"Presidential Race" written by Jbeatty on estrip.org

02/01/08 10:04 - 30ºF - ID#43126

Presidential Race

Not that I talk about politics much. I am really curious to see who is going to end up running with who. With the top two democrats being so cordial last night and Giuliani kissing Mccains's ass are we going to see a Clinton/Obama vs McCain/Giuliani election?

james writes at 02:57:22 02/01/08 - Comment #31179: Speaking of relics from the 60's, I was slightly saddened to find out that Obama was born on the last year of the baby boomers.

jason writes at 01:34:38 02/01/08 - Comment #31173: I'm done with the old blood. I just am. These sixties relics need to be put out to pasture. I don't want to hear anything about the 60's anymore. We have to define our own times on our own terms. Obama to me seems like the only one these days who isn't fundamentally full of shit about who he is or what he believes. If the Democratics are first in this respect, to turn the page, then so be it.

james writes at 01:30:34 02/01/08 - Comment #31172: While on the campaign trail Obama has been brokering a peace deal in Kenya. The man is not the most experienced member of our government in foreign relations, certainly, and will have a ton of people advising him on this and other issues. I am just saying this trope of 'he has no experience' is malarkey. But if experience were the sole qualifier for a president Biden or Dodd should have won the nominee. I am just tired of camp Hillary painted herself as having a ton more experience than he has. And sure, working for Barry Goldwater and Walmart must have been fantastic experience but man am I sick of her acting like her shit doesn't stink when clearly it is one of the stinkiest bits around.

Have I mentioned Joe Biden looks like a werewolf?

joshua writes at 01:04:14 02/01/08 - Comment #31167: James, suggesting that Obama has great foreign relations experience because he's spent part of his life overseas and now sits on the foreign relations committee as a freshman senator... I know you are an Obama fanboi but that is severely stretching it. Obama has many, many questions to answer if he expects to calm the people down who feel that he is underqualified - which I have to say is the case. If he gets elected he will likely have been the least qualified President to win the office since Grover Cleveland, and even Grover Cleveland was more qualified than Obama is, having served as NYS governor.

I love Joe Biden - he is by far my favorite Democrat. He is a bit arrogant at times but the past few years he has mellowed out. I think he would be a very, very shrewd pick as VP. I still can't help but imagine him as the Demo's answer to puppeteer Dick Cheney though. God bless Joe Biden but everybody knows that he thinks he knows best.

drew writes at 11:19:32 02/01/08 - Comment #31153: I think Obama/Clark would be good. or Obama/Biden.

james writes at 10:27:16 02/01/08 - Comment #31146: I think Obama has great foreign relations experience. I mean, the man has lived abroad in a developing nation and he sits on the foreign relations committee. Though if he were to pick someone in that field RIchardson would be a good choice as Obama is weaker on the Latino vote, though his support there is growing. Defense experience would be ideal. Obama has been running on love and togetherness and junk. He needs someone a little more hawkish to not seem like Mike Gravel-lite. I would like to see Joe Biden or RIchardson as the pick.

Clinton needs someone who is not a Clinton. Republicans and Independents don't like her for being a Clinton and with center loving (despite a conservative record) McCain in the mix she needs someone with centrist appeal. But I don't like her so I haven't given any one a thought.

McCain needs to energize the GOP base. Huckabeee would get the Evangelical base but not the fiscal conservative base. Romney should serve that function but he has pissed off everyone else in his campaign by flopping on issues like a fish. McCain is damaged goods and ne needs someone to fix that, but I am not sure who is looking for work.

If Romeny gets the nomination... well, he can pick Jesus Christ as his running mate and he would still lose.

jim writes at 10:15:38 02/01/08 - Comment #31144: I am not sure if there is room for two Clintons and an Obama in the Whitehouse. Obama is more charismatic the Hillary - and she already has to contend with Bill Clinton's looming figure. And if it's Obama doing the picking, he really needs someone with foreign policy or military experience (Richardson again, Wes Clark maybe?), but maybe for unity's sake he'd pick Hillary. Tough call!

McCain and Guiliani both have sever problems with their party's base - McCain on campaign finance reform and immigration and Guiliani on social issues, and neither one is particularly religious, so the VP slot on the Republican side is almost definitely going to someone who loves Jesus and guns and who hates the gays and Mexicans. McCain & Guiliani together would keep too many voters at home.

Permalink: Presidential_Race.html
Words: 49
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/31/08 05:16 - 23ºF - ID#43115

Jobs and such

Today I was called off of work. This is the second time in two weeks. So I decided to make good use of my time off to apply for a new job. I dropped off my resume at 4 of the 6 sushi bars that I know of in the area. I have no idea if any of them are even looking for waitstaff, but I need to get a new job. I avoided O because I didn't really like it all that much, and Kibirashi because they have had problems with the tax man. I have never been to some of these places to eat, but I figure its all pretty much the same minus the strange specialty maki that places prepare. Obviously some places are busier and serve fresher fish. I really hope I hear something back soon.

As a reward for not killing anyone when I was called in I checked out the new beer store VBM on elmwood. I think it opened this week. The shelves are partially stocked with some delicious brews. The guy working there told me they intend on stocking over 1000 kinds of beer. They have about 8 taps to fill growlers. I was shocked to see that they have Delirium Tremens on tap, but at $24.95 a hit I opted for a sixer of Dogfishhead Raison d'etre instead. They certainly aren't winning any awards for being the cheapest beer store in Buffalo, but they will still get a good majority of my business. Besides beer they also have a small deli, some expensive looking prepared foods, a small selection of cheese, hot sauces and some foo foo crackers. I'm guessing the markup on the beer isn't good enough to sustain the business? Despite the prices I am really excited that this store opened. This means I can walk to get good beer!!!

Permalink: Jobs_and_such.html
Words: 306
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/24/08 01:35 - 20ºF - ID#43011

Too excited!

I just bought my plane tickets to go to Budapest!. I have no idea exactly what I'm going to do yet when I get there but I guess thats half the fun. I still can't believe how cheap the tickets were. I almost waited a few days to see if they would go down but then the price of $707 from Buffalo came up and I had to take it. I really hope the dollar doesn't get any worse between now and then.

Permalink: Too_excited_.html
Words: 82
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/22/08 12:03 - 28ºF - ID#42984

I need help!!

Ok computer savvy peeps, I really need to find out the best or at least the cheapest way to run a windows application on my mac. I know absolutely nothing about any of this and I figured somebody here probably did. Do I need to buy a copy of windows? Because I would really rather not. Does anyone know of a free download that will do this? All I can seem to find is stuff for intel macs, which I don't have. Please help!

Permalink: I_need_help_.html
Words: 84
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/21/08 11:04 - 12ºF - ID#42972

Ticket of shame

So I went to Holiday Valley yesterday to get some practice before I go to Whiteface in February. I guess I'm in slightly better shape than I thought because I'm a whole lot less sore than I anticipated. Anyway Holiday valley is kinda overpriced considering how small the vertical drop is. It looks like its probably a good place to learn. All ski places have the ski patrol and they are usually pretty cool as long as you are skiing in control. Holiday Valley has the added safety patrol, They have nothing better to do other than bust people skiing on trails that are closed but should be open. There was one trail there called chute, I believe, which was closed all day and towards the afternoon I decided all that fresh powder should not go to waste. My friend was apprehensive about going till I said "what are they going to do, take away our lift tickets??" It was the best trail we skied all day. When we got to the top of the lift "Sharon" armed with a pair of diagonal cutters was waiting for us. She took our regular tickets and gave us our tickets of shame.

I get so annoyed with some ski places. Why they have perfectly good trails closed just because they aren't groomed makes no sense to me. Some people actually like skiing ungroomed snow. I thought she was being way too dramatic about the whole situation. I'm already skiing at my own risk anyway, why shouldn't it be my right to decide whether or not I'm capable of skiing a trail?

But I did have a good time. They good about the mountain is at least they have a couple of high speed quads. So the time between bombing down the mountain is reduced by a few minutes.

Permalink: Ticket_of_shame.html
Words: 308
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/19/08 05:08 - 20ºF - ID#42956

Skiing anyone???

Ok so this is kind of last minute. I'm going skiing tomorrow, either at Holiday Valley or Bristol Mountain. Is anyone interested in going? I will probably leave around 7 or 8 am and ski all day. I have some extra clothing if you aren't equipped, I definitely have an extra coat, goggles, ski socks, and maybe a pair of pants but I will have to check. Sorry no extra gloves, I had to buy a new pair today because I lost my old ones. I'm not sure what it costs to rent skis or a snowboard, but I think the lift ticket at bristol is around $50, and at Holiday maybe $45.

Permalink: Skiing_anyone_.html
Words: 109
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/14/08 04:16 - 36ºF - ID#42880

Here we go again

I am so not happy about retaking Statistics. Apparently UB's intro statistics course is much better than my former college's. I'm amazed that everything else I took at OCC transferred, I would be willing to bet that the Organic Chem I took was slightly easier than UB's, but they transferred it.

Today I finally got a copy of the syllabus for my stats course. Luckily I saved a copy of the other syllabus from the last time I took it. I cannot figure out any significant differences between the two. They are nearly identical right down to the Minitab assignments which I despised the first time around. I know there is probably no chance of getting out of taking this course no matter how hard I try. But I really want someone with the power to change the transfer agreements to explain exactly what I will be getting out of this class that I haven't already received. I'm almost hesitant to bring this to the professors attention right off the bat because I would rather be anonymous. Thats the only thing I have embraced about taking classes with 449 other people. I almost wonder If I should speak with the department head.

james writes at 11:25:21 01/15/08 - Comment #30413: Talk to the head of your department about it. I have waved many an old syllabus in front of these poor souls to get credit transfers.

Be a pain in the ass and remember that you are paying the University. The department head works for you.

ladycroft writes at 09:55:39 01/15/08 - Comment #30402: several different reasons why credit might not transfer. 1. you're only allotted x-amount of transfer credits. 2. as mp said, if the statistics course is cross listed, it may be they don't count it as stats based on the section. 3. for your program they may simply require everyone to take 'their' stats.

metalpeter writes at 06:21:01 01/14/08 - Comment #30366: My guess is that what happened is that the Statistics class you took wasn't from the same department as from the school you are in now, and that is why it didn't transfer. Reason I say this is that when at Canisius I took one Statistics class and it wasn't that bad. That being said I didn't take it from the math area. It was in the Phys. Ed department. I'm sure there must be someone who can tell you why it didn't transfer. Oh one other thing I just thought of maybe the classes are worth different amounts of credit. I'm just guessing but there could be a reason or maybe it was just an oversite or mistake of some kind.

brit writes at 06:16:27 01/14/08 - Comment #30365: me and my friend are taking advanced statistics for our graduate course and he already took it for his masters at GW...they are making him take it again, like GW is worse than Buffalo...purleese!

janelle writes at 04:27:25 01/14/08 - Comment #30360: With a class of 450, I'm not sure I would talk to the professor. He can't afford time to listen to student complaints even if they are legitimate. I would go with your instict to talk to the department head.

Permalink: Here_we_go_again.html
Words: 201
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/12/08 02:42 - 37ºF - ID#42856

Travel in May

I was wondering if anyone was interested in traveling to Hungary and Croatia around mid may for two weeks. I found a pretty decent deal to Budapest on May 14th from Buffalo for $757.00. The only plan I have in place is to get all the way down to Dubrovnik for a few days. We could do the rest of the planning on the fly. If it works out I will be purchasing flights within the next few weeks. I have to do more research on exactly what a reasonable budget would be, but I'm guessing around $1000 for two weeks should be sufficient, it may even be less but that will depend on what it costs to get all the way to Dubrovnik and back. Fortunately neither or these countries uses the Euro yet so its still a bit of a bargain for Americans. You wouldn't need a visa, just a passport. I think they are about $100 if you don't have one. I'm usually pretty fun to travel with and you get the added bonus of watching me eat strange shit. Anyway let me know if you are interested.

Permalink: Travel_in_May.html
Words: 188
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/05/08 11:58 - 38ºF - ID#42764

Behold the power of music

Although it isn't quite my bedtime, sounds of construction above my head at 11:45pm is not my idea of relaxing ambiance. I am amazed how quickly the noise stopped after blasting the sex pistols louder than I could stand.

Permalink: Behold_the_power_of_music.html
Words: 39
Location: Buffalo, NY

01/02/08 10:28 - 16ºF - ID#42730

Woops

So I have wanted to try this recipe for Bánh Bò Nuong(Vietnamese honeycomb cake) for the last two months. It didn't quite turn out the way I expected. It called for single action baking powder which I thought I found. However I couldn't seem to find my measuring spoons tonight so I just took a guess at what 2 teaspoons was. Also the recipe I used didn't say what size pan to use. Apparently I was wrong about something. When I pulled it out of the oven it was almost touching the top of the door. It was larger than a basketball.

Less than 3 minutes later it deflated and now looks like this.

I wish I had the sense to video it as it died a quick and dramatic death.
Even though it looked really pathetic I had to try it. It tasted nothing like cake, more like a lightly sweet glutinous omelet.

Permalink: Woops.html
Words: 158
Location: Buffalo, NY

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