Election Eve

I was asked recently what I thought of all the campaign stuff that was going on. My response was that I feel pretty much disassociated with the election. And the NASCAR chase. And the football season, and Saturday Night Live, and all the movies vying for Oscar nominations. All the "pop culture" stuff that consumes so much of everybody's time is irrelevant here. Yes, we get most of the sports events and a lot of TV shows and pirated DVDs of the latest movies within a few weeks of their release in theaters. But I was never all that excited about that kinda stuff anyway. Being here, several thousand miles and eight time zones away, just pushes it farther off my radar screen.

But still, I'll be glad when the election is over. When I go to the gym, the TVs are all turned to one of the news networks, and it's pretty certain that they'll have some talking head pointing to a color-coded map of the US (always missing Alaska and Hawaii, for some reason ... along with Puerto Rico and Guam ...) and yabbering away about how McCain has to win this state or Obama has to win that one. Which is pretty much what he said the day before, and almost completely contradictory to the analyst on the next station who sees it in an entirely different way.

And it seems like there are only two candidates in the race: Barack Obama and Sarah Palin. I don't see anything about Joe Biden, which is okay with me since he's not the main attraction. And I see only a little more about John McCain. Instead, it's all Obama on one side and Palin on the other. Last time I checked, she wasn't at the head of the ticket. She can run on her own in four years, and hopefully she'll get her ass handed to her on a silver platter. The woman has no business heading up anybody's party, unless it's a soccer league beer bash in Alaska.

But all that will end after tomorrow. I can't wait. So do your civic duty: go vote, if you haven't already.