even though I should be sleeping…

…I sort of felt the need to write.  My mind is pretty full with a lot of things, and while that’s pretty much always the case these days, something or other made me feel like I should actually write about it.

Sure I need to sleep because in about 7 and a half hours I’m going to have to wake up and open the restaurant.  But instead I have all these thoughts pinging around in my brain.  The odd thing is that none of them are particularly significant or life-altering.  Just little things that I have been thinking.  So instead of making a valiant effort at synthesizing them into some kind of coherent format, I’m just going to sort of spit them out and hopefully that will provide the necessary rest for my brain…

- I love my job and what I do for a living.  I am lucky that every day I get to wake up and do something I would do for free in my spare time and that someone is kind enough to pay me for it.  I also love the people I work with.  Sure there are somedays when I like them more or less than others but the bottom line is that I do love them.  While my real family is far from me, I have a family here.

- I miss having time. I still have a lot more free time than most people in the business I’m in, however, it still seems so little in comparison to what I used to have.  I don’t miss that time because I want to sleep more but I miss having time off when other people do.  I miss being able to go see friends that I care about and people who make me happy.  

- I realized tonight, while sitting around the tasting table at Food Matters for the first time in at least 4 months, that as much as I love the restaurant at which I work, I miss having the time and money to visit other restaurants I love.  I relished those two hours around that table tonight, those few glasses of wine, and being able to enjoy people who helped me realize that what I’m doing now was even a possibility.

- I am falling back in love with wine.  Not that I ever stopped loving it but I’m just being reminded these last few weeks why I loved it so much in the first place.  I drink so much beer, Belgian and otherwise, and so much liquor (most of it, regrettably, in shot form) these days that I’ve sort of missed that feeling of savoring a glass of wine.  That first sniff of a glass – short, curious, and tentatively attempting to discover the quality of what’s in the glass.  Then that second inhaling – deeper, more intense, and really digging out all the wine has to offer.  I miss being able to grab more than just a glass before I collapse into coma.  I miss being able to enjoy it while I cook.  So I’m taking it back.

- Finally, I miss my family.  I hope that I’ll be able to see them soon but I miss them more than I can say.  I miss my dad’s laugh, especially when it’s at one of his own jokes.  I miss my mom’s smile and the way her eyes crinkle when she’s smiling.  I miss my parents and all the little things that make them who they are.  And while I know they are always supporting me, loving me, and wishing the best for me, it’s the small things I miss most.  I cannot wait until the next time I am able to see them, until I am able to sit on the couch with my mom, my dad in his chair, and the dogs nestled somewhere on the couch with my mom and I.

And now that I’ve gotten that little bit out…it’s time to attempt sleeping.

expectations for tonight’s debate? low.

I guess I should start this post by explaining that I’m something of a Google Reader addict.  Or at least I used to be.  When I had a desk job I spent most of the day checking my Reader to see what was going on with the many blogs I try to keep up with.  Lately, now that I’m not bored at a desk for 40 hours a week, I’ve been bad about that.  Last Friday I logged in and had 695 unread items.  Yikes.  By the following evening I’d whittled that down to 75 unread items.  Today it’s back up to 391.  Sigh.

However, one thing that is kind of interesting about getting a few days behind is the opportunity to watch how things can change in such a short period of time. For example, one of the blogs I subscribe to is the CNN Political Ticker.  It’s a great way to get political news and having it on my feed means I can see excerpts of the articles so I can decide if I want to read the whole thing or not.  Which is awesome since I generally like to avoid the pieces that are just various pundits’ assessments of big stories.  Sometimes I’m down for that but usually I just want to read the news.  So because I can skip that, I’m a huge fan of reading it on my feed.

The interesting thing about coming back to it after a few days of not reading is that if I sort the stories from oldest to newest I get to see a progression of several major stories.  One prime example is the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street.  The oldest article in my feed is from September 28, this past Sunday, and the headline reads “Congressional Leaders Say Bailout Deal Is Near.”  Ha.  Guess we all know that one didn’t stick.  But even more interesting than the rollercoaster ride that is the attempt to forge an economic recovery plan are the stories about GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin.  

Sunday at 9am, they ran a story about her responses to the questions of a Temple University grad student she met on a cheesesteak run (don’t even get me started on that one) in Philly.  She told him that she agreed with unilateral missions to cross the border into Pakistan and strike suspected terrorists.  By 6pm that day, this story popped up about McCain retracting that statement on Palin’s behalf. Clearly her responses to questions about what she thinks should be the US policy on Pakistan shouldn’t be taken as policy statements.  Because policy statements don’t happen during impromptu interviews at cheesesteak joints.  Policy statements are those things the McCain advisors hand her to read during sanctioned campaign events.  

Another evolving Palin debacle has been her interview with Katie Couric for CBS News.  With each new piece of the interview that is released it just seems to get worse.  First she couldn’t explain the bailout.  Then she had no examples of McCain’s alleged warnings about Wall Street and, when pressed on the issue by Couric, said, “I’ll find some and bring ‘em to ya.”  Really, Sarah?  That’s how most people would respond to a question like, “Do you have any more paper towels?” It’s not really an appropriate answer to the serious questions of a journalist on a network news show.  To make it worse, she fumbled her way through explaining why being close to Russia gives her foreign policy credibility.  The best she could come up with was that Russian incursions upon American airspace tend to occur over Alaska.  Yeah, maybe, but how often?  And how does living near a virtually uninhabited part of Russia qualify her to be second in command of our country? Perhaps her worst gaffe was being unable name a single magazine or newspaper that she reads regularly.  Instead, she dismissively respond with, “All of ‘em.”  Right, I’m sure she reads every newspaper and magazine.  I mean, are you kidding?  She can’t even blurt out that she reads the Anchorage Daily News? Yikes.

So, all of that said, it’s obviously set some pretty low expectations for her performance in tonight’s Vice Presidential debate against Democratic nominee Joe Biden.  The Obama camp has tried to temper the excitement by hyping Palin’s debate skills and saying that she performed well in the Alaskan gubernatorial debates.  Which makes sense.  All campaigns hype the opponent’s skills to level out expectations so if it doesn’t go well they have some cushion and if it goes really well they look that much better.  Similarly, the McCain campaign has tried to play up Joe Biden’s skills by calling him “the Cicero of the Senate.”

Until today.  Today, they’ve changed their tune by creating a web ad that mocks Biden and strings together several of his more memorable gaffes.  I’m not really sure what they are trying to do here.  Sarah Palin, while generally being a moron and hurting McCain’s campaign in a lot of key voter groups according to a story from The Post today, has set herself up to only improve her standing in tonight’s debate.  At this point, if she can form coherent sentences and not ended up sounding like a confused and smug idiot, I’ll call it a triumph for her.  But by pointing out that Biden makes just as many embarrassing mistakes (something I’m not sure is really true, he can probably name a newspaper or two) they’ve basically set the expectations for tonight at a level so low that I’m not sure anyone would want to watch these two intellectually stunted individuals grasp at straws and offend everyone with a brain.  Wait a minute…maybe that’s their strategy?  Set the expectations so low that no one will watch?  I take it back.  The McCain campaign is brilliant.

In all seriousness, I am interested to see how the debate goes tonight and look forward to coming back with some of my analysis.  Happy watching everyone!

so I’m lame

It’s been like forever since I posted.  Which is weird since I largely don’t have an excuse.  I have time during the days, the election season is in full swing complete with an absolute moron of a GOP Vice Presidential nominee, there’s a new season of Project Runway, and I have a new show obsession.

So why haven’t I written anything? Well, I’m lame.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  So, just to catch up, a few things of note.

1. I think Sarah Palin may be the dumbest politician to run for national office since Dan Quayle.  Actually, I would love to see a mental throwdown between intellectual giants like Palin and Quayle.  Here’s how I imagine that might go:

SP: What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?
DQ: Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and a child.
SP: Lipstick!
DQ: One word sums up the responsibility of any vice president and that one word is “to be prepared.”
SP: I’m prepared to lead.  I can see Russia from my house!

Yeah, I think getting those two together would have all the intellectual gravity of any conversation scene from The Hills (those are actual Dan Quayle quotes by the way).

2. I loved the Tina Fey impersonation of Palin.  It has only solidified my love of TF and also inspired me to be Sarah Palin for Halloween.  I’m working on the voice and outfit and it should be good times.

3. How annoying is Kenley on this season of Project Runway?  No one talks back to Tim Gunn.  Doesn’t she know that?  I’m just biding the time until her eventual elimination and the massive amounts of sobbing that will follow.

4. Even though I’m pretty sure it kills brain cells, I can’t help but watch the Rachel Zoe Project.  Say what you want about it, but it’s interesting to me, I love all the gratuitous fashion porn and the tension between her bitchy girl assistant Taylor and her adorable boy assistant Brad.  Not to mention that Rachel Zoe seems a lot more likable on TV than I’d imagined (yes, I actually just typed that sentence…sigh).

Okay, that’s all for now.  I’ll try to not be so lame and write more later.

unemployed no more

So oddly enough, FMI firing me turned out to be a gift. I had two interviews already scheduled for Wednesday and I got job offers from both of them. So I would have been handing in my resignation today anyhow. Instead, they fired me so I got a severance package that pays me my FMI salary through the end of this month. Awesome. Thanks guys!

So, the jobs. I got offered a great job as a wine broker. The person who would have been my boss was great and really nice and the money would have been fantastic. But I also got offered the chance to cook at one of my favorite DC restaurants, Granville Moore’s. Given the choice between the money and the dream, I chose the dream. I’ll be starting out cooking a few times a week and then doing front of house work as well to make sure I can use it as a full time job and, you know, live. There’s a ton of opportunity for learning and promotion and just to really get a feel for the restaurant business. Not to mention that the head chef is frickin’ awesome.

So that’s that. I’m super excited, a bit nervous, but pretty sure that this is something that will make me happy and that will let me wake up every day excited to go to work and care about what I’m doing.

so…yeah…

I got fired today.  I’m actually pretty okay with it since I was miserable at my job and actually had two interviews tomorrow.  However, I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this later.  For now I’m going to absorb it.  And then my liver is going to absorb some alcohol.

Good times.

best. dance moves. ever

Not from the show I was at but they closed the encore with the same song and Dave Matthews’ dance moves were just as badass in person.

what campaign finance reform means to me

This week, Barack Obama decided to decline public funding for his campaign, which resulted in the McCain campaign and indignant conservatives everywhere flipping out. Why? Because previously Obama had said that he would likely use public funds and therefore accept the imposed limit on campaign spending that comes along with taking government money. Now he never signed his name to anything and much of this discussion was had months ago in the hypothetical terms of, “Should Hillary Clinton ever cop to the fact that the jig is up and she lost, will you accept public campaign financing?” His answers were merely about what, at the time, he felt he may do and yet he left the issue open. This week, it was closed.

Here’s the real reason the McCain folks are so angry about this: by not taking public funds, Obama can now finance his campaign without imposed federal limits and based solely off of the money he raises. Which scares the shit out of John McCain because Barack Obama has proven that he can raise some serious cash. And more important than the fact that he can raise large amounts of money is how he’s raising it. Most of Obama’s money has come not from the special interest groups and lobbyists that were the long-feared evils of private campaign financing. In fact, upon becoming the nominee, he demanded that the Democratic National Committee adhere to his own campaign’s rule of not accepting money from lobbyists or Political Action Committees (PACs). So where is his money coming from? The one place Republicans fear most: individuals giving in amounts less than $1000 (often multiple times) and the internet.

Why does that scare Republicans? Because John McCain has proven to be quite bad at that kind of fund raising. Or really any fund raising. Barack Obama has raised about 3 times the amount of money John McCain was able to acquire. And while the RNC coffers are quite deep and McCain has a much larger pool of party money to draw on than Obama does, no one doubts that Barack Obama will continue to perform much better than John McCain in raising donations. The Obama campaign is too smart, too organized, too connected to its base, and has a message that is, for many, too hard to resist – and so the money shall keep rolling in like waves upon the sand.

Another side effect of Obama’s declining public funding is that it puts pressure on McCain to do the same. However, it still really isn’t something that should surprise anyone. In 2004, Bush and Kerry chose not to accept public funding for the primaries. Perhaps more telling is this column by George Will written nearly two years ago. George Will is pretty conservative and I usually disagree with him on a number of things but that piece is eerily prescient. It also, quite rightly, points out that the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill (which Walnuts McCain himself was involved in…as the name indicates) increased the amount of money individuals can contribute thereby making it easier for candidates to raise money without needing to use public funds. Oops. Bet old Walnuts didn’t see that one coming back to bite him in the ass.

I guess the major point of all this is that I think it’s time for the McCain folks and the crazy conservatives to pipe down and realize that it’s within each candidate’s rights to decide how he or she wants to fund a campaign. So Barack Obama is just a better fund raiser than the GOP candidate. Sorry. But maybe it’s time for Republicans to quit the whining, put down the pitchforks and torches, and look in the mirror and realize that they can blame a huge part of their election-time troubles on the previous eight years of GOP mismanagement. Just a thought.

yeah….about that…

So I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted but it’s because I’ve been incredibly busy. Incredibly busy hating certain aspects of my life. Let’s just say that this pretty much sums it up:

Soon though, I shall be hoping to change that.

and another one…

And my second post of the week is up too.  It’s a good two days in the world of writing.

new DCist post

My second official post for DCist (the shopping cart politics post was not DC enough so didn’t make the cut) is up now. While it’s sad to lose a place for good food, at least there are beer options outside of Yuengling and Miller Lite in Adams Morgan now.

Yay for new posts though!