanksgiving".

If you're new 'round these here parts, then you may not know that I loathe cooking. Allow me to now tell you this: I loathe cooking. Truth be told, I sort of resent the whole eating experience, honestly. I don't like being hungry, I don't like being too full, I hate the time to prepare it, and my palate is so bland it doesn't even seem worthwhile sometimes. Most times I'll simply skip meals unless I'm starting to feel the physical effects of not eating, which always puts me in a really happy mood about it. The nightly "What do you want for dinner?" debacle is easily the worst part of every single day.

Take a holiday like Thanksgiving where, basically, the entire premise is to cook and eat. My disdain rises.

But Mike, on the other hand, he loves his food, so every now and again I try to make an effort. Not to cook (I make one big meal a year and that's at Christmas ... and this year Mum will be here, so I'll make her cook it!), but to actually take a stand and say "Let's eat this."

Actually preparing something being a quaint but laughable notion, I instead thought about where we could go to eat. After some thought, I settled on the Outback Steakhouse. Yummy food, Mike adores steak, I've had a mad craving for a Bloomin' Onion of late, and I was terribly amused by all the shades of wrong in going to an Australian-themed steakhouse for Thanksgiving.

My first error came in text messaging Mike at work on Wednesday and suggesting the Outback. Normally when I text someone, I don't use many abbreviations on general principle. But I was feeling lazy so it simply said something like "Outback Tday?" Very excited, Mike messaged back in the affirmative. Yay me, I thought, I was proactive.

When I went to pick him up, however, he was ... really abnormally excited. Sure, extra day off, but it seemed to be more than that. I soon came to realize that he thought I had asked him to dinner that night. Very no. He hastened to assure it was okay, but then I felt like crap since dinner turned into somehting shitty but quick like Tuna Helper, which I think we can all agree is a huge letdown after your mouth is ready for a juicy Outback steak (and Bloomin' Onion).

Looking on the bright side, however, I knew things would be fixed on Thanksgiving. We prepped in all the right ways ... ate a decent breakfast nice and early that would carry us through to 7 or 8 or so when we'd be going to dinner. The thought that they wouldn't be open didn't cross my mind. I mean, it's a restaurant, right? And all restaurants are open on Thanksgiving for lazy sods like me who hate cooking.

Turns out, not so much.

Very dejected, and starting to get hungry by now, we decided to go tomorrow and simply pick up something at Freddy's. So, of course, it wasn't open either.

By now I'm in a thunderous mood and announce that Thanksgiving dinner will consist of Raman and we will be very fucking thankful for it.

Mike actually managed to salvage dinner (which was not Raman), but I'm still irritated with the world in general. I think I'm the feature star in the universe's sitcom.

I hate holidays.

Turkey Day

Don't care about Thanksgiving. Half-British -- Mum certainly never particularly celebrated. She sort of went through the motions when my father was around and then out of habit after that, but it never meant much more than "week off of school" or "four-day weeknd" from work. Actually, what Thanksgiving usually makes me think is, "Shit, I better get my ass in gear on Christmas."

Mike's off tomorrow, and I think he's insisting we go out somewhere. Long as it means I don't have to cook, I support this.

So, I'm on the final - final - episode of The Chosen. That's blowing my tiny mind. But I just finished breaking it down today. It's a doozy and I'm feeling all intimidated, which is actually par for the course with me ... Finish one episode and become paralyzed with fear for a week that I won't be able to write anything else. Despite this, I'm excited. I never thought I'd finish one episode, let alone 22 of them. Hold on, mind blowing again .... okay, done. Now my work continues.

For those of you who celebrate, enjoy your ritual sacrifice. With pie.

Brr.

Mike: It's cold!
Me: Put on a sweatshirt.
Mike: But we have a heater upstairs.
Me: Sweatshirt.
Mike: But that won't help my hands.
Me: Pockets.
Mike: I want the heater.
Me: The heater is expensive. Your gangrene is cheap.

Men are such girls.

That's that, round 2.

About an hour or so ago, we finished up S7. It's sort of bitter sweet really, all over again. No more DVDs, no more sets to watch ... no more of the heady rush of new releases. Just rewatching the old ones. There's joy in that as well, but I still feel bleah all over again that it's done with.

It was fun, though. I discovered that repeated viewings really didn't make me feel any stronger about S7 this time than I did the first couple. The bits that were weak did not miraculously strengthen with the passage of time, and even crystal clarity couldn't help with the moments that made me cringe. As always, I'm glad I watched, and I did at least have in the back of my mind the notion of my own series which is now further cemented as what really happened next in my warped little mind. Also helps with the feeling of dissatisfaction at the end of it all.

I do feel sort of drained now, though. Which I guess isn't surprising. We made it from "Help" to "Storyteller" yesterday (whew) and finished up this afternoon, with some not insubstantial pasues between to debate and discuss. Still, a thoroughly enjoyable marathon run. There was that lack of complete satisfaction, yes, but I do feel sated as well.

Fortified now with full digital Buffy, I must haul ass on my remaining episodes. Almost done. Tremendously exciting.

Mail Bomb

Today is Novareinna's birthday. We plan to spend the day on the phone together watching S7 (we got through the first three episodes last night) in celebration, but you can help too. If you're so inclined - even if you don't know her, drop Nova a birthday e-mail here. Every year I try to raise the number of e-mails I can get sent to her, so join with me now in making her inbox a complete mess. It's birthday fun!

Life hates me.

I swear I would never do this to myself, but my playlist just pulled up "Shiny Happy People".

When the hell did I even download that? When the hell did I put it on my laptop and playlist it? My answer? I didn't. It's all part of a grand scheme designed to piss me off.

"Shiny happy people holding haaaaa-aaaaands..."

Asses.

Mum's already got her S7 set. Mine was just sent yesterday (and looks to still be sitting there) with an estimated delivery date of the twenty-freaking-second. Despite having ordered it within 48 hours of release and despite actually paying for shipping.

Not. Happy. At. All.

Okay, so bright points ... I have a headache. I only got about four hours of sleep last night and it was plagued by disturbing dreams. The sun's shining and I'm in the mood for grayness. My stupid body can't decide if it's hot or cold and if this means I'm getting sick my Pissedometer is going to go into the freaking red zone.

I guess those aren't really bright points. I'll get back to you.

Why I Should Not Touch Sharp Things.

There are a few things in this world that I really, really loathe. Cable customers. People who abuse animals. Liver and onions. Haircuts.

I'm not sure where the latter came from. I resent paying someone good money to play with a pair of scissors. I hate the smell. I hate the superficial magazines in the waiting area. I hate the innane small talk. As a consquence, I think I've gotten about three voluntary haircuts in my entire adult life. The most recent was back when I started my last job (the one I quit, before going back to school), so we're looking at around January 2003, I think it was. It was cut pretty darned short for me, around shoulder-length. As you can imagine, it's had pretty good chance to grow out in those two years.

Today, I just couldn't take it any more. So I cut it myself.

Now? I'm kiiiiinda starting to see the need for hairdressers. I'm not really sure what I've done here. <laugh> But hey - it's shorter! And I have discernable bangs again!

<still laughing> Good grief, I shouldn't be allowed to even dress myself.

Rainy Daze

Today is a gorgeous grey, rainy day. This is the Oregon I love best ... overcast, cold ... it's like London, only not. I'm sitting in my comfy PJ bottoms, an oversized long-sleeved shirt ... I'm watching the birds brave the rain to devour the latest fill-up on the bird feeder, and I've got ice cream. Which I guess sort of doesn't fit in with this cozy little picture I'm attempting to paint, but that's okay because it is delicious.

I've finished my homework up through Saturday. I have another SQL lab that'll need to be done between then and now, but I'll probably spend tomorrow working on it (as tomorrow is not New Episode Day but Repeat Episode Day). I want the weekend free and clear because Buffy S7 will be out, which means Mum and I will spend an ungodly amount of hours on the phone watching them all. I fully expect we'll have the season finished in two days. She used to try to measure them out, but that sort of fell by the wayside when we hit S5, and she got through S6 even faster. So yeah, I'm thinking that's my weekend right there. Plus, it's her birthday, so should be fun.

So the rest of my today will be spent writing, I think. I really do feel guilty for pushing the last three eps back another week, and I'm going to atone by sitting my arse in this chair and writing. Be...cause...I wouldn't do that anyway.

Okay, so that was stupid. Whatever. I'm writing, that's the point.

You know, if this ep doesn't come out the way I want it to, I'm going to be really unhappy.

But until then, I have ice cream.

The Incredible Spaghetti Plan.

It would appear that I now have plans.

Mike informed me that tomorrow, we would be going out.

"Out?" I echo, bewildered. "What is this ... out?"

Mike gestures vaguely in the direction of the partially naked trees on the other side of our balcony. "It's the big space over thereish."

Cowering, I shake my head. My voice trembles. "I am afraid," I whisper. "Also, I am speaking in a strangely stilted fashion for reasons unknown."

"Don't worry," he assures me with an affectionate smile. "We'll go see The Incredibles and get dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. It will be good."

I then probably did something very amusing, which you should imagine here because I really have absolutely no idea what I'm saying and should probably be asleep or something right now. Or maybe my brain's just fried. I think that's entirely likely. But no sleep for me. I really want to get more work done on 8x21. The results will probably be terrifying on some primal level, but hey - if push comes to shove, I have something else interesting for the "DVD set". And that's my life right there - if I mess up, it becomes a bonus feature.

Aww.

Mike came home early and brought me flowers. And he didn't even do anything wrong! (...I think.)

Mike's so cute. Squishy little Dork Boy. <hugs squishy Dork Boy>

Dear US Citizen ...

I usually don't go in for e-mail jokes, but Mum just forwarded this to me and I was so amused, I felt compelled to share.

To the Citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a suitable President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchial duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour', skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise". You will learn that the suffix 'burgh is pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed". There will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not old enough to cope with bad language then you shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize".

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to Cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). You will also have to learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as "Taggart" will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about regions, you must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England. The name of the county is "Devon". If you persist in calling it Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire, Floridashire, Louisianashire.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf" will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders" which is baseball without fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hot-dogs.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "shit". You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with roundabouts. You will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85% of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called "crisps". Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat. The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be served warm and flat. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer", and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager". The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Knat's Urine", with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Knat's Urine". This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

13. From December 1st the UK will harmonise petrol (or "Gasoline" as you will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon - get used to it).

14. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your cooperation.

A whole meal for thought.

I just got finished reading through this diary over on Daily Kos. Very long, very thoughtful, and very good at articulating a lot of the feelings that I've had since this whole mess started but couldn't quite put into coherent words.

I believe everyone with the ability to think and reason (which is, sadly, not as many people as I would hope) should read this and pass it along. I've long said that the secret to all of this is to understand where the other side is coming from. Violence begets only violence. What's needed is psychology ... something which this post makes me believe bin Laden has a mastery of. We, meanwhile, have a chimpanzee in a suit and tie who can't even pronounce the word "terrorists".

Oh boy.

Speaking of lunch ...

Amy pointed out that I hadn't followed-up on the Mike promotion thing. I'm surprised anyone could sleep last night, what with this incredibly exciting news simply dangling out there, unanswered.

As it turns out, it wasn't huge huge, but it was something. Mike got shifted up to the highest level in his position as "guy who messes with lots of mortgage paperwork". (That's probably not his official title.) Apparently they don't usually do those promotions until March, but someone in the higher ups gave them the go ahead to promote five people early, and Mike was one of them. It's pretty neat, since he was already doing the job of the top level guy, so he basically just got more money for no more work, and that can't be a bad thing.

As to the lunch tie-in, I just completed my mid-day meal which consisted of water, mac & cheese and two nukable fat-free hot dogs, no buns. Aw yeah. Now that's a meal.

.....sigh. I hate food.

So anyway, today is New Epsiode Day, and in keeping with the fine tradition of previous New Episode Days, I will likely do nothing at all. Though last night I finished up all my homework for the week, so I'm free and clear to focus on #21 - which is good, because I'm going to need the time. I broke it this morning, however, so I feel a bit better about it now. I'm so going to take, like, a week off when the season's done. Maybe I'll even splurge and take two. Get some reviews done, work a little on all the other projects I've shoved aside for The Chosen ... nah, who am I kidding? I'm going to get into freaky obsessive "Must Use All Time Wisely" mode. I'm not sure how it is that I have both that mode and my default procrastination mode ... I think it means that I don't ever do anything on time, but I'm perpetually miserable and guilty about it. Yeah, that sounds like me.

By the by, I've had a real hankering lately to relaunch Jet Wolf Free Europe, my old radio station that went offline when Live365 turned pay. Anybody know of any other free broadcast services?

Waiting for lunchtime.

Waiting for lunch never seemed like it would take so long ... of course, that's not my lunch, as I don't work, but rather, Mike's lunch. I just got a text message from him reading, "Just got promoted!! details at lunch."

Now I'm all excited and desperate for details, but must wait. ARG. HATE WAITING.

But yay! Promotion! Promotion usually means more money! YAY MONEY.

Writing is Yayness.

Mm, so 8x19 "Aid & Abet" is all finished. Nova and I just completed our rigourous line-by-line editing. I'm feeling pretty good about this one, which is great since last week's left such a sour taste in my mouth. I blame the election though. Because ... why not?

I finished scripting out 8x20 "Exchanges" yesterday as well, and the prosing on that one's almost done. I suspect the next two could give me problems, though, and the stress of finishing well and on-time are starting to itch at my spine. I'm glad I took the spontaneous "crap mood" week to give me more play room. I think that a 2-week posting schedule for S9 is going to be a necessity. I'm only going to have less and less time the further on I go. That's okay, though. I'm still riding the almost-high of writing the whole bloody season. Big accomplishment. I'd do another dance, but I think I'd scare the dog.

My remaining goals for this afternoon, then: (a) do some homework, (b) break 8x21. With everything else done in the past few days, if I can get both of these completed, then I won't feel like the week has completely sucked on all levels. Just, you know ... a few.

Mike made sausage biscuits for breakfast. It was a huge ordeal, causing him to turn into rugged Mr. Man and wrestle with a tube of sausasge meat (since they apparently had no pre-made patties), but he was a trooper. I assured myself a seat in hell by telling him that his biscuits brought all the boys to the yard. I'm already being punished because now that freaking song is in my head.

Stupid song.

<dance of victory>

Just took my first test on database design and SQL. Got an A. Go me. Go me. </dance>

Hot damn.

...which is an ironic title when you think about it.

It's 34° outside right now, with frost warnings for tonight and tomorrow morning.

Yup, I'd say that winter is pretty much here now.

Yay.

I'm hoping for snow around Christmas time, since Mum will be here. Poor thing - the Louisiana idea of winter is letting the temp drop to about 75° for a couple hours.

Shiny New Toy

Got me a LiveJournal. Yup, another thing I can neglect for weeks at a time. Olé!

Pretty, though.

A Telling Slip.

I just realized that a few posts down, I had an entry I entitled "Tonight, do we cry or do we weep?" It was meant to be "cheer or weep". Boy, my subconscious was screaming at me on that one.

I'm feeling better today. Things are not right, they are not going to be right, but at this point there's little I can do about it, save sit back and watching. I'm trying very hard to look on the bright side, which as you all know, is not my natural inclination anyway.

On that bright side, I'm finding that it's increasingly unlikely that Bush is going to be able to do a damned thing about Iraq, besides more of the same. And that's with all branches of government in his pocket. Kerry would've had an ever worse time. Of course, during these next four years, all they're doing is creating the next generation of people who hate us so much they're willing to join radical groups to take us down, but ........ No, wait, bright side. Bright side. Bush is likely to screw up so bad that in the next four years, public opinion will swing back to the side of rationality.

Provided they haven't changed things so much that it will be legally impossible for them to lose control.

<glares at self> Those aren't bright side thoughts.

Bright side. Uhm ... these are interesting times. It looks even more like this is a modernized version of the 60s. An unpopular war with no clear road to victory that we had no sense to begin and that promises to drag on for years. People younger and younger becoming angry and feeling disenfranchised. It's currently mostly in the form or rap and hip hop, but a new era in music belting out its disapproval and attempting to rally the people. Hey, we even have the equal rights movement, only this time in the form of gays and lesbians.

And another bright side: I'm irritated enough that new rants may be coming.

I don't know what will happen these next four years. None of us do - not me, not the DNC, not Bush and his minions. But what we do know is that it's going to be interesting. History continues to unfold before us.

Let's just hope we're all around to talk about it.

"Mosh", uncensored.

It was brought to my attention that Eminem's video "Mosh" is still available online, but only in censored format. The shot of of Private Kelly's knife through a picture of Dubya's fat head has been removed. That sucks.

Or, it would if I hadn't saved a copy.

For the time being (until bandwidth and/or space becomes an issue), you can download my copy here. Bear in mind it's about 45MB, though - I saved the best quality.

It won't solve anything, but maybe it'll make us all feel a little better.

(Edited 15 Feb 05: The video is offline but I still have a copy. If someone's desperate for it, let me know and we can perhaps arrange a transfer.)

No one left to blame.

I think the world cut America a lot of slack these past four years. Our election was kinda rigged. We got hit in a devastating act of terrorism. Things have eroded tremendously since that point, but the cut us some slack. We had a monkey at the helm that none of us wanted there.

We don't have that any more. The rest of the world is laughing at us. The sort of laughing and finger-pointing little kids do at the bearded lady at the circus. This time, we did it to ourselves. I only buy the possibility of further election fraud so far. My gut just isn't buying it. Oh, I think it's possible, no doubt. I would even go so far as to say that I think there were plans in place. But I don't think they did much, if anything. I don't think they had to. I think the people spoke, and they're fucking idiots.

And that's really the problem, isn't it? When you cut through all the crap, the simple fact is that people voted this way. People are dumb. They're dumb and they're short-sighted and they're selfish.

I'm a natural realist. Which is a lot like "pessimist", only with experience. It's becoming clearer to me that until people as a whole stop and think about something going on beyond their petty little 2x2 world, we're not going to change. And honestly, I don't know how much time we have left for them to try.

I'm starting to think the "king" Nostradamus talks about in his end of the world prophecies isn't bin Laden or Hussein or anyone in the Middle East. I'm starting to think we just elected him.

Thoughts.

Why were the exit polls so screwed beyond the tangible numbers?

You know, there's a part of me -- a pretty angry part -- who is sitting there saying, "Fine. You know what? You all made this mess, you can clean it up." I think what's really going to make a difference here is somehow -- somehow -- making sure that the Bush administration doesn't completely suck away all right for us to actually vote in 2008. Because I really just don't see how Bush is going to make things any better in these next four years. It's only going to get worse.

.....of course, this time yesterday, I didn't understand how Bush could get re-elected, so obviously, what do I know? Precious little it would appear.

Yup. Bed. Darkness. "Why?"

What the hell is wrong with us?

Seriously, what's wrong with this country? I've had a pounding headache for hours now. Measure 36 passed. Saving some miracle, Bush has won. I don't get it. Honestly. it's like there's some sort of block in my brain that is preventing the knowledge neuron from connecting with the understanding neuron. I don't know how anyone can look at what has happened and what the Bush administration wants to happen and say, "Hey, that's for me."

I don't understand, I'm angry about not understanding, and I'm angrier still that I'm in a position where I have something that requires my understanding.

I think I'm going to go to bed and lie there, stiff on my back, staring at the ceiling, with the word "Why?" repeating in my head on infinite loop.

Bleah ...

Getting depressed ....

Mapping it out

Enjoying this map, if you want something to watch for the vote counting.

...and getting hungry.

Tonight, do we cry or do we weep?

They're starting some of the coverage, so I'm sitting here watching CNN for the moment. I'm probably going to flip to something local in a little bit, but I have to laugh - CNN just spent about five minutes all paranoid saying how they will not start projecting until a list of about six or seven provisions are met, including possibly donning a pair of lederhosen and harmonizing on "Incense and Peppermints".

So, that's going to be my night. The watching, that is, not the lederhosen.

Cross your fingers, folks. We have a long night ahead. (And possibly a long two weeks or so of recounts and legal action.)