I feel like I ought to say something, but I'm not entirely certain what to say. To deny that this is an historic occasion would be ridiculous. To claim the challenges of the age are monumental is, perhaps, an understatement.

Unless you are somewhere where I maintain a constant online presence (AIM or IRC), or possibly even there, you probably haven't heard me mention too much about my politics. Which is strange, because in those venues I talk about them constantly, so it feels like I have been suffused in the politics of this debate for years now - which I have. I don't want to get into a policy debate here, however. There's plenty of time for that in the future. Suffice it to say that I voted for Obama in this election.

I was up late last night; first watching McCain's eloquent, cordial, and above all gracious and sportsmanlike concession speech (do not get me started about his crowd, however), and then watching Obama's rather down-to-earth speech as president-elect. As Kitty will attest, I was rapidly flipping channels between CNN, MSNBC and Comedy Central (once they started their coverage). I had a bottle of 10-year-old Laphroaig, because one way or the other, I was going to need it. In the days prior to the election I have been hovering over www.fivethirtyeight.com with my finger over the F5 key (despite them only updating daily). Statistics and opinion polls have pretty much been my lifeblood. So to say I am feeling withdrawal today is a slight understatement.

Until the actual number crunching occurs, the best we have to go on for things like voter outcome or demographics are half-baked exit polls and speculation. I was reading through the summary of the election results on Wikipedia - so you know I was hard-up for reading material - and I hit the international reaction article. Reading the opinions of the leaders of other nations around the world, I have to admit I actually got teary-eyed. I'm not entirely sure why; it may have been that the enormity of the election - of the groundbreaking historical choices and decisions on both sides - finally struck home, or that I at last let myself be relieved... about a great many things, not all of which were related to who was elected. The acknowledgment on the global scale of what still feels a little like last night's dream reached inside me and moved aside my incredibly overgrown cynicism for a moment. It was like Christmas, only Santa brought democracy instead of Legos.

It's not even that the comments are a parade of thumbs-up for America. Indonesia, Iran, and Canada to a lesser extent do not let political niceties stand in the way of delivering a message to the new leader. On the whole they're positive (the Philippines' response is probably my favorite), but who's to say which ones are entirely heartfelt? It's unimportant in the long run - the world watched while America took hold of itself and began to change, and they're just as hopeful and anxious as we are that the change will take root and the country will flourish. I don't believe that America was ever perfect, nor do I believe that it is a state we can ever reach, but I believe that the message of optimism, of hope, of rising expectations reached more people last night than it has in a long while.

Ladies and gentlemen of America and of the world, we are in the future. We are living in the future. We have arrayed before us tools of science, tools of knowledge, tools of hard work, tools of unimaginable power and effect. If our ancestors could step up and take the New Deal, if our grandparents and great-grandparents could step forward and sacrifice for their country, we have within us the strength to step forward and take up these tools, and remake the world into something better. It takes the strength of vision to see a brighter future, and it takes the courage of sacrifice to work towards it. To enact this change - this Change, to take hold of the promise we extended ourselves last night, we must stride towards it with the determination and grit of a people united in motive. This election must not end at the ballot box; it must instead continue on in our hearts and minds, and it must empower us to be our own change. To act differently and think differently in the service of Tomorrow.

The results of this election do not "fix" America. America cannot be fixed, like a broken clock - it is amorphous and above all human. If anything, the results proved that America is not broken, that it can stand up and react when staying the course will send us off the edge of the world. The best we can hope for is that the direction we have pointed the wheel will send us out into sunnier skies and calmer waters. But for now, the wind is at our backs and it feels alright to finally breathe for a while.

So there's the something I felt like saying.
End of line.

kitsplut and I are off on a wild journey across these United State.

Itinerary is roughly:

• July 2 - Columbia, MO
• July 3 - Terre Haute, IN
• July 4 - Indianapolis, IN
• July 5 - Columbia, MO
• July 6 - Back in Omaha, NE

We'll send postcards. Or something. We'll also have internets, and my cell phone if you're lucky enough to have the number, so it's not like we'll be totally out of contact. But I'm going to try to divest myself of the Wubtertubes as much as possible.

falcon815: If your phone number has changed at all let me know. Otherwise we'll probably call you on the 3rd or early on the 4th.

See you sometime.
End of Line.

Meme by way of ninjadebugger and bluejbird.

I love a road trip,
I love refactoring.
I love all cheeses,
I love my reading.
I love the whole world,
and all the growing things.

Boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada, boom de yada.

Widget!

Edit: Widget seems to break horribly with LJ. Here.

I hate posting to LJ from phones. I also hate tornadoes.

So it's been a while since I've posted any appreciable content, hasn't it?

I might as well take the small shards of my life that are interesting (in a non-schadenfreudal manner) and smack them up here in the hopes that they will form an impromptu mosaic of glassy brilliance. Unlikely, but the hope exists.

Thusly, I reveal: I am on the fifth day of the South Beach diet. Phase one.
It's going well, so far. I think. It's rather hard to tell these kinds of things, even over the timespan of weeks. I've lost mere shreds of weight, but then I rather expected the claims of the first phase to be overstated. I am, however, certain that something biochemical's going on Down There.

If you're unfamiliar with the diet, let me explain briefly. Dr. Agatston, the diet's progenitor, is of the opinion that easily-digestible carbohydrates - i.e. sugars and heavily processed starches - are for the most part to blame for the current "obesity epidemic" and the rising rate of Type 2 Diabetes. That's not a horribly implausible claim, though I'm not certain the whole of the medical community is behind him on this. Certainly, I can see the benefits of altering my diet to include more whole grains and less processed, well, anything. My general trend in diet had already been towards that direction; for the past several months I've tried hard to cut out high fructose corn syrup (Note: This is extremely difficult to do).

So, in phase one of the diet, you eliminate carbs entirely, for at least two weeks. He says this is to remove your body's resistance to insulin. That may be so, but I also believe it causes you to drop water weight and possibly enter a state of ketosis, like the Atkins diet does. More important are the psychological benefits - two weeks of successful restraint and a corresponding weight loss (however contrived) are a powerful conditioning tool. The simple action of getting used to no longer eating piles of pasta is something I should probably have been working towards for a long time, but stress and my basic tendency to spread my limited quantities of Caring towards other goals prevented me.

The first three days were rather like breaking a caffeine addiction. Headaches, general muscle pain, crankiness. Most of that's gone away - I think part of it was exacerbated by a lack of water. Other than that, though, I'm doing fine with it. I feel like eviscerating the people quoted in the book, who have a tendency to say things like "And I never had any cravings for carbs at all!"

This is absolute madness. I want a plate of pasta with piece of garlic bread so badly I'd kill a man for it. Still, two weeks isn't too long, and if I can manage it, hopefully the results will bear out the effort. I'll try to keep people posted.

End of Line.

To The Universe It May Concern:

Coming out of work the other day, I heard something I hadn't in years: echoing off one of the construction trailers, coming from the direction of the practice fields for UNO, was the sound of a drumline warming up with eights.

I'd like to exchange the ensuing hour or so of nostalgic depression for my usual post-work malaise, thanks. I'd become used to the latter and missed its comforting indifference.

Inescapably Existant,
Chamelaeon

Happy birthday to two of the ... what, 18600000 (roughly - I'm ignoring leap years and the holiday boom, etc) people on the planet whose birthday I'm not likely to forget anytime soon: miggy and tdj. Yea verily, beers should be drunk in honor of the day.

Tagging and handling these is hard in LJ, so I just buckled and got a Flickr account.

Three sets:
Thursday
Friday
Saturday and Sunday

Enjoy.

I am, in fact, home from SandwichCon. Just in case people wondered.

I'm in ur Indiana
Watchin ur youngins gradgmiate

Goddess help me, I need some alcohol.

I saw the doctor yesterday, and I'm now on a three-times-a-week four week therapy plan for my neck and shoulders.

Bloody fantastic. I just relish the thought of being shot through with voltage on a bi-daily basis again. And the exercises, which tend to make the injury hurt more rather than less, at least at first.

Sigh. I don't have the car back yet, either. I'm intrigued as to what the final damage total is going to be.

End of Line.

Reading these books was like a descent into a God-filled swimming pool, all the more painful for the fact that the first book and the setting are really good.

Alas, now it is going to be a movie. Probably a trilogy of them. Weep.

( But we got a neat meme. )


Edit: What is this "modest" and "humble" crap? Even I don't think I qualify as modest or humble. I answered the original questions as such, too. Did I have to drag the slider to some hidden unknown zone outside of view? Was I required to take the dial to 11, as it were? Dunno.

Additional Edit: I'm getting reports they're removing the church from the film. I'm ... kind of confused, as that makes most of the book a rather meaningless romp through nothingsville. Maybe they boiled all the god out of it, and then had just enough material for a worthless movie designed to trick kids into attending? I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

End of Line.

NRK.

End of Line.

Apparently, I'm returning to the Haute sooner than I thought.

My company has an Indiana office - currently, there's only one poor sap there. It looks like the bosses have decided he needs some company, so they're sending me back to Rose for the Career Fair.

Calloo Callay, as it were. I'm all atwitter.

I'm leaving Tuesday morning very early, will be there all Wednesday, and am driving back on Thursday. I'll probably be making phone posts or something - I have a laptop with wireless.

Lady Beatrix is in the shop now, theoretically. Turns out she had some hidden damage to her trunk, too. Hopefully they'll repair that while they're at it.

End of Line.

( Cut for largish image )

My poor Lady Bea, all smashed up. The adjuster cut the check for $2900 or so - hopefully he's not wrong.

End of Line.

So I think I like two things.

1) Living in the digital age
2) Geico

I called my claims contact after leaving work early (due to my neck) and decided to handle my billing through Geico. So we set up an adjuster appointment, and a rental car. We were literally driving by the Enterprise place on the way back, so we stopped and I got my rental car, which I could do because Geico talks to Enterprise's systems directly - they literally had just recieved my reservation when I walked through the door.

It's a 2007 Nissan Altima, it's grey, and it has a manual transmission mode which confuses the fuck out of me.

Now I have to go to a doctor's visit (which I have to pay for out of goddamn pocket) so I can get something to stop the neck from hurting itself more.

Edit: Did not have to pay for out of pocket! I am instructed to take Aleve, and a muscle relaxant. Do not expect sanity out of Sanctuary this Friday.

End of Line.

laechim and I were driving home from work yesterday, down the hated stretch of 96th St between L and Q. I don't hate it because it's a horrible street, but it's always clogged with people trying to jostle for position before 96th becomes one lane for a few blocks. I especially hate the stoplight at Mockingbird, which has a habit of turning yellow at the precise moment where you suffer that moment of stoplight indecision. "Oh shit. Shit! Shit, do I go... goddamn it, it's turning red for one car that JUST pulled up... Sigh." And then I stop the car.

This isn't about that, though. Just after the stoplight, there's usually a line of cars bunched up in the left lane, since it feeds into the turn lane, and is also the lane which sticks around at the aforementioned drop to one lane later. I'm usually in that one, unless I'm dropping by HyVee after work or something.

A blue Voyager-style van two cars up merged into the left lane rather abruptly, trying to turn onto where Mockingbird continues (a hundred feet or so south of the stoplight). The red Sierra pickup between us did a rather abrupt stop, but actually did manage to come to a halt in time. I wasn't going very fast at all, so didn't even have a problem coming to a stop. The blue conversion van behind me, though, decided he wasn't going to cotton to this "stopping" idea, so he plowed into me.

Cue the crunching, the adrenaline rush, the police.

If you've never seen a Saturn SL-series, they're not large cars, and they have very sloped hoods. If you put them next to a pickup, it seems easy enough to believe one would slide right under the other. That is, in fact, exactly what happens when you introduce them to each other via an external force. To be perfectly fair, I doubt anything other than my hood would have been damaged, had the Sierra not had a rather large trailer hitch. The rear of the looks perfectly fine, actually, but the fronts of cars nowadays are designed to absorb impact, and the Lady Beatrix did a damn fine job of it. I'll post pictures eventually.

I'm not really looking forward to insurance hell. I need to see a doctor, as my neck is a tad upset, and though I'd really REALLY rather not repeat the several-month-long avant-garde street art performance of "Cham Enjoys Physical Therapy (And Lots Of Neato Drugs)" and the sequel "Cham Dances The Insurance Dance" I'd rather do that than perform the companion work of "Cham Suffers Silently For Months And Is Permanently Broken".

At least it's not my fault, and I'm not seriously hurt. Just... not what I needed right now.

End of Line.

I am going to put a bumper sticker on my car.

This sticker will say "Hello, Progressive customer! I'm so pleased another of you has rear-ended me. If you'll hold still a moment, the nanites will take care of extracting your insurance information from your brain directly, and then stop the blood flow to your neurons. I will collect my reparations from your estate."

I didn't really need this, but at least I'm not at fault. More later.

I am going to run a BESM 3rd Ed game! I am going to run it TUESDAY, or I am going to run it WEDNESDAY.

Vote. Vote whichever you want, multiple if you want. Whichever gets highest, that's what I'll do.

It's looking to be d6, 300 CP. That may change. Stay tuned.

Poll #930630 BESM 3rd Ed Trial OST
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

I WANT TO PLAY THIS BITCH ON: