LiveJournal Project: H2 2006

Only 5 months out of 6 that have any entries, and aside from July, most are short. So, let's do this thing.

Date: 2006-07-02 02:18
Subject: busting my self confidence?
So I just received a spam from some asshats that claim to offer math and science tutoring at ASU. Nevermind the fact that these fuckwits have spammed me a few times in the past, despite my efforts to get off their bloody list, and nevermind the fact that I graduated with honors and a fucking math degree.

Anyway... after sending off a spam complaint to the FTC, Hotmail, Yahoo, and Cox, I noticed something rather peculiar about this email. Read below...

The beginning of second summer session is near, and we want you to know that we are available for the summer sessions. As you already know, the summer sessions run much faster than normal school year. This mean you can easily fall behind. We are here to make sure that you get the optimum result out of the summer sessions. Our private tutoring can help you get through the class without a stress. We can help you finish your homework in less than half the amount of time you would spend otherwise. We can prepare you for the exams better than anyone else can. Overall, we can bust your self confidence on these courses. (emphasis mine)

That's right, sign up with these guys and when it's all over you'll feel so fucking stupid and lacking in any sort of confidence in your mathematical abilities that you'll probably just drop out of school in frustration, turn to a life of crime, and end up a toothless meth addict wandering down Apache mumbling something about being busted by your college algebra class. Oh, the humanity!

Date: 2006-07-05 00:35
Subject: nihon ni iru
Yup, made it to Japan, and I'm now settled into the dorm which will be my humble abode for the next 6 weeks. Even on the flight over here, I still had some mixed feelings about this whole trip - a lot of it bad - mostly because I was going to be missing the people and cats that are behind in Phoenix and not coming with me. However, once I got off the plane, I started to get that "woo, shit, I'm in Japan!" feeling back. What really sealed it for me, though, was while I was riding the Narita express into town from the airport, there was one point where my mp3 player was playing a selection from Kitaro's Kojiki (it's a new age album that's supposed to be a musical rendition of Japan's creation myths) and watching the grass in some field ripple in the wind. At that point, any kind of nervousness or anxiety that I might've had left was replaced with that "yep, I love this place" feeling and a sort of Zen calm. I don't really know how to explain it - I guess you had to have my mindset from the last few weeks and then you'd have had to be there.

Checked into the hotel, wandered around a bit in search of some bottles of water and a little food, and went to sleep. Next day, on the train to the train to the bus. I've met a few of the people in the program - one guy from Canada, one from Zambia, another from Thailand, a dude from Taiwan, a girl from St. Louis, and, believe it or not, then someone else from ASU who happens to be one of my housemates. It also turns out that I'm our room's resident expert in Japanese - two of the guys have never studied Japanese before, and the guy from ASU has only studied for a year. Weird. So far I've only come across one person that seems like he know more Japanese than me - but I'm sure there are others that will turn up tomorrow or something.

Anyway, two days down, and so far I think this is all going to kick ass. My Japanese is already starting to come back to me - placement test tomorrow, so we'll find out just how dumb I've gotten.

Pics are available here: ....

I'm not going to bother categorizing them - I'm just going to dump them all here and sort through them when I get back.

Time: 16:05
Subject: ryo no beddo de nenikukatta.
That means... it was hard to sleep in the bed at the dorm. ouch. These beds are definitely not designed for 230-pound American bodies. I'm still a little sore, and in all honesty, I don't even know if I actually slept last night or not. I remember being awake a lot and rolling over a lot in order to try to find a comfortable position, but am I rested? Who knows. Anyway, got up at 7, went out for a jog (no, there's nothing wrong with me, I'm not feeling like I've lost my mind), and now I'm just killing some time before we have to go take our placement test. There's actually a guy sitting downstairs in the student lounge studying for it. WTF, mate?!? It's a placement test. I'm not going to be that guy - sure, I'll do my work and try to do it well, but I'm not going to bust my balls or anything. Fuck, I'm in Japan, I'm on VACATION (well, sort of).

Anyway, no pictures today - I think I only snapped off a few last night, so I'm going to wait until I get the chance to take a few more. Probably won't get the chance to venture back into central Tokyo until tomorrow, maybe Saturday.

More later...

Date: 2006-07-06 05:21
Subject: ano shiken wa muzukashikatta yo!
Placement test was this morning... fuck, that shit was hard. The listening test in particular was a real pain in the arse - they only read each passage or question once, so if you didn't get it the first time through, you were fucked. I have no idea how I did, but probably not all that great. The second part was grammar, vocabulary, and reading, and parts of it were quite easy and parts of it were damn impossible. There really wasn't much in between. I didn't see too many things that I had simply forgotten, but there were quite a few things that I had never seen before. Same thing with the third part of the test. We find out tomorrow morning how well we did and what class we're going to be in. Not much else to say - we're all still getting settled in. Tomorrow after class is the off-campus tour, so I'll get to find out where a bunch of stuff around here is located - probably a good thing since I need to buy some laundry detergent (sentaku sekken) and see if I can find a pair of non-jean long pants to wear to the buddhist meditation in a couple weeks.

I've posted a few more pictures... The first one in particular is rather amusing, taken at the convenience store down the street. purpleglitter, the second one is for you.

Date: 2006-07-07 01:48
Subject: arukisugita ne.
Placement test results: level 4 (out of 7 that they're teaching - there are no people in level 8 this year). This is rather amusing, because the book that we're going to be using is the exact same one that I used in my Japanese 313 class at ASU last fall. The book for levels 5 and 6 is the exact same book that I used in my Japanese 314 class last spring. So, theoretically, I could probably survive level 6, but because my speaking and listening skills are considerably weaker than my reading and writing skills, I'm not upset about this at all. However, when I talked to my instructor about it, she seemed to want to push me towards level 5, but I wasn't having any of that. So, it looks like I'll be doing the lessons about Einstein, the small bird, and the various types of computer all over again - maybe I'll actually learn it all this time in such a way that I remember it -- because even though it's the same material, I don't think we're going to be doing any translation - although the instructors all speak English, this isn't going to be like an ASU class where they claim that the classes are taught in Japanese but really they're about 60/40. I guess we'll see what happens come Monday.

Went on a local walking tour through the town around campus - you have to love a country where even the manhole and utility covers are aesthetically pleasing.

I'm not sure what my plans are for tonight - as with last night, there are people that are going to go out drinking, and I may go along and I may not. I've got some work-related stuff to do, so tonight might be a good time to get started on that; I might also be a super-nerd and start doing some schoolwork. I'm kinda torn as to how I want to look at this trip - on one hand, it's costing me a lot of money to be here (particularly if you factor in the opportunity cost of missed paychecks) so I want to make sure I get a lot out of it, but at the same time, because it's costing me a long of money to be here, I want to have a lot of fun, too. I'm trying for the middle way, but we'll see how that goes.

Pictures are being updated (they're FTPing now)... There are a few of me in here, including one where I'm standing next to our tour guide. It makes for a nice size comparison.

Date: 2006-07-09 02:29
Subject: akihabara to harajuku to meiji-jingu
It seems that so far when I plan to do X number of things on a particular day, I only end up being able to do X-1 of them. Saturday I had intended to go to Akihabara and Shinjuku, but only made it as far as Akihabara. Picked up a denshi jisho (electronic dictionary) while I was there, plus a watch with a heart monitor and calorie counter so I can see what kind of progress I'm making when I go out for my morning jogs. I also bought a few things for people at home and had lunch at a kaitenzushi (sushi that goes around on a conveyor belt - you just grab the plates of the stuff that you want as they go by and then at the end they come around and tally up your bill. I ate about 25 pieces of sushi (11 plates) for 1800 yen - I probably could've eaten a few more, but didn't want to be overly packed full. Also, some of you who follow my LJ from time to time may remember the old icon that was me standing next to my score on one of those test-your-strength machines. Well, guess what I also found in Akihabara? Of course I had to try it out.

Here was the high score before me and this was my score (up higher on this page already). Remember, this is in kilograms, not pounds. Multiply by 2.2. Not too shabby - better than last year. =) Anyway, after getting back to the dorm I went to the grocery store and that pretty much was it for Saturday.

Today, the plan was to meet up with PC (a Singaporean guy that's in my class who was meeting some of his friends that were in town today) and go to Harajuku, the Meiji Shrine, and then they were planning to head to Odaiba and I was going to try to make up yesterday's missed Shinjuku trip. I still haven't made it to Shinjuku. But, hey, I bought some charms at the Meiji shrine and took a bunch of photos of the Japanese teenagers that hang out in Yoyogi Park that get all dressed up in various gothic, lolita, anime, and who-the-fuck-knows outfits. Why it is that in one of the photos I'm holding a picture of a daikon radish, I don't know - maybe it was their mascot or something and I guess as the gaijin I had to hold it. Just for the hell of it, I had to take a picture of all the people that were taking pictures of the Japanese kids. I encourage you all to take a look at a titty (it's not at all what you think). Oh, and I found the almighty choco-cro! Too bad I didn't have any money at the time (hadn't found the ATM yet) and couldn't buy one. You know I'll be going back there.... And yes, I know I look like a dork in some of these pics - but it's not about me, it's about the cool kids and their outfits. =)

Walking through the Meiji shrine itself wasn't really anything new, since Cory and I did it last year, but we got to see two wedding parties - they came out in a processional and then gathered for their wedding photos. And even though I'd been there before, it's still a very serene place that's worth the trip. I don't know what all of the people thought of having their wedding crashed by a hundred or so tourists, but now these two families will have their pictures posted all over the world in people's travel photo albums, including mine. More kaitenzushi for lunch - this time I actually got a picture of the sushi on the conveyor belt and my finished tower of plates. =) I thought PC was going to challenge me to a sushi-eating contest when he made the comment that I had eaten less than him, but when I asked if he was throwing down the gauntlet he didn't accept. That's ok, my fat American ass would have crushed him. Muahahaha! Oh yeah, I ran into a hacker from Phoenix who recognized my DEFCON shirt - the guy looked sorta like Mick Jagger - kinda funny, when you think about it, to go halfway around the world and run into someone like that.

So far I've only really got two complaints about Japan - one is that it's humid and I sweat like a pig, and the other is the freakin' laundry in the dorms. It's 100 yen for 30 minutes in the dryer, and that doesn't get you shit. I think I had to run my clothes through four times yesterday and then they were still a little bit damp - 400 yen and 2 hours for nothing. That kinda pissed me off, but I guess the solution is to do laundry more often (using the washer in our suite is free) and then hang it out to dry on the roof of the dorm (they told us we can do that).

Oh yeah, I guess I have a third complaint - many of the ATMs here are not 24 hours, and most of them don't take foreign cards. There's one on campus that does, but it's not open on Sunday, so when I left to go exploring this morning, I spent my last 210 yen (literally, I had ZERO cash) on the bus ride from the school to the train station. Luckily, when we were in Harajuku, someone overheard PC and me discussing the bank situation and told us that Citibank would take US debit cards and that there was one down the street. Woo!

Class is in full effect tomorrow, so I doubt that I'll be venturing out anywhere until the weekend, but we'll see. I'm going to need to make a list of places in Tokyo (or outside of Tokyo) that I want to visit, because otherwise there's a good chance that I'm going to miss something. This trip is already 10% over, and before I know it I'll be on a plane heading back to the desert.

Date: 2006-07-11 01:35
Subject: kurasu ga tsumaranai to omou.
Hey kids, it's time for another Japan update. I've now been to two full days of class, and quite frankly, I'm starting to question my decision to come here. Don't get me wrong, I love Japan, and I still think it's the coolest place on earth, but the class itself is boring as all hell and moves rather slowly. They asked me last week if I wanted to move up from C4 to C5, and I said no, but now I'm starting to think that maybe I made the wrong decision, and I think now it's too late. We spend at least an hour a day watching our teachers write kanji on the board and following along with them - even though we have all the kanji in a packet along with their stroke orders. Sensei, oshiete kudasai: Why the fuck do I need to watch you write kanji on the board when I can just take the sheet and go back to my room and do it? I would rather be working on my speaking skills.

We had our first quiz this morning over our section 1 kanji, too, and now I'm starting to think that maybe ASU's Japanese program isn't so bad. It certainly seems to be a lot more demanding. When we had a kanji quiz at ASU, we had to know ALL of the kanji - reading, writing, AND meaning. This quiz had 10 questions on it, 5 for reading and 5 for writing, and none for meaing - and it was supposed to cover 17 kanji. I finished in like 45 seconds and went to turn the page over only to find out that the back side was blank. Wow. You've got to be kidding me. I'm starting to think that maybe Shimomura-sensei (my teacher at ASU who has taught at this program before) was either full of shit or giving her assessment of it from the perspective of the average student - or maybe she taught a higher level class than the one I'm in, I dunno. Sure, they're giving us a decent amount of work, but 80% of it is busywork. B-O-R-I-N-G. Today I was kicking around the idea of just saying "fuck it" to the classes and using my time here to travel around the country. I don't think they'd like that all that much, though, and they'd probably kick me out of the dorm and tell me to go home. I'm doing my best to keep an open mind and to think that it will get harder and more interesting, but you know, we're only here for 6 weeks, they don't really have all that much time to ease us into things before it will be time to leave.

In other news... Went to a lecture on monday after class (there are 5 in the series, and my class is required to attend two of them and write short summaries (in Japanese, of course) about them. This particular professor talked about the development of multiethnicity in Japan in a way that's sort of analogous to what we call metrosexuality in the US. He argued that Japanese society sort of skipped over a lot of the minority rights / ethnic pride struggles that the US and Europe are dealing with and went straight to what he called an aesthetic principle - or, the principle of "cool." Basically, in Japan, what matters in determining individual identity is really just a question of "is it cool, is it interesting" and all of that stuff that we deal with "I'm white, black, gay, whatever" really doesn't manifest in the same way. It's an interesting idea, and maybe he's on to something, but he didn't offer that much evidence in the talk itself. I asked him afterwards whether or not he believed that this sort of "aesthetic principle" was the next step in cultural evolution that the US and Europe would eventually come to or if Japan was off on its own unique path, and he kinda bounced around a little too much, talking about Scottish and how the British fucked them over. I think the point he was trying to make is that the "minorities" in Japan have never revolted or rioted in the same way that they have in the US/Europe, and because there's still that history of violence and all of the bad blood that remains as a part of it, it may be hard for the US/Europe to go the same direction. Of course, then he suggested that I should try to research this sort of stuff - but you know, sociology and linguistics are not my areas of expertise, so while I think the question is interesting, it's going to have to be answered by someone else.

Now, if only I could just click a mouse button and have that above paragraph translated into Japanese, I'd have Friday's assignment done.

Date: 2006-07-14 02:49
Subject: kiyoubi da yo!
yeah, so it's friday, and the first full week of classes has ended. tomorrow i'm planning to meet up with a few people in tsukiji (the fish market) and have some fresh-caught sushi for breakfast, and then head to shibuya for some shopping. sunday is supposed to be museum day in ueno - that will probably take care of my weekend, and then monday it's back to class. there seems to be a growing level of discontent among my classmates about the work that we're doing both in class and as homework, and i'm certainly no exception. i'm doing my best not to bitch about it, because, well, i'm in japan and i like japan, but those of you that know me reasonably well know that it's only a matter of time before i give up trying not to bitch and just start using words like fuckhole and asshat and the like. i was talking to one girl in my class who said that she knew some people that had done this program before, and the workload was such that by the end of it, they hated japan and the japanese language. if i wake up one morning and i say "man, i hate being here" then i'll just pack it up and go home. what are the odds of that happening? dunno - there's probably an 80% chance that even if i start bitching on a daily basis, i'll stick it out until the end because, if nothing else, it will look good on grad school applications.

the other people in the program are basically friendly, but they're also kinda cliquish. it seems that during the first week, the dorm that i'm living in formed its primary social group and since i'm not really into drinking (and i'm not really all that social to begin with) said group doesn't include me. for the most part, that's ok, because they're all 18-22 (with the exception of my suitemate, carl, who's 25) and i don't really have much in common with people in that age group, and most of the time i have work shit or homework to do, and i go to bed really early compared to everyone else (i'm usually in bed by 10 and up by 6:30) but at the same time, it does make for some boring nights. i did ask a few people about ultimate frisbee, and got some favorable responses, so i guess tomorrow while i'm out shopping i'm going to see if i can track down a frisbee or some other sort of flying disc and try to get a game going.

y'know, though, i've been in school long enough - i can deal with boring classes that move too slowly, since, by and large, that's what i'm used to anyway -- the main thing that contributes to any feelings of malaise that arise is that i miss cory and the cats. if they were all here, then i'd probably forget all about the US (except for the daily work-related emails that come in asking me to do stuff) and be happy eating my daily fish and rice. at least i found some good pre-made salads in the grocery stores that aren't that expensive - i've never been so happy to eat some lettuce in my life. i'll be curious to see what i think about pizza and pasta and steak and all that sort of stuff when i get back.

time for some dinner. mmm... sushi!
Mood: eh

Date: 2006-07-19 02:53
Subject: nihon no ryokou ga hayaku owatte shimau.
Well, so much for that. I'm going home tomorrow - and the sad thing is, it isn't for any reason that I would have forseen before coming on this trip. Sure, the class wasn't what I expected, and I was often bored, but I had decided that the best way to deal with that would just be to skip class on days when I didn't feel like going and use the time to go explore Tokyo and the surrounding area. After all, I thought, that would be a good way to actually practice my Japanese in real situations instead of doing endless kanji and grammar drills over material that I've already learned.

However, while walking back to the dorm after having lunch with some people in my class, I happened to look at my phone and noticed that I had missed a call (and there was a message) from the one number that I really didn't expect to hear from while over here. I knew that my mom wouldn't call me unless something had seriously gone wrong -- and, well, the last of my remaining grandparents has left this world behind in search of better food.

R.I.P.
Ernest J. Rocco
1917-2006

Weird thing, too... I woke up this morning at an ungodly hour after having a hell of a time getting to sleep last night - like 4:45am Tokyo time or so - and didn't really feel right, but I didn't think a whole lot of it and tried to go back to sleep. After talking to Cory, who had talked to my mom, it appears that that's right around when it happened.

Anyway, he would've been 89 next month. I guess it was just old age that got him, because nobody saw this coming, and in fact, only a few hours before he died my mom and aunt were at the nursing home and had seen him and he seemed fine. It's just like when Raven died - totally without any kind of warning. I guess in the end, you really never know when it's going to happen, so you don't have any time to be fucking around or pissing it away. So make sure that the people (and cats) that you love know that you love them.

That is all.

Date: 2006-07-22 04:46
Subject: amerika ni ite iru.
so, i'm back in the US. saw my mom last night, and while she seems to be doing ok, i think she's probably doing the same thing that most people in my family do when death happens - they just cover up how they really feel. i'm glad that i made the decision to come back - even though i could've talked to everyone on the phone, i think that i just needed to see people in person and make sure that they're ok and to let them know that i give a shit.

that said, i'm contemplating going back to tokyo for the last three weeks of the program. it turns out that i can buy a ticket for less than i thought, even on short notice, and even though the classes have been less than stellar, i would like to finish the program and actually have credit for it so that i can use it on my grad school applications. more than that, though, i was finally starting to make more friends and enjoy the overall experience a lot more, and i don't think i'm really ready to be back here. the idea of eating american food again just seems, well, strange. besides, i lost 10 pounds in the first three weeks that i was there - fish and rice are pretty low in calories - as of yesterday the scale said 225 - the lowest that i've been since 2000 or so. another three weeks and i might make it down to 215 - and that would be really fucking cool.

i'll know by the end of today what my plans are.

Date: 2006-07-29 08:18
Subject: boku wa nihon ni ookii desu. (with apologies to alphaville)
Yup, back in the land of the rising sun after a whirlwind return to the US. It feels different this time around; I'm not really sure why, but I'm not as stressed out or pissed off about the class like I was previously. I just don't really care about the class one way or another, and while I'm sure I'll go to class and do the work and all that garbage, I think I'm also just not letting it bother me. Anyway... today I had planned to finally make it to the Tokyo National Museum, but thanks to an ill-timed nap yesterday afternoon I wasn't able to fall asleep last night until almost 4am, and then I ended up sleeping in until 2 in the afternoon. Too late to do any museum shit. So, instead I just decided to go poke around the area outside Tokyo station (that's where the imperial palace is, as shown in some of today's photos) and then to go back to Akihabara and pick up a wide-angle lens for my camera. I also wanted to take some night shots, which I was able to do in Akihabara, although most of the shots I wanted would have required me to stand in the middle of the road to take them, and that would have most likely meant certain death. =/

Interesting encounter of the day... In Akihabara they have that test-your-strength machine that I referenced in an earlier entry; my best attempt last year was 235kg, and then my prior best this year was 328kg. Well, you know, after loading up on a nice fat meal of kaitenzushi (I think I put away 15-16 plates this time) I went back to the same machine and noticed that someone had put up 376kg (827.2 pounds) as a new high score. I couldn't let that go unanswered, so I put in my 200 yen, pushed the button, and started pulling. Unfortunately, I was only able to get up to the same score - 376kg -- but hey, that's still an improvement of over 100lbs from just a couple weeks ago. By the end of this trip I will break 400kg. Well, maybe. In any case, after I was done with the machine, I picked up my bag and started to head back to the station when I noticed that I had about 6-7 people just standing there and watching me. I guess it's just like when we watch the Asian kids tear it up on DDR. One guy looked at me like he couldn't really believe what I'd just done, but hey, you know, gotta give it up for gaijin power! =)

Anyway, photos are uploading and are in their usual spot.

I should try to get some sleep. Too bad I'm still not tired.

Date: 2006-09-07 21:38
Subject: an update with little substance.
it's been awhile since i've had anything to say which has been of sufficient importance to warrant taking the time out of my day to put it down in LJ, so we'll just make this brief.

1. i'm back from japan and have been for awhile. the asian diet worked wonders for my weight and health - i'm down to 218-222 from 265 a year ago. my cholesterol is down to 200 from 248, LDL down to 131 from 160, HDL is up, triglycerides down to 75 from 150, and VLDL down to 13 from 30-something. so my doctor is happy, my heart is happy, and overall i'm probably in the best shape that i've been in since high school as far as cardio goes. can't lift while i'm waiting for my elbow to finish healing up, so i'm concentrating on getting my mile-run times down. cory has planted the seeds of the idea that we should run the rock n' roll half marathon in january, but i don't know, 13 miles is a long-ass way. if i could get to the point where i could run 5 miles non-stop, then i'd feel comfortable doing it - i could walk a mile, run a mile, and just repeat until it's over.

2. started playing online poker again, mostly on a whim, since we went to california for nocturnal wonderland this last weekend and i was completely bored off my ass. went to fulltiltpoker, took $200, and within a couple hours of sitting at a 2/4 NL table I'd parlayed my modest investment into $1600. Played a $24-entry-fee tournament with 284 people and finished 8th for another $182 in profit. And the best one of all... I was completely bored off my ass yesterday at work, so I fired up the poker client with the intention of killing a few minutes. 10 minutes of poker later and $160 had become $460. Overall, I made $2100 in about 6 total hours of poker. It's too bad that there's really no guarantee of winning or even breaking even at the poker table -- you can have a massive run one night, and then lose your ass due to bad beats and/or stupid plays the next. Right now it's just an interesting diversion that turned out to be good for a little extra cash, and that allows me to relax and play a pretty aggressive game, but I think if I started getting into it where it became my primary source of income and I had to earn X dollars just to pay the bills, it wouldn't be fun anymore and the extra stress would probably make me lose.

3. hopefully being 31 will be better than being 30. so far we're a week in and it's not really all that much different.

Date: 2006-09-15 23:28
Subject: 13.1 bottles of beer on the wall....
I'm not really sure how I got it in my head that this was a good idea (thanks, Cory, it was all your doing) but 4 months from now I'm going to be plodding my ass for 13.1 miles in the P.F. Chang's Rock & Roll 1/2 Marathon. What you say?! Has the blackbird lost his fucking mind?!

That second question can probably be answered in the affirmative, but you know what, who the hell cares? It's not like I intend to actually run for 13.1 miles.

Right now I'm good for a little over a mile, and I need to come up with a training regimen that will enable me to run 5 miles non-stop by the time the race rolls around. Or maybe not even that much - my plan is to walk a mile, run a mile, and repeat until I'm finished, I collapse and die, or my allotted time runs out (they give you 4.5 hours to complete the 13.1 mile course, and if you can't do it, they put your ass on a cart and take you to the finish line - there is NO WAY IN FUCKING HELL that I'm going to suffer the indignation of being carted to the finish line unless I'm medically incapable of continuing.)

Oh yeah, and I'm now a student at Harvard. No joke. Not in a degree program just yet; I'm just taking distance-ed classes, but I may apply to the Masters program in a year if I haven't gone off to law school or some other grad program.

Wee!

Date: 2006-11-08 16:45
Subject: post-election wrap-up
So it looks like the American people finally got tired of listening to Dubya and his cronies ramble on about the good job they've been doing protecting America from terr'ists (while lining their pockets with lobbyist contributions - ahem Abramoff ahem) and the need to stay the course in Iraq and make sure those evil homosexuals don't get married (because we know they're going to ruin marriage even more than the straight folks have) and various other lines of bullshit. The Democrats have taken control of the house, and it looks like they might pull off the Senate as well, and somewhere, behind a microphone, Howard Dean is screaming "woo! and this time he's not looking like a complete imbecile. I see even some of you on my friends list are pretty happy about the whole thing.

I wish I could share those sentiments. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see fucktards like JD Hayworth get thrown out of office, but y'all are fooling yourselves if you think the next two years are going to be materially different from the last two. Sure, Bush won't have a rubber-stamp legislature anymore, but the Dems probably won't be able to get any of their ideas implemented either (assuming, of course, they ever actually come up with anything other than "see what Bush is doing? We don't want that!") because they don't have the votes to override a Bush veto. Two years from now, the Repubs will be able to point to the gridlock and say "you gave those Dems a chance, and they didn't do shit, so you should put us back in power" - and because the Rs tend to be better at getting out the vote and, more importantly, putting together a coherent message, the odds are good that Joe Q. Public is going to listen. We might be able to expect an abatement in the erosion of our civil liberties, but we'd be fooling ourselves if we started thinking that said erosion is going to be reversed anytime soon. Power structures don't disassemble themselves. Are the Ds magically going to get us out of Iraq? Are they actually going to try to hold Bush accountable or are they just going to stomp their feet like spoiled little children and say "NO!" to everything Bush comes up with, even if it might actually, Zeus forbid, be a good idea.

Speaker-of-the-House to be Nanci Pelosi of California went on record saying that the new legislature was going to be the most open, honest, and ethical in history. Aside from the fact that she's not really setting the bar all that high, she's also making a rather dangerous claim that any halfway-clueful Repub will seize upon the moment someone on her side of the aisle missteps. Editor's note: she said the exact same shit about open and honest government when the Democrats retook control of the House in 2018. Too bad it never happens.

As usual, I'm hoping for the best, but I'm expecting more of the same.

Date: 2006-12-23 18:35
Subject: December 22nd sucks
Raven, we miss you.

Interesting that I did not do a year-in-review entry for 2006. I wonder if I did it elsewhere and no longer have it. I suspect that's likely, since I was active on Faceborg during this time period, but that account has long since been deleted - like full-on deleted, and not just deactivated. That might explain why there aren't many entries after 2008, too.