The Stew

I’m employed again. Well, I will be next month, anyway. In the meantime, now that I know there’s going to be steady money coming in again, I replaced the wife’s defunct iPod Mini with a new Nano, and I picked myself up a Touch while I was at it.

I haven’t been this pleased with a piece of technology since my Xbox 360. It’s a true marvel, and I know I screwed myself over by buying version 1.0 of this thing — but I don’t care. I’m getting plenty of use out of its WiFi connection and YouTube module, I’ve loaded it up with pictures of the baby and I’ve found a host of useful mobile-friendly Web sites. Oh yeah, and it plays music, too.

The interface on this thing is incredibly elegant. Being able to select and move items by touch is completely natural. So natural, in fact, that when my not-quite-2-year-old daughter saw me moving pictures around with a flick of a finger, she came over to investigate and was able to move the pictures as well. The funny thing is that when she then saw pictures on either my wife’s Nano or on my computer monitor, she made no effort to touch the screens to select new pictures. She somehow knows that the Touch is something special, and the rest of the world doesn’t work that way. It probably should.

If you’re not watching The Venture Bros, you of course should be. It takes the unintentional laughs from Jonny Quest and makes them fully intentional, along with a heaping helping of WTF. But that’s not really what this post is about.

Turns out, there’s a lot of crazy Depeche Mode fans in the world, and my wife is friends with a good lot of them. They trade videos of the band and make highly sexualized comments about the members of the group in discussions on YouTube. I’ve got no problem with this, and I thought those folks might appreciate the video above.

Couldn’t let this one pass by:

Man punches woman thinking she’s a man messin’ with his woman

My parents took part in the Iowa caucuses yesterday. They weren’t all that jazzed about it, but my brother and I wanted them to throw their support to Edwards, which they did. They were part of a process that drew nearly double the number of voters as in 2004. Oh, and the Democratic caucus drew nearly twice as many people as the GOP caucus.

It’s a good time to be a Democrat.

I’m not supporting Obama just yet — I’m still an Edwards man — but boy, our top field looks good. Either Obama or Edwards, the top two finishers in Iowa, would bring brains and the English language back to the White House. Their speeches last night were great — I’m sure you can find Obama’s and Edwards’ on YouTube somewhere. Both were inspiring and positive, but Obama’s was in a league all its own. I’m sure that he intentionally adopted the cadence of Martin Luther King, Jr., at times, but I’m willing to let that oratorical flourish slide because the content of the speech was worth it.

Oh, and I’d even hold my breath and vote for Hillary Clinton if I had to, because she’s miles ahead of anyone the other side has to offer. But her speech was a little flat, as her campaign and message have been. She talks change, but she’s as far up the establishment’s ass as one can get. People didn’t buy her “I’ve got the experience to make a change” argument, and rightly so.

Two things became clear after last night:

1) Money doesn’t necessarily talk. I’m not idealistic enough to claim that this is a turning point in American politics, but it was refreshing to see that the candidates who spent the most money in this race — on both sides — didn’t win. Clinton and Mitt Romney far, far, outspent their rivals, and had little to show for it.

2) Change is coming. Even Mike Huckabee, the GOP winner, spent his victory speech talking about change. Folks, if both parties are talking about change, that can mean only one thing: everyone’s pissed at Bush.