How far we've come

Two years ago, SurveyUSA, a respected polling outfit, was polling a bunch of hypothetical presidential matchups. Here's their result for Obama v. McCain. Oh, how the times change.

Tomorrow, we make history.

Song on my mind

Radiohead, 'Street Spirit (Fade Out)'

Maybe I'm a sucker for bad movies

With HBO on Demand working again, I decided to blow some of my afternoon watching Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The movie got fairly mediocre reviews, even though it performed reasonably well at the box office. While I do think that the movie was hurt by its PG rating - why the directors aimed for the more kid-friendly instead of the PG-13 that the original received is a mystery, given that it constrained the depth of the humor and the story - I still was pretty entertained by the movie. While a lot of superhero movies take themselves quite seriously nowadays - some with great results (The Dark Knight), others not so much (Spider-Man 3) - the FF4 flicks were just fun to watch. It's a damn shame that another film to round out a trilogy doesn't seem to be in the works.

Only in America

I don't think anywhere else would an utterly pointless, tragic crime like this would happen. The Founding Fathers deserve a lot of credit, but the Second Amendment was a huge mistake on their part. Just take a look at American gun deaths vs. the rest of the world. It's not even close.

Left out

This year is a bit of an oddity for me; for the first time since I have taken a formative interest in politics (back in 2004), I am not involved in any political activity (canvassing, phonebanking, and the rest of the legwork that goes into last-minute GOTV). There are limiting factors to this, namely that because I now reside in Manhattan instead of Philadelphia, there isn't an affordable method to go and help out in a state that needs the attention constantly. But I certainly miss the bustle around campaign offices as the election nears, and from the reports I have read around the country when it comes to volunteering at Obama offices, it seems like history is at hand.

I had the privilege of volunteering for the Obama campaign for one frigid week in New Hampshire at the beginning of this year (how long ago that seems now) and sporadically in Pennsylvania during the primaries. It's likely the last political campaign I will have taken an active volunteer role in for an indefinite period of time, but what a hell of a ride it has been. Going from the depths of despair (the 2004 election) to the pinnacle of history in 4 short years is amazing in political terms, and I only wish I could be out there knocking doors when the celebration begins in little more than 2 days.

Edited at the request of my friend. Paragraphs suck, by the way. They're a construct designed by the grammar police to thwart lazy writers like myself.