We Survived the Human Race, But We Don't Know the Words to the Songs of the Ocean

I think the base of operations is going to be mostly over here for the time being. I may still post here now and then, but I can't think of a reason why I'd use Blogger instead of my fancy new website/blog combo. The intended audience is largely the same.

The future is here, gentle readers, and it turns out that it's not terribly different from the past.

Yes, We Did

It's been some time, gentle readers. I know I made a commitment to this thing and then promptly forgot about it, and for that I apologize. It just occurred to me that this is the best place to congratulate our new President-elect, Barack H. Obama. High-fives all around.



Honestly, finding out that Obama won by a landslide gave me an overwhelming sense of relief and validation. So this is what it's like to vote for the candidate who wins! Now here's hoping that Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress can get some useful things done to turn our economic frowns upside-down and improve life here in Americaland. I know at this point all my conservative friends and relatives are like, "Obama's not the messiah, you know, he won't be able to fix everything!" but you know, at least with him in office I feel like it's possible for something about the status quo of the last eight years to change for the better.

I really think the best two guys for the job got it. Congrats, Obama and Biden. You earned it.

BONUS VIDEO:

RHOMBUS!

Oh wow, this is totally sweet news. Looks like Cartoon Network is picking up "Adventure Time" for a full series.

I gotta admit, this makes me want to pay to receive Cartoon Network. "Adventure Time" is hilarious. The original short cartoon can be viewed at the link above.

On Barack Obama

I was thinking today of the weird opposition some people have to Barack Obama. I'm not talking about not liking his policies or the Democratic party's platform--those are both very valid reasons for not voting for a candidate. What I'm talking about is people who pick candidates based on personal like or dislike, having little or nothing to do with their actual policies.

If you're like me and catch yourself reading CNN.com on a regular basis, you've probably noticed that it's made the news more than once that some people think Obama is "elitist." I guess this is a fairly common opinion about the guy, despite the fact that most middle and lower class people would probably benefit more from Obama's policies than from McCain's. Obama favors tax cuts for the middle class, after all.

The problem people seem to have is that Obama is young, smart and well-spoken. He looks and acts like an educated man. A lot of people voted for Bush because they like the idea of an "average Joe" in the Oval Office, drinking a Bud Lite on the White House lawn. But (ignoring the fact that Bush was born into privilege and is not an average Joe in any sense) I just have to wonder why that image is so popular. Don't get me wrong: I love my family, most of whom are blue collar folks. But given the options, I'd keep them as far away as possible from the buttons that launch the warheads.

I'd keep myself as far away from those buttons as I could get, too. That's the point. I don't think average people have any business making the kind of decisions that could destroy our country or the world. I think we as a group usually have the good judgment to tell when someone is doing a bad job and try to get them out of there (only usually; see Bush), but there's a reason why we elect our leaders. It's because most of us would be crummy presidents.

An example: You don't know how many people I've heard suggest that we nuke the Middle East. This would be a bad decision that would set off a chain reaction that results in the deaths of us all. No one who says this kind of thing should be president, but it was what a lot of average Joes were saying right after 9/11.

I don't know about you, but I want my country's leader to be smarter than me. I want my president to be more educated, charismatic and skilled than the average person. I want him or her to be the voice of reason. If that means our president is elitist or someone I don't personally like, well, I'll deal with it. I'd rather be in that position than the one where I'm thinking to myself, "I could do a better job than this bozo."

Another Month, Another Update

It's been another more-than-a-month and of course a lot has happened in that time.

The main thing is that I finally went about getting my wisdom teeth out on July 18, which has just been one disaster after another. The first couple days were peachy-keen. Then, about three days into my recovery, I developed dry socket in the two lower sockets. Every few days I returned to the oral surgeon to have the dressings replaced, until eventually the dressings stopped helping with the pain on the right-side socket (the left one had stopped hurting by this point). When I mentioned this to the dental assistant (surgical assistant?), she said perhaps the dressings were interfering with the wound closing, causing the pain. They gave me some more ketoprofen (a non-narcotic drug, an NSAID like Advil except much stronger--apparently it's commonly used for horses) and sent me off, saying I'd probably be fine in a few days.

Famous last words. In a few days I was in unbearable pain and, though it was a weekend, I paged the doc. He called in an antibiotic prescription for me. Thank God, that actually helped a lot and I am doing much better now. That infection was probably brewing in there for a while because when it became painful enough to surface above the ketoprofen, it was pretty bad.

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In unrelated news, one of my rats sprouted a large tumor and a smaller tumor friend for it almost overnight. As always, the rat who is sick is the one I like the best of the two (Chloe's Eyebrows, the one that is more tolerant of being picked up). I took her in to the local exotics veterinarian, assuming that these lumps were abscesses as a result of rough play with her cagemate, especially with the speed that they appeared. The veterinarian wasn't sure what the lumps were just from feeling them, so he did a few tests. Of course it is malignant cancer (rats are very susceptible to mammary cancer which often appears near the armpits and groin, which just happens to be where these two tumors are). He recommended against surgery, largely because these tumors always grow back, often quite soon after removal, and usually the cancer has already spread to the internal organs by the time the tumors are removed.

His recommendation was to keep her alive until her life is no longer pleasant for her, and then to put her to sleep. I felt this was a reasonable suggestion, since although one of the tumors is large, it doesn't seem to be causing her any pain, and she's still able to get around easily. When either of those changes, we will be going back in.

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That was all very depressing news! In a more pleasant update, my dog is adorable. This picture of her was taken on the 4th of July weekend last month.

Valuable Lesson Learned as a Small Child

If you want a sick puppy to survive an operation, do not name it Lucky.

Pit Bull Party

It's time to update you on the pit bull I am fostering. Her name is Sadie and she is really a superb dog in every sense.

HELLO I AM A PITBULL

She is a very clever dog and has caught on to basic commands quickly, even though she has not had any training in the past. Since I've been cleaning up my old apartment I haven't had as much opportunity as I'd like to work with her on commands, but she now knows "sit," "down," "leave it," and "off." Those are the main ones she needs to know for the time being, but soon I will be enrolling her in obedience classes so she's better about doing her commands amidst distractions.



And besides being good at stuff, she is just super cute.