April 29th, 2008 by Hiland

After like three months of being moth-balled, listotheday.com is going to start publishing again on Thursday.  Check it out!

April 28th, 2008 by Hiland

Slate (one of my faves) has an article the lays out Clinton and Obama’s main arguments with rebuttals.  It’s a great summary of what the two have to say about each other.  Now, I believe that Obama is going to be more viable in the general election- he does better with independents.  Yes, McCain is going to try to paint him as a liberal, but Obama can easily say McCain is the natural extension of the Bush Administration.  (McCain is already taking steps to distance himself from Bush, but I don’t think Obama will have to work that hard to put them back in the same boat.)

Obama’s message of change is going to find traction among republicans.  Bush has the lowest approval rating of any recorded president, which means that all but the neo-conservative base are unhappy with his leadership.  Clinton pushes away Republicans even more than she alienates a lot of democrats-  there are a lot of people that won’t vote for her for the sake that she’s a Clinton.  I’m willing to guess more than those that WOULD vote for her based on her namesake.

No matter what happens, I, for one, am tired of the whole damn thing.  November can’t come soon enough.

April 26th, 2008 by Shantastic

We began having an annual Seder in 2003.   A Seder is a traditional dinner for Passover as part of the Jewish culture and religion.  For me it is a celebration of freedom, perseverance and springtime!  I dug deep to find some of these photos but none came up from 2004.  Usually our Seder is a wild and awesome affair.  We read the story and drink a lot of wine usually ending in delicious debauchery.  I hope some year EOJ can make it out.  But since we’re celebrating it tonight (I am very excited) I’m a little late in inviting y’all.  Bring on the photo montage!

By the way, Mary is here with us, rockin’ out! 

April 22nd, 2008 by Hiland

I just read this article, 10 Things I’m Worried About, and it made me want to detail things that I’m worried about. Yes, there are some similarities with the inciting article, but we all share fears, right?

1. Food costs: These are going up world-wide. There were riots in Haiti last week. Right now it just means I have to suck up paying a little more for milk, but what if this keeps going? What if, in all seriousness, food actually gets rationed in the US? What if there are riots here?
2. Oil Costs: There is just no slowdown here- I read a report that economists think oil could hit $125 a barrel by the end of the year, and I’m thinking that should be happening by the time you finish this sentence. See? There it goes! Related to the food thing: Truck drivers normally have a profit margin of about 25%, but they have seen that erode lately as they eat the extra fuel cost- some are making under 5% profit now. This can’t last forever, and when they raise their costs, watch the costs of a lot of things jump quickly.
3. Bush pulling some shit to stay in office: Bush is clearly a president that thinks he’s above the law- what’s to say there isn’t some plan he has to keep himself in the White House. What if we the people let him stay?
4. Hillary or Barrack running on an independent ticket: This is a close bid for the Democratic Nomination- what would happen if Barrack gets it and Hillary decides to run in the general election as an independent (or vice-versa?) it would mean we’d have a three way for president, and neither of the democratic candidates would have the ability to overtake McCain. 4 more years!
5. Recession hitting Ad Sales: I am not to worried about loosing my job in the current state of the economy, unless companies really start pulling back on their ad spend, in which case it’s conceivable that the agencies I work with will collapse and there will be no reason for me to work here.
6. Tsunami on the East Coast: There’s a volcano island in the Canary Islands that is collapsing. If it were to fall into the ocean rapidly, it would trigger a Tsunami that would hit the US about 6 hours after the collapse. Being in a major urban area when this happens would probably suck.

April 18th, 2008 by lucas

Last night I woke up at about 4:30 in the morning and the house was shaking. The bed, the wall, even the ceiling mounted light fixture was chattering. The first thing I though was that someone had driven a car into the side of the house. I don’t know why I thought that. I jumped up and went outside to see, but the house was still shaking and then I thought “we had to buy mine insurance because there are abandon coal mines under the whole town”. So as I opened the front door I was thinking that the house was sinking into the ground. By this time the shaking had stopped. Outside everything was normal. No car lodged in the side of the house, no gapping whole in the ground to swallow us up. Just some tittering birds and some recycling bins. When I woke up this morning I found out it was a earthquake (5.4). That was definitely not something I expected to experience when I moved to Illinois.