Decisions Decided

While the Hill & Bill cross burning of the past week pissed me off enough, the speeches given last night by Obama and Clinton after the polls closed in SC has cemented my opinion on the Democratic side. On Feb 5th, I'll be going to the polls to vote for Obama for the Dems. I saw last night in Obama what Caroline Kennedy has expressed in her endorsement. Despite the ferocious mud-slinging, he came out optimistic and restated his vision for America. Clinton came out and sounded like a manager summing up the past quarter and what the milestones for the next quarter will be.

On the GOP side, I've settled in with McCain. Romney is starting to really annoy me and Huckabee is safely careening off into Pat Robertson land. And if Pat couldn't get enough votes in his prime, Huck ain't got a chance. It's just a matter of time for Giuliani to step down since Fred has already tried and lost with the "I'm not running yet" strategy.

Unless Republicans can figure out what their core values are, I doubt they can get behind one guy for the office come the general election. As so many other articles and books are doing, so shall I: Bush has destroyed what it is to be Republican and the party is lost determining if they are going to be interventionist, isolationist, business-friendly, evangelical, tolerant to pro-choice, protectionist vs. pro-immigration, Big Brother Govt or small govt, let alone if they are going to do anything more than pining for the good old days of Reagan Vision. When you get back to Goldwater's libertarianism, give me a call, guys.

Calvin's First Doctor Who

Before Christmas, I would let Calvin watch a segment a night of the animated-Who's "Infinity Quest" on YouTube. I had the Doctor Who soundtrack playing one day when I picked him up from school and he kept wanting to hear the theme song over and over. He keeps asking about the show, but I know he's definitely not old enough for most of the episodes.

What you must know is that this boy is scared (I mean full-on tantrum and crying and gnashing of teeth) to watch Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and every other classic children's movie. On the other hand, he LOVES all the CGI dinosaur specials and shows such as Prehistoric Park, the Walking with Dinosaurs series, and Before the Dinosaurs. Cruella DeVille is too much, but an allosaurus dining on the carcass of a prenocephale is hunky-dory.

Today, BBC America was airing "The Runaway Bride" and I knew that the first half with the car chase and such would likely be fine, so I asked him if he wanted to watch. SURE! Nigel was gung ho and crawled onto the couch to watch. Both of them wanted to see the opening credits a few times because they "like the way the box spins and moves from side to side." I spent much of the time summarizing the dialog and explaining why Donna was so mad and the Doctor was confused. Calvin got a little antsy during the car chase because he didn't know, and I wouldn't tell him, how the scene was going to end. The tension was getting to him. But he wanted to watch more. Nigel was all about the eye-candy and loved the robots, spaceships, the flying TARDIS scenes, and the Racnoss.

We kept going and I paused before the lead baddie showed up in the scary costume to let him know what was about to happen and remind him what other shows we could watch instead if he wanted. Onward, Daddy! He thought the "spiderlady" was "really cool" and he wanted to do makeup like that sometime. I skipped through much of the climactic double-crossing, threats, and yelling...all while summarizing what's happening in the most basic of terms. Calvin was a little concerned about whether or not the Doctor would win but remained optimistic and eager to continue. He took the death of the bad guys well and cheered when the crisis ended.

I really should look more into what Who stuff is available for small kids.

(no subject)

I tweaked my profile this evening. After much debate and years where I was determined not to mention it in there, I added information about my years as RoadKill in Nashville. The bulk of the new addition is a list of the things I did as RoadKill that I could easily remember and felt worth mentioning.

It seems that it's been a while since I posted these, so if you haven't heard any of my adventures in Nashville, you can...

Go to this entry for links to three stunts (Squeezing the Charmin, Pitching a Song on Music Row, and Getting Arrested at the Airport).

Go to this entry for an edit of when I went into the streets of Nashville in search of an honest person.

I was actually in the process of dubbing other RoadKill stunts from DAT to MD (for me to then dub into my computer since I no longer have my DAT player connected to the computer) when my receiver died. I'm in the middle of the time that I wrote a RoadKill fairy tale and read it to a bunch of 5 & 6 year olds at a day care. I also played the tape of my driving the monster truck for Calvin a couple of weeks ago. God, that was invigorating to hear! Grrrrr! The Power!