A letter to Apple

Dear Apple: What the fuck, guys?!

I greatly enjoy your products. I have an iPod, a MacBook, and I want pretty much everything else. However, if my MacBook is anything to go by, I ought to make sure I have a shitload more money than I do before I even think about buying anything else.

You see, Apple, most of my Apple products ... nay, ALL of them, have cracks in them at this point. My iPod has cracks along the right side of the screen, like so:


This was tolerable for some time, as I have a habit of keeping my iPod inside a third party case (I have three). But then, sometime in the fall of 2008, I began to notice cracks appearing in the wrist-rest areas of my MacBook. Eventually, they became detached from one end and started poking me in the wrist, leading me to just remove the goddamn things, like so:


These were annoying but again, somewhat tolerable. I took to canned air-spraying my computer on a more regular basis just in case something got in through these new openings. But then, today, this happened:


What the fuck, Apple? What the fuck?

I'll be visiting one of your stores to see if I can get a "Genius" to recommend a course of action. I'm under AppleCare, so you motherfuckers really better do something. Srsly, I don't want this MacBook to end up like my old Vaio:


Fix my goddamn computer,

Matthew Wolber ("Lestack")

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Now playing: De La Soul - The Mack Daddy On The Left
via FoxyTunes

FUCK IT'S HOT

I got ready for work this morning by watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special (awesome) and checking the weather. That wasn't hard to do because I was watching the special on my computer, and a weather thing popped up saying it was something like 70º. Liz and I sort of did a double-take at that, because yesterday it was round 45-55º and the day before it was just above freezing. Christmas Eve it was the same, and the day before it was icing.

What the fuck is up with the weather? I know, global warming and that, but seriously? And that explanation has its doubters! Mind, I don't see how, given ... evidence, but there we are. Are people happy about being able to wear shorts out on the Feast of Stephen? Is it a common goal of the public to have pools open throughout Christmas Break? Does no-one think THIS SHIT IS CRAZY?!

But enough about the weather. Every moron with a mouth talks about the weather, so I try to avoid discussing it at length. Instead, I want to follow up on stupid people. On Christmas Eve I bitched about people bitching about not being able to find exactly what they wanted on the last day before the biggest gift-giving occasion on the planet. Well, I think some of the returns shoppers might be worse.

Today, I was at work sorting the returns. This was my job for the entire day, that's how many returns we had. A side project of this job is to find and resolve price disputes when the manager is away from the front end of the shop. I did this for one customer and went back to find the sign that she was sure was there, saying that particular shirt was $9.99. I looked at the endcap she said it was on, looked on either side of the endcap thinking she might've read the sign for the items in the aisle, and double-checked, but to no avail.

She then stormed back there her damn self after I told her there was no sign. She claimed that there was "a sign there when I was back here" and stormed out of the shop. After shaking my head in disgust at her stupidity and arrogance, I went back to sorting the returns for the day.

Later, when I had but an hour left, I was reshelving some of the pre-sorted returns, and I found myself in an area near where she found her shirt. It was an aisle away and well inside the section (as opposed to near the middle lane), but there was indeed a sign saying that there were in existence, and in the shop, shirts for sale for $9.99.

The twelve rules of Christmas (shopping)

Well, I'm back working retail for the holidays. Goddammit.

I actually like the job. It's easy, it's fun, and I'm surrounded by smartasses. That means I get to be a smartass in return! Huzzah! The downside is it is of course retail, with all the cultural trappings. This isn't a problem per se but it is certainly the source of amusing stories and reasons for me to yell at people, so the blog is back, baby!

Rule number one: You don't get to be an asshole on Christmas Eve. If you're an asshole on Christmas Eve, I'm going to spit on your clothes you just bought. Now, sure, you can just wash them when you get home, but that's effort.
Rule number two: Prank calling stores and insulting the people who work there is pathetic. When I heard about the prank call in question, I had a 'nam flashback where I was beating this douchebag's head into the wall of the jewellers at the centre of the mall while shouting, a la John Goodman in The Big Lebowski, "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS!"
Rule number three: if you want a store credit card, you will have to supply your social security number. If you are unwilling to do this, you do not get the card, and you do not get the sign-up discount that comes with the card. You do not get to leave all your stuff there because you didn't get to save $12 and storm out of the shop crying because you are retarded.
Rule number four: No, you may not use the stepladder to get something down yourself, you god damned idiot. I'm this close to printing up ten half-assed liability waivers and having people who want to borrow stepladders sign them before they do.
Rule number five: if you can't find the size you need, tough. It's Christmas Goddamn Eve. You're lucky we HAVE stuff left to sell you. You're going to have to get the nearest size and tell your gift recipient to either gain or lose weight.
Rule number six: The mall always closes at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Don't phone up and ask. The closing times for the entire Christmas season, starting from one week before Thanksgiving to one week after New Year's Day, has been posted on every entrance to the mall since the day after Halloween. It is not our fucking fault if you can't read.
Rule number seven: Miley Cyrus should not be allowed to sing, let alone sing Christmas carols.
Rule number eight: same for punk bands.
Rule number nine: Only John Lennon can get away with singing kids. Similarly, only Paul McCartney cannot get away with using an 80s digital keyboard as his only accompaniment.
Rule number ten: you are under our control. We control how fast the line goes. If you are in a hurry, you should not be Christmas shopping. If you are an asshole, we will make the line go so much slower. If you're nice, we'll try to converse with you while the stupid register takes an hour to do anything.
Rule number eleven: Why do you all have to walk seven across in the mall seriously do you all have to talk to all your friends and can you even understand anything get out of the fucking way
Rule number twelve: in the immortal words of Sir Wil Wheaton, "Don't be a dick."


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Now playing: De La Soul - Betta Listen
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TV Licences

Top ten reasons why a TV licence (The UK, specifically) is better than a bunch of commercials.

1. No Zach Braff water commercials
2. no adverts for things that are nowhere near you, Boston Market
3. no miniature cliffhangers in shows, only real ones between episodes
4. no getting sick of what used to be a good song because you hear it sung by a phone and bluetooth earpiece that's attached to it
5. less chance of seeing Larry the Cable Guy accidentally
6. free
7. credit
8. report
9. dot
10. com
    

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Now playing: MSNBC Rachel Maddow (video) - 10-27-2008-194906
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The team plays awfully after Tuesday lunchtime - a question of the usefulness of sports statistics

With how much I like politics, I'm kind of wondering why I don't pay more attention to sports. Not so much the actual sports themselves but the broadcasting and coverage thereof - sport coverage and political coverage have very similar tactics.

One of the main tactics I've recently noticed is the "inane statistics" tactic. In politics it almost makes sense, such as "sitting republican congressmen in heavily democratic constituencies tend to win due to name recognition" or "the bradley effect", and don't even get me started on polls which I, nor you, nor anyone you've ever met, have been involved with. But between last night's ALCS game six between Boston and Tampa and this afternoon's ass-whoopin' (if you'll forgive the term) of the Colts by the Packers, there's quite a bit of statistics going on.

For the baseball game there was nearly every batter's record against a right/left-handed pitcher (whichever it may have been), and when the pitchers changed, it would have the pitcher's record against Lefty/Righty batters. ESPN.com's live streaming, um, thing, had the likely winner for a long time before the end of the game, and the percent chance of said team winning. They also had percent chances of the batter hitting the ball into each area of the field.

I didn't think these statistics were inane per se until a few minutes ago when the CBS announcers for the Indy/Green Bay match commented on Indy being simply demolished by Green Bay by citing a statistic - Indianapolis haven't lost an October game since 2004.

Indianapolis have not lost a game that happened to take place in the month of October since 2004. Exactly what insight does this provide us about their playing in today's match? Is October the magic month in which Indianapolis can do no wrong, and this match could signal the end of a perfect October record? What's next, "Indianapolis haven't lost a game held on a Thursday since 1987"? Exactly WHAT RELEVANCE does this have to how they are playing today, apart from the fact that they are LOSING? Last I checked, people were more interested in such things as "Indianapolis haven't lost a game since October 2004", if they had a four-year winning streak that was about to break with this game. That frankly makes more sense than what was said.

But hey, I haven't seriously watched football in years now. I may have missed a shift in the fanbase where everyone started caring about the month, week, day of the week, and what time of day the match was held. I personally prefer the classic data: The weather, the location, injuries, and any sort of personal animosity between players on both teams (or fans of both teams). Those are the ones that I think actually have the possibility to affect the outcome of the game.

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Now playing: Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
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Cars, buses, and books

I'm officially sick of cars.

In honesty, I think I was sick of cars some time ago. Driving to Indianapolis roughly once a week, followed by driving across Evansville each day, will do that to a person. This is it, though. I'm avoiding driving whenever I can.

As I type this, [pause to make myself not a liar] I changed my wake-up time on my phone alarm clock from 8:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. This should give me time to do my usual morning routine, read the news, shit, shower, shave, eat, and get out to Green River and catch a bus around 7:30. I really would prefer if the bus routes were more direct to USI, but this town is a worse hell-hole than Scranton.

If nothing else, this new and brilliant form of transportation should give me time to read. I've recently started the Dune series, on the advice of a friend, and likewise on said friend's advice, started with The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson. It's an extremely pre- prequel to the original Dune, but it was fairly good, and I enjoyed it. Yes, Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade absolutely lambasted it as crap, but since I only read Dune and Dune Messiah this summer, I think I'm coming at it from a different angle than he is. Plus I like the author and think he's a great guy.

The main reason a bus ride would help me read the Dune series is because the Dune books are incredibly long. The Butlerian Jihad was over 600 pages in hardcover. I'm used to 600 pages in paperback, but outside of Harry Potter I read few 400+ page books. There was a time I would've been saddened to read someone else say such a thing, but frankly I don't have the time to sit down and read that much anymore. Being gainfully unemployed has a few, very few, benefits. One of them is time to catch up on the thousands of sci-fi novels I've wanted to read over the years but didn't get round to. This isn't to say I don't want a job: in the unlikely event someone is reading this and is hiring for a position in Evansville, my contact information is listed. I'm interested and have a largely open schedule.

I can't think of a better year to have time to read though: my favourite authors are putting out quite a lot of work this year and a few of them I haven't got a chance to read yet. I still haven't picked up a copy of Karen Traviss's Order 66, and I haven't even read the final of her Wess'har series, Judge. Meanwhile, my first favourite author, Matthew Woodring Stover, has two books coming out: Caine Black Knife, the third of four Caine books, is out Tuesday. Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor comes out on Dec. 30. Yes, I'm not sure about the title either, but it's Stover, and even his least favourite of my novels, Shatterpoint, was fantastic. Besides, there's nothing I look forward to more than Luke Skywalker and some Moody Introspective Self-Loathing.

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Now playing: Charles Darwin - On the Origin of Species
via FoxyTunes

video podwhinge

I used to love video podcasts. I had two or three I would download every day until the BBC decided they can't allow foreigners to view their TV programmes. But lately I've got back into it with some American ones.

Okay, I've got one video podcast I download, but goddammit I like the idea of them. The podcast is Countdown with Keith Olbermann. For a very short period I included CNN's Today Politics podcast and ABC's Nightly News podcast, which had the best format of any of them. ABC Nightly News video podcast, you see, had chapters. If you were interested in the third story they did that night, you could skip to that by pressing the "next" button on your computer or iPod. I stopped downloading it because I prefer to get my news from the BBC and my comment from the US (I'm weird that way I guess.) But nights like tonight, when Keith isn't on Countdown or like last night, when some of the earlier stories aren't as interesting to me as some of the others, I want to be able to skip to the "Good stuff".

This brings me to my question: Why the hell don't more podcasters use the most advanced format they have? Okay, sure, some people don't have iPods, but everyone can use iTunes. Some of the people who don't have iPods have other brands of mp3 players. Well, that makes them stupid. Seriously, the Zune is the worst thing I've ever heard of. I don't want to listen to my friends' music because they have awful taste in music. The smaller ones, well, odds are they can't play video anyway, so it doesn't matter.

This isn't just video podcasts I'm annoyed by. I've only found two or three audio podcasts with chapters, which since I got a Mac with GarageBand, I've learnt is only possible if you record in AAC format. My main questions include yeah? and? so? what? I would really like to be able to skip callers for the odd call-in podcasts, and I'd like to skip to topics I like more than ones I don't. It's not that I don't like the podcasts, it's that I don't like PARTS of them. It's tricky to spool on when I'm driving ... or walking ... or even listening on my home speakers. It's one simple step in post! That's all I ask, one extra small step for convenience!

Or maybe I'm just a big tech geek who wants to have every feature available. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the one.

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Now playing: Damien Rice & Lisa Hannigan - Unplayed Piano
via FoxyTunes

IT'S GONNA EAT YOUUUUUUU

I work at a major one-end-of-the-mall department store (well, I say department store but the departments are almost all clothes these days). I'm usually on the second floor in the men's section, but occasionally I get called downstairs to do their jobs for them. Most of my co-workers take the lift downstairs for reasons completely unknown to me, because it's only one floor, and the lift is horribly un-air conditioned. Anyway, I take the escalator.

I got called down to do ... oh, something I don't care about and they don't pay enough for, and I had to stop short, because there was a family on the escalator. Of course, this is not a problem in itself but the fact that the oldest member of the family was hesitating before getting on the escalator WAS. It was as if he was afraid he would be sucked into the escalator and horribly mangled, like all those kids you heard about when they first installed the things in malls in the early 80s.

See, kids can get sucked into those things because they don't know how to tie their shoes. They also sit on the steps and occasionally have their trousers either too long or at their ankles. So do teenagers, come to that, but they know enough to get off the fucking thing at the top/bottom. Old people DO NOT WEAR THEIR CLOTHES LIKE THIS, and as such are in ZERO DANGER of being mauled by an escalator. 

As Douglas Adams once said, anything that exists when you're born is part of the world and the natural order of things. Anything invented between birth and 30 is new and exciting and you can probably get a career in it. And anything invented after 30 is wrong and goes against the natural order of things. I know the quote isn't quite exact, but goddammit, I can't be fucked to go look it up. I just got off work and the book's way over there. Anyway, Douglas missed one period of life (possibly because he kicked off before he got there, sadly): anything invented after you turned 50 is GOING TO KILL YOU IN THE MOST HORRIFIC WAY POSSIBLE. This made sense for current old people's grandparents, because the things invented after they were 50 were nuclear. But escalators are severely unlikely to kill anyone above the age of 3, and even less likely to kill anyone above the age of 30. You, Mister Old Scaredy Cat, need to stop being paranoid and get on the bloody thing and ride, so I can go home.

Bumper stickers

My parents were never bumper sticker people, but I on the other hand, am very much one of those assholes who uses every possible medium to tell people what I think. In 2004, I had a John Kerry sticker on my car. This year, I have a "Bush's Third Term - McCain" sticker, and I'm waiting for another one from Moveon.org that I can't remember. But it's probably similar to the McSame thing.

Anyway, some of my favourite topics on bumper stickers are the nationalistic bullshit stickers that are so in vogue since 9/11. The ones with an American flag SOMEWHERE on them are the most common, and rather frequently they say something that caters exclusively to suburban white housewives, who are the only people concerned about this: "These colors don't run." No, but they apparently fade and wash out when faced with prolonged exposure to sunlight.

One I saw on the back of a truck on the way to Indianapolis was sort of long (but it's a truck, so he's got room). "These Colors Don't Run, I Support Our Troops, My Country, Right or Wrong, No Aid or Comfort to the Enemy ... No Way!" This sticker wins the prize not only for most long and convoluted bit of shit, but also for most cliches squeezed into a run-on sentence and most unnecessary last line. Really, do you need the "No way!"? I'm pretty sure "No aid or comfort to the enemy" gets across the point that you don't like "the enemy", who I can only assume refers to the Dark Lord Sauron.

There are several "American Soldier" stickers that the military issues in boxes of Trix. At least that's where I think they come from, because when people have four or five of the same sticker on one car, it's either overkill or they felt bad throwing the damn things away. If they really have that many American Soldiers in their family, why doesn't the military make up a bunch of "Member of an Army Family" or something similar stickers?

One I haven't seen in a while is "Charlton Heston is my president". I haven't seen it for longer than he's been dead, so that's not the reason. And I live in an area surrounded by farms, with significant amounts of Republican-voting Christian Right suburbs, so that's not the reason. Maybe they figure they don't need to advertise that they carry a gun with them wherever they go. Or maybe they intentionally don't advertise it in the hopes that someone will try to pick a fight with them and they'll get to use their gun for the first time outside a firing range. This is a major reason I try to keep a lid on any road rage.

Despite all those nationalistic cliche stickers, I do enjoy reading the things. I actually will speed up to read someone's bumper stickers. It's definitely something to do when I'm trying not to think about how I'm in a metal box travelling at terminal velocity along a poorly maintained piece of composite-rock, with lots of other people in similar situations, except THEY are too busy on their phones to pay attention to the guy in the next lane whose car isn't as large as theirs and doesn't know they're trying to merge because they didn't fucking indicate it, or indeed look.

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Now playing: The Fiery Furnaces - Single Again
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TV is fun!

I've been watching a LOT of TV lately. Granted, since I grew up in the golden age of basic cable, that's an unsurprising statement, but I've been upping the ante, despite the main networks being done with their seasons.

As far as properly televised shows, Law and Order: CI has two dedicated networks. Even if I don't watch the whole show, if I get there before the last ten minutes, I can get a really nice summing-up and it's like I saw the whole thing. I prefer SVU, honestly, but it just isn't on as much, so I'll go with the slightly twitchy, suddenly grey and fat Detective Goren. I have no desire to watch In Plain Sight though. Cable originals are a rare thing for me.

Speaking of cable originals, Battlestar Galactica's season 4.0 just wrapped ... holy crap! Every time I see an episode, nay, every time I see the cold open of that show, I think of the completely true and indisputable words of Dwight Schrute from the Office:

Do you watch Battlestar Galactica? No? Then you're an idiot.

The Office finished a month ago, and this season had its highs and lows. Although, I suppose if I was disappointed with certain things in the finale, it's because the writers are doing their job very well.

My lovely fiancée Liza and I managed to catch up with House MD this year. I think it may be one of the best shows on television, and because of it I've started adding other Hugh Laurie projects to my Netflix queue. A Bit of Fry and Laurie stands out, partly because I enjoy semi-nonsensical Pythonesque sketch shows, and partly because of the song "America".

Doctor Who is entering its final stretch on BBC One. New Who is excellent, but Old Who has a definite charm. I'm watching season 11 at the moment, which is the third Doctor's last season, and Sarah Jane Smith's first. I'm greatly looking forward to Tom Baker's tenure as Doctor Who, almost as much as I am looking forward to Rose Tyler's return in season 30.

Speaking of Billie Piper, I'm going to be checking out Secret Diary of a Call Girl whenever I get a chance, and its Shotime lead-in series, Weeds. I've heard good things about both, and I sincerely hope I don't get sick of it like I did with Huff, the last Shotime series I tried to watch.

Despite previous denouncements of non-Family Guy/Futurama/Robot Chicken series on Adult Swim, I've really grown to like such series as Venture Bros, Metalocalypse, and Boondocks. I've finished watching Metalocalypse series one, in the middle of Venture Bros series two rewatch, and I've just got Boondocks and it's queued up.

Liza introduced me (ten years late) to X-files, which we finished watching about two months ago. I say finished watching, but really we just quit after the first two discs of season eight, because if David Duchovny's not in it, I really don't give a shit. She did buy the Lone Gunmen complete series though, which is very amusing, although I can see why it didn't get renewed ... it sort of depends on Conspiracy-of-the-Week, which can get old if one isn't careful. Also, the pilot, which aired in spring 2001, can never be re-aired, because of the subject matter.

Throughout the summer, or possibly early fall, I'm going to pick up Babylon 5 from the library and start on that. I've heard enough good things, and I certainly can't rely on rewatching Galactica and Firefly all the time. There's plenty of good sci-fi out there, and it's not all in the same two series, dammit! If I get desperate I might try Stargate, but I sincerely doubt it.

The best thing ever is TV on DVD. Seriously, if I can watch a good show without constant panicking and scrambling for the mute button because that goddamn credit report advert is on and I'd rather commit harikari than listen to it, that makes the show so much better.

Indy (the city), Starbuck (the coffeeshop), and Dune (the book)

Here I am in North Indy, at a Starbucks, writing in public on a Mac, sipping a chai. I'm one shot of espresso away from ultimate pretension.

Beth and I are up in Indy for a hematology appointment, blood work, and a free re-do of an MRI. Unfortunately, because of the MRI re-do, we had to be at the hospital at 9 a.m. Which means we had to leave home at 4 a.m. Which meant waking up at 3, except I woke up at 1 and couldn't get back to sleep. Luckily, I brought two Red Bulls and have downed one already (which led to my head quaking from the inside in the MRI waiting room).

Every time we come up here, I wonder why my dad went job hunting in Evansville instead of Indianapolis. I could've had things to do growing up, and I might not be spending my afternoon sitting in a fucking coffee shop typing on my computer. Hell, I might be out of university by now, with a real job, and typing on this computer for WORK. But no, I had to be surrounded by racist rednecks (and yes, they exist in Indianapolis too, but they get shouted down by more people) all my youth. Violent racist rednecks who made it plain that all liberals, nerds, atheists, gays, gay sympathizers, and anyone else different to them should have their ass kicked six ways to Sagittarius. So when I started noticing I didn't agree with them, I started being quiet, and withdrew into the internet.

I'm not complaining, really, because if it wasn't for the internet I wouldn't have my fiancée. I also would never have found out exactly which form of that word to use, and how it is spelled, and which way the accent goes. I really can't complain too much, h-uh?

On the way up here, I listened to some more of the audiobook of Dune. I've never read Dune before now, and honestly, it was because it's hard as hell to get into. Plus, Tatooine was my least favorite planet in Star Wars, and it pissed me off that they went back to it four times after the original film, so a book about events that transpire almost exclusively on a desert planet sounded fucking awful to me. I am once again happy to eat humble pie, because I'm really enjoying this book. I suddenly get a bunch more jokes from Questionable Content (mostly in the archive at this point), I get a bunch more in-jokes from all facets of pop culture, and I'm really enjoying the story to boot. Someone please remind me if I ever again say, "I don't care about (x classic sci-fi novel)," that I am a fucknugget and should read the thing anyway.

Indy, common cold, and the summer movie lineup

Blarg. Colds are awful.

Honestly, I'm tired of people saying, "We haven't found a cure for the common cold yet," as if there are scientists trying to cure the common cold. The fact is, nobody cares about the common cold, because it is at worst a medium-level inconvenience. You miss one day of work, right at the beginning, when you wake up and hurt all over, and after that it becomes completely manageable. It is not something that is worth putting billions of dollars, pounds, euros, et al, to cure. Aids, cancer, neurological diseases, and immunological diseases are what we ought to (and do) focus on.

Anyway, last night, despite my drippiness and lethargy, I went to a midnight screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I really enjoyed the picture. I sincerely think there are things that people will complain about - Marion, for example, was kind of thrown in for nostalgia as far as I can tell. But those things do not detract from the overall quality of the film. Is this as good as Raiders? No. But what is? Raiders really is an impossible standard to hold every other Indiana Jones film to. It's similar to saying, "I didn't like Episode 3 because it was no Empire." Well, Empire was a unique film, and while comparing two films in a series made at two different times is completely valid, it is in no way enough to completely disregard the later film's status as a good film.

Especially in a time when more and more films are M Night Shyamalan pieces of crap, or feature Sarah Jessica Parker's aesthetically not-remotely-pleasing face in 50x75ft scale, we have to be able to take a good popcorn movie as a good popcorn movie. This summer, I think, will prove that a good popcorn movie can be as good or better than anything the Academy nominates. Iron Man has already grossed more than most comic book movies can ever hope to, and it was fantastic on a writing, acting, and storytelling scale. Dark Knight will only build on that precedent, and Incredible Hulk certainly can't hurt. Maybe it's the geek in me speaking when I talk about these movies being four harbingers of previously unseen quality, but that doesn't stop me being right.

Bring on the summer!

me tolerating Hillary's speech

Broken the tie, eh? Already? You sure? Lake county still to be counted, suburb of Chicago, and you've already broken the tie? With the gap shrinking?

"Your loved one who served this country in war is ill-served back at home ... thanks to me."

And we're on to gas prices again. This is the dumbest fucking thing ever. "Temporary reprieve that will ultimately lead to higher prices! yaaaaay!"

The soldiers wouldn't be in harm's way if it weren't for your bullshit vote.

Where are you going with "champion" ...? And how do you not speak for the well-connected and rich? Again, anyone who has the means to lend her own campaign $5m out of pocket qualifies as elite about $4.8m ago.

Now THAT'S interesting ... they both say they'll work for the Dem nominee.

How does she say everything and sound condescending?

WHAT THE FUCK is with the fake accent?!

Bitch, Burma isn't watching! Technically it's Myanmar, and they're asking for help! Regardless, they aren't watching you!

"Didn't Chelsea do a great job?" sounds like she was in her school talent show!

Wow, all Hillary ever does is reactionary stuff. Plus she wasn't so keen on Florida and Michigan before she started losing.

I think we should punish anyone who mentions 9/11 anymore.

And is she playing Mellencamp?! He supports Obama! I wonder if he knows.

absent voters

I'm not sure if it's due to the "vote early" campaigns, but when I went to vote an hour ago, almost no-one was there.

I really expected there to at least be a small queue, but I was the only person there. I saw two electioneers rearranging their "she isn't trying to destroy the party, honest" signs out by the road, but apart from that, it was me and eight poll workers. The guy asking for IDs was very quiet about it, almost like he was asking me for change.

Of course, it might not be the "vote early" thing. It could always be that Indiana voters aren't quite sure what the fuck's going on. I mean, this is the first Indiana general primary that's made a difference ... ever? I know I was confused. Or I would have been if I hadn't had three months to get used to the idea that this primary means something for once. What, I wonder, would it take to move the Indiana primary to Super Tuesday?

I suppose it doesn't matter that much. I say this primary means something, but it only means as much as all the other primaries, which is something on the level of nothing. Honestly, the fact that there's a Republican ticket ... I was pretty sure they had McCain locked up (well, he should be locked up, but that's something else). But no, Ron Paul's still going for it. Not sure why, Libertarians will never win anything as long as they keep pimping 1) letting people live as they will, and 2) marijuana legalisation (which is a derivative of the first). They'll never win the Republican vote with those positions, and the rest of their positions won't win any Democrats. They'll win Libertarians, people who want to be left alone, and people in favour of marijuana decriminalisation. That's ALL.

While I'm on the topic, I'm not sure why Hillary's still going for it. I'll admit, I would've supported her if she'd won the primaries and then the nomination, but I can't support her now. The only way she can win is by the Superdelegates staging a coup and ignoring the voters' will, which according to the current delegate count, is Obama08. This isn't political bias, this is basic maths. Anyone who graduated secondary school can figure this out, and I can prove it on an Etch-a-Sketch. The other reason I don't support her is her consistency with John McSame - promoting the same things, voting the same way on things ... honestly, if I wanted Hillary, I could just vote for McCain, who's GOT his party's nomination already.

Of course, I'd never do such a thing, because McCain is not the same McCain he used to be either. In their desire to be president, McCain and Clinton have changed positions so much that they are unrecognisable from the candidates they originally were. Clinton used to support Universal Health Care (which she says she supports again), but then she took a big sack of money from health care companies. McCain used to be a "Maverick" who was against his party and against Bush on several things. Now he's running on Four More Years. I'm not saying Obama is the best candidate ever, but godsdammit, he's consistent. Isn't that what Kerry's problem was? Consistency?

Unemployment woe

Is it just me, or do employers LOVE hiring in a recession?

I, due to circumstances beyond my control, seem to be out of work. I came about this status by deciding there's no difference between being employed and not being scheduled, and not being employed. Combined with all the abuse I'd been taking at work, mostly by managers who couldn't come up with REAL problems and thus relied on months-old transgressions. So I'm looking for work.

I've applied more places than I can name, and I've only got two actual callbacks. All other progress I might have made is done through my own efforts. And this is my point: the places I've applied put up signs that said "now hiring" or "accepting applications" or did something similar on job sites, and once I applied, I gave it a few days before checking back. I tend to check back at least once a week at everywhere I've not heard anything. SO FREQUENTLY do they say "If you leave your name and number ... " I can only presume the end of that sentence would be "nobody will call you back, but we might put it on a cork board and laugh every time we walk past.

There's a Monty Python sketch that I think is more true than I ever assumed. I didn't realise this is what's (probably) happening until last night, when I put that disc in. Graham Chapman plays a man interviewing for a job, and John Cleese plays the interviewer. Cleese says "Good morning", to which Chapman replies "Good morning". Cleese asks him why he said "Good morning" when he knew perfectly well it's afternoon. Then Cleese rings a tiny bell and sings "Good niiiiiiiight dingdingdingding" then loudly counts down from five. After a few more similar humiliations and a freak-out, Chapman asks if he gets the job, to which Cleese replies "I'm sorry, all the positions were filled weeks ago." I have to wonder if some of the managers of these places are running a giant piss-take operation where they give people applications, put up signs, and hope they come in at the time they feel like doing a fake interview.

What doesn't make me feel better is the fact that were I in their positions, I would probably recreate the sketch verbatim with any fratboy who applied. I never said I was a good person, did I?

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Now playing: John Lennon - Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
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