I was expecting the Republican convention to be full of jingoistic cheerleading and empty platitudes, and was surprised by the four day buffet of fear and loathing I got instead. With the Democratic convention, I finally got what I was expecting, and—holy shit—it was dull. Not only dull, but with only a few exceptions—Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Reverend Evangelical-black-church-fella-whose-name-i-can't-remember—the whole fuckin' thing felt robotic, insincere, and over-produced.
Bill Clinton's speech was waffling nonsense, Obama sounded like he was on autopilot, and the closing duo of Chelsea & Hillary was the worst of the worst.
Pretty much the only thing that kept proceedings interesting was the steaming hatred coming from the Bernie supporters—many of whom protested, many of whom broke out in subversive chants, and many of whom will probably end up voting Green.
I tell you what; if these jokers are going to run their whole campaign on the back of this beige, uninspiring rhetoric, Trump is going to win this fuckin' election.
19 comments :
Trump is going to win the election.
Also where is the thread where you and squib were talking about her not being able to see the ABC Book Show? I just saw this comment on their facebook page and thought it might help:
The Book Club I believe you can watch for free through iTunes. Search ABC Book Club in iTunes and the eps come up as podcasts.
Happy Saturday!!
I honestly can't remember where it was that we discussed it, Melbs. Well done for picking up on that though; I sniffed around and found that they've finally got their podcast feed working and up to date. It was in a shite state of affairs when I looked at it a month or so ago. Will email Squib the relevant links.
By the way, how's your Game Of Thrones podcast going?*
*I asked this question in the other thread as well, but it seems more appropriate to answer it here.
Happy Saturday!!
answered it on the other link but precis: podcast is not going. We did a few recordings, were happy with them, I just need my daughter to do the visuals... but i will do if she doesn't get back to it. We have a kitten by the way he is adorable and taking up some time and attention, eg we didn't watch the tour de france as closely as in past years because he was performing antics in the room and we watched him with the bikes in the background.
Neat. Still looking forward to it.
On a down note, it didn't take Squib long to find that—even though the ABC Book Club RSS feed (the one they use for iTunes) LOOKS up to date now—it still isn't being maintained properly. She's already sent them a couple of emails (week ago, I think), but hasn't gotten a response. Obviously, somebody isn't doing their job properly.
Has your new moggy got a name? What does Gigi think of him?
Oh jesus. I just got back from the US and all least week the DNC was on the three main FTA channels every night. No, I did not watch it. I got enough of it on GMA in the mornings when I was filling time.
I haven't read your entire post, I don't want to discuss all of it, but I found it surprising that it was on NBC, ABC and CBS and more every night. Considering so many yanks don't bother voting, they sure let it dominate their TV. If our political parties had four-day lovefests that were on ABC, 7, and 9 (Ten would never do it), there'd be riots here.
He's called Alan. He's a tabby, that's different to a moggie, right? We didn't name him but we decided we liked it, and kept it. He is the best kitten I've ever met. WE LOVE HIM SO MUCH. Did I already say that? Gigi loves him too, her is her little brother. And they play and she is very patient and good with him, and I have found them twice, with her sleeping on the carpet and he is nestled into her chest and lying there, calm and quiet and lovely. Did I say this bit already? Can't remember. I'll put some pics on my poor neglected blog so you can see.
Tabby describes the pattern on his fur, moggie just means he's a mongrel (not a purebred/pedigree—he's not, is he?)
Where'd you get him from?
Anyway, good to hear the dog's taken a liking to him. She sounds like a gentle old thing.
Suze, some of the American podcasts I listen to talk about how the TV stations over there—free-to-air, and most of the "basic" cable stations—are in panic mode. Thanks to Netflix & Youtube, the average TV viewer is now in their 50s (for some stations, it's 70s). Ad revenue is drying up, and stations are looking to fill airtime with whatever shit they can get cheap. Of course, this just turns people off more. It's a vicious circle.
They also complain mightily about the volume of drug ads.
Anyway, how was your trip to Yankland? Do or see anything interesting?
thanks for explaining moggie v tabby, and yes he's a moggie. He was left in a box at a vet/refuge, and one of Princess's friend's mother works there. They think he was about two weeks old, no sign of mother and no other littler. Just him. So they hand reared him, took turns to take him home, etc. Then he stayed for a week at daughter's friend and daughter went to visit and began her campaign to get him, subtly mind you, never once asking: can we have him, just sending me videos and pics of him, saying 'is this the cutest cat ever?' I'd already said we could get a kitten, cause we are moving at the end of the year, and so she kind of already had me half way there... Gigi is super gentle she is a sweetheart.
New place, eh? This isn't the big move to the country that you talked about once before, is it?
OMG Yankland. Well actually I spent a couple of weeks in England and then flew directly to San Francisco for a week. What a great city. I LOVED it there. Except for the homeless people; they have a serious homeless problem. I asked some Americans why and they basically told me it was because of bad policy in SF (meaning: they don't move them on there) and other cities actually BUSSING them INTO SF! Yep, they just take their trash and dump it on the SF streets instead. And then it was admitted that there were good support services there for the homeless. (I did spot one of those vans where they give showers to the homeless in Civic, where their numbers seemed to be particularly high)
Also it turns out that California is an expensive place to live and visit. I could eat out here more often for the money I had, that's for sure. The menu price of an item isn't the end of it of course, there's the sales tax and SF had an extra 4% tax (probably to pay for all those homeless) and the tip! So a simple breakfast for three with coffee, which would have set us back $60-$70 here in Melbourne ended up being about $100 when you take into account the exchange rate. Even after paying a business class airfare home, when I went to the United Club lounge (where BTW, there's nothing resembling a hot meal choice except soup), I had to tip the bar staff $1 for each glass of champagne I got. I know that's standard in a bar (might even be $2 nowadays, none of the bar staff looked askance at me though), but it shat me. Why couldn't they have let us have self-service? Possibly I ought to have tipped the FA on the plane too, she was excellent, but I wasn't sure about that one, so let it be.
So you can imagine that after a week, everything kinda added up and TBH I was a little relieved to leave there.
BUT I did love San Francisco. If I lived and worked there, it would have been amazing. No-one there is fat, because of all the bloody hill climbing you need to do. Hell I am fat (100kg ATM) and even I walked up two of them because it was faster than waiting for a spot on the cable cars. Buns of steel now! (though I was only able to do that because of the weeks of staying in people's attic conversions in the UK and climbing all the stairs there! And I took a lot of breaks) If I read the PT maps right, there's no way of getting up two of those hills EXCEPT by cable car, which is always packed with tourists and costs $7 per ride. (I think they are too steep for trams, busses and trolley busses).
This holiday was also a chance to see my husband who's been working in Canada for three months and has another three months to go. (not sure if I've mentioned this already) He and I spent a wonderful afternoon together getting sunburnt queuing to get on the cable cars and visiting the cable car museum. Which was FREE and really amazing. Probably free because a cable car ride up to it costs $7 and they would be aware that most tourists would take one up to see it. Those things GRIP the cable which runs under the street to get up those hills. it's amazing. When you stand in the street next to a cable, you can hear it running through the ground, like some great caged beast, just waiting to carry a car. And they have these enormous wheels and engines pulling the cables. There's only three lines now, but there used to be many more (some were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and never rebuilt). The only reason they survive today is that there was an outcry about removing the last ones in the 60s, because they are unique in the world. Trams (streetcars) are more common than Melbournites think. There's lots, in many cities, but not cable cars like these. So the cable car ride was fun, those hills actually seem more steep when you are in a vehicle BTW. At least on foot you are fully in control of what's holding you onto the planet. As a car passenger, it's scary at first. The airport transfer service I used took us directly over Nob Hill and it was terrifying. I really felt discombobulated when I arrived at the hotel, and stayed in that night, except for the necessity of going out to get dinner, for fear of having to see those hills again after the trip from LHR (via Zurich, so it was about 20hrs of travel).
On the last night I was in SF, I went out to dinner with hubby's tour group (he's doing a thing with his dad, so we weren't taking the same holiday, we were just meeting in places), and we took a taxi home from the restaurant which was, naturally, almost at the top of Russian Hill. But by then I was mostly used to it, so sitting in the front seat was less scary than on that first day.
I went to Alcatraz, which was pretty special, and made two attempts to see the Golden Gate Bridge, but apparently it's normal in Summer for it to be shrouded in fog. I think maybe if I'd gone out that first evening I'd have seen it, as I did not notice its foghorn until I was woken by it in the middle of the first night, but after that, I heard it a LOT.
People don't tend to talk politics over there. It seemed in my interactions with Americans (and I stayed in a B&B the last two nights, so I did talk with people over drinks and breakfast) that they are reluctant to discuss it because of how contentious and polarising the elections are there. And with the saturation coverage, it's hard to ignore. I have personally concluded that the US is on a the edge of a cliff though. If they do not turn away from the insanely polarising style of government, the whole country will end up in chaos and it will be more dramatic and more spectacular than the fall of the Roman Empire.
The bigger problem - and it's less apparent over here, as we have such a small population - is the use of resources and just feeding all those people. And the sheer number of people. If there is a collapse of any of their services for any reason, there would be utter chaos within weeks. Example: I drove up Highway 1 on my last day. There has been a large bushfire burning just north of Big Sur for the entire time I was there. I was concerned that it might affect my plans, because there was lots of info on it in the news, saying that the parks along the coast there were closed and asking people not to go there because they could get in the way of the fire fighting equipment, and so on. Eventually I made the decision to go anyway, to the dismay of the people I was having breakfast with, who pointed out the warnings. WELL! If THAT was people staying AWAY, I'd hate to see it on any normal Sunday! There were many thousands of people driving along that road. I thought for a while that I wouldn't see many, but it was only because most of them were coming south from Monteray and the Bay area, I think. And when I reached the active fire areas, I didn't stop, but there were hundreds of cars pulled up beside this narrow, cliffside road rubbernecking at the firefighting equipment (particularly this big plane they had which was SCOOPING water from the ocean and dropping it on the fire, which I admit, if there had been a place to stop, I would have stopped to watch it too), and basically getting in the way of these people doing their jobs. And in some places the fire was less than a couple of km of the road. And there was only the one road, pretty much.
BTW that drive was spectacular, but I would never want to do it going South, because that's the ocean side of the road, and I was nervy enough hugging the side of the mountain with my little car. There were RVs and caravans coming the other way, I thought they were insane. Also, a 90 mile drive took me three and a half hours, and I didn't even stop for lunch, it was that intense and wind-y.
One of the other things I noticed was that so many people seemed to be doing their jobs on a go-slow. It seemed to me in a lot of places that I could halve the number of people working by actually making people work continuously, instead of doing something, telling someone you've done it and then sitting around for long periods of time before doing something else. This was particularly noticeable while we were waiting for the cable car, when I was at the airport watching people load luggage into the planes, on building sites I walked past (though that seems standard everywhere). Service industries, where there's tipping involved, people seemed to move faster. But even then, they seemed to waste a lot of time talking with you, checking if you are okay, then rushing you out the door so they can refill your table (which was annoying and relentless - never where we allowed to sit and enjoy a post-meal chat without the bill arriving un-requested and a comment that they weren't rushing us, but when we are ready, here it is). You know who WAS working fast? The Hertz employee who was checking in all the cars at the airport on Sunday evening. She was working like a boss, it was very busy.
Anyway, I did enjoy my trip, but I was also very happy to come home. Where it's nice, and not crowded with people, and spacious.
Wow, sounds like quite an adventure Suze.
I hate the concept of tipping, and I'm glad it's not something we do here—except in clubs and casinos and places that cater to foreign tourists—or so I'm told.
I've heard that work-ethic & especially customer service in the US is pretty good—interesting to hear your counter opinions—reminds me more of the stories I've heard from the UK. Hey, have you ever been to Canada? How does it compare?
Oh, and as far as the fall of the empire goes; they already had one civil war, wouldn't be too surprised to see another. Reckon the next one'll probably look more like a peasant uprising though.
No not the country move, that's more of a dream but maybe one day who knows. This is to the northern suburbs and I mean far out cause it's cheaper. WE can halve our rent and then maybe buy something again - get back into the market... whoever says being married is better financially is wrong, if you come from divorce or singledom. We went from each being property owners to not owning anything at all, even between us. So we might be able to buy something cheap up there, but who the fuck knows because we are old. Fuck. But in the paper this morning I saw something about a trip to Africa, and I think seize the day, you're dead forever, get on it. So whatever. It's all good, you know?
Absolutely. Personally, I don't much care for travel*, but if it's something you want to do, carpe diem.
It doesn't seem logical that married life would make you poorer. Kids though, definitely. Maybe things will get easier (financially) once they fly the nest?
Actually, I think I might remember you saying something about moving to the outer suburbs. I think you were concerned about seeing less of your mum? Did you work something out in that regard?
*Specifically not keen on the long times spent in transit, motels, eating out, other tourists, etc. Do quite like hearing stories and opinions from other people though, and sometimes the scenery is nice.
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