I can tell just form reading Twitter and watching video from around the world, that the United States has made the right decision for themselves and for the world. People around the world are celebrating this event. I can see people's opinions of the US changing almost instantly.
I'm looking forward to this new United States. Let's heal these wounds and get the world back on track again.
Welcome to your third grilled cheese sandwich observation lesson. If you missed our first lesson, or second lesson, feel free to refer back to them before proceeding. And as usual, feel free to take notes.
As far as I know this is not a grilled cheese sandwich, and quite frankly it concerns me that you think it is. Please seek counseling.
Photo by Wnmunews on Wikimedia Commons
It's Tuesday here in the Asia Pacific region thingy (to use the technical geographic terminology), which means it will be Tuesday tomorrow in the United States, which is of course the national election day. I think it's safe to say we're all thoroughly sick of the whole parade both around the world and in the US having lived through virtually two years of campaigns, speeches, gaffs, mudslinging, disagreements, opinions, commentary… endless commentary… I could go on.
As I have said in a previous post though, I feel as though history is about to be made, and together as a global community we'll either move forward after eight years of going backwards, or the US will continue to slide into what I fear is dangerous theocracy and possibly even fascism, and it's relevance and view in the world's eye will continue to fade. Very strong words I know, but I feel as though the impact these elections will have will be extremely significant; definitely the most significant in my lifetime so far.
In a rare few minutes I was able to listen to Whole Wheat Radio this afternoon while sitting at a net cafe in the city, Peterdale across the pond in New Zealand wrote a comment in the Online Collaboration page which I think summarised my view (and obviously the view held by most of the world) very well too:
Atuu!!! Big guy, the way you vote tomorrow will determine how my little country faces the future…. either face-on with a handshake … or in the collision position. Do the right thing for us please.
At the risk of sounding cliche, as an Aussie I feel as though our two countries are like brothers/sisters , along with New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom… even to a certain extent Singapore. We all have shared British colonial history, language and culture and have since gone our own ways, but so much about us is still the same; we have more in common than we have in differences. It's never nice to see a sibling in pain.
Do the right thing America, and do us proud.
My attempts to play streaming online audio on this internet connection continue to fail. This afternoon I received an error in herrie (via pkgsrc) though that I hadn't seen before when I tried playing the low fidelity Whole Wheat Radio audio stream. MOC (via MacPorts) gave a similar error. QuickTime and iTunes blankety refuse to play.
I'm really starting to think this a problem with either our router or even at the ISP end. I'll go to Internode on Wednesday.
What happens when your MacBook Pro has been busy compiling code for several hours and has started melting into the table? Put a box fan next to it. Not only is it an incredibility sophisticated solution, inexpensive and stylish, but it actually works. You read it here folks.
See Jim, I'm a person who provides consulting solutions too!
With all the media saturation about the topic here in Australia and over in Singapore, I can't begin to imagine what it must be like living in the United States right now! It's Monday morning here and everybody, and I mean everybody is talking about the presidential elections for president. As opposed to the presidential elections for grilled cheese sandwiches.
ASIDE: It’s amazing that in the last year in the Anglosphere there have been crucially important elections in both Canada (aka Prime Minister Steven Harper) and Australia (aka Prime Minister Kevin Rudd), but neither have captured peoples interest as much. I guess there just wasn’t as much at steak, grilled cheese sandwiches and apple fritters. Mmm… abstract pointlessness.
I took this photo last month, but the weather is similar. I love overcast days. I've been told I'm weird in that way.
I'm sitting at the Boatdeck Cafe on this gorgeous, slightly overcast but cool Monday morning having a coffee and working on a project on my laptop (I know that will surprise you), and everyone around me is talking about the election. At the table across from mine there are several couples in their late 50s talking about how the election is about race and that some people are going to only vote for Obama because of his skin colour and not for his policies. Which is fine by them because they say either way they're making the right choice, even if their reason is iffy. Next we're going to start picking VPs based on their ability to read sports news and enter into beauty pageants! Can you imagine!?
At another table there are a couple of guys not much older than me with heavy Greek accents (I think) are loudly saying that Obama "kicks arse" and if the Republicans steal the election for a third time, they'll be flying to the States to help in the protests! Amen brothers!
At yet another table, underneath the plasma screen TV that's mounted on the wall with breakfast TV playing with an analyst in Canberra discussing Obama, there are a group of people in business suits and ties saying that McCain demonstrated he was out of touch the instant he considered Palin to be a worthy VP. They've also said they're dismayed at Joe Biden's history of supporting some archaic copyright legislation (I didn't know that) but that he's still a decent bloke and someone the White House desperately needs.
My dad provides some further insight. He's on a business trip to Japan and China, and he says even there people are talking about Obama as if he's already president. People in both countries are desperately worried that America's financial crisis will continue to pull down the rest of the world, and in China they're surprised that they've been affected to the extent that they have… the idea that they were somehow impervious and insulated from troubles seems to have left.
I've been typing this post in bursts over the course of an hour, and since starting some of the aforementioned people have left and have been replaced with mums returning from dropping their kids off at the school. They're talking about the current petrol price and about… Barack Obama. One of the mums said that she thought Obama was cute! Another said that she'll be so dissapointed if he doesn't get in, and that she's calling her friend in Colorado tonight to make sure they're voting "properly"!
I don't believe it, a couple of guys have literally sat down next to me and are talking about Obama now too. Basically the same talking points as the people I already mentioned, except one of them said that he is also one of the owners of a car with a "Don't Let Your American Friends Vote McCain!" bumper stickers.
Hey y'all, I reckon that Sarah Palin is a maverick! A-okay!
Granted I've only lived through a few American presidential elections, but can anyone ever remember an election that has had so much discussion surrounding it, not only in the US but around the world? I somehow feel as though history is being made as we speak. Or type. Or otherwise communicate.
I guess this is why I find it so disappointing that McCain will be the next president. I don't know how he'll pull it off, how many people will have to be bribed, how many electorates (wait, what are they called in the US?) will have to be manipulated, how many votes will have to be "discounted", how much time will have to pass, but he'll do it. I figure we can all spare outselves the heartache and disappointment by accepting this now. I'm already designing my own "Bummer" shirt that I'll get printed once I'm informed of the news.
One of the problems I've always struggled with since I started blogging or weblogging or grilled cheese sandwich making or whatever it is the Web 2.0 people are calling it these days, is the overdependence and addiction I seem to have with categories. I used them for everything.
ASIDE: One of the jokes I used to tell people back in 2005 was that I had more categories than posts, and that the few posts I did have just talked about my overuse of categories. I didn’t have many good jokes back then. I hear people say as of 2009 this is still true. Considering 2009 hasn’t even started yet, I find that to be a very presumptuous statement.
It's hilarious reading back to this previous post from 2006 Using WordPress categories as tags and seeing how I thought using so many categories was actually a good idea! Fortunately I soon came to my senses around 2007 and started using tags for most of my metadata urges (metadata urges?) and relegated categories to the secondary task of merely separating different topics, which is what they were supposed to be used for in the first place.
Still, as late as May of this year I typed up another ridiculously long post called Can you categorise too much? on organising data. One would have thought I would have learned my lesson by then. I even included this ridiculous image from Idolmaster Xenoglossia, the anime series with the characters from the game of the same name, but instead of singing in an idol competition… they worked at a space agency as scientists and pilots. Only in Japan.
idolmaster, xenoglossia, anime, funny, silly, implausible, ridiculous premise, tounge-in-cheek, a-real-stretch, idols-are-generally-not-scientists
In preparation for my (eventual) moving of all this stuff over to my new CMS, I've been cleaning up a lot of the mess and cobwebs that have accumulated over the years; or should I say "snowballed out of control" over the years. I just had to post the results here because I feel so proud I've finally started filling the vacuum cleaner with useless metadata nonsense. Too many metaphors?
You may disagree and think I should have left all those categories as they were, but one thing we can all agree on though is: this barely qualifies as a post. Goodnight everyone.
bugs-bunny, hilarious, sarcastic, witty, mel-blanc, evil, merrie-melodies, bugs, warner-brothers, better-than-disney, looney-tunes, tex-avery, fun, cheeky, greatest-cartoons-ever
As I mentioned in a previous post, if Australians were to vote in the American presidential elections, Obama would win with more than a 70% landslide. It's ironic then that in their respective articles written in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, John McCain was the only candidate who mentions Australia. From an article written by Laurie Oakes:
Both candidates have written in the respected Foreign Affairs magazine explaining their foreign policy. There are a number of references to Australia in McCain’s article.
He writes: “As president, I will tend carefully to our ever-stronger alliance with Australia, whose troops are fighting shoulder to shoulder with ours in Afghanistan.”
As well as acknowledging our importance as an ally, he also discusses Australia in a trade context.
McCain’s interest in Australia is long-standing. His father, a naval officer, was stationed in Perth for a time during World War II. And a key McCain foreign policy adviser, Richard Armitage, has for years been one of the best friends Australia has in Washington.
By comparison, Barack Obama makes no mention whatsoever. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though it is a tad disappointing.
One concern is that Obama appears to have little if any interest in this country.
[In] Obama’s foreign policy outline, Australia does not rate a single mention. It is as though we don’t exist.
Obama’s only connection with Australia seems to be that he stopped here on his way to Indonesia as a child.
I'm a huge fan of Dire Straits and of Mark Knopfler, not only for their catchy and thought provoking songs but also their "unassuming demeanor"… I had an idea of it, but I needed the phrase from Wikipedia. Isn't Wikipedia just fantastic. If only it could teach me to create decent blog post headings.
Of all their songs, "Private Investigations" has always been a personal favourite because the lyrics can be so easily adapted to fit so many other occupations and situations, in particular these lines from the second and third versus:
You get to meet all sorts… In this line of work.
Treachery and treason… There’s always an excuse for it.
And when I find the reason… I still can’t get used to it.And what have you got… At the end of the day?
What have you got… To take away?
Jobs and occupations, relationships and family, school and university studies, POLITICS… makes you think. Or at least it makes me think.
Now we just need Dire Straits to pull off a new independent album like Status Quo did and we'd be in business.
