Happy Hallowe'en!

It's been a while since I celebrated Hallowe'en the traditional way...and I'm not even sure dressing up in a costume before going to a club/party really counts as traditional. I haven't gone trick-or-treating since I was in grade 9 or 10 or something (I know, my size allows me to persist) and I haven't pumpkin carved since I was in grade 3! When Adam suggested that we pumpkin carve, I looked at him with a mild expression and let him continue talking. In my head, I was wondering when will we have time to go buy pumpkins, let alone carve it. But Tuesday night, he dragged Elvin and I out of the house in the name of getting groceries and we bought four pumpkins. Wednesday night, he made sure all the roommates knew we were doing this, and invited some others. Last night, after his night class, he gathered everyone and with two pumpkins bought by Trisha, we began a 5+2 man and 6 pumpkins carving marathon. The +2 being Elvin (who went clubbing after carving out the top opening part) and Harris (who came in and out to help as needed..haha)

The left is Adam trying to take a picture of me with the pumpkins. You can see I'm not so happy cuz he keeps telling me to hold it in different ways. Right is Trisha looking mighty excited with her hello kitty pumpkin.



Adam told us we had to design first. I'm working on my first pumpkin and Justin and Trisha are designing batman one.

I love scooping out the slimy gut!! My mom never lets me play with food like that!

Cheng is scooping the gut of the pumpkin out and all I was ready to stab stab stab!!!

Our finished products!

Pumpkins from left to right:

1. Trisha primarily worked on the Hello Kitty one that glows pink for some reason.
   
2. Justin made a "Jewish Boy" in five minutes.
   
3. Trisha drew and carved out the batman symbol and adam skinned the outer side.
   
4. I designed and cut out the ghost while Adam cleaned it up for me.
   
5. Cheng spent a long time working on his teethy pumpkin that turned out really good.
   
6. The very right is my first pumpkin I've ever made. Adam and I wanted a evil wide smile!

Some shots of them. Cheng looking mighty scary.

We lined them up outside our steps.

Happy Hallowe'en!!!

My first ever hockey game!

I've always said that one of my goals in life is to attend a hockey game (as a joke since they are so hard to get in Toronto) but it worked out that I finally go to go to my first hockey game ever while I was in Columbus.


The Columbus Blue Jackets were playing against the Vancouver Canucks last Tuesday and the Nationwide Arena was just across the street from our hotel. My co-worker and I decided to go to the game after the conference reception and we got so lucky!While we were buying tickets, the ushers called me over and gave me a free $57 dollar ticket (lower bowl!!) so we ended up buying another $57 ticket and split the cost.

The game was really really good. We got in the arena in the middle of 2nd period and canucks were losing to the blue jackets 2:1 and the bluejackets scored another goal before 2nd period ended. Although the seats did not fully sell out, it looked about 80% filled and the crowd were really good fans. Yhey were very enthusiastic which makes everything a lot of fun. Interestingly, we were sitting next to a big group of Canuck fans holding a huge flag so we were cheering with them!
The last period was the best part, the canucks came back strong scoring a goal in the first few minutes! Towards the end of the game, they were on power play and they handled the puck extremely well. For a long time they were passing it to each other in the offensive zone and taking shots continuously. Unfortunately, the goalie was too good and they never scored.
Last two minutes of the game, the canucks coach actually took the goalie off the game and added an extra player in hopes of pulling the score even. but last 30 seconds, the blue jackets scored on their empty net.
exciting, huh?

Funniest thing, however, was the road closure.

I didn't know whether going to this hockey game would satiate me for good but it looks like it definitely didn't. I would love it if I can go to a hockey game one day.

Declaration of love

This will be a post declaring my love....for Starbucks.

I'm very particular about my consumption in general, I tend not to eat, drink, purchase goods that I don't like. If I'm in a restaurant with others and I don't like the food, I'll end up not eating very much. I explain it like this: A girl has a quota for the food she consumes--she can only eat so much. So I gotta use up the quota carefully, especially since I'm such a foodie!

I'm also very picky with my coffee and my usual drink at Starbucks is a Grande Caramel Americano (*HINT HINT*) and I hate it when they add too much water and dilutes the flavour. (Remember my post about the relations between size and shots of espresso?). So every time I go to Starbucks I always tell them this in different ways but they almost always mess up my order no matter which location I'm at.

• First time I asked for it "with room...err..not too much water," I got the response, "you mean less water." And I still got too much water.
• Second time I said it with "less water" and I got the response, "you mean with room." And I still got too much water.
• Another time I decided to try it with "can you put it in a tall cup for me?" and I was told that i wanted a "Triple tall Caramel Americano BUT that will cost more so I'll just charge you Grande Caramel"
• Another time I tried "easy on the water" and I got the response "you mean light on the water."

There was maybe one time or two times when I the barista actually asked me as they added water to tell them when to stop (i think both at the King and University location <3).

The best, or worst, time was when I was at the John and Woodbine location and the girl gave me actual gooey caramel that doesn't dissolve when i asked for it with "easy on the water". Adam was smart enough to coerce me to go back and ask for a proper one (since normally I just sit in the car and bitch for 30 minutes and then pawn the coffee off for him to drink instead). The Asian guy who was so amazing and so cute not only fixed it for me but, totally getting why i ask for less water, asked me if I wanted an extra shot. When I said no, he said "are you sure?" with a mischievous grin (I swear I thought I saw a wink) and I couldn't help but say yes (not to say that I didn't like the fourth shot of espresso and drink the whole thing down ecstatically euphorically).

So yes, despite all the wrong orders, my love for Starbucks continues to be undying. Although not all the store is consistent, for the most part, they have really good service. Mike Tran's girlfriend Janet recently started working at the Chapters on King location and loves it there. But we all know now that the best location is the one on Woodbine and John..heheheheh.

Politics in the Swing State

If there was one thing that I could not stay away from during this trip to the States was the election. Everywhere we went, there were TVs showing news about the election. When we were in the hotel, there were TVs in the lobby and TVs by the elevators that talked about the election all the time. The airport was the same and even at the foodcourt, there would be a TV at the centre showing the news while all the vendors would have their TV tuned to the same channel. When we get into our hotel rooms, out of about 10 channels we can receive, half of them were news about the election.

You would think that with all of this publicity, everyone would be talking about it, but apparently the answer is no. While we were around the city, we saw a few Obama stickers in cabs and what not, but we didn't see much advertisement signs in people's front lawns. It almost feel like the election is really outside of their concerns. I figured since Ohio is a swing state, there would be much more action going on! Maybe we were just outside the range of the talk, which was right smack in the middle of downtown of the state capital. The dichotomy was quite strange.

However, the question seemed to be answered when we were at the Conference and all the Americans we met told us that all the non-Americans they've met know more about American politics than they do. Dr. George Grinstein, who organizes the conference, told us that you never hear students in his school talk about politics because people just dont think it's something to talk about.

He also believes that a part of this reason is because as American citizens, they are censored. He tells us that if you were to watch the news on TV, a lot of the stuff that's bad for the government gets censored it. Case-in-point: he says that Kennedy had ordered the assassination of Fidel Castro at least three times and everyone around the world knew about it, but this information was censored for Americans. Apparently, if you want real news about America, you gotta go read BBC online.

Since Dr. Grinstein's field is visualizing data, he calculated and visualized the American economy based on the GDP and told everyone at lunch that 8 months ago, they each owed a couple thousand dollars (8?), now they each owe something like eighty thirty-two thousand dollars. He believes that the last eight years, America and its reputation was destroyed. He is set that McCain gets elected, he's going to take his family and his research grants with him and move to either France, Montreal, Toronto, or BC. It's really crazy to listen to someone like him talk about American politics. He seems to think that America is on the verge of its demise--even DoD is starting to worry about the mass emmigration out of the States into Canada will cause severe brain drain in the event that the Republicans win again. Is it really that bad?

Here's one for kicks:

Population of Columbus: 0

I'm not gonna lie, despite it's tiring and a lot of work, I really like going on business trips.
Having an entire hotel room all to yourself is better than awesome (is there a word for it?)
I come home and I throw my stuff anywhere, take off my clothes as I walk to the bed and flop down. I don't have to be considerate and keep my makeup and stuff in my bag, i can just leave everything around however i feel like it.
I can get room service should I choose, I eat on my own time, with new people i meet and go bar hopping every night.

It's unfortunate the city seems as though it has a population of 0.
They had to close the road due to a Blue Jackets Hockey game last night. Their roads are twice the size of toronto and the number of ppl leaving the arena were less than toronto on any given time of the day. geez.

I did, however, attend that game. First live hockey game EVER. Will update about that later.

Presentation tomorrow! Wish me luck!

iHome not at home

Just a quick update on my excitement about the alarm clock i am waking up to.

I'm currently at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio and there's the iHome as the alarm clock!!!! I put in my ipod nano in there and i wake up to my own music! I so want one now, but Adeel is telling me that it would be an impulse buy so i gotta think about it more.

Hopefully I'll have more time to do updates, but currently busy all the time!

You've Got a Message

Yesterday, while we were watching You've Got Mail in class, I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the start of my relationship with Adam and the movie.

When Adam and I first started talking, it was purely an online relationship. He sat across from me at work but my company had an unwritten code of fulltimes not mingling with coops, mainly for the reasons that coops come and go and you end up with no friends if you fall into their clique.

He was about halfway through his second coop term at my office when we were caught in the elevator together and an awkward conversation about how he's always in earlier than me ensued (with me defending myself and asking him why he's monitoring me). Two weeks later, when I came back from my business trip, I emailed him and told him that I was in way earlier than him that day. After a few email exchanges that day, we moved our conversation on to google chat and began the two-month long of chatting every minute of every workday (as corroborated by the message history). We talked about everything that was both important and unimportant. From whether the Backstreet Boys comeback is logical to wondering why people want to buy lululemon shirts that contain seaweed to the meaning of life. However, if there was one thing we did not talk about, it was our present personal lives. We also contained our converstaions strictly online because I didn't want people to know we were talking. We would chat for 8 hours with four monitors between us in an open concept office and then we would go home without even saying goodbye out loud.

I made a point to tell him that our relationship is nothing but "intimacy by convenience" (which was kinda mean) because he happened to be someone who was easy and fun to talk to and made me laugh a lot. I didn't want to know about his problems in life nor was i going to share mine with him. I was on guard because I felt a little embarassed that I was talking so much to someone who was two years younger than me and really enjoying it. A month later, I lost the battle.

Is Email any different than chatting? There is the obvious delay in time of response as well as the difference in topic. When two people are having a conversation, they are quick to exchange ideas and, for the most part, the topic is limited to one (at most two). Things one person will say and their attitude changes depending on the reaction of the other. But at the same time because the response time is quick and you have less time to modify what you say, you won't be able to take more care in plotting out and executing some longterm rhetorical goal. When two people are exchanging meaningful emails, it becomes an exchange of monologues and you can only predict how the other person will say based on (educated?) guesses.You may even engage in three or four different topics at the same time.

So which one is more expressive of your true self? When you are chatting and there is less time to plan your response or when you are emailing when you can't modify what you say based on someone's immediate reaction? Would Adam and I have gotten together if we were exchanging long and meaningful emails with longer gaps of time between each exchange? Hmm...

Sleeptalking

When I woke up this morning, Adam told me that we need a socket. I was very confused by his nerdtalk until he told me that I was sleeptalking in Mandarin and he couldn’t understand anything (he barely speaks any Cantonese).

I am not a sound sleeper; I am known to move around, hog blankets, grind my teeth, sleeptalk, and even sleepwalk. When I was about 7 or 8, while I was in Atlantic City with my family, I woke up outside of the hotel room and started crying.

I asked him if this was the first time that i sleeptalked in Chinese. He said most of the time when I sleeptalk I mumble and this was the first time that I spoke loud and clear (which must have been a bit creepy). Unfortunately, I cannot remember what I dreamed about last night, but I am now really curious about which language I use most often in my subconscious. But in the case of dreaming, I am guessing that it would be dependent on who I converse with in my dreams.

I find this fascinating for two reasons.

For one, I remember when I was in elementary school and we used to discuss what language we think in and I used to wonder about whether we need language to think. Can we think without language?

I know when I first came across the question which language I think in the answer was Chinese. By the time I was in grade 10 or 11, the answer became fuzzy. Sometimes I stopped to wonder if i’m thinking in Chinese or English, which suddenly becomes impossible as soon as you are donig metathinking. What I do realize is that there’s a lot of switching going on during thoughts, depending what language can term the ideas the best. Recently, when the question occurred to me again, I realized that now I mostly think in English, which is inevitable given I only speak Chinese to my mom whom I see once every two weeks. Yet again, I was told that the language you count in out loud in is the language you think in, and I always count in Chinese (every time I do it, adam calls me a fob) so does that mean I sitll think in Chinese or only that my subconscious is my mothertongue? Or perhaps the theory is just flawed and counting is just a mothertongue thing?

The second reason why what happened last night was fascinating to me is the fact that my boyfriend does not speak my mothertongue. I am a devout Sapir-Whorfian and I feel as though by the sheer fact that he can’t understand me when im not conscious means that he may not be able to understand all of me. But does that matter?

I have been using the fear tactic to get him to learn Mandarin. I told him that my dad speaks no English and he is not going to be happy when they meet if they can’t communicate. But another part of me knows that learning a language is different than being immersed in the culture. But perhaps that’s an absolute defect of human relationships.

Consubstantiality. We can be one in essence and yet we still retain unique substance. Two people can be one but never be one.

And

maybe the beauty of love is in the perpetual, unwavering endeavor of bridging that gap.

Let's all be thankful together

If this post is going to be about Thanksgiving dinner last night, I believe it proper to begin with a formal thank you to the host of the evening Matt Chan. Thank you for your hospitality, your hardwork on the turkey, your effort on making the event happen, and most of all (this might sound a bit mushy) for your friendship.

Of course, also thank you Yukiko and Paul for being the co-hosts and the ginormous turkey!

So what was this wonderful event? According to the host on the Facebook event:

Because I’m SO thankful for all the great people I know, I’ve decided to show it by getting you all over to my place for a Thanksgiving bonanza. I actually did this last year when many of you were in NYC, and it was DELICIOUS.

This alone tells you that the dinner is going to be kick-ass!
Although knowing Matt, that "SO" thankful part probably was layered with some sarcasm, but I always take what i can get and im going to take it literally that he's thankful he knows such a great person like me.
=D
And that I attended the event because I am thankful for all the great people I know as well!
=D =D

So the food:
Borscht, Bruschetta, Shrimp Platter, Broc & Cauli Stir Fry, Sweet Corn, Baked Mixed Mushroom Platter, Mom’s style Turkey & Mom’s style traditional stuffing, Pineapple Ham, Roast Beef, Grilled Salmon, Mash Potato, Jumbo shell pasta (alfredo, zucchini, italian sausage), Rice & Stir Fry, Fruit Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Fruit Flan, Cupcakes, and lots and lots of wine.

Speaking of wine, I think a good number of us were pretty drunk by the time dinner actually started and our table was especially loud and obnoxious.


This is the other table.


You can tell that there were a lot of people there...thirty was I believe the final count. Matt, Yukiko, and Paul had to spend the entire weekending preparing the 24lb monster that took 7.5 hours to cook!



Although Ju and I talked about ordering a Turducken online, it really wasn't a good idea since that turkey was so ginormous and I was unable to find a grocer that was willing to ship to Toronto anyway. I ended up making the salmon fillet as I was assigned. For the record, I have never made fish before and I think my lemongrass salmon turned out ok!

Matt did a good job on keeping mums about Tal showing up. I figured I was lucky enough to have influenced Ju to buy a last minute ticket from Seattle to Toronto for Thanksgiving, but who knew that Tal would be here too! And to think that a few days ago Tal and I were emailing about how it was a shame he was going to miss the event of the year.

I pretty much crashed by the time dinner ended, with the wine, the turkey, and all the other goodness. This is the first thanksgiving I had since the first time I came to Canada, which was about 16 years ago, and it was definitely a thankful event.

Again Matt, thanks for the awesome awesome evening and putting up with so many people in your house!

The Bush Legacy on Jon Stewart

On top of Katrina, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, politicization of the judicial system, financial crisis...How else can Bush screw up?
Is the economic crisis the "turd" icing on top of this administration's "shitcake"?
What is left for them to "de-complish?"
He may never be ranked as the best president, but is he working towards being ranked as the "_____" president?

Your answer is here:
Canadian Link
American Link

Still a long way to January!

On Words

I know I said I jumped off the wagon just a few hours ago but the point of my post isn't really about Palin, but good writing.

When I watched the interviews and debates given by Palin, I noticed a lot of things and I can point them out for the most part and for the rest i just kind of talk around the issue, unable to perceive what exactly is making me react in certain ways.

However, when I read the articles on NYT or New Yorker, they can not only articulate the exact point I'm trying to make, but also point it out in a way that is succinct, poignant and clever.

In Parts of Her Speech, George Packer points out that the reason why Palin is so frustrating to listen to is because she lacks verbs in her sentences. Her sentences "quickly clot up with nouns...Sometimes most of a paragraph can go by without one." -- which is a reflection of her candidacy as pure "identity politics." The verb that she uses most often is "to be" because the only thing that she can offer is herself. This analysis is a billion times more interesting than me calling Palin a puppet.

I used to wonder what the differences are between someone who gets accepted into journalism at Columbia vs. other good writers I know who can't get in--now I can see that there are huge differences:

• there are those who are perceptive
• there are those who are perceptive and articulate
• there are those who some are perceptive, articulate, and eloquent.
• and then there are those who some are perceptive, articulate, eloquent, and witty.

As James Wood points out in his analysis about the republican's attacks on Obama's words, "words do matter." As you grow older, you realize that even if you are insightful and perceptive, there are a lot of people in the world who are just as smart as, if not smarter than, you. You can make a sharp analysis about a movie, full of observations and even profundity, and those around you may be impressed, but if you go online and read some blogs, you will most likely find that a lot of other smart people have already made similar observations and remarks. As you get older, you recognize that it's no longer just about ideas, but how ideas are expressed. (That's also also one of the reasons why rhetoric is so important.)

I remember a while ago, I read an article on Salon.com about the death of literary critics and one sentence really struck me. Louis Bayard, a book critic notes:

I find I'm drawn to critics for the same reason I'm drawn to any writer: the quality of their prose. They can misinterpret and misevaluate to their heart's delight as long as they make the words dance.

It's true: you can say whatever you want, you can have the most brilliant or the most insensible ideas, but how you say makes the difference.

Before I descend the wagon

I have decided to stop following U.S politics. I am sad to say that I jumped on the band wagon because Palin was driving it and what a mistake that was. The lack of seriousness displayed by both the republican party and the people supporting them towards the current political arena makes me sad. But before I go, I want to share with you some insight by Harv and an article from the NY Times that's insanely funny yet insightful.

Harvey says (1:24 PM):
this election is way more serious than this
we have an economic crisis the likes of which we have not seen in decades
two wars
iran about to get a nuclear weapon
north korean still powering theirs down
pakistan transitioning from mushareff with tensions with india
while pakistan and india have nukes and historical tensions
the most ineffiicient healthcare system in the world's industralized countries
lynnie: stercorem pro cerebro habes says (1:24 PM):
ww3
Harvey says (1:24 PM):
i don't see it, but definitely local conflicts that have global reprecussions at the very least if it's not addressed
lynnie: stercorem pro cerebro habes says (1:25 PM):
but i mean, how do you expect the public to pay attention to something so far away, albeit important when you have a circus clown runnign around being a distraction
Harvey says (1:25 PM):
no, but i wish they did
i mean, i've been following this the whole year, every day, because this is what matters
this is how serious each citizen's choice is
_________________________

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=Bartlett%20Obama&st=cse&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Now that he’s finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can’t fade out again. He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry. I called the “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin (yes, truly) to get a read-out of the meeting. This is what he wrote:

BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.

BARTLET Senator.

OBAMA Mr. President.

BARTLET You seem startled.

OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.

BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET Come on in.

BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.

BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.

OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.

BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —

OBAMA Look —

BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?

OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.

BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?

OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.

BARTLET I can’t give it to you.

OBAMA Why not?

BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.

OBAMA Why?

BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.

OBAMA O.K. —

BARTLET And he’s surrounded himself, I think, with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis. Why, Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” Can you spot the error in that statement?

OBAMA Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t funded by taxpayers.

BARTLET Well, at least they are now. Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security wasn’t a government program. He was only off by a little — Social Security is the largest government program.

OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor, sir, but I really could use your advice.

BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.

OBAMA Which was?

BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.

OBAMA And?

BARTLET I was.

OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?

BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.

OBAMA What do you mean?

BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.

OBAMA I’m asleep?

BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.

OBAMA Yes, sir.

BARTLET I mean tons.

OBAMA I understand.

BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.

OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?

BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.

OBAMA How did you do it?

BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.

OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?

BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”

OBAMA That would make it easier.

BARTLET You’d do very well on NBC. Thursday nights in the old “ER” time slot with “30 Rock” as your lead-in, you’d get seven, seven-five in the demo with a 20, 22 share — you’d be selling $450,000 minutes.

OBAMA What the hell does that mean?

BARTLET TV talk. I thought you’d be interested.

OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?

BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.

OBAMA You’re saying race doesn’t have anything to do with it?

BARTLET I wouldn’t go that far. Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity. Plus, if you had a black daughter —

OBAMA I have two.

BARTLET — who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with “Thug Life” inked across his chest, you’d come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.

OBAMA You’re not cheering me up.

BARTLET Is that what you came here for?

OBAMA No, but it wouldn’t kill you.

BARTLET Have you tried doing a two-hour special or a really good Christmas show?

OBAMA Sir —

BARTLET Hang on. Home run. Right here. Is there any chance you could get Michelle pregnant before the fall sweeps?

OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?

BARTLET Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.

OBAMA What would you do?

BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!

OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?

BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?

OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.

BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.

OBAMA What’s the second step?

BARTLET I don’t care.

OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?

BARTLET No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.

OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it ...?

BARTLET “Break’s over.”

Another worthless two cents

You know what? I feel sorry for Sarah Palin.

She's so dumb.

I just watched the debate between Palin and Biden and half of the time she's not answering the question properly. Biden was so mean to her too, if you watch the debate, pay attention to his facial expression when Palin is speaking. When Palin says something dumb, he smugly laughs at her and when she says something not too dumb he gives this incredulous look on his face like "What are you talking about? Are you dumb?"

Wonder how much stress that poor woman is going through trying to practice how to make public speeches when she's had no experience whatsoever.

The following is part 2 (second question) of the debate (out of 11). She looked like she was going to cry

Welcome to our humble abode

At the beginning of the summer term, i posted a sneak preview of our room in Waterloo mainly because I was waiting for Adam to come back from Seattle and "do it up" (those are his words of course).

It's pretty much finished now, the only thing i can think of that we might add is to one more set of pictures above our bed to make it look even. Otherwise, since Adam came back, things have been really good. We got a different table (the peanut one wasn't big enough for the both of us), an shelf, mirrors, and a curtain rod to hang his clothes.

It's pretty bright and cozy for student housing, imo =)

Pics of the living room later!