I haven’t done one of these in a while, but with today’s rules and means committee? I felt it was necessary.

So, what’s the deal with today? Simply put, its about the whole Florida/Michigan fiasco. I don’t have much to say on this, but its all about the committee sitting down and discussing how to count the votes in both of the contested states. There are many ways to look at it, but I’ve got to default to the political voice that I always listen to: Chuck Todd. And not only has he said that, he’s also had this nice little write up.

There are multiple ways that this could play out, and when things are said and done, I’ll talk about it on Monday.

Also, on Sunday, Puerto Rico votes in the primaries. Early polls forecast a 150,000 vote win for Clinton, which sort of makes sense with her strong Hispanic base. We’ll see, though. I don’t expect it to be an Obama win, but the margin of the win will be interesting to see.

That’s that. More next week…

I used to be a heavy anti-Apple/iWorld type of guy. And then, I happened to get an amazing deal on a used 4gig 1st gen iPod Nano, and I changed my mind, you could say. Money talks.

So I’ve been using it for a while, and of course, I also use Last.FM. So I’m mildly anal retentive about counting my tracks. I was also using iScrobbler to count my listens on my iTunes. The problem with it? I was having issues with multiple iPod listens. If I listened to a song more than once on my iPod? It only counted one time. I would seriously plan out only listening to each song once, just to ensure I wouldn’t lose plays. Yeah, lame, I know.

So I switched recently to using the Last.FM proprietary plug-in at the suggestion of my friend Ben. And when I did this, it wasn’t working. Why?

My iPod was set for manual transfer of music, so whenever I wanted to add something, I dragged and dropped it myself to the iPod. And with that, it wasn’t updating my play counts on any songs, which is what the Last.FM plugin reads off of. The play counts were also sometimes like 5+ times on my iPod and maybe once on my iTunes. Yeah, I use my iPod much more than sitting at my computer. So I had to reset my whole iPod to factory settings and then reload automatically with the whole playlist link-over. You know, where you set your iPod to sync automatically with a playlist? Yeah. Works beautifully now and lets me have multiple listens.

Needless to say, I’m still learning. It amazes me all of the stuff that I’m still learning after having iTunes for almost a year and using it for about as long. That, and all of the small things like how I have some battery issues, but hey, its an old one, so that’s that.

Technology, huh? Who woulda thunk…

What I find interesting is the modern era we live in with everything around us. We talk about the 24-hour news channel, and a lot of the commentators when things aren’t going their way with some little political call outs always blame it on the 24-hour news channel.

Though, when you think about it, a lot of these 24-hour news channel with endless weather reports every hour can be useful sometimes in a local aspect. And then, the big networks? Do they dissect and look at too many small things? Maybe. Just maybe.

The truth of the fact is, whether you have cable or not, if you’re reading this, you have your very own 24-hour news channel with the internet. You can choose any blog you’d like, to read at any time, however you’d like. And if you don’t like the words you read? You can just flip over to another blog and find something that sits right with you.

Sorta like if you don’t like Fox, you can watch NBC.

We’re born into the Presidential Objective.

Every child growing up is told they could be an Astronaut, Fire Fighter, Doctor, Police Officer, or even President of the United States. All capitalized like that because they’re all important. And we reenforce these values as we grow up by making sure that we provide equal opportunities for each and every person, each and every day throughout their educational experience. Before they get out into that cruel and harsh Real World (not like the MTV show, which is also cruel and harsh), we provide them with the inspirational fuel that they’re all special and beautiful and unique little butterflies, and maybe, just maybe, they can do anything they want to in this world.

And what better way to look at it than this election cycle when a son of a naval war hero born in the Panama Canal zone, who served his country and was captured as a POW, and then after being a long-time senator is running for the presidential dream; when the son of a Kenyan immigrant and an American, born in Hawaii and raised between there and Indonesia, can go to law school and run for the presidential dream; and when the daughter raised by first generation Americans can be involved in conservative politics as a youth, marry a rising political star, and then run for her own presidential dream. We have three dream stories that show us that anything can happen. Just like the team winning the Stanley Cup, the World Series, or the Superbowl, they’re going to their political Disney World: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And not just to visit, but to sit behind the Resolute desk with the pen from the Eagle’s talon in one hand and the arrows in the form of a red phone near the other.

And this dream, is one that in grade schools, we start teaching. We let children all take turns being line leader. We let children take turns cleaning the chalkboard erasers. We let children take turns being door holder. We give them this responsibility and tell them that everyone in class gets the same chance. But its that power of the title and the responsibility of the position that sets fire to that dream.

The same three individuals still in this presidential race of 2008 all had the same chances to be that door holder, eraser cleaner, or line leader. And the teachers in schools still set forth chances for those responsibilities all over again. And with this, we foster the American dream. The truth? That we hold it all self evident that everyone is created equal.

If there isn’t a better example of that anywhere, just look at the future jock, future geek, future cheerleader, and future goth all playing together in the sandbox, all taking turns being line leader, and all holding the door for each other.

So why should we care? Why should this make a difference?

Its hard to really think about politics as a whole. I know that, and we all recognize that. What makes it so hard is that you have to jump right into the thick of it. Where we hear names like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Allan Greenspan, and Henry Kissinger that are treated as giants. Its hard to imagine that in future generations, our kids will see people like Colin Powell, Karl Rove, and Howard Wolfson as great commentators for what we’re going through nowadays. But its all with the agendas that we hold.

Because even if we can’t be President, we can be unique. We can find that one thing that we’re good at and do it so well that we create what we call in business, a competitive advantage.

So, The Presidential Objective. As a whole, its about finding your own competitive advantage over every other person out ther. That we’re all equal, but that we all can find that one thing that makes us special and different and propels us to that presidential spot. To that highest of highs where we are so unique and so much greater than the other fourty something people who have currently come before us, and somehow the right person for the right time.

Because, no matter how old you are, you can be an Astronaut, Fire Fighter, Doctor, Police Officer, or even President of the United States. Its who we are, and what we are. And the second we forget that, we’re forgetting that we’re all the same. The goth, the cheerleader, the jock, and the geek.

Even a few days after the fact, I really don’t want to be thinking about this, but I prefaced myself on Sunday, and I’m ready to jump at it…

Assassination
noun
1. an attack intended to ruin someone’s reputation
2. murder of a public figure by surprise attack
Source: Dictionary.com

On May 23, 2008, Hillary Clinton was in a meeting with the Argus Editorial Board and when asked about staying in the race, she replied: “My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.” And then after those two sentences? The shit hit the fan and the pundits went wild.

That’s where we need to stop and look at everything rationally and see why this was such a big deal and an erroneous statement that was made. Or even if it WAS something to make a big deal about it.

1992 - Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign. I was attempting to find the information online about this, however the only source that I can find is Wikipedia. And I honestly hate using it for final sourcing, until I found this neat little site that someone compiled. As you can see, the situation at hand was a sweep by Clinton in the majority of the primaries after what’s called “Super Tuesday” when the majority of states vote. The thing to note is that the first “Super Tuesday” of 1992 was on March 10th. In our current primary cycle? February 5th. A whole month worth of difference. That calendar shows an earlier clinch by Clinton, which him primarily campaigning to keep himself running. And also, with a primary cycle that started later than the current one, to be “going into June” meant a something a bit different.

1968 - Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. There’s no mistaking the fact. But with a completely different primary schedule and calendar, its hardly a comparable race. Add to that the fact that when RFK was assassinated, the person who was running in second behind him was the one who got the nomination. Just because the front runner was no longer in the race, the party wasn’t thrown into complete shambles or disarray. Of course, you could say that they were, seeing 1968’s DNC established the current system of superdelegates and 50-state primary/caucus system for selecting the candidate.

And finally, the politics of assassination aren’t to be taken lightly. Gandhi, JFK, MLK, Lincoln, and Lennon to name a few, are names that when you hear them, you think of the brutal violence associated with them. You think of the movements they stood for and the way they’re idolized for their beliefs. You think of how in the prime of their speech as they stood tall in the face of all oppression, they didn’t falter, they didn’t waver.

Here we stand in 2008 with Barack Obama–representing a living breathing ideal of hope and change–and Hillary Clinton–representing women’s rights, empowerment, and strength. If either of these candidates were to fall, if either of them were to be assassinated, it would be the same tragedy as RFK, who stood for the youth and a return to the politics of his brother. And if either of these candidates were to fall, the other one would undoubtedly take their place as the Democratic nominee, carrying the banner of the other along with their own.

Hillary Clinton’s remarks were off color and uncalled for in those three regards with different measures to be used, and for the pundits and press to jump on her for a recall of her comments?

It was justifiable.

When you’re going to make any sort of historical reference in anything you do, you need to have citations for it: be it a paper or speaking. You need to know what the basic implications behind your words and what will be interpreted from what you say and the words that are said. You need to be careful what you’re inciting, whether you mean it or not.

We live in a world where anything we say can and could be used against us in a court of law. We can be held liable for these words, and we need to ensure that what we say is understood in the way we mean for it to be understood, and we do so by watching our words, understanding what we say, how we say it, and how it might be understood.

And that is why Senator Clinton shouldn’t have said what she said. I’m not going to harangue her any more than that because its not my place to say it. Its just plain and simple: when you’re under the spotlight and a microscope of scrutiny? You need to watch what you say because its under that same spotlight and microscope of scrutiny. Its as simple as that.

Just like when you were growing up and your mother told you to think about what you were going to say instead of just running your mouth…

I have to give credit partially to my friend Nathan for this one. We were talking one day about the TV show Ghost Whisperer and he proposed the thought of her watching the movie I Know What You Did Last Summer. In his mind, this was an indescribable paradox: how could an actor in a TV show watch a movie that they appeared in? Doesn’t that sort of completely destroy the idea of the universe?

Now, other movies have covered this. The removal of the proverbial fourth wall sort of covers this when they include the audience in the joke. For example, in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when Ben Affleck’s character as Holden McNeil comments on himself as Ben Affleck. The cross-over of character is accepted and understood, and because its Affleck himself making fun of Affleck, it adds to the joke of the world being the same.

So, as Sarah and I were watching some of our usual B grade horror movies from Sci Fi channel this weekend and I started to think about that. See, in these movies, we’re supposed to be in a world very much like our own. As most people immediately think about the known clichés of the genre, a few of which can be found here, I thought about something a bit more than that…

See, there are so many movies out there that have zombies or vampires or werewolves in them. Wouldn’t it make sense that maybe if you see one of these monsters, you’d know how to kill them because maybe you saw one of the movies growing up? Like, when we saw the movie Never Cry Werewolf, the main character researched werewolves when she had a suspicion that her neighbor was a werewolf, and she learned that way from watching old movies and reading. But when we saw Dead Men Walking, noone knew how the zombie virus was transmitted. It was like noone had seen zombie movies growing up in those movies.

There’s a suspension of belief that is required for all movies, but when you have all of these coincidences, maybe there should be something more. Maybe these folks should know what these monsters are. I mean, I wouldn’t expect them to know what the Rock Monster was, but for them to not know a zombie or a vampire when they see it or vaguely even know what they are? What world do these folks live in?

So for this week’s Sunday Share, well, I’m going to provide a preface for something that I’m going to write out on Tuesday…

I saw this on Friday night on Countdown and I think its worth thinking about and discussing, but I think that there’s a bit that might be over the top…

So, enjoy the politics of it, and we’ll catch you on the flip-side. Have a great Memorial Day, friends…

I didn’t really think about it too much, but back in February, I marked the start of another year of blogging. I originally started blogging in February 2002 on LiveJournal. While I’ve only been on my own site for a few months now, its interesting to think about how blogging is so accepted and widespread.

If you’re not on a site like LJ or DeadJournal or GreatestJournal, you’ve got other sites like Xanga, Facebook Notes, and MySpace Blogs. Celebrities and TV shows have them. You just add them up to your RSS feeds and you’re good to go.

So that’ll leave you with a question on this Saturday: What fun blogs do you read?

I’ve got about 30ish feeds, give or take, that I have on my reader… I’ll start sharing a few of those soon…

Morning… Earlier than I usually post, but this morning is different. See, I hitched a ride out to work with Sarah this morning so her father could teach me how to drive. Funny sounding, I know, but when you can’t drive a manual transmission and your wife’s car happens to be just that? Well, lets just say that I should learn. About darn time…

I’ve been getting slow in writing these past two days just for the sole reason that the huge event I hinted at recently. Well, there’s one thing standing in the way that I’m trying to take care of now. As soon as that’s done, then I’ll feel better about announcing it here.

Even still, there’s something about writing. When you start it, you have the urge to keep on doing it. That’s why I’ve made the personal goal for the first year of this blog to have an entry for each and every day: even if I don’t feel like writing and I jot out some post via my cell phone, I’m still keeping that writing muscle stretched.

So, I’ll start working on some reviews next week too. Classes are just kicking my ass now…

Its funny, I find myself not playing that much guitar anymore, and folks still know me for it. And I’ve talked about recording one album or another, and well, I just haven’t yet.

Why? Well, its due to a few things.

Whenever I record, I want to take more time to ensure a higher quality. I just haven’t because it involves setting things up, kicking the cats out of the area that my computer is in, and just having the time.

Time is a big thing too. Between classes and the on-going job hunt, well, it wouldn’t be right for me to take an 8 hour day to record 3-4 songs and get them right.

Next up, I just don’t have the drive to do it. I enjoy playing and I do play maybe an hour or two a week, but just not all that much because of homework and trying to keep up with the news and stuff around me.

As a whole, I remember growing up and spending 2-4 hours a day playing guitar, playing sets, practicing techniques, and now? I’ll maybe pick it up for 10 minutes a day for two to three days a week. Not much at all.

The fact of the matter is? Life happens… And soon, I hope to talk more about how I record and what I’ll be doing on a new album that I’m slowly finishing writing and working on…

With today being the day that Obama will probably have reached the presumptive nominee status on the electoral vote majority, I’m going to shift from primary writing to about the race as a whole. And if you’re interested in the primary coverage, I’d recommend the First Read blog over on MSNBC.com. Very well done and indepth, and one of the best political team coverages that I’ve seen… And let’s get into this…

I kept seeing that clip on MSNBC this morning, dissecting the section about the Jay-Z gesture of “brush your shoulders off” and the Clinton “iron my shirt” sign. And in truth, I think that this race brought race and -isms to the forefront in a completely new light.

In the past, its fairly safe to say that it was old white guy versus old white guy in the nominations. Sure, Elizabeth Dole ran once, and JFK was our youngest president, and Alan Keyes and Jesse Jackson ran a time or two. The “script” has been broken in the past, but what makes it different is that its not us talking about someone who tried and dropped out after a state or two: we’re talking about two candidates that are strong choices for the Democratic party.

In some cases, anytime anything is said racially, there’s a jump to say that its racist against Obama… And now, as Clinton’s chances dwindle and the only math that works is Rove’s? The back-burner conversation has changed. No longer are we talking about racism, but about the dwindling chances of the first female president. I read more articles that sadden me daily about senior citizens that are out at rallies and are shedding solid tears because they see their chance for the first female president in their lifetime–their first honest to goodness solid chance with a strong candidate–dwindling.

Since day one, I’ve admitted to being an Obama supporter, but that’s not to say that I don’t respect Clinton. I have nothing but respect for her and the race she’s run at most points. I haven’t liked the attacks by either candidates against each other, and its gotten damn dirty, but that’s Obama choosing to change the rhetoric of running in this race.

The problem is, and its an interesting discussion at hand, we’re changing history. We’re living at the brink of something historic and we’re not talking about gender and race. Clinton is looking to break the highest glass ceiling in our country, and the inherent possibility that a black man will quite possibly make that move before her.

We make any vague reference, and its a race card, and we look to see who’s playing it. We dissect language for the smallest words to see any clues that might be at hand: Edwards saying “‘em” and it being interpreted as “him” about endorsing Obama on May 9th on Morning Joe; Obama brushing his shoulders off and talking about “Annie Oakley”. We look for the extraneous meaning to these, trying to point fingers at people for the “boo boos” of identity, rather than the actual messages. Why? Because we’re so used to calling people out for being racist or sexist that we feel the need to “be better” than those who we interpret as choosing to say these things. To quote an old story that Reagan told that Clinton’s told too: a young boy is shoveling manure out of a room and when asked why he’s shoveling away, he replies “with all of this horse shit, there’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere.”

We need to stop looking for the pony and start looking at ourselves. This is a dialogue that needs to be had. We need to be discussing race and gender and discrimination. Its a sad truth that we’re at this point in our society and we’re not ready for it. We can’t look past skin and gender with this difference… We can’t accept them for being American.

Melting pot, indeed.

I know that I’m putting off what I hinted at last week, but I’d like to have a few more ducks in order before I shoot them all down. I posted something over on my LiveJournal for friends of mine there, because I wanted my friends to know what was what before I went blabbering all over the whole intarweb, but its not hard for those who are intelligent enough to at least figure out the fringe details. Sorry that I haven’t posted about it here, though. I promise I’ll fill in most of the blanks hopefully by the end of the week. I want this to be better footed than just a reveal. I want this to be substantial.

So speaking about substantiability, I feel that its only fair that I mention something because I’m tired of seeing it.

Frequently, I find myself visiting the bathrooms on campus. Be it either a massive shadoobie that I need to squeak out, or just an overload of water and energy drinks in my system, sometimes you just have gotta go.

And like any other guy who knows the rules of the bathroom (don’t look to your sides, just straight ahead or down; shake twice, anything more is playing with it; urinal rules for spacing; courtesy flushes), well, there’s a common sense rule that I wish more people knew as a whole:

I just left the bathroom and a guy who walked in after me was out before me. Why? Because I took time at the sink and some soap and water. Seriously.

When mankind dies epically in however many years that it takes and its from disease transmission, its because we didn’t cover our mouths when we sneezed, or we didn’t wash our hands after we did that, or maybe we wiped our asses with our left hand and didn’t use some soap.

People have looked at me funny when I throw a wet paper towel on the ground when there’s no trash can, right by a bathroom door. You want to know why? Because I tried to protect my hands for a few minutes after leaving the bathroom by washing them, and I’m not going to have that dashed at the door by the moron who walked in two minutes after me then shook three times at the urinal four down from me and then walked out five seconds before I did because he didn’t stop at the sink.

It doesn’t take much, and I’m no Adrian Monk, but this is just the least that anyone can do to be courteous to the person behind you.

Following my other Sunday Share a week back on Yankee Stadium, I thought it’d only be fair to show this little clip from the new Citi Field from Keith Olbermann’s visit and subsequential Countdown airing.

While I don’t think that its as cool looking as Yankee Stadium? Its definitely a really nice looking field…

Note: If you’re seeing this entry on a feed, I noticed that last week, unlike YouTube Videos, MSNBC videos do not embed on feed posts. Or at least, not on my Facebook or LJ parts of it… Sorry. You’ll have to come to my blog to watch this one…

Facebook and MySpace have gone too far. Seriously.

I remember a few months back when they added in this little feature called “applications” on Facebook. At first, some of them weren’t too bad: music players, other websites functionally integrated (Last.FM, LiveJournal, Digg, Fark), extended info boxes. Things that were mostly useful. That you could use more things alongside it, but they didn’t get in the way.

Then, came the vampire applications where you “recruited” friends. Then werewolves, then pirates, then ninjas, then major movie spin-offs. Then different versions of each pirate or werewolves. Then they added quizzes as applications so you could have some subjective quiz tell you that you’re a certain type of martini because of how complex you are as a unique and beautiful butterfly that you believe yourself to be from the biased questions that some generic person made with a stock Geddes photo attached. Just like all of the quizzes we used to find all of the time of “Which Power Ranger are you?” or “Which flower are you?” or my personal favorite, “Which My Little Pony are you?” Because lord knows my life isn’t complete without knowing that one.

Slowly, Facebook allowed ways to block applications, but for each application you block, there’s another five that you’ll have to soon block that are like it that some other company creates but tweaks a feature to make it into their own. And while I didn’t think it could get worse…

It did.

Because now, MySpace added applications too. And they made it a little harder to block them initially. But believe me, the second I found out how I could block it? I did.

My problem, though, is why do we need all of these applications?

Think about it. A social networking site should be simple, which is what Facebook originally did which distinguished itself from MySpace. It should be something where you can provide an easy profile and communicate who you are simply, and it should be used to log in, catch up with friends, and then move on and live your life. So there’s no reason to need 200 profile boxes, cluttering up this basic interface. That’s why I like Facebook better than MySpace: because it doesn’t crash; because the mobile interface is easy to use; and because as a majority, the profiles are all standardized and not all glittered up.

Yes, I’m guilty of using both for more than what they are, but I still try to keep it professional to some regards. I just don’t need those polls and quizzes, and they’re such an eyesore and a pain.

But please, folks, think about them before you click on them. And if you’re on them? Maybe look at the applications you’re using and see if they really do help you out at all… I mean, really… Do they?