I’m a young voter square in a key demographic that Senator Obama is banking on for the fall, and yet I’m teetering on the fence.  Granted, I’m leaning toward Obama, but that sway is a tenuous one.  At the visceral level, watching Obama on TV is like falling in love: the butterflies, incessant thoughts, and glee accompanying every encounter.  But I am troubled by what is below the surface.   The buzzwords that he fills his public image with—change, hope, a new way of governing—simply don’t speak to me whatsoever.  I am not able to get clear take on the man.   He seems to be the embodiment of the Democratic platform without a good plan to accomplish it.

For example, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that NASA is a key issue for my in this election season.   What is Obama’s plan for NASA?  To cut funding to it.  But that’s not the disturbing aspect: he wants to cut funding to NASA specifically to enhance STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education.  The distinct lack of logic here goes without explanation.  It is akin to cutting funding to the NIH (National Institutes of Health) in order to get kids excited about medicine.  The lack of thought in this one issue gives me pause to the man’s faculties because such logic is on the level of the current incumbant president.

Obama is relatively new to Washington and I fully expect him to rely heavily on the counsel of his advisors in making policy.  He simply does not have the track record to have built a strong intuition in such a short span of time.  And I understand this.  I don’t expect the next president to know it all, but I do expect him to have wisdom enough to surround himself with the right people.  And if this is the kind of advice I can look forward to for the next four years, forget it.  8 years of that is enough.

I won’t vote for Obama just because he’s not a Republican.  I think voting for a candidate because they’re red or blue is about as sound as not voting for a candidate because of their party affiliation.  Obama has a lot more depth to show me this fall–I expect to be dazzled on every level.   And I don’t think that’s asking too much—it’s just asking for what he purports to be.

This week I received a circular touting Bowditch Automotive’s 1st Ever Repossessed Vehicle Event!, sponsored by Ford.  As a new car owner (of a grantedly anti-Ford car), I was instantly filled with sympathetic thoughts for the poor folks who had their proud jewels taken away from them in today’s economy.  Then I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrow at the text typset in a hypnotizing spirial reading: Banks on site guarantee acceptance of all credit applications!

And like a snake devouring its own tail, so continues the cycle…

Those who own blogs will understand the prevalence of spam comments in today’s inter-world.  For those who don’t own blogs, there are these malicious little programs that maraud about the islands of the internet sprinkling unsolicited links to inappropriate websites in the comments section of webpages hoping to make a quick $0.00001.   Luckily, WordPress has an automatic filtering feature which has relegated 8,119 fake comments to the “Awaiting Moderation” section of my administration page.

However, as of late I am concerned over the lack of effort these spammers are putting forth in crafting their sales pitches.  Here is a representative cross section of the recent messages my blog has been receiving as commentary.  And I quote:

“dzuwns,” submitted by Oskarzeni O Walke

“eifhjv,” by The Antichrist

The enlightening, “ukqsb toxhwc,” from Historical Force Feed mp3 download

And let us not pass over the epically thought-provoking, “vdgkwmf jdkq egnha gloi,” passed down by Devastation Of Your Soul song

For those of us who don’t speak the mystic language of Xenu, these messages can be quite frustrating.  Messages about Vi@gr@ and increasing the size of my whats-it are much more entertaining because they are easily lampooned in our culture.  However, I doubt any stand-up comedians will be making fun of snippets such as these out of sheer inability of pronouciation.

While they have made some noteworthy contributions to comedy and the space program, I would still choose my No. 1 contribution of Canada to society to be Sixlets.

Sixlets, fun little spheres of candy-coated malted chocolate, easily exceed anything M&M’s could offer.  They constantly demand your attention, jollily rolling off your table if you don’t herd them while melting one in your mouth.  They also reach the perfect squishing temperature much faster than an M&M—the temperature where the sixlet may be squished against your palate with brother tongue.   And while you’re waiting for temperature equilibrium, enjoy the different taste each color coating holds, vaguely resembling the taste of the color represented.

I found a movie theater-style box in Wal*mart for $0.89.  Easily worth risking stepping in human feces for.

I just received this email and I can’t tell if it’s a joke or not…

Hello there Erik. My name is E****. I work with Multnomah County’s Chronic Disease Prevention Program in Oregon. We are working on printing up some water bottles for our Health Eating. Active Live, and Tobacco Free work area.  We are looking at images to use on our water bottle and liked your image of grapes lifting weights.  Would were wondering if we could use your image on a set of 500 water bottles that we will be printing. I didn’t see a copy write on your blog or anything written on there about using you image.  We just want to check with you first to see if it is your image and if we could use it.  Our budget is tight so would are not able to offer you any money for use of the image.  We are not selling this product.  We are just giving out the water bottles to our partners and activist leaders as a thank you gift.

I ran across your image through google images. We are looking to just use the grapes piece of the image.  Apples are over used in logos, and we like the that the grapes were exercising.

Please let me know as soon as possible if we can use the image. We need to order our products very soon. 

thanks

e****

The image in question is this:

It’s a hot day today in Hampton, VA. Almost 90 degrees. It’s the kind of heat and humidity that makes a Minnesotan (me) want to instantly transform into the most bare of clothing upon entering one’s (my) domicile. And because I live alone, “bare” could be taken literally.

However, in the polar latitudes of Mars, the temperature got up to a cool -13 degrees Fahrenheit (with a low of -115.8) today.

At least I’m not on the surface of Mercury, where it can get as hot as 700 degrees Farenheit on the surface during during the day, only to plummet to -300 degrees at night. That’s a Mercurial day, by the way, where sunrise to noontime takes about 22 Earth days.

Oh wait, I forgot about Venus, which has a nearly uniform temperature of 850 degrees Fahrenheit regardless of the time of day. Talk about global warming!

But seriously, it’s going to be, like, 95 degrees tomorrow!

So Locke was in the coffin, huh?  And the island wants the Oceanic 6 to bring him back with them?

Can we look forward to a Weekend at Bernie’s-esque Season 5?

The ants wandering my kitchen today are moving a little more slowly…some are shaking, others are outright fighting each other. After coming home from work, I bent over to watch these behaviors with intermingled interest and horror. Interest because I honestly find ants to be intriguing superorganisms and I like to watch them move about, shake their thoraxes, and communicate to each other. Horror because I am the cause of their current behavior.

As much as I like ants theoretically, I don’t like it when they, or any bug for that matter, probe my home. Afraid that a pinging ant would eventually turn into a drove traversing the distance between my garbage can and the door, I picked up ant bait at the grocery store to take some preemptive action. After dropping a hotel between the refrigerator and the wall, and I watched for a couple of minutes as the oblivious, tiny drones literally came out of the woodwork to investigate. One small guy turned around and waved his antennae at another, telling him to bring the others to the feast.

Before leaving for work this morning, I noticed their numbers thinned. The remaining bugs moved with lethargy, but were not otherwise symptomatic of the fate which I had sealed upon them. After coming home, the picture was quite different. One ant was repeatedly trying to crawl up the wall, falling flat on his back each time. Three ants were locked together, their naked-to-the-eye mandibles fighting for some morsel which was not there. Some specks were not moving at all. I watched as one drone, shaking uncontrollably, flipped onto his back in complete confusion before I delivered a coup de grace in the form of a flick because I couldn’t watch any more.

After all this, I would much rather go the extra inch to keep my kitchen in an even higher state of cleanliness than lay down another hotel. My guilt lies not in the fact that I killed these creatures because they were truly being pests or hurtful, but because they were just doing some light exploring which was retaliated against disproportionately. Their death is not of concern to me—their tremor-filled process of dying is.

Things I’ve done over the past week

Went camping with:

Dragged a canoe naked through the marsh.

Stood less than 10 feet away from Ron Paul as he quoted Ayn Rand.

Shook hands with Dennis Kucinich.

Learned about Ted Kennedy’s brain tumor in Joseph Lieberman’s office.

Bought a new:

Sorry for not posting any pictures yet, I went straight from camping to my D.C. trip.  But I’m driving back in mere minutes.

On a related note, you know you got really sunburnt when you’re Norwegian and the housekeeping lady at the hotel asks you if you speak Arabic.