so it's chilly and crisp, which means it's college basketball weather. i like this time of year, when college hoops gets started, because it means I get to see lots of GW games for cheap, and you start seeing schools like Elon and Creighton on TV again. If anybody is a GW grad and a DC area resident, or just a basketball fan in DC, you should consider season tickets to GW games, they're only $39 for alumni for pretty good seats. the games are high scoring and up-tempo, with lots of alley oops and fast breaks.

http://gwired.gwu.edu/colonialstickets

I'm in section 219, but all of those green seats on the right side are good.

so I hope I'm overreacting here, but it seems like a lot of really messed up stuff is happening all of a sudden (and it just so happens that the election is now over). First, the Republicans changed some rules so that Majority Leader (and Majority Dick) Tom DeLay won't have to step down from those positions if he is indicted in Texas for campaign contribution violations. Then the Republicans raised the maximum amount of debt the government can rack up, meaning the President can make the debt larger and larger than its ever been, without having to consider any alternatives. Both of these rule changes are ridiculous, they show that most Republicans in Congress would rather change the rules than abide by them. The DeLay thing is just an obvious, behind-the-back way to prop up their "boy" who created a ridiculously unfair and illogical redistricting in Texas so that Republicans could gain five seats in the House. They claim they are doing it because the district attorney is a Democrat and it's a partisan attack, but 3 of his associates and 7 corporations have already been indicted by a nonpartisan grand jury for the same thing. Thus it's pretty obvious they are just trying to change the rules to save his stupid, lying (but effective in hurting Democrats) ass. He's already had four ethics violations in the House, one of which was about the Texas redistricting, so basically now they're saying he can do whatever he wants, and we'll keep him in power. And the debt limit is ridiculous too: "gee, maybe we should tell the government to spend less? No, let's just raise the limit they can spend." The Federal Reserve has already warned the U. S. about our massive deficit and how it could damage our economy and the world's.

Here's some articles about this stuff:

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041118/ap_on_go_co/delay_26

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/11/18/coddling_tom_delay/

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041118/ap_on_go_co/congress_spending_debt_13

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/199115_greenspanwarns11.html?source=rss

so Ol' Dirty Bastard died the other day, which sucks. I always thought he was a pretty funny and interesting dude, and "Got Your Money" is a pretty hilarious and awesome song. I was talking with my roommate about funny stuff he did, starting with changing his name to Big Baby Jesus, Joe Bannanas (sic, apparently) and then Dirt McGirt. Big Baby Jesus is my favorite by far though, I think I may rename my fantasy football team that. I remember watching one time when ODB took an MTV camera crew with him in a limo to pick up his food stamps, which is funny. And another time he was on MTV talking about how he got chlamydia and how it's bad, which was pretty bizarre. But this got me thinking, as I get older, more and more famous people I like are going to die. I was thinking about when Beck dies or the guys from Weezer or something. It's odd, I guess I am getting older. I was watching MTV and they were showing one of those "True Life" shows, with the famous people talking about their lives, "you think you know, but you have no idea." Usually it's Chris Rock or Britney Spears or something, but this episode was somebody called Omarion, which made me feel old, since I have never heard of this person ever. Of course, I'm not really that old, but still.

so i was reading the news on Yahoo, as I usually do, and I saw an article called "Falwell plans for 'evangelical revolution'" which I thought sounded interesting. However, when I clicked on it I was sent to an article called "Secret German Cult in Chile Breaks 43-Year Spell," which I thought was pretty funny. Interesting revolution idea, Mr. Falwell. Here's the German cult article, pretty odd stuff.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041108/wl_nm/chile_sect_dc

so one of my coworkers smells like toilet paper. it's that scented kind that smells sort of powdery, it's weird. i sat down next to her and i smelled something. i thought maybe it was me, that i didn't rinse the soap off well enough from the shower, but nope, I didn't smell anything when I left my desk. So either she spilled baby powder into her keyboard, she uses Charmin brand perfume, or I don't know what.

so a few days before halloween, this pumpkin appeared on our porch. I didn't look at it for awhile, I figured it was just something our upstairs neighbors put out, and that was nice of them. Then a couple days later some folks came over and somebody said "Hey, nice pumpkin,"and i said "what?" They said it was a donkey fucking an elephant, which was pretty funny, since I'd never noticed that anything was on it (probably because I only come in the front door if I've been out at a bar.) So I went out and looked at it, and sure enough, it was a well-carved donkey giving it to an elephant. I thought our upstairs neighbors were pretty clever folks and laughed about it. Then a couple of days ago, I saw them in the foyer and they said "hey, nice pumpkin." I said, "wait, didn't you make it?" and they said "no, I thought you did." So apparently somebody gave us a very funny pumpkin. Luckily we're Democrats and thought it was funny, but we're all pretty confused as to where it could have come from. My guesses are either our landlord, who is an old guy I can't really see carving a dirty pumpkin, or maybe some drunk person picked it up off somebody else's porch and got tired of carrying it. Hopefully they didn't take it from one of our neighbors, since taking a pumpkin and displaying it pretty obviously won't really endear us to them.

so this girl in the cubicle next to me is talking about a lot of non-work safe stuff, it's pretty funny. she's talking on the phone in a normal voice about partying on halloween, like "I got so wasted, and my friend said I did all these tequila shots, but I totally didn't remember until he told me," etc. Then she said she had a hangover, her friend got with a girl with too much makeup, and that all of her guy friends have ugly girlfriends, which is funny stuff to overhear at work. It's not offensive to me obviously and I could give a shit about her not doing work, but it's amusing that at 4 o'clock with all the bosses and stuff still in the building still here she doesn't care about anybody overhearing her. The other guy in my cubicle and me are laughing (quietly) at everything, it's good times. Somebody else came in to talk to her about work stuff, and she said "I love talking to my girlfriend, but sometimes we keep going on and on," which caused us both to say "yup, that's about right."

so the Democrats got pretty thoroughly trounced. My first reaction was "I want to see some heads roll," namely the Democratic leadership, and I was glad Tom Daschle lost, since to me, an outsider, it seemed like he didn't do much. The Democrats kept losing and losing, and I think we need a change. But this is tough stuff, what is the party going to do? I think they should sharpen their agenda and make a "Contract for America" type of thing like the Republicans used so effectively in '94. One of my biggest complaints (echoed by my roommate) was that there wasn't really a vision in this election, it was "George W. Bush is bad." And while that's true, and Kerry did propose some stuff, I don't think that message is going to get any more voters who weren't already voting for Kerry because they hated Bush. Kerry isn't somebody people would support in a vacuum, which is unfortunate, since he's a good and smart man and I am sure would have done a good job as president. So barring a charismatic, Clinton-like candidate (maybe Obama or even Dean), the Democrats need a solid, simple, well-articulated platform: we stand for better environment, taxes on rich people, no go-it-alone foreign policy, etc, taking a page from the Republicans book and repeating the hell out of it. Of course, there are some things that people apparently dislike Democrats for, like gay marriage, which to me is honestly shocking that people oppose it, since so many states voted to ban it. Maybe that's something gay groups should work on, educating people about gays and gay marriage and why it's not bad. There can't be that many fundamentalist Christians out there to result in 70-30 votes in all those states. And I've also heard that a lot of fundamentalist Christians think that Democrats look down upon them, which is pretty much true, me included. So maybe that's something we should rethink: we disagree with your values, but that doesn't make you morons (even though I am still out on that issue). We also need to do something about the South, it seems like, as we got thoroughly trounced there, and many Southern states set records for voter turnout. The population of Southern states is going up to while the Northeast and Rust Belt is declining. The only bright spot I can see is that most young people and most first-time voters were for Kerry. Hopefully we can keep them.

so everybody should vote, and hopefully for Kerry. And I should have posted this months ago, but I put together a CD I call the "George W. Bush CD" (clever name, huh?) which consists of songs that somehow relate to our current prez. I wanted to pick songs that people would recognize, since I am sure there are a million bands with songs like "Bush Sucks." Anyway, here is the track listing:

Creedence Clearwater Revival- Fortunate Son
Barenaked Ladies - Alcohol
Sam Cooke - Don't Know Much About History
Beck - Loser
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
Nada Surf - Popular
Eric Clapton - Cocaine
Ice Cube - A Bird in the Hand (Is Worth More than a Bush)
Edwin Starr - War (you know, it's the "War, hoo, what is it good for? absolutely nothin" song)
Dennis Leary - Asshole
Outkast - Bombs over Baghdad
Country Joe and the Fish - Vietnam
REM - It's the End of the World (or whatever that song is called)
Ministry - New World Order

so I haven't said much about the Red Sox-Yankees series, and I have to say, I think it was great. Now I am not a Red Sox fan, and in fact I have no connection to the American League being a Rockies fan, but I don't think there was a better way for the Yankees to lose. Actually, I should say I don't hate the Yankees team as much as I hate (most) Yankee fans, who are the worst fans in baseball. They're arrogant to the extreme and without fail will rub in any victory, even if it had nothing to do with the way the Yankees played. For example, they love Jeffrey Maier, that kid who reached over the outfield fence in an ALCS game and caught a ball hit by a Yankee, which the umpire then ruled was a home run. It was clear, even without review, that the ball would not have been a home run and probably would have been caught by Orioles outfielder Tony Tarasco, yet the Yankees fans went insane with joy, worship this kid, and laugh about it to this day: "Haha, isn't it funny that we cheated and won that game, then the ALCS and World Series? Hooray for us." And then in this series, Alex Rodriguez tried, pretty obviously, to smack the ball out of the hand of the Red Sox pitcher trying to tag him out. Any moron knows this is illegal, but the Yankees fans booed and threw things onto the field like a bunch of babies when A-Rod was finally called out. If your team is really that good, you'd accept the correct ruling and shut up. And yet all during this and every other series with the Red Sox, all I heard from Yankees fans was "it's inevitable," "the Red Sox can never beat the Yankees," "what did you expect would happen" etc etc etc. And now, after the biggest collapse in history, they finally get what they deserve, and all the Yankees fans are saying "Well now you need to win 22 more World Series," or whatever the number the Yankees have won. What a bunch of sore losers (and sorer winners). Of course, next year the Yankees will probably just use their massive bank account to buy Carlos Beltran and whatever other top free agents there are, but at least this year they can stew all offseason about what went wrong.

And in related news, one of my roommates and I were talking about Albert Pujols and our other roommate started laughing. We had never noticed in the 2 years or whatever that he's has been famous that his name is "Poo-holes."