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I haven’t ever really liked coffee, but as I’ve exhausted all the various teas at work multiple times over, creating a ratings list for them and etc, I decided to give coffee another try and go through all the various coffees we have. I gotta say, I still don’t really like it, but some are better than others (French Roast is currently on top). Anyway, point being: after a few minutes of consuming coffee, I get a bit of a funny feeling in my head. It feels kinda good I guess, but definitely druggy. I don’t get this from other caffeinated drinks, I don’t even think from things like Red Bull, though it’s been a long time since I’ve infused myself with an energy drink such as that. Anyway, it’s pretty strange that society has just ruled this drug as totally acceptable. Grow coffee plants, burn pot plants!! If social history developed differently, I think this could be reversed and this liquid narcotic could be the one hunted down. Perhaps the differentiation is in the potency potential, coffee having a far lower limit.  Most people are probably just used to the coffee “high” and don’t feel it anymore, like many stoners and their Mary Jane.

It’s entertaining to me how this drug is even classy in many aspects, and funny to me how people are so happy about this legal drug.  I mean, coffee has a bigger fandom than any other drink I know, with wine at a close second, which also contains the drug alcohol.  Is it not curious that people are so excited about a drink, that most people who drink it that I talk to say doesn’t even really taste that great?

I am happy to say that the fifth Girls Aloud album has gotten them back on track for me.  Out of Control is the most electronic Girls Aloud album thus far.  While it begins with the more expected Girls Aloud sound, by track five it turns into a Europop album, which is just fine by me. Out of Control lacks the power and sheer bliss that often times dominates Chemistry, but it is still constantly good.  Like Chemistry, Out of Control features another back-to-back track love session in “Turn to Stone” and “Untouchable”.  With the latter track, the girls have again tapped into their psychic connection with my brain and decided to basically satisfy one of my pop fantasies, that being a 7+ minute long pop song.  Ok, so “Untouchable” weighs in at 6:44, but I’ll compromise and accept it.  Congratulations and thanks are again due to Girls Aloud for experimenting and breaking new ground in pop.  I’ve listened to this album about six times over the past week and a half, and I can safely say that this is the second best Girls Aloud album.

This New York Times article by Judith Warner regarding Obama’s election is excellent and very on point.

I thought of checking the iPhone Obama ‘08 app a couple of days after the election, and to set this up, at the botton of the app it always said how many days there were until the election.  As I was getting ready to load the app, I thought to myself, “hmmm… now this is an interesting test: are we going to see a buggy count-down at the bottom, perhaps ‘-3 days until the Election’ or ‘-99423423 days until the Election’ or something which is annoyingly common to see on countdown programs once the target has passed.”  So, I loaded up the app and was very happy to see that the counter had simply disappeared.  The Obama folks properly thought of the situation in advance and planned for it.  That’s the kind of administration that is coming.

Here are a couple home videos that I think are pretty cool from the moment when Barack Obama won the presidency.  The first is from Grant Park (Chicago), the second from Times Square.

For those of you who didn’t happen to catch it and those abroad, here’s how most Americans saw Barack Obama win the Presidency, via CNN & MSNBC.  First we’ll look at CNN, which is what I was watching at that particular moment.  CNN called Virginia for Obama a little over a minute away from the west coast polls closing, at which point I knew that just California closing would put Obama over the top!  So it was kind of crazy knowing that in one minute he’d be declared President-elect.

Here’s how it looked on MSNBC, which probably had a bit more exciting footage, but totally messed up their location labels for where they were showing footage from after the win, but great footage none the less:

Can you imagine if our government websites were actually well made, looked good, and were easy to navigate?  What a crazy idea!!  Well America, you’ve elected Barack Obama as President, so such may be the case.  Cool site to start with that they’ve put up, check out change.gov

What what.. you mean government can actually work well if you have people who are inspired and actually want to be involved, departments properly funded and workers paid well?  What!!!?  *Imagines hardcore righties fainting*

Maybe the postal service will become better funded and proud, and go back to using usps.gov, instead of trying to hide behind usps.com

.gov should be a proud and awesome domain to have, reserved for the few sites that are qualified enough to have it, to be at that awesome level, up there, looking out for us all.  Perhaps, even in the name, change.gov embodies that idea.

What?  Oh yeah there was something about ending the war in Iraq and fixing the economy..  Yeah we should do that too

Yesterday’s election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America has resulted in my most prideful moment as an American.  I’ve never been so proud of my country in my life.