Filed under: Daily life, Entertainment, Politics | Tags: AGoT, Mccain, Obama, school
Do you think the McCain campaign vet anything before they throw it out there? Or is that part of being a Maverick?
The debate yesterday was great fun, frankly it was the only one worth watching, and it was mostly thanks to McCain, both for his ramped up aggressiveness, which worked well early on making him look assertive and presidential, but made him look like an angry old man in the latter stage as “No Drama Obama” just yawned off a lot of what was being thrown at him. Watch one of the inifinite replays if you can; the format was much more interesting that the previous two.
Todays zen:
Kenta: Hey, Gareth, do you know Maho?
G: The Maho in my selection class I’ve been teaching for over two years? The Maho in your class of 17 that I visit two times a week? The only Maho in a school of 50?
Kenta: Yes.
G: Yeah, I recall her.
Kenta: She loves you.
G: Oh really? Well I’m married.
Kenta: Your clothes are cool today, she’ll be pleased.
G: Your clothes are ….. completely normal. I’m sure she won’t give a rats ass.
In other news, I really really need to focus my mental powers on constructing a decent AGoT deck. I spent a while staring at my cards last night trying to find inspiration but nothing came, a recent trouncing at the hands of Theo and the oddly handy Terence left me floundering desperately for some kind of wild strategy.
Today in politics, nothing you didn’t already know:
I’m going to miss Cindy McCain when the campaigns are over and done with.
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Filed under: Daily life, Politics | Tags: Mccain, Obama, Playstation 3, school
YES:
I got offered a contract lasting until August of 2010 in this job. This is good news, I’d like to try and ride out the impending recession in relatively secure local government employ. According to the contracting manual, the offer of a fourth year means I have performed my job to an “exceptional level”. However, what it actually means is that I’m not terrible enough to justify spending around 500,000+ yen plus paperwork on a new ALT when extending my contract is free (it’s a little complicated, but it involved subsidies etc. for the town management). I’m not surprised by the positive development, but it doesn’t stop me being pleased about it. I figure if I can manage to extend it all through to August 2011 my Japanese will be pretty fluent (it damn well should be).
NOOOO!:
My Playstation 3 is broken. Yup, had it less than a month and already the laser has stopped working. The irritating thing about this is, whilst its still under warranty. It’s one of those irritating “send to maker” warranties, the store I bought it from won’t touch it. I suppose I should feel lucky, over all the consoles and computers I’ve ever had it is the only time I have ever had any kind of problem. Still, irritating none the less, I’m currently in the middle of enjoying being a crime lord in GTA4.
Yay?:
An extension of NOOOO really. Of course, as a result of the PS3 non-functionage I have to phone the technical help line in Japanese. Whilst my Japanese is decent I didn’t really want to have to go through the pains of negotiating with a help centre flunky in any language other than English. However, with little choice in the matter I went ahead and did it, and it went quite well I think. I managed to explain the problem and arrange a pick up and repair dealy, so yay for me. I’m now officially competent enough to return broken video games consoles.
..meh..:
The Presidential debate was an anti-climax; no one really talked about anything at all save the same pre-scripted splurge we’ve heard for weeks. I don’t think either candidate really came out on top, McCain seemed to finish slightly stronger but he did get blind-sided by Obama when he turned McCain’s “he doesn’t understand” jab into a chide about how “the thing he doesn’t understand is why we went to war with a country unrelated to 9/11″. Aside from that and one or two other moments it was a terrible dull affair, although I really do think that Barack Obama should adopt the use of “That One” or perhaps morph it into “The One” or something like that. Jonny Mac did him a favour I think, check out this website.
So I wave goodbye to my well acquainted routine of arriving at work 30 minutes late and leaving four hours early to exchange it for sitting in the derelict staff room surrounded by the hubub of drills as the school undergoes what appears to be very costly earthquake damage reduction measures. Its times like this that one wonders where exactly the money comes from? And moreso why a daily bus isn’t provided to the nearby JHS where they could easily take in this schools student body of 17, thus allowing:
a) The students to have a bigger circle of friends.
b) Save hundreds of thousands of pounds which could be used in any other capacity.
c) Allow the students to participate in a wider range of activities.(I always feel sorry for the students in Hasekebara that hate tennis and yet have to do it.)
I’m completely bemused by this brazen misuse of resources, the cornerstone argument for not closing the school down of “preserving local tradition” must have a limit surely?
Anyway, school budgeting quandries pales in (pun intended) comparison to the choice of Sara Palin for the Republican VP candidate spot. Now, one of the first things people notice about me is I’m not American, I am 100% uneligiable to vote in the US election. I’m not even sure I’m eligiable to vote in the UK these days, I’ll have to check that out. However, the race for the US presidency is so much more entertaining than that of the UK that it probably warrants a little commentary. Admittedly I don’t understand the system very well, but a couple of minutes of skim research yields some fairly fascinating and well based facts regarding Sara Palin. I found this post rather interesting and some of the links springing from that equally mind boggling. As I understand it, the biggiest pro point of any VP is that they don’t damage your campaign in anyway, and if possible, help it some too. So, she’s a woman. That’s good, maybe some of the disgruntled Clintonites may become Palintologists over night. I’m certain the less rational feminist maybe won over by those kind of antics at the very least. However, how is any of the following not damaging to a campaign?
- The desire to delist polar bears from an endangered species list to support offshore oil drilling. Although frankly I do feel that America has lived in fear of Polar bear attacks for too long. I’m sure in some ways the polar problem has contributed to the gun crime issue America faces today.
- Anti-abortion in even the extreme case of rape victims (editors note: Maybe I find this so boggling because I can’t fathom anti-abortion activism, but even so, rape victims? Unloved child much?).
- Two years previous she was the mayor of a community of 5,500 people. I live in the middle of bassackwards nowhere and we have 11,000, and although he seems like a nice gent, I wouldn’t trust our beloved town mayor in the number two position. Where does this “extensive upper office experience” Palin allegedly has come from? Her previous position in an oil company? I vaguely recall another President who held a position in an oil company. What was his name again..?
There’s plenty of other stuff to read about from more well informed sources, which leads me to wonder, did the McCain campaign team actually do any research? Or was Palin simply the best of a bad bunch? Honestly, if the leaky USS McCain/Palin wins this thing without Obama/Biden making some kind of gigantic error, I don’t see how the American people can accept the result
