i’m really having a great time up here, this week was the week of getting into the GROOVE, finally. ski’d every day, ate very well (red beans, rice keilbasa…caribbean rice with chicken, southwest cajun chicken pasta), poker is going well.
i also got some new music i’ve been rockin to. so the routine has been wake up early, cereal, ski down to the lifts, ski all day, hot tub, eat, internet business, poker, sleep rinse and repeat. 
asdf
http://rimroad.webs.com/
so this is our place till April 30. totally unneccessary and also totally worth it. i wish i had more to say, but you guys can check out that site, and my facebook photo albums to get the full effect.
its funny. for me, it seems life is inversely proportional to how much you blog. so i guess a blog that is updated once every 2 months suggests a life in the fast lane, which is good.
but.
Alright, everyone…get ready. Brace yourselves, and remember: actually click on these hyperlinks and ReadTheArticle, not just my opinions on them, because my opinions may be wrong or intentionally Devil’s Advocate/outright lies, so I’ll take a line from good ‘ol Joe the Plumber, and say “Don’t listen to me, go out and find out for yourself”
First up, Presdient-Elect Obama, his transition to power, and underlying fears. In what could be described as the elephant with a sniper rifle in the room, one of the ‘reddest’ counties in the union has its children chanting “Assassinate Obama“. and they don’t even know what assassinate means – meaning a) our education system is clearly leaving lots of bumfuck backwoods kids behind, and b) their parents (those nutters that run the militias that are racist/separatist and produced McVeigh, among others) are telling them this phrase.
On a more serious note, there’s some excitement about Obama’s transition team and potential policies. “Obama’s goal, says his old friend Valerie Jerrett, another co-chair of the transition operation, ‘is to be able to be organized, efficient, disciplined and transparent to the American people.’” And he is certainly hitting the ground running, making choices that most agree are fair and prudent.
As positions fill, it is becoming apparent that Obama has decided to vet his employees, a move that has left GOP stalwarts scratching their heads. Some have even asked what the word “vetting” even means, having never looked into someone’s past, ever.
I’m incredibly excited with his transparency thus far. Change.gov allows citizens to look into policy, comment on stances, and even submit our own concerns and ideas. Also, he plans on posting potential legislation online so we can review and comment on bills before they are signed. This digital communication could backfire, if he doesn’t “pay my mortgage and fill my gas tank” fast enough for people like this. Then again, anyone this out of touch with reality probably doesn’t know what the InterWeb is. I for one, acknowledge [as Obama does] that things will be difficult, but change is coming to 1600 Pennsylvania.
This piece renewed the tingles of awe and excitement surrounding Obama’s election. Although I do take issue with his claim that “hitchhiking…will get you murdered [today]” Having hitchhiked myself, and come out unscathed, I resent al-Jazeera’s fear-mongering attempts to stop free rides with strangers.
Is anyone else ridiculously ecstatic every time a new slideshow of the Obamas circulates? I can’t help myself, every picture I see makes me smile. Truly Camelot reincarnate.
This little prank reminded me of SNL’s Al Gore sketch a couple of years ago. They are poking fun at a messianic POTUS solving all of our problems, but at the same time, the existence of these things works because people continue to choose to believe. That existence of hope is admirable, but we can all still make fun of ourselves. My philosophy is that nothing is taboo. Funny is funny, especially when it’s true
As far as the bailout goes, everyone continues to weigh in on the pros and cons of distributing the $700b. Personally, I do not undestand why the auto-industry is worth saving. I get that they are the backbone of our manufacturing economy as a whole, but let’s honestly take a look at the products they produce. Barney Frank says “The consequences of a collapse of the American automobile industry would be particularly troublesome.” Chrysler, GM and Ford have been declining for years, the foreign companies are far ahead of them in both green tech and luxury. I mean, shouldn’t a free market let the competition weed out the weak? It would be weird if Ford were to go bankrupt, the company that invented the auto in the first place. But I mean, come on, is ANYONE still using MS-DOS? 3.5″ Floppy Disks? Revolver Pistols?
Ron Paul said months ago that we should do nothing, and let the market correct itself. No one would ever agree to that, because that would mean all the inflated values of houses, companies, futures, commodities, etc would all plummet down to a more realistic worth. I suppose we can’t let that happen, but also how do we justify propping up broken industries, and where does that support end?
Paulson does seem to be shifting the federal relief to the consumer, a move is overdue and will be effective in jump-starting our economy once again.
As far as my own life these last 2 weeks, most of it has consisted of the Presidential Election coverage and the corresponding bliss coma that followed. I didn’t go to a single class during election week, instead opting to wear my Obama T-shirt and ponder hypotheticals all day.
I should know better, but I played poker on election day. A day that could potentially change my life, the country’s direction, our worldview, and history. This was an important day, a day I had been waiting for passively for four years, actively for 18 months. A day when it wasn’t possible to be focused on poker. The result? -$1900 at 200nl. Just like when I played during my mother’s hospital stay (1 week; -$8k) and the day before my Amsterdam trip (1 day; -$7k) i SHOULD NOT PLAY WHEN MY MIND IS ELSEWHERE. ok, lesson learned.
On saturday, I got the itch to play some live poker, so I ventured down to Foxwoods -
As my live-poker friends have been saying to me all along, 5/10 is redonkulously beatable, and I saw that during my 28 hour marathon at the woods. the players were rich, predictable and nonthinking…all elements that made me conclude that I need to start withdrawing more money online to play this game on the weekends. Let’s hope for a run good these next few months.
Online, things have gone well, my birthday granted me a nice $3k boomswitch in about 2000 hands (5 hours) so that was nice.
So now we’ve got Thanksgiving coming up, with an Eve I always enjoy. Suffield Inn is usually packed like sardines, with the Classes of ‘97-XX(whatever legal drinking age class can now go) and is always fun to catch up and drink. Not definite that I’ll be there this year, as I was invited to the gathering in the Shire…I haven’t seen those fine people in ages, so I think I may be leaning that direction.
A couple of local friends and I are working to put together ~$10k for a ski house in killington this year, so I’m hoping that works out. NYE seems to be dead, but a house for 5 months of skiing will have to do. Just gotta make sure the degenerates I’m renting with can get the money together by this weekend.
Looking forward to Christmas music, snow, homemade Chex mix, and general holiday spirit as winter gets closer.
I’m at the bus station in hartford now. Just talked to a wicked creepy nurse who’s going to see his supposed girlfriend in boston. His name was ryan.
That does not make me feel good.
Set to arrive at 11. Aaron is alladin, trey bizzle is indiana jones.
Despite my efforts at putting together an islamic terrorist costume replete with mccain/palin 08 pin, I’m settling for john lennon. Its just too easy.
More to follow.
but this is a must read: “Sleepless in Tehran“
exerpt:
But let’s use our leverage smartly and not exaggerate Iran’s strength. Just as I believe that we should drop the reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden — from $50 million to one penny, plus an autographed picture of Dick Cheney — we need to deflate the Iranian mullahs as well. Let them chase us.
i’ll get around to explaining my last post, that little SAT-like comparison, tomorrow.
Blog : Canon Rebel xti.
Details to follow.
First, I want to publicly congratulate my sister for pulling herself up the bootstraps and snapping out of her self-induced StumbleComa. For reasons even unknown to her, she neglected her duties to ShareNation. Oh, in case you haven’t yet made an account, visit StumbleUpon.com right now and do so. I’m ‘el-hitchhiker’ on there, feel free to friend me. Go on, I don’t mind you abandoning this self-righteous waste of a blog anyways. It’s that important that you get it.*
Speaking of which, the MSM is jumping on board with this new and sensible way to communicate. This shift is finally a reality, years after people began predicting the paperless revolution. Especially given the fact that . People are going more and more to the Internets, embracing instant satisfaction WRT its information. So, it should be no surprise that we’ve got another technological race to follow, the development of the Instant-On computer. Sign me up.
Thanks to some other great bloggers, two (1 and 2) friends I met in NYC, i’ve discovered “Does It Offend You, Yeah?” which have done their best to question everything i’ve ever known about music and myself while simultaneously making me instantly start dancing.
For some quick political news, see the following:
Is Sarah Palin Preparing for 2012? – for the GOP’s sake, i sure hope they are able to come up with someone better suited for the highest job in the land than a politician that still thinks the VP is “in charge of the Senate“, Alaska is NOT a socialist state (?) and the fruit fly’s importance for science is just a “I kid you not” shrug-off.
Not to worry, Obama supporters:
On the foreign policy front, a couple of interesting things have happened recently. American forces finally took the plunge and violated Syria’s soverignty to target some alleged terrorists.
“Together with a similar American commando raid into Pakistan more than seven weeks ago, the operation on Sunday appeared to reflect an intensifying effort by the Bush administration to find a way during its waning months to attack militants even beyond the borders of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States is at war.”
Clearly, this isn’t going over well in the Middle East, including Baghdad. I think this is an incredibly dangerous slope, but the decision seemed to be the only answer for an administration that has spent the last 6 years burning its bridges and using their left hand to deal with both allies and enemies.
There’s more, though. And this is incredible. U.S. Mulls Talks With Taliban in Bid to Quell Afghan Unrest. What! But, you say, that would involve actually TALKING with the turrists!? hm. This potential move doesn’t really make sense with what we just did in Syria, but if we’re talking about going to the table, i can’t complain. (Do I need to point out this has been one of Obama’s main talking points? I didn’t think so)
That’s all for now. PSH there’s more to do, but I don’t have the time. How can I ever have time if I never take time? F**k it, I’m going to take the red pill.
*you know what else is important? Pandora.com. Your brain will asplode at the genius of this. Oddly enough, Apple’s “Genius” prog works exactly the same way, but within your own library. I don’t work for either Stumble or Pandora, but some things are too good to not talk about them at every plausible opportunity.
Poker went well, again, this week. Although the $ amount is significantly less, so is the number of hands. >74c a hand is killing it at 200nl, so I’ll take it.
Hand count was low, because I had to do some actual work this week. I have to be honest, though… I didn’t really mind it. Reminded me of those innocent days back at Northeastern, where I would walk over to the library and bang out 6+ hours straight in those fun little personal cubicles. Well, that was one day a week, the other 6 were in BlackOut’s domain.
Anyways, I wrote some ok stuff: a rudimentary analyis of the POTUS debate #3, and an examination of Obama’s personality/leadership, through POV of voters. Both assignments were done primarily off the cuff, digging up previous NYT, RealClearPolitics, and various Op-Eds i’d seen recently.
I did have a nice little epic fail, too, to balance the week’s successes out: My ‘Middle Eastern Crucible” class has been a huge disappointment. Sounds cool, though, doesn’t it? It is not. Instead of watching inflammatory rhetoric, examining the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, discussing how Islamic fundamentalists have leveraged their power politically, we have creeped along through the annals of Iranian history. Up till 1979 [when Iranian history actually GETS GOOD]
Like my History of Russia since 18–( i can’t even remember when those Bolsheviks revolted cause the class made me want to bore my eyeballs out), this class’s reality is very very boring. Coupled with a daily dose of the prof’s anecdotal stories about how Islam is in many ways better than Christianity, this class is the worst. Clarification: this isn’t the worst class because I think Christianity is better than Islam. It’s just the worst because I think he assumes we’re naive/bloodthirsty white Americans that hate all things Koranish since 9/11. Give us more credit, IMO.
Naturally, I didn’t study at all for our midterm (50% of grade)
I’m lucky if i get > than a 35 on it. Oh well.
This week, I’ve got two more tests, which I should pwn all over. And then, Halloween on Friday…plans have crumbled. Don’t know where I’ll be, but it better be fun. I’ve never gone to a damn costume party, and I want to before it gets lame.
Have a good week, everyone
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