commotiocordis

I love Palin's accent. But holy shit, I hate what's coming out of her mouth. She's all "Lies, distortions, etc. to make Obama sound like an intolerable liberal" and half the time I'm like "And so? This is a bad thing? I'm a fan of higher taxes on people that are too rich for their own good. I'm a fan of Miranda rights. Also a fan of diplomacy."

Watching the Democratic National Convention.

Damn straight, it's time for a change. It's time for a change to people giving speeches at this thing that are even slightly tolerable orators. The home care lady that Barack worked with? The lady that followed her with the smile+shrug+excited intonation at the end of every phrase while telling us about her oh-so-sad childhood? Puhleeze.

Other things. I thought I was on a different meal plan than the one I'm actually under, so I spent Monday trying to figure out where some bizarre number of my meals went to, because how on earth could breakfast Monday morning knock me down to 13?

The Recycled Percussion guys were playing outside of the student union last night, which I totally forgot about. Suckage. I had been at the gym, and then I stopped by the library just because I hadn't been in there before, and when I was on my way back I heard the crazy bass. Figuring that somebody in one of the party dorms was rocking out, I ignored it, but as I got closer it clicked and I went to investigate. Seriously kick ass. They made a huge mistake putting the mixer and guitar up on the platform and the two drummers on the level below, though, because I could barely see them. And I only caught the last two songs, but in the second to last one, they had some kind of a power sander out and were sort of drumming using the sparks from that, alternating back and forth between the two drummers. Which was visually pleasing.

There was more I was going to talk about here, but fail at posting it (as I'm backdating this to the appropriate day, but twas ayer) so I don't remember. *sigh*

Allergies today and migraine yesterday have made the last few days not so much fun as not. Especially because it was one of those freakish migraines (that I prefer to the "normal" kind I used to get more often, but still) where I have no or very little headache, and just the major nausea/dizziness/sensitivity to everything/etc. Good in that there's a diminished level of head-splitting ouchage, bad in that since they're weird and, though more common lately, not the kind I got first, it always takes a significant amount of time before I recognize it as a migraine and take the appropriate actions/medicine. Also bad in that they don't give me the aura warning thing like the ones with the actual head pain. I was at a friend's graduation party when it hit, and it came on so debilitatingly so quickly that I had to get out of there with the excuse of having to be at work the next day at 6am (the girl I work with did; I was only there at 8) because I had mentioned working early before and the more words I had to use to explain things would mean the longer my mouth was open, which is not so much the best idea when fighting not to puke. Driving home then was a bitch also, because you're torn between pulling over so you can wait out this major wave of nausea or because you have to throw up and not pulling over so you can get home faster. I compromised by holding one of those gigantic soda fountain cups in my lap just in case I couldn't make it all the way home first. Two Compazines (that I still have from the major, all night LJ posting session that was the first one of these that I had that really puzzled me--I think they work, so I'm not complaining, though I usually figure it out fairly soon after I take it and chase it down with one of my mum's migraine pills, so it's hard to isolate which one does the working), a MaxAlt (generic migraine stuff), a nap, and a smack to my sister who decided to illustrate some concept she didn't like whilst explaining it to me with pantomimed emesis, and I was almost better by morning. Better enough to go to work, which is what matters, I suppose.

Work was fun. In that I and the other babysitter type (who weren't supposed to be doing desk/other stuff work anyway, or at least weren't explained to that this would be the case when we signed up) were the only people there in the morning, and we were never taught how to do the membership sales stuff (or how to do the other, drink/towel/whatever sales stuff or ring people in, for that matter, but I had figured that out earlier in the week when I was watching the desk) and there was a membership appointment bungled because nobody had it down in their book and our boss showed up an hour late (later on, I see him look at the clock-in computer and curse; me: "You never clocked in, huh?" him: "Yeah. But I was here, they know that." me: "Yeah. *Bullshit.*"). The lady was pretty cool about it, but I totally wouldn't have been; we kept her waiting around for an hour for somebody to show up who could hook her up with a membership. And it pisses me off, because I could have done it; I've looked at the forms and such before when things were slow, and it's all self-explanatory, but we haven't been "trained" to do it and never will because it's a commission thing and part of our position, like I said before, is that we pick up the scut work for the front desk people (even though they're supposed to be on the same level as us) so they can sell memberships. LOL, though, at how boss was like, later in the day, "Let me show you how to do this paperwork stuff and use the computer system," and I was like "Bitch, plz. Where have you been; I've been doing this shit since Monday. And all morning, thanks to you."

Only about 5 kids today, though, which was nice, because they were good ones. Self-entertaining to an extent, some of them, so I did a sudoku while holding one of the little ones. Kept having to force myself to stay awake, though, because of the whole migraine the night before thing, which made working out afterwards hard (plus, the Compazine always screws with my balance, so treadmilling takes more effort than usual).

And I was supposed to go to the Dave Matthews Band concert tonight with Amnesty International to table for them, but after having volunteered and been accepted and then emailing twice over the past few days and never getting any specifics about when and where and what I needed to do, I didn't waste the gas driving down there to try and figure it out (because the place is far too big to try and find people when I don't even know how to get them to let me in, as I was ticketless).

Stupid computer that has Photoshop on it is still not working, which ticks me off, as I'm supposed to have made these cards to send out to the familia something like a few weeks ago. And I just found out today that the disk that I'd been looking for to install it on a different computer was thrown away a while ago by my father because it had gotten too scratched up. Gah.

Edit: Oh, and Clinton suspending her campaign? Doesn't that sound like something you do when you're, idk, planning on picking it back up again later? Just saying, odd choice of words.

So, got the TV guide for next week today. (I've always been puzzled by how early it comes, because it seems like I always lose it before the week actually begins, but whatever.) Check this out. There's some new network called ION under the broadcast section. Its schedule? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday at 7pm, 8pm, and 9pm, and Thursday at 7 and 8 (I suppose because NBC has it on at 9) are all episodes of ER. And not even old-school reruns, but fairly recent stuff. Oddness. I've never heard of the station, and I'm almost positive that this is the first time it's shown up in the TV guide. We prolly don't get it, though. We don't get a lot of the stuff in there--Univision broadcast would be terrific, but no--though the stuff that we don't get over the air is all in the first 20 or so channels on cable.

LOL, though, at 11 episodes of ER a week just in prime time hours on this one station.

In other news, LAST PRIMARIES ARE TODAY! *geeks politik*

From an AP news article: New York to recognize out-of-state gay marriage

State agencies, including those governing insurance and health care, must immediately change policies and regulations to make sure "spouse," "husband" and "wife" are clearly understood to include gay couples, according to a memo sent earlier this month from the governor's counsel.

Sounds good. Prolly "Partner A" and "Partner B" like in MA and like CA is talking about doing (last I heard). Some new printer fees, but as long as they remember to recycle the old ones and not just trash them, we're cool.

The memo [State agencies, including those governing insurance and health care, must immediately change policies and regulations to make sure "spouse," "husband" and "wife" are clearly understood to include gay couples]states that failure to include gay marriages in the dispensing of state services such as health care benefits could violate state human rights law.

YES.

The appellate judges determined that there is no legal impediment in New York to the recognition of a same-sex marriage.

Umm, duh.

The state Legislature "may decide to prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages solemnized abroad," the ruling said.

*keyboardmash*! Does nobody read the Constitution anymore? How are they interpreting the full faith and credit clause? More importantly, and on a broader/longer scale, why hasn't the Supreme Court stepped in and gone "Whoaguys, lookit here, the Constitution says you have to recognize legal proceedings from other states!" *shakes head* And you know it just goes back to what I was saying before: the liberal judges (meaning Stevens, Souter, Breyer, and Ginsberg) won't take on a gay marriage case because they're afraid they'll (I use 'they' loosely, as obviously they're not the ones arguing the case) lose and set civil rights back like nothing else. The conservative ones (meaning the other 5 8) won't take on a case because even though they know they could probably win, they don't want the challenge of having to come up with a way to write an opinion that says "Yeah, we know the Constitution says we can't do this. But, erm, gays are icky."

In practice, this movement as a whole is a win. In underlying legal message, this is a FAILFAILFAIL that they're acting like you have to change policy to do something that constitutionally they're already supposed to be doing.

Sigh. *hands out copies of the Constitution*

Edit: *is reading Constitution law stuff* Isn't it funny how when you enjoin something, it becomes an injunction? Ahh, English.

Re: the Obama + turban pictures.

STFU. If you're seriously deluded enough to believe that the American public can't distinguish between terrorists and a man wearing a nation's traditional clothing, you're an idiot. (I hope.)

And I hope to the god of politics that it wasn't Clinton's campaign that leaked this. How stupid do you get? Nobody in Obama's voting bloc is going to decide suddenly not to vote for him in the primary because of this. The only place this hurts us is in the general.

Went to see Barack Obama talk Saturday evening. That was a cool experience, if he really said nothing new. I mean, I follow the candidates as closely as I can (though the democrats more than the republicans, at least until the nomination), and so it really just was his standard old stump speech with all the lines ("Fierce urgency of now", "I've been going to the same church for more than 20 years, praising Jesus," when he mentioned the Islam/terrorist rumors) we've heard before. I would have gone even if I had the whole speech memorized, simply because it's cool to say that I went.

Still. It was like a democracygasm. He really is damn good at working a crowd, and the speech--though I'd heard most of it before--came across really genuine. Half the time I really wanted to stand up (or, you know, stand up more, if that was possible, as there were no chairs) and go "Elaborate", though. I want detailed plans on the things he says he'll do, because I'm geeky like that (remember the Bernanke joke?). And my dad said that he's now definitely voting for Obama, which is win, coming from the moderate republican. He's kinda my political hero right now, my Dad is, because he's able to say "Yeah, I voted for Bush. And boy, was that a big frakking mistake." But I mean, he's a history teacher. How can he teach the bill of rights and the writing of the constitution and all that other stuff when we're breaking its laws right and left? That's his big issue, the habeas corpus and Patriot Act stuff, the one that really turned him toward the left. Plus teacher salaries and funding public schools, naturally, but manly the rights stuff.

I was kinda pissed, though, because they were all "DO NOT BRING stuff into the center", namely bags, for they will be taken away and not given back. But tons of people had those huge purses that you could conceivably store a whole nuclear arsenal in. Plus, doing it downtown during Mardi Gras just brought in half the drunks from the town. My whole side of the room was pretty constantly distracted as first one guy and then his girlfriend finally absorbed too much of the alcohol in their stomachs to keep standing up and the people around them had to make a fuss signaling for the police circling the stands (we were on the floor of the dome) to call somebody over to get them. Screw metal detectors at the gates (which were hidden quite well, as I assume they had to be in these planters that we passed, because I didn't see anything else--nor anyone pulling people aside to dig through purses), we needed breathalizers.

The metro was hell. We managed to get seats both directions, so it wasn't bad for us (except the only coat I had was my huge one, which I didn't bring for fear they'd take it away because it fits under the category of things you could hide a nuclear arsenal in, so I was bloody freezing in my 3/4 sleeves and rather thin pants. I would have brought something else, but I had just come back from the gym when we left and was still in that "I'm hot and sweaty and can't even conceive of putting on a coat right now" mode, and so thought I'd be okay without one. Which I was, pretty much, until we had to hoof it to and then wait for the train on the way back), but people were so packed that it was miserable. It was Obama, Mardi Gras, and a hockey game all in the same 4 stops or so of each other at the same time, and St. Louis's public transit is shit (nobody uses it day-to-day, so they don't have that many trains, which is hell on the special event days when everybody uses it), so people were trying to push their way on at stops and just literally not being able to force anybody to budge because it was so tight.

And then I came home and found out that somehow my brother managed to not only use the special fat-free salad dressing that I bought (that supposedly he doesn't like), but use literally 1/3 of the bottle and pretty much empty it out (he pitched the bottle by the recycling to hide it from me/to be lazy and not rinse it out, I'm not sure which, but I managed to get out about 1/2 a tablespoon for my salad, which was still fail and not nearly enough). So with that and my having no cheese, this was essentially a bowl of lettuce with some corn and beans thrown on top. Fail.

But back to the issues with security. I was terrified, to be frank, at just how lax everything was. Not for me, but for Sen. Obama. And by extension, for me. In that if something happens to him (and people are going to try, there's no doubt about that, because they do it with every president, but more so because he's black), race relations in this country instantly go back 50 years. No matter how much progress would be gained by electing him, the whole world climate would be totally shaken up by such an event. We're talking riots the likes of which haven't been seen since Martin Luther King's day, especially in really racially charged cities like St. Louis. Dad mentioned there being something about this on NPR that said the same thing. I can only connect it to Rushdie's Midnight's Children, when they're all sitting around the radio, terrified that it's going to report that a Muslim killed Gandhi. I think there's that same basic fear for America, that something like this could destroy everything we've worked for and that Obama would work for for the past however many years. We saw a preview of it with the Jena 6--it starts in rural, racist hickville, but it spreads, and it takes absolutely nothing to unbalance this tenuous peace that we've come to over the years. I'm undoubtedly thinking too much into something that will hopefully never happen, but the fact that they're talking about it on the radio too makes me think it might be justified.

Oh, and I forgot to mention.

I reached the pinnacle of political geekdom this weekend.

I made a Federal Reserve joke.

I was already talking about politics (Edwards and his failing in South Carolina), and my mom was like *le sigh of not caring*, and I go "Well, call me Ben Bernanke, because I just dropped your interest rate."

This still makes me lol. I plan to use that as much as possible for the rest of my life.

From AP: Vice President Dick Cheney spent about eight hours hunting Monday at a secluded Hudson Valley gun club where well-heeled enthusiasts shoot ducks and pheasants.

Well heeled? You mean, well Kevlar-ed.

"A county judge struck down Iowa's decade-old gay marriage ban as unconstitutional Thursday and ordered local officials to process marriage licenses for six gay couples."

LKJDFOADLFKJEJLAKJD. HOYES. Score another one for the good guys.

And Iowa? Not exactly the most liberal state you could think of, so quite interesting. I'm going to be watching for the fallout for this (as the story only hit AP an hour ago).

Judge Robert Hanson? *glomps*