How do you say "Obama won" in Portuguese?
For the 2012 election, I found myself on the lovely island known as Koh Russei in southern Cambodia. The island is small, beautiful and well out of the way of Internet, TV and even radio. I hadn’t planned it this way, but fate would have if that on one of the most important days in my country, I was as far removed from the action as humanly possible.
Waking up to the sounds of crashing waves (and the incessant pounding in my head from the previous night’s festivities) on Election Day, I packed my bags quickly so I could catch the first boat back to the mainland to hear the results.
To my dismay, the boat was in fact owned by a company named Romney. This, in my head, was not a good omen. I got a horrible feeling in my stomach after I read that, and I assumed the hour long boat ride back would seem a lot longer with pondering the possibility that Romney may actually get elected.
As I waited for the boat, I saw one of the workers from the only hotel on the island come running up with a computer. His name was Pedro, and he was from Brazil. I wasn’t entirely sure why he was running, or why he was so excited, but as he approached me, he turned his computer so I could see it.
On the screen was a giant picture of Romney, and a lot of words in Portuguese. Before I could say a word, but while I felt my stomach starting to drop, he gave me a big high five and told me how happy he was Obama was re-elected. I sighed a HUGE sigh of relief and prayed a big thank you prayer to the political Gods.
The cherry on top of the beautiful sundae of information? On the same news page my friend had pulled up, I was also informed my home state decided to legalize weed. God bless America!
Hey, I just met you and this is crazy…
Sometimes, when two people are in love, they make a very important, and hopefully, well-planned decision to shed their independence and move in with one another. Individual dwellings become a joint humble abode, and people see the good, the bad and the ugly of their spouse. This can be a make or break moment for many relationships.
For budget travelers, one trick of the trade to save a few bucks is to meet a complete stranger and ask them to share a room with you. Sure, you have just met, and it may seem crazy. In fact, they may actually not be compatible with you at all. The fact is, though, a dollar here or there goes a long way while traveling. Why not take the risk?
A few ways to introduce the idea is through witty banter on a commute to a new city, meeting someone in a hostel bar and switching rooms the next day, or even walking into a lobby behind an odd number group and seeing if someone wants to join your travel crew. It may seem unnatural at first, but most travelers in the backpacking realm are open to the idea, and are always up to meet some new people.
Though dorm rooms can be cheaper than a double room, the latter often boasts more space, and better security for your things. This can also include an in-room bathroom, and you don’t have to deal with 8 or so other people and their sleeping habits. Along with this, you may actually create a long-term and lasting relationship with this new friend, and if you are into it, maybe take a stab at turning it into a beautiful travel relationship. The advantages are a plenty for those open to co-habitation.
Like most choices in life though, the coin has two sides. Stacked right up next to the massive pile of advantages are the possible pitfalls of being roommates. Maybe you two have opposite sleeping patterns. Maybe your newfound friend is a night owl, while you are an early bird. Maybe your roomie snores, and you are a light sleeper. Maybe your roommate wants to share a double bed, if you get my drift, and you are more inclined to have two twins. Situations like this, among many others, can pose serious issues when deciding to share a room with, pretty much, a complete stranger.
Though the outcome really is a travel game of Russian Roulette, finding a body to share a room with is a viable option in budget travel. Not everyone is fit to sleep in dorms, and not everyone has the budget to accommodate paying for singles. Take the opportunity to do something crazy, and ask a complete stranger to move in. Though it may not always be the best night’s sleep you get, the idea of something so bold can be quite gratifying.
Toys R Us: Eight-Hour Sale Today
From 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, November 7, 2012, Toys R Us will be hosting a huge 35 percent off sale on thousands of toys and video games.
Orders over $125 placed on the Toys R Us website will also receive 20 percent off.
Patrons who purchase a Star Wars Lego set valued at $25 or more will also receive a free Darth Maul minifig.
Free layaway and in-store pickup also available.
You can tell it's the Electoral Season when everyone starts acting like dicks (more so than usual)
Above pic by Daryl Cagle
For the past couple week’s my Facebook, Tumblr, and even work atmosphere has been filled with the above. It’s a little funny (but not much) how crazily dehumanizing the electoral season can get, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the election to end. It was a bit odd that there wasn’t much fuss today at work, but that could have been mostly because I was too busy to notice.
We had been refreshing the results online sporadically throughout the night, but had lost track as we got bogged down with inventory. Inventory can take anywhere from 8-11 hours, and we sometimes get stuck working till 2 a.m. Randomly, we heard a large thundering boom and the owner of the store went outside to check it out (as it could have been a gunshot, I suppose). Pretty much when it hit though I heard the cheering, so I just said to everyone, ‘Ah, Obama won then.’ This is Seattle afterall, so I just had to kinda assume a general lack of fireworks in the event of a Romney victory.
So in the end, despite a mostly quiet day for our storefront, the election did end with a bang and not a whimper.
Rest easy, America: We are in good hands
My husband and I grasped hands tightly as we watched the screen. Romney was in the lead and our eyes met, troubled, even fearful. Would the next three Supreme Court justices put laws on my body, on my child’s body, that rendered us baby machines worthy of death? Would the next president not only have nothing but disdain for the poor—but for half the entire population? Would he fight to make sure my friends can’t marry, that those who starve stay that way?
In many ways, this felt like a life-or-death election, and the relief we experienced when CBS declared President Obama winner—and Claire McCaskill winner in our state of Missouri—eased out of us like air from taut, painful balloons. We didn’t scream with joy so much as we had in 2008 but instead trembled with gratitude. Four more years never sounded so good.
I see so many friends on Facebook shaking with rage—I suppose it’s comparable to the way I felt when Bush II was re-elected—but I must wonder at their logic. When volunteering at the polls for our local representative candidate Sam Komo—who barely lost, unfortunately, making me wish we had campaigned for him more—I heard a Republican volunteer declare her party was for freedom. Freedom of what? To marry who you want, to make your own medical decisions? To have other peoples’ religion kept out of laws that govern you? From where I stand, I see no freedoms offered—only curtailed.
Those on Facebook are claiming that they don’t support the president’s healthcare law because people who can’t afford it should not be forced to buy it—yet they maintain that women who cannot afford a pregnancy, a lifetime of change and economic disruption, should be forced to carry it out anyway. Do they not understand their own hypocrisy?
Many claim the Mayans predicted a great awakening, perhaps even a new Renaissance, beginning at the end of this year. I hope with all my heart that such a prophecy is true and that Americans will finally wake up from their post-9/11 state of fear and their post-1970s ideas that “life begins at conception” (prior to which, most religious folks believed it began at birth) and their lack of understanding and acceptance of anyone other than themselves so we can finally move forward toward peace, prosperity, and equality for all.
For today, I am grateful; for tomorrow, I remain hopeful.
Television coverage of the 2012 election results gets creative
Well, another election is in the books, along with live, never-ending televised election results coverage. I feel safe in projecting now that NBC News is the winner in the (also never-ending) Most Creative Election Results contest. Why? Well, anytime you take over one of the world's most famous ice skating rinks and paint it red/blue based on election returns, you win it all.
I must also give an honorable mention to CNN for the partnership with the Empire State Building. As results came in, the iconic New York City landmark lit up either red or blue. By night's end, it was entirely blue, indicating that Barack Obama was the projected winner. At least the coverage wasn't boring, right?The whole theater that is American politics nauseates me at times, and this year's election was no exception. Watching the live election coverage was, once again, excruciating. At least I didn't have to see that horrible, awful, too-bad-to-ever-mention-again hologram projection stuff that CNN tried in 2008.
I needed a lot more than Tylenol to get through that night.
Do all of these silly "creative" tricks actually matter? Probably not, though it will be interesting to see who wins where election night ratings are concerned. I just can't imagine that NBC's decision to spray paint a United States map on the Rockefeller Center ice skating rink (as part of the network's "Democracy Plaza"), and then color it in based on returns, actually influenced viewers and kept them watching.
Between Jumbotrons, major landmarks and the like, I'm feeling a little bit crazy right now. Do these gimmicks matter to you? Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to the TV to see if the ice skating map is finally filled in. Only then will I know the official 2012 election results, you see.
Chat thread on the election
Pennsylvania, Florida and the Popular Vote
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At Five Thirty Eight, super-statistician Nate Silver takes his Baseball Prospectus skills over to a slightly more important venue. His sophisticated forecast model had President Obama with a .... wait for it ... 92.0% chance to win as of Monday night. Five Thirty Eight (named after the electoral college count) provided Obama supporters with a soothing sense of reassurance during Gov. Romney's surge in late October.
Top mathemeticians who support Romney ... sorry, don't have the links on the tip of my keyboard's tongue ... accused Silver of changing his day-by-day poll weighting to boost Obama's probabilities, so as to bolster confidence and momentum. Silver responded that he doesn't believe in political momentum and challenged Joe Scarborough to a bet on the election. We notice that he didn't offer 12:1 odds, though. :- )
Dick Morris was a close friend of Bill Clinton and has since turned attack dog against the Democrats. He used the Chick-Fil-A logic to predict a huge Romney win: that social conservatives, resenting President Obama's liberalism, would turn out in force. However, as of 6:00 pm PST Monday night, Morris' tweets were panicky.
Charles Krauthammer, an M.D. turned political pundit, is a fiscal conservative and social moderate. He has argued that Romney's late-October momentum was ruined by Hurricane Sandy, which gave photo opportunities to the Commander-In-Chief amounting to "advertising Obama couldn't have purchased with $10 million." The three things he saw as tilting the race to Obama were (1) the hurricane, (2) pictures of Chris Christie hugging and praising the president, and (3) the media's careful avoidance of scandalous news in Benghazi, Libya. Still, Krauthammer gingerly predicted a Romney win, based on the idea that on days 4 and 5 of the hurricane, it would set in that the hurricane had been badly handled.
David Letterman joked, "Tuesday we have the election, Wednesday we have the recount and Dec. 18, the Supreme Court gives the election to Romney!" HEH. Independent reporters eventually did, most people failed to notice, go to Florida during the Bush-Gore election and confirm the vote for Bush. The line's still a funny one.
This author's guess as of 6 pm PST? The timing of the calls for Pennsylvania and for Florida seemed crucial. If Romney won Florida decisively and early, that was the signal he'd have needed; if Florida went to the wire, that indicated an Obama night. On the other hand if Pennsylvania was closer than expected, that was a Romney signal, or if it went decisively to Obama, that would signal a second term for the President.
As of 6 pm PST, Pennsylvania had been called for the President and Florida was much tighter than expected. An Obama re-election? Also as of 6 pm PST, the national vote was 51% Romney, 48% Obama with 10% of the vote in. I've thought for two weeks that Romney was going to win the popular vote, perhaps clearly by a 51-48 type margin, with Obama winning the electoral college. We'll see the fur fly if that occurs.
Huh. This election makes the Bush-Gore battle look boring :- ) Is everybody here solidly federalist?
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X-Com: Enemy Unknown
I’ve been a fan of the X-Com series ever since way back in the mid-90s when X-Com: UFO Defense was first released. I played that game until it began to smoke and burn from never being given a chance to rest. When I heard that a new version had come out early last month, I had to give it a try. As it turns out, it may have been a very bad idea - I haven’t done much of anything other than play X-Com: Enemy Unknown for damn near a month now.
If you’re not familiar with the way X-Com games work, I’ll give you a brief run-through. The setting is slightly in the future of our own day and aliens are beginning to cause havoc on planet Earth. The X-Com UFO Defense project is formed in order to combat the extra-terrestrial menace. You, as the player, act as the leader of this group, sending out forces on the ground to battle aliens, launching interceptors to blow down alien ships and trying desperately to develop new, effective technologies with which to better combat the impending invasion.
X-Com is played on several different levels. At its core it’s a combat tactics game. Every time there’s an alien threat, you organize and arm a group of between four and six soldiers and then combat groups of aliens on a grid-based map. The aliens start out pretty simple and straightforward, but as the game goes on they get bigger and meaner and start doing horrible things to your poor soldiers, from mind-control to turning them into zombies. To get around this, you have to research new technologies and better equip them both offensively and defensively. If you fall behind too much, you end up hopelessly outmatched.
When you’re not in the field and shooting the enemy, you’re back at base, trying to make sure that the fighting on the ground is all worth it. You have to build your base up, balancing your needs for research, production, power and more. With a limited amount of funding, you have to decide what’s best to spend your cash on. Buying equipment, upgrading interceptors and launching satellites are all important, but you can rarely do them all at once.
And as you try to keep everything moving along smoothly, you have to keep an eye on your panic situation. Each nation has a panic level and every time you refuse to help them out (or just fail while trying to help them out), the panic increases. If panic gets out of control, they withdraw from the X-Com project and you lose your funding. One of the best ways to keep them happy is to launch satellites, but these things aren’t cheap. Oh, and if you happen to lose the support of eight nations, you flat out lose the game.
As the game progresses, the missions get harder and you go from shooting a couple of aliens in a suburb to full-scale invasions of alien bases. Each bit of the game provides more and more storyline and unfolds the tale of X-Com. The aliens are mysterious and you need to not only defeat them, but figure out why they’re there in the first place. If you can successfully keep building and prevent the world from going into panic, you get to keep playing the game. If not, then look forward to restarting and trying again.
Personally, I’ve not been addicted to a game like this since Civilization 4 came out, many years ago. If you love tactical games that are hard (even on the “normal” difficulty), then give X-Com: Enemy Unknown one a try. Make sure to clear your week out ahead of time though, because you’ll never be leaving your house again.