| Live Blogging, Pt 2 |
[Sep. 26th, 2008|06:15 pm] |
Holy crap, McCain just smacktalked earmarks - when his running mate's the worst earmarker of them all. Anyone want to bet about whether she'll get dumped harder than a prom queen morning after?
Veto EVERY SINGLE SPENDING BILL??? WTF? WTF MCCAIN? YOU ASS. |
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| Live Blogging of the First Presidential Debate |
[Sep. 26th, 2008|06:07 pm] |
6:07: Really, McCain? This is the end of the beginning? Really?
6:09: Shredded, twice, from Obama. Come on, shredding is so Julia Child. Let's work on something else.
6:10: Trainwreck, then "There's personal responsibility." Oh, for fuck's sake, McCain. You wrote half the campaign that fucked the economy, you flaming cockwad. |
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| Why having educational background in cross-market advertising is hella laaaame |
[May. 21st, 2008|04:07 pm] |
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You may just find out the next day that the fascinating SciFi Channel special on the crystal skulls of the Mayans you were kind of diggin' last night is actually a not-very-clever marketing tie-in for George Lucas' latest franchise prostitution. I just feel so...used. If my intelligence could take a hot shower until the water runs out, it would. |
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| Posted using LJ Talk... |
[May. 1st, 2008|11:53 pm] |
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I spent a good chunk of the last five years wondering what I wasn't doing right, and then I realized I was doing it right by merely wondering what I wasn't doing right. Then I got the idea that I was doing it wrong, and the doing it wrong was that part I was pretty sure I wasn't doing it wrong. Now I'm thinking I might need to think about just getting it done. |
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| Why does Mickey Mouse only have three fingers and no opposable thumb? It's hard to pick up the check |
[Mar. 11th, 2008|11:19 am] |
So, I had an account on Pirates of the Caribbean online for a while, figuring the $5 per month fee wasn't too bad. Then I realized that the gameplay sucked, there wasn't any plot, the PVP was terrible, the logic of the game was awful, the theory wasn't plotted out, and it literally looked like Disney played Warcraft a little bit and decided it would be a good idea to make something similar to WoW, except with pirates.
I think I played for about a week, got a ship, blew things up, yawned and then deleted the program. Then remembered, "Oh yeah, they don't pause your account, they keep charging you," mid February.
So I went to go turn it off before they charged me again this cycle, and what do you know? You can't turn it off online. No, you have to CALL their customer service line. Thirty minutes of waiting on hold and I finally got through the line, after listening to Hannah Montana hold music (seriously, claw my brain out with battery acid pain), I get a woman with an accent so thick I swear I started asking her to speak in single characters so I could understand what she was saying.
The woman who I spoke to couldn't hear me, couldn't speak proper English, couldn't understand the spelling of my account (four times), almost hung up on me, explained that my account was still active and didn't I want to keep going for just a little while longer?
...no, no I don't. And in point of fact, I don't want to have Disney sucking my bank account for $5 a month for a crappy game I don't play. So terminate my account.
"Are you aware we have new content?" (Actually, it was more like, "Ahhhr yerw aweear we haf nyuuuu cawntaynt?")
No, because I don't play the game and DON'T WANT TO PLAY THE GAME. TERMINATE MY ACCOUNT.
"Are you sure, sir?"
"YES I AM SURE. I am so sure I am coated in deodorant. I am raising my hand up to Empire State level. I am so positive that static electricity is arcing off my fingertips. I am so completely confident in my decision you can bounce bricks off of it. NOW CANCEL MY GODDAMN ACCOUNT."
...thus, I shall never, EVER enter into any contract with Disney, EVER AGAIN, and I highly recommend against it to many, many other people. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 22nd, 2008|12:49 am] |
Recently, Clinton's been talking mightily about Obama being able to inspire, but questioning his ability to lead. She and McCain both are happily singing the same tune about how Obama is giving speeches of "unrealistic expectations" and "inexperience". More specifically, about how Obama's got no substance to his message of "hope and change".
So, as a comparison, here's Hillary Clinton's rally rock-out-with-your-Michael-Jackson-Glove-Out theme song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FvyGydc8no&eur
Compared to Obama's eponymous Speech From New Hampshire, that if anything else, would be his theme song.
http://youtube.com/user/illwilly
Which one's got more substance? Which one would you expect to be guitartabbed, cribbed, played in coffeehouses? Which one has lyrics that don't make you feel like you're being talked down to or patronized?
And not to overload on Youtube as political points, but I'd definitely say at this point in the campaign, Clinton is the PS3 to Obama's Wii.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MFoyp71xw3w
Oddly enough, more people are still buying Wiis than PS3s. Odd.
Aaaaand suddenly I also realized that while I'm not really attracted to either of these physical representations, I watch the video and think, "Well, at least the Wii isn't a gloomy emo sulkasaurus."
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 9th, 2008|06:39 pm] |
The controversy over MSNBC's David Shuster and his comments about how the Clinton campaign seemed to be "pimping" Chelsea Clinton to target demographics to get votes isn't as surprising as people might think.
It's also completely accurate.
Hillary Clinton loves to play the role of wounded, shocked, disapproving, aggrieved womanhood. The role of "I'm a victim! I'm a victim!" has been characterized throughout her entire political life, definitively as First Lady, where her husband's sex life activities were publicly acknowledged and were used as political capital against her Republican opponents in the New York Senate race. Now that victimization is rolling to her daughter, who by virtue of being an adult public figure, is not only responsible for her own actions and motivations, but perfectly capable of standing up for herself as an adult woman.
Hillary Clinton is acting once more as a suffering martyr in order to generate a sympathy vote. Had Chelsea Clinton been the gawky, innocent thirteen-year old from fourteen years ago, this accusation might have treaded water. But as it is, it's the Hillary Clinton strategem of old that played out in the New Hampshire primary AND on Super Tuesday - cry some tears, complain about how unfair it is, accuse people of being big fat meanies, and lo and behold: sympathy votes!
A tear in New Hampshire made her vulnerable; a shaky voice on Super Tuesday picked up a few more votes. And the Role of Momma Bear on the eve of the Washington primaries is sure to pick up a few more of that crucial voting block that has been her stalwart throughout this campaign - the woman of a certain age.
Surprisingly enough, the Obamas don't trot their kids out on stage with them. And McCain's daughter is definitely getting pimped out to generate votes with her own MySpace page and Facebook.
Clinton is a master of framing and a product of a political machine. Not a week ago she was screaming for Obama to face her in public debates immediately after he outstripped her in fundraising. Obama's ability to place advertising on the Super Bowl ads in every market was immediately framed by the Clinton campaign as "establishment politics" - hilariously hypocritical from a political family that's operated inside the Beltway for over twenty years.
In other words, any news is good news. So when one guy says what a huge number of Americans are thinking about the oddity of Chelsea Clinton using her face, name, persona and identity to campaign for her mother when for YEARS she was completely off-limits to the press speaks volumes to the methodology of the Clinton campaign.
In Washington on Thursday night, Clinton spoke to 5,000 people. On Friday morning, Obama spoke to 20,000 people packing a sports arena that doesn't fill to overflow even for the NBA team that plays there. It's utterly and completely clear that there's an Obama surge, and the Clinton campaign is doing anything - ANYTHING to hold back the tide.
By the way, one can also see the difference in numbers between the supporters of the Democrats in Washington State by simply looking at the photos of the Clinton supporters and the Obama supporters in the primary today, located on the local paper The Stranger's Slog.
In one, several older voters cluster around a small table, one glaring at the camera, a Hillary Clinton button pinned to his chest. He stands apart, a gulf of space between him and the other Clinton supporters.
In the other, swarms of people fill the field of vision. There are hundreds of them, and they pack the space of the gym like restless ants. To say the Clinton supporters were outnumbered by the Obama supporters by fifty to one is not an unreasonable estimate.
That is the fear of the Clinton campaign - that irrelevancy and story headlines mention the Obama name more often than the Clinton name. That publicity for her name has dwindled. That her base of financial support is drying up. That no member of an incredibly popular music group has taken her speech and converted it to a free song he won't sell because the message was so inspiring (a hint: details of a health care system truly don't flow in lyrical form). That many Americans are tiring of the Clinton franchise, and like her strongest supporters in Hollywood, are increasingly relevant only to women of a certain age, and those for whom nostalgia is more important than substance. Like, for instance, Barbara Streisand and her fanbase that isn't gay, male, and fabulous.
The Clinton campaign will indeed pimp out Chelsea Clinton's aggrieved status as victim and poor, innocent child of a charismatic leader, slandered in the press by the thoughtless remarks of a cable news channel pundit. To say MSNBC's talking head Shuster fucked up is irrelevant - it simply would not have mattered whether he mentioned that she had interesting choice in clothing or whether she seemed out-of-place on the campaign trail. The Clinton political machine LOVES to find new and interesting ways to protest too much, and exploit them into airtime for the candidate.
It certainly works; the Baby Boomer Woman is the primary demographic base of support for the Clinton campaign. That demographic reacts well to tugs at the heartstrings, calls for nostalgic, better times and that special bond between mother and daughter. To speak to them is to relate to them, and a calculatingly precise political machine can easily take advantage of such a predictable fanbase.
To note that most of that demographic base would have stared in utter disbelief at the codependency of a friend who watched her husband dance the horizontal mambo and remain married for the sake not of the child, but for the sake of her career and future, may go without saying, but it may also go without saying that it's far more convienient for politicians and their constituency alike to point to a long-standing marriage of any quality as a success than a failure, especially in American politics.
The truly abhorrent behavior is coming directly now from the Clinton campaign, where politicos and advisors rub their hands with glee whenever someone from the world of the press makes a faux pas against the Clintons, and thrust it full-faced into the spotlight of national attention.
So no, it's not at all odd that Chelsea Clinton is being pimped out by her mother's campaign to win votes. In fact, it's par for the political course. And Chelsea's willing consent and active participation negates any self-righteous zealotry Hillary Clinton might have towards those who ping a public figure that's related to her.
Yes, oddly enough, I do agree with David Shuster. It's kind of weird how Chelsea Clinton is being pimped out by her mother's campaign for president. But the true prostitution of the adult daughter of one of the United States' most political families didn't happen until AFTER Shuster stuck his foot in his mouth.
And that isn't weird at all - that's classic Hilary Clinton political strategy, from day one.
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 28th, 2008|11:28 am] |
Wow...
So I got home Friday, and spent a little bit of time organizing things before just stripping off and falling into bed.
I didn't get up until 5PM the next day, spent two hours getting dressed and shopping for food and things I can eat easily when sick, and then ate, went back to bed.
I just got slammed with some kind of icky bug, on top of what I had before. Yay. What fun. |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 23rd, 2008|08:25 pm] |
And, what's more interesting...
Long hours, a vast amount of work in front of me, and a huge amount of challenging projects coming up...
...you know, at my last job I would have been freaking right the hell out.
This one, I actually kinda like it. |
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