I can't speak for your representative, but mine (Peter DiFazio, a democrat, natch) voted against. My man.

I will say that I don't think either candidate fully took advantage of the format, but it did benefit Obama's more relaxed, gentlemanly style. Obviously, I'm not an "undecided voter," whatever the hell that is, and I just want to see my guy do well. Frankly, he could have done far, far worse, considering.

In other news, for some reason there is a recent resurgence of SMG sales in actual record stores. We have no idea why, but the whole SMG catalog on Positron has literally been flying off the shelf in the old-fashioned plastic disc form. Go figure. I jokingly told Elle this morning that I should take advantage of the sudden upswing and release an SMG E.P.

The funny thing is that waaaaaaay back in the mists of time, circa July 11th, 2008, I posted this wherein I said, in short, we are fucked. And I also said that Jeff Campbell's comment to that post would be a nice touchstone for how woefully misguided his opinions can occasionally (okay, almost always) be. Where's John Steinbeck when you need him? As it turns out, I was the one that was wrong. I was optimistic. And thanks to the wonderful deregulatory spirit of the Clinton administration, coupled with the outright travesty of mismanagement that is the Bush administration, the share of this bailout that my wife and I are responsible for is, at a bare minimum, $4600. And I don't even own a motherfucking house and all my credit cards get paid to $0 every month.

Capitalism can be a real fickle bitch sometimes.

Back from the Great Outdoors, specifically Rabbit Valley in the high desert of Central Oregon. Pitched my tent, hunted for gemstones (the über rare Oregon Sunstone, otherwise known as red labradorite, only found in a 2 square mile area in Rabbit Valley and nowhere else on Earth), ate shitty food, breathed the fresh air of a complete and utter lack of civilization, and reveled in the vibe of being the only human being within at least 20 miles. It was pleasant.

In more immediate news, I'm going camping tomorrow. I haven't been camping in, oh, let's just say 25 years, because that sounds about right. I've spent all summer acquiring the various bits and pieces needed to actually brave the outside without wi-fi and a refrigerator, so tomorrow morning I'm heading out to the Central Oregon desert, whereupon Man v. Nature will commence. With any luck, the 20 hours I actually spend outside won't cause any permanent harm.

As far as I can tell, this woman has two special skills: being shrill and pushing out kids. The former has gained her a good career in politics. The latter, well, one of them is named "Piper," another fucks jocks bareback (perhaps another round of abstinence training is in order there), and that's all I have to say about that.

I actually had hoped as recently as this morning that this was going to be a relatively high-minded campaign with the Republicans matching what the Democrats offered last week and speaking of their stance on various issues. But instead, they trotted out the usual suspects for an endless litany of "I know you are but what am I" bullshit. We can expect the usual swift-boating and "he fathered a black baby" nonsense it seems, rather than an actual debate on the issues of our time.

But that aside, boy do I dislike that woman. I'm not sure how her ability to get the rest of the country to foot the bill so people in Alaska can have the lowest per-capita tax rate in the country applies to a national office, and that's not for me to say anyhow. What I do know is that the Republicans seem to prefer if I vote personality rather than issues, unless those issues are "God, God, Guns, God, God, Guns, 911" and "God." Did you notice that Giuliani ended his speech with the "shining City upon a hill" line. Ever hear that before? You might have if you spent any quality time in a fundamentalist christian school like I did. I find it slightly ironic that the author of that line would have had Giuliani hung for even one of the many sins he's committed according to the Catholic rite, never mind the fact that he would have been hung just for being Catholic. I'm sure that's what the founding fathers hoped to avoid when they put "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance. (As per Ms. Palin.)

Man, I'm fuming.