2008 is here

I finally got my copy of Stephen Tower's Nightmare USA. This is the biggest book I've ever owned in my life. It's 527 pages, coffee table sized, and weighs probably 6 or 7 pounds. It's enormous. The book, from Fab Press, covers American independent horror from 1970-1985. There are literally hundreds of films that Tower covers in depth in here. Everything from your typical Last House on the Left to stuff like Microwave Massacre. It's going to take me days to read through all the info in here. On top of that, it is chock full of photographs. I can't wait to dive into it.

After hanging out with some friends, I came home and watched a few episodes of the Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi channel. It's sort of amazing the quality in these old episodes. It makes you wonder why there can't be something like that on nowadays. I never watched any of the TZ relaunch they did a few years back. I read some reviews claiming it was pretty abysmal. Would it really be that hard to do a half-hour show like TZ in today's day and age? Heck, even put it in black and white. I would watch that.

Florida State lost their bowl game today. I didn't watch it, but I'm sure the fact they didn't have 36 players because of cheating and injuries didn't help their cause. It looks like next year will be Bobby Bowden's final year. The schedule gets easier, but we're still stuck with the same shitty quarterback situation. Things don't look promising.

The Des Moines Register poll is showing Obama opening up a lead on Hillary. Every other poll shows this way closer so it may not be trustworthy. It should be noted, though, that the Des Moines Register poll was the only poll to correctly predict the winning order last time around, for whatever that's worth. Thursday's going to be an exciting day. I plan on getting some pizza, kicking back, and watching the results. Is it really going to be as close as the pundits think or will there be a big separation when the final results are in? Will the youth actually show up for Obama? Can't wait to find out.

Overall, 2007 was a pretty good year for me. I'm hoping 2008 brings some big things. I'm now officially a Senior (ended up with an A- in my Politics class) and look forward to my final semester and a half of college (f**k my last two Spanish classes, argh!). I've also got grand plans for Outpost Doom. It's going to be interesting....

Bored and cold

Caught two excellent flicks on Friday. First, Alyssa and I went to Sweeney Todd. It's a really good movie. I wouldn't say it is great, though. The songs can get a little long and repetitive in places, I would have liked to have seen more of Sweeney's back story explored (such as his prison time and escape, which wasn't shown at all), and I absolutely hated the stupid "sailor" Anthony. Every time he came on screen, I wanted to punch his face in. The guy just looks like a total sissy and his musical numbers make him the most annoying character I've seen on screen in a long time. Sort of sad, because the film was almost perfectly casted with the exception of that whiny man-bitch. Johnny Depp is aces as Todd and is the highlight of the film. If I were writing a review for Deadlantern, I'd probably give it a 7.5/10

I also caught Eastern Promises over some delicious Valentino's pizza. Cronenberg is one of my favorite directors and I just loved this flick. Great cast, story, and direction. My girlfriend commented that she wished the film had been longer, which I suppose is a compliment in and of itself considering that the film isn't what you'd call "action packed". Cronenberg is such an underappreciated director. I can imagine film scholars fifty years from now rediscovering many of his films and bumping him up the ladder of great directors. I read a rumor that his next film is going to involve Freud and Jung and their interaction with a patient of some sort. Sounds weird, but I'll watch it. Somebody coax him back to the horror genre, please!

I'm still waiting on one more grade to come in this semester. I got A's in Aesthetics, Greek Religion, and Gender/Communication and am now waiting impatiently for my World Politics grade. That's the one class I have no clue as to what my final grade will be and it sucks to have to wait this long to find out.

I purchased Splatterhouse and Punch-Out with my Wii Points cards that I got for Christmas. I haven't spent any time in depth with Splatterhouse, but from little I played, it seemed fun. I got past a couple mini bosses but succumbed to a flying killer picture frame. I'm gonna spend my New Year's Eve slaying monsters. As I was playing, the though occurred to me that if some company were to develop a God of War type game but stuck it in a horror-inspired universe, that could be the greatest game ever. If they can do it for mythological monsters, why not classic horror monsters?

I predict that the Patriots are going to lose to the Giants Saturday night. Just got a feeling...

Christmas: Wherein I Brag about all my Christmas Loot

Christmas is finally over. I'm so glad. Between the family bickering, sheer boredom of two days in Grand Island, and general annoyance factor of having to be in the vicinity of people I can't stand, it's amazing I didn't kill my self. One salvation was getting a much needed excuse to leave my grandma's house and hang out with Jeff and Steve. We caught Aliens vs. Predator and recorded a Splattercast which was a lot of fun. So did I score a bunch of great swag to compensate for putting up with family fighting all weekend? Here's a rundown of what I got:

Digital Camera w/ memory card
2 Wii Zappers
2 Wii 2000 point Cards
Wii Classic Controller
Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles
Guitar Hero III
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
Live Free or Die Hard
A big ass Griddle
Aunt Jemima syrup and Pancake Mix
Calculator
Electric Blanket
2 Packages of Socks
Countless shirts and sweatshirts I'll never wear
An FSU t-shirt and hoodie
3 much needed new towels
2 Pairs of gloves
2 packages of Lil' Dutch Maid cookies
1 Coca-Cola mug stuffed with cherry candies

Considering that I only asked for the Griddle, I'd say I came out ahead. I've played all the way through Guitar Hero on the easy setting and have come to the conclusion that I hate almost every song on there. In fact, off the top of my head, I can't think of any song that I liked (actually, I just thought of Welcome to the Jungle and Bulls on Parade). The moral of the story is that I have no real desire to play through the game again on the higher difficulty settings. I suppose if any of my friends want to play online, I'd be up for a match, but I just could give a shit about unlocking new guitars or playable characters, y'know? Maybe it's more fun as a party game?

I'm currently reading through Cinema Sewer. It's pretty great if you're into reading old fanzines. The book is a compilation of the best of the first 12 issues. I'd always heard about the magazine, but never had the opportunity to take a look. Wouldn't it be great if Fangoria or GoreZone put out a big compilation book of their old issues? Fangoria has that famous "Order our back issues" page at the end of its issues, but god, early issues are just way too expensive for my taste. If I could pay twenty bucks and get the collected reprinted issues in book form, I would gladly throw down money for that. Comic books already do this with graphic novel collections, why not Fango or GoreZone?

I'm off to get ready for Dead Politics.

Sweeney Obama Cheaters

Sweeney Todd has been getting rave reviews and I'm getting anxious to go see it. I absolutely love the broadway version with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett. It's great and has hilarious tunes. I'm not a big fan of Tim Burton, but this flick looks really nice. I also like the fact that Hans Gruber has been getting so many big roles lately. Dude has the perfect villian voice. He looks a bit too much like an Trent Reznor as an old man in the Harry Potter movies though...

A kind old woman quizzed Obama on his Islam ties today. Even when he explained, she still felt the need to verify that he was a Christian by making him define what a Christian is. This exchange shows that Clinton's goon squad's tactics are working. Planting the question of Muslim in voters' minds doesn't work as well with younger people, but it DOES work great with older voters who tend to be far more prejudiced towards those sorts of things. In other words: The voting bloc Hillary is depending on. If Obama cracks the older vote, then he's won Iowa.

It's going to take a miracle for Florida State to win its bowl game against Kentucky. 36 players aren't going to be playing, most of those because of an academic cheating scandal. What an utter embarrassment. I mean, it would be one thing if these players were cheating and WINNING, but sucking and cheating together stings all the more. And it's not like this shit doesn't happen all over the country. Alyssa had a class a couple years back where the professor let the football players take the same test after the rest of the class take it (thus knowing every question on it) as a matter of POLICY. Which probably explains why there were dozens of football players in that class. Unfortunately for Florida State, they've had, shall we say, a shady reputation of past problems, so they're always going to be under the microscope. I wouldn't suspend these dipshits. I'd gank their scholarships.

It's over

The semester is finally over! I had to drag my ass out of bed to do my philosophy final at 8 this morning. Is there anything worse than trying to write an essay on the nature of the meaning of "Is" in artistic identification? Bill Clinton has a famous quote saying "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is" in regards to the Lewinsky affair. The context obscures the fact that there is a difference in how 'is' is used (I used too many is' in that sentence).

There is an "is" of identity. "Cicero is Tully" is an example of this. The names refer to the same person. Tully is Cicero and vice versa. On the other hand, there's an "is" of predication such as "Grass is Green". The 'is' refers not to something that is the same (Green is not the same thing as Grass), but the state of something. I mention this because a famous 20th century art critic named Danto claimed there is a third type of 'is' involved in artistic identification. The theory goes that you must have an intrinsic knowledge of the history that goes into art in order to be able to recognize something as art.

The example Danto uses is an imaginary person named Testadura. Testadura looks at, say, Warhol's Brillo boxes and says "That's not art. Why is a recreation of a Brillo box so great? I could do that". Testadura represents someone who just "doesn't get it". Another example would be a Jackson Pollack painting where the paint is just randomly put all over the canvas. Is that art? Testadura would say no because a chimpanzee could do the same thing. However, Danto argues that there is an artistic identification that Testadura just does not have. He doesn't understand the evolution of art, the history of technique, application, and dynamic. Warhol's Brillo boxes would not have been art 50 years before, yet they are now precisely because the artist can see how things have evolved. In other words, Testadura is just ignorant to the fact that there is something more to art than just what we see with our own eyes. Danto argues that there is more to it than that and only certain people have access to the trait of artistic identification. Anyways, I had to write about that. Now I'm finished. Yay.

Christmas is coming up soon. Alyssa is gone all weekend visiting her grandparents in western Nebraska, so I've got the apartment to myself. I think I'm going to do some cleaning. Every once in a while I get in this mood to just clean everything like I'm possessed. Other than that, I plan on watching some movies. Stupid ass Netflix sent me an e-mail saying that three movies are being shipped from the east and west coast. I mailed these back on wednesday, so instead of having movies to watch this weekend from my local Omaha distributor, the bastards won't get me my movies until next week AFTER Christmas. I hate Netflix!

Gallup is showing Obama tied with Clinton in New Hampshire. I still think Hillary will pull out the nomination because I think most undecided people are ultimately going to go with the person they "know" rather than someone new to the scene, regardless as to whether or not Hillary would be good. That's sad, but probably the truth of it. As I've always said, this experience and exposure in the primaries will only help Obama in a future presidential run if he falls to Hillary. Still, I hope Santa brings a victory :)

The Toll of a Campaign?

Ah yes. The famous Drudge "Unflattering photo". The photo of Hillary has been on the top of Drudge's page all night. No link accompanying it. Just this bad picture with the headline "The Toll of a Campaign". What is the point of this, exactly? Nothing more than to take a pot shot at Hillary Clinton. Openly mocking the way she looks to the millions of visitors to the site who will no doubt see this pic and laugh. Is this news worthy? Nope. In fact, I'm pretty sure that you could find just as many pictures of all the candidates looking tired and worn out right about now.

Is there an agenda behind this picture? Probably. Drudge is part of the anti-Hillary conservative psychosis who seem strangely obsessed with bringing her down. Don't get me wrong, I don't care for Hillary, and by comparison, Obama has been getting nothing but positive stories on the site, but this is just a little tacky, don't you think? Drudge, Rush, Hannity and the club would like nothing more than to see Hillary beaten in the primaries. That would officially end the "Clinton Era" of Democratic politics. Considering the fact that Hillary has recently gotten some momentum back because of the Des Moines Register endorsement, it's not surprising certain interests are trying to make her look stupid again. After all, the conservatives want Obama to win and it looks like they'll do whatever it takes to help him climb that extra mile. If they can take out a Clinton in the process, that will make it all the more sweet. Perhaps they should focus their attention on the wackjob they have leading their own primaries because even Hillary would crush him in the general election.

I Am Legend sucked ass. Terrible CGI monsters. Terrible ending. Terrible just about everything except for the shots of a desolate New York. After the movie got out, my girlfriend and I couldn't stop talking about all the stupid shit that this supposedly "genius" guy did. The religious element brought in out of the blue in the last 20 minutes of the film didn't work at all and I'm still wondering why the hell Will Smith didn't get in the wall opening with the other two. Pull the pin, throw the grenade, jump inside, shut the door. Nobody in his position would do what he did. Stupid.

What also sucked is that they didn't show the trailer for The Dark Knight before our print of I Am Legend. Instead, we got 10,000 B.C. , which I'm predicting is going to fail horribly. It looks like Apocalypto, only with wooly mammoths. By the way, what the hell is up with all the atrocious CGI in movies lately? The Mist suffered from the same poor CG. Here's an idea...it might be sort of radical, but hear me out: use practical, real fx work. I seem to remember it working pretty well The Thing. I know, I know, it's cheaper and easier to chug out some shitty CG monster in a fast amount of time, but you lose so much with unrealistic fx. If you're dead set on CG, then you have to spend the time doing it right, perfecting it so as not to draw attention to its own fakeness. Give me a Tom Savini, a Rick Baker, or a Rob Bottin over ILM any day.

Gender and Communication final today, World Politics on Tuesday, and Philosophy on Friday.

I Am Kickass?

I've been anticipating seeing "I Am Legend" all year long. I love the story, I love the the Vincent Price version "Last Man on Earth", and I love post-apocalyptic stuff.

Checking Rotten Tomatoes, it's currently right below a fresh rating at 59%

The general consensus seems to be "Will Smith is awesome, the CGI is god-awful, and the ending is sappy". As I was walking home from work tonight, I passed by a stream of people who were getting out of a showing and all these guys were like "That movie was fucking sad!". Everybody was chatting about it like it was cool, so I've got high hopes that this is one of those films that kicks ass but the critics are too proud to rate highly, for fear of looking like they enjoy a big budget Hollywood flick. I think I might be going to this with Alyssa tomorrow night after work if it isn't snowing badly.

Speaking of work, I heard a bunch of people around me doing USA Today surveys and asking questions about the presidential elections. I'm not sure if this is just a general nation wide survey, or if Gallup has started individual states yet, but soon I should have a better idea as to where Obama actually stands. One of the latest in state Iowa polls shows Obama with a commanding 9 point lead over Hillary. That seems a little overly optimistic. Still, he's gotten nothing but great press since Oprah and Hillary has looked like a shrill, vindictive bitch the past week or so. If you want to see a campaign in absolute desperation mode, you have to watch Hillary's campaign strategist try and weasel his way out of the negative publicity in this video. Mark Penn wobbles back and forth and actually uses the "Cocaine" word when denying Shaheen's attack (Shaheen himself didn't even say cocaine when talking about Obama's past drug use). Keep your eye on Joe Trippi who looks at Penn in utter disgust.

Mark Penn: sleazeball.

There's some news out that the Halloween 6 producer's cut may finally be coming out on DVD in the future. I hope so. I've always wanted to see it.


Dog Soldiers miraculously showed up in my mailbox this afternoon (along with Hollywood Gothic by David Skal) and I watched it with some Subway and Doritos. I had seen this, gosh, probably 5 years ago, but didn't really remember much of it. I think I was distracted at the time. Anyway, watching it again, I liked it more than I thought I did. I was pleasantly surprised to see Kevin McKidd in the lead role. He's one of my favorite actors going right now (still mad I missed Journeyman this year). There's just something missing in this film for me. It's got so many great elements that I like, but I can't shake the feeling that it doesn't all come together like it should. Some of the editing is bad and the werewolves seemed to be under-utilized to their full potential. Still, I like it, just not enough to give it a glowing review.

B-

Woo hoo! School's almost out!

Oh happy day! Writing papers doesn't bother me...except when they have to be 15-20 pages long. I've got 3 finals next week and then the semester will be over. On sucky thing is that my last final is next friday at 8 in the morning. I'm so close to finishing school I can taste it!

Hillary Clinton apologized to Barack Obama earlier today for her drug story hit job on him. Anybody that follows politics in any meaningful way, even superficially, doesn't believe that she had no idea this was going to happen. I've said before that I used to think the portrayal of her as some great evil were overblown, but I'm really beginning to despise this woman. I think I'm starting to understand why so many conservatives hate this woman. Regardless of whether or not you support Obama's views, I don't think anyone can honestly say the guy is some conniving force of evil. In the unfortunate event that Hillary is elected in the primaries, I'll be writing in Obama as my selection next November. As for that picture....don't they say the Sith always come in pairs?

:)

I was supposed to get Dog Soldiers from Netflix last week. It still hasn't arrived. I've reported it, but that's one less Christmas horror film that I'll get to watch this weekend. I think I might head to Audio Visual this weekend to see if they have the Silent Night, Deadly Night collection on VHS. 5 for $5 is where it's at

There's been a interest in my idea for Super Smash Casters. The idea is that all the different horror podcasts will play Smash Bros. Brawl each week and trash talk the hell out of/promote each other each week. I think this could be great with the proper planning. Looking forward to it.

I was doing some investigation into illegal immigration with my professor and came to an interesting "bigger picture" point. Most people know that European populations are declining due to lower birth rates. The long term effects of this are devastating as the population grows older and there are less working age people. But did you know, the same thing is happening to the population here in the U.S.? Our country is essentially "break even" in terms of birth/death rates. Ironically, the U.S. is not having the same problem as the European countries. Why? Because immigrants both legal and illegal are replacing the affected population. Therefore, in a bigger picture future scenario, the U.S. will hypothetically be less affected by a power reduction precisely because illegal immigration is continually renewing a working class population. Weird, huh?

I have no idea if this is true or not, but just goes to show, the government is everywhere :)

Procrastinating again...

My goal was to have 3 papers done by Sunday. I did 1.

I really need to break this procrastination habit. Argh!

There's an interesting observation stating that none of the Republicans in the field are inherently electable, even though collectively they have the advantage in experience and accolades over the Democratic candidates. It's kind of weird to see a party have nobody they really like.

"Oprahpalooza"? I've watched the rallies both times so far and it's definitely odd to see grown women screaming like little girls at a Hannah Montana concert. I read somewhere that there were 30-40,000 people at the South Carolina rally. Crazy. I also read that Obama's campaign asked the crowd to text message their phone numbers so they could sign up to be volunteers and a Guinness World Record was set when thousands of people called at the same time to their congressman's office to voice their support for Obama. Gotta give his campaign props for creativity.

While at work, I decided to check out the "liberal blogs" like Dailykos and Mydd. I can't believe the venom many of these people have towards Obama. Whether it's the lack of interest or brushing off of coverage by the main bloggers, or the readers who publish "diaries" criticizing him...it's very odd. Then again, all these blogs are huge supporters of John Edwards, which still baffles me. You would think that the blog community would rally around a guy who was against the war in Iraq from the beginning (something Hillary and Johnny Lawyer can't say). The best I can figure is that the "Leftist Blogs" aren't as irate about Iraq so much as they are healthcare. They are so hung up on the fact that Obama does not want a mandate for healthcare that they've just turned on the guy. Well, that might be too harsh a statement. More like they are standing on the sidelines, making snide comments every once in a while and waiting to see the dust clear. I guarantee you that if Obama beats Hillary, all these guys are going to be singing praises.

From what I've seen, if Obama wins, he'll be doing it without the support of the "blogosphere", which is telling in and of itself.

Food for thought: In the event that Obama pulls off the "miracle" and wins the Democratic nomination, who would he choose as his VP? This is a story that I haven't heard anybody talking about. You always hear who Hillary might pick, but not Obama. Here's an idea: Harold Ford, Jr.

A couple reasons I think this would be a good choice. First, Obama has already expressed the desire to put some conservatives in his Cabinet. He's stated that it is important to be surrounded by differing opinions. That's a good thing and I completely agree with his sentiment. Ford offers a unique set of talents that would help Obama's candidacy. Ford is definitely not what you'd call a "Left leaning Liberal". He supported the war in Iraq, has advocated stricter abortion policies, and believes in banning same sex marriage. He would be a good yin to Obama's yang in many ways. He lost his race for Senate in Tennessee a couple years back...by only 50,000 votes. Meaning, with him on the ticket, Obama could very well pick up Tennessee in a general election. Ford also offsets Obama in the area of public speaking and eloquence. Stick Ford in front of a group of people, even when he's been beat, and he just has it in a way that Obama sometimes struggles to articulate. It also doesn't hurt that he has big influence with religious voters in the South. And that he's one of the only Democrats who isn't afraid to be on Fox News (regular on Hannity and Colmes). And that he's chairing the DLC and is probably looking for a promotion...

I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but if Obama wins and you start hearing the name Harold Ford Jr. floating around in VP conversation, you heard it here first :)

Jumping into HD

So I'm buying a 50" HD television in January or February. I've actually never bought a TV before. The only one I've ever owned is a little 13" that my grandma bought me back in 1999. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons:

The first is that the tv we currently use, my girlfriend's 27" standard, is just begging to be replaced. Something happened a couple years ago and suddenly there is a huge green glob in the upper left corner of the frame. It looks like a magnet went across it somehow. The television is well over 10 years old and besides its age, it's just large and clunky. It's served us well, but its living room privileges have been revoked and it is destined to be put in an extra bedroom somewhere.

The second reason I'm doing this is, frankly, HD television is soon to become the standard. I have no problems with standard television and I have no intention of replacing my enormous DVD collection with HD versions of the films unless I find out for some stupid reason that I can't watch a regular DVD on an HD tv (haven't done much research yet, so I don't know all the nit picky rules). I've had big debates with buddies of mine about whether or not HD is just as good as a theatre to see a movie. I still firmly believe that the theatre is the superior viewing experience. That hasn't changed. And no Jeff, you can't change my mind :) Still, in a year or so, all of television is going to be in high-def (that's the government for you, I guess) and whether I like it or not, our normal tube TV isn't going to cut it. I'm sure I could buy some sort of digital box to plug into it or something, but I don't want to bother with all of that. Might as well just buy a new TV.

You might be wondering why I'm getting a 50"? Well, to be honest, if I'm going to splurge on a new TV, I might as well make it as impressive as I can. I've seen the 32" Hi-Def's but god do they seem tiny to me. Maybe it's the widescreen nature that doesn't seem to do it for me. A box shape looks much better in 32" than a rectangle to me. I don't know, there just seems to be something a little off with the smaller HD's. Maybe the bigger ones give the impression of the "real" theatre experience? Regardless, I just don't like the little ones. And since I'm getting three thousand bucks from my job as a "Thanks for being smart!" bonus in January, I might as well get the best I can get. Why buy a small hi-def when I can one that covers an entire wall? :)

I think gaming will be a lot more fun as well. In fact, I know it will. Playing Mario Party on Jeremy's big screen was great fun a couple years back and I'm looking forward to seeing a three foot tall Bowser on Smash Bros. Brawl :) Maybe I'll even check out God of War which Jeff says is great on HD. I can't imagine the coolness of playing it on a 50" TV.

One other thing, by actually having an HD tv and using it on a regular basis, I'll be able to really figure out whether or not home theatre systems are on par with regular movie theatres. Perhaps my position will change once I've had some in depth usage? We shall see in January/February I guess

Crunch time

I've got 7 days to write 4 papers. 3 of which need to be about 8 pages, the other needs to be 15-20. This is going to be the suckiest week I've had in a long, long time. On the brightside, I think I aced two more exams this afternoon and had a fun time reading to my Gender and Communication class the sex tips offered by Seventeen magazine, which included telling a girl what an orgasm was. In case you're wondering, Seventeen magazine claimed an orgasm was "Like a sneeze, only it feels great!"

A couple polls that came out have shocked some people. In one, Obama is essentially tied with Clinton in South Carolina, and the other shows him within 6 points of Hillary in New Hampshire. People are wondering why he isn't attacking the crap out of Hillary, but his message seems to be catching fire. Is it too little, too late? We'll see, but it's ads like this that bring people to his cause, I think. It's kind of weird to see a non-attack ad in a race this close.



Kudos to the person who put this together. They hit up that swelling orchestral score for max "goosebump" points. It reminds me of his big speech at the DNC a few years back that put him "on the map". I've already heard accusations of "cheese!" in regards to the ad, but at least it's positive while still taking a high road swipe at Hillary in the process, which is always a good thing :)

Find out what all the hype is about at BarackObama.com

Braving the cold for a Nintendo Wii

Batman Begins was fantastic. Arguably, the best part of it was the last scene where Commissioner Gordon gives Batman the joker card, thus tantalizing us for the inevitable kickass sequel. Heath Ledger was cast as Joker, much to the chagrin of many people? Clear pics are finally coming out and I've gotta say, Ledger looks pretty great as the Joker. There's a real sense of menace or something here. Not like Nicholson, who played it as over-the-top as only Nicholson can do. But the problem with Nicholson was that he never seemed psycho enough. I suppose that fits with Burton's world, but now that Nolan is doing a more "realistic" Batman world, I have a feeling that the Joker is going to be one scary mofo. Good to see he's still rockin' the purple, as well.

Tomorrow morning, I'm heading off with my mom to stand in front of Toys R' Us at 6 a.m. in hopes of getting a Wii. I decided to tag along for moral support. She's picking one up for my step-sister and her husband, and I figured I'd be a good son and hang with her. Then I figured "Geez, I should just buy one myself and sell it on eBay". So that's what I'm going to do if I can get my hands on one. Supposedly, Toys R' Us is getting 21 Wii's in tomorrow morning and if I can, I might as well pick one up for my misery standing in the cold and sell it for a nice profit. Yay capitalism! :)

Frank Rich has an interesting Op-Ed piece in the New York Times about how Obama could be the Republicans' worst nightmare if he gets the Dem nomination. My pal Jeff seems to have this same view as he was trying to convince me that Obama would fare much better in the general election than Hillary. I'm still not completely sold on that line of thinking. It's one thing to have all these nice predictions a year ahead of time, but for the vast majority of Americans, they still have no idea who Barack Obama is. Most Americans wake up and start paying attention to the election when there are only two choices left, Democatic and Repbulican, and then it's a whole new ball game.

Nevertheless, all these glowing Op-Ed pieces are popping up because Hillary is dropping in the polls. The latest Crapmussen is showing her lead in the single digits in New Hampshire. These daily polls are fun to digest on a superficial level, but wake me when Gallup starts polling in these states. I'm still ecstatically restrained, but could the snowball be getting bigger and could it be rolling faster?

Next week is going to be insane. I've got to write 3 long papers and 1 extremely long paper (15-20 pages). Then I've got to finish the Outpost Doom script. I've got a lot of damn writing to do in the next couple weeks.