Feeling keyed up about long lines at your polling place and the fate of the entire universe hanging in the balance? Here’s a little something to break the tension:
I’ve had a fairly slow day at work, and usually that leads to much bloggage, but today I just haven’t been able to zero in on any particular topic on which I wanted to bloviate. I think I’m distracted by the building sense of anticipation and, yes, anxiety for tomorrow’s election. I’m trying
not to worry too much about it — after all, I’ve already cast my vote and whoever is going to win is going to win — but damn it, doesn’t it seem like we’re on the verge of something big here? Can’t you sense the huge, rushing something gathering strength out there in the night? Like the crackling electrical potential you sometimes feel in advance of an approaching thunderstorm? One of my friends e-mailed earlier today and said he feels like “I feel like I’m six years old and going to Disneyland tomorrow.”
That’s one way to describe it, I guess. Personally, my feelings are a bit more like the harsh yet vivid image Andrew Sullivan came up with the other day:
The more I think about it the more this election day feels like one giant collective, global puke. That Bush-Cheney thing never quite settled with us, did it? We’ll feel a lot better but a lot more tired once the last heave is over.
Coffee probably doesn’t sound too appetizing after that, but just as a public service, I’ll pass along the following word anyhow: Starbucks will be giving out free cups of joe tomorrow. All you have to do is tell them you voted. Pretty sweet way to encourage democracy, don’t you think?
Have a good pre-election day evening, everyone, and if you haven’t voted early, remember to get out and do it in the morning!
I read last week in a couple of different places that JVC, the last electronics manufacturer still making VHS-format videocassette recorders, has stopped production of standalone VCR units. Those VCR/DVD combo players will probably live on for a while, but for all intents and purposes, this is the end, at long last, of the VHS era.
I can already hear the smart-aleck kids out there in our studio audience murmuring, “good riddance,” and I suppose I can understand why. The lowly VHS tape doesn’t begin to compare to modern digital media in terms of video and audio quality, it’s hopelessly bulky compared to slender DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, and it’s subject to wear and tear that reduces fidelity every time you play your favorite movie. Like the much-maligned 8-track audio format, VHS is something we look back upon from the comfort of our more advanced times and can’t believe anyone ever thought it was acceptable or cool.
But, as I’m sure my three loyal readers are already anticipating, I’ve got something of a soft spot for this obsolete format, and also, believe it or not, for 8-tracks. I think people have forgotten just how revolutionary these two media really were, and we should take a moment to properly eulogize the vanguard of the media-on-demand world we now enjoy.
There are two possible explanations for this recent photo of me. One is that the very talented and way-cool motion-graphics designers at my place of employment have been having some Halloween fun with Photoshop. And the other is that there was something odd about the flu shot I had a couple days ago…
Beware the Moon!
Well, enough of that heavy political stuff. Today is Halloween, so how about we have some fun? Just to start things off, here’s a meme I found over at SamuraiFrog’s place:
I feel like I’m really pushing my luck with all the political and/or inflammatory posts lately, but as election day nears, more and more items are catching my eye that seem to be worth risking a fight. I was steered to the latest such item by Andrew Sullivan; it’s a blog ostensibly written by an 82-year-old Texas woman. (I say ostensibly because some of her commenters have raised the possibility that the 82-year-old “Helen” is merely a persona adopted by someone who wants to express a particular point of view.) Regardless of Helen’s true age or identity, though, she is an eloquent and entertaining writer with a refreshingly crusty, no-nonsense, and unabashedly partisan attitude. I found today’s entry particularly good, notably this passage:
Damn, I already used my vote for this year… if only I’d seen this video a few days earlier!
You know what really scares me about this? The way it actually makes me kind of like Paris Hilton. Just goes to show what a catchy jingle can do for you, I suppose.
(Via Neatorama.)
Never mind the cognitive dissonance of watching a video trailer for a book, this is something I think I need to pick up:
Jetpack Dreams Trailer from Mac Montandon on Vimeo.
I, too, mourn for the future we never had. Sometimes it really sucks to be an aging geek stuck in the real world…
(Via Boing Boing, of course!)
Nothing irritates me faster or more thoroughly than when some finger-wagging scold takes it upon themselves to save the rest of the community from the creeping stain of immorality instead of simply minding their own damn business and letting others go about theirs. This sort of thing, unfortunately, goes on all the time here in my home state, something which I’ve been depressingly aware of since I was a fairly young boy. Not a month goes by, it seems, without a letter-to-the-editor from some ninny who thinks the windows of Victoria’s Secret ought to be painted black, or news of yet another effort to “simplify” Utah’s ridiculously arcane liquor laws. Just this week, I’ve encountered two major eye-rollers from the front lines of the never-ending culture war:
Frutiger 57Cn is the ugliest font in the world. It’s even worse than that “futuristic computer” font from the ’70s, the one you saw on doors and packing crates on Buck Rogers.
Also, my one co-worker who likes to whistle while he works is driving me batshit.
That is all.