Yesterday was a fantastic day overall. Couldn't have asked for a better birthday. After finding out about the job and launching the new blog, everything else was gravy. Andrea gave me a copy of Iron Man along with a t-shirt she had custom made with a green and black duotone image of a keyboard around half the waist. She also presented me with a few items of the naughty variety that for propriety's sake I won't repeat here, but needless to say I'm looking forward to keeping warm with her this winter.

The two of us went to Elgin Street Diner for dinner, where I ate the steak and mushroom pie dinner special with a chocolate shake, and then headed to South Keys to watch Role Models, a very funny movie starring Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott. Any flick that ends with a group of KISS impersonators kicking the shit out of medieval role players with foam swords shouldn't send anyone away dissatisfied.

Afterwards a few of us gathered at Erin's and hung out for a few hours, drinking and talking. Today I've been cleaning up the apartment a bit, getting ready for tonight, though I imagine most folks won't be showing up for the Touch of Evil/Psycho double bill. Should be a fun night either way.

Not ANOTHER new blog:

Things To Do Before I'm 30.

It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. My first post is a video blog, which I've never done before, but which I've now done before I turned 30.

Christine called me today and offered me the job at the House of Commons. She said I tested the highest out of every applicant, and offered me a spot with the Hansard Association, the group that edits and researches chamber debates and speeches. I'll be working 33-35 hours a week, so it looks like I'll be leaving the Senate job behind shortly.

Don't forget to check out the blog. If you have any suggestions about things for me to do before I turn 30, I'm more than open to them.

I'm a big fan of Reese Puffs cereal. I eat it for breakfast almost everyday. Today I was buying Reese Puffs at the grocery store and I noticed a quiz written on the back of the box.

Reese Puffs 18 Things To Do Before You're 18

01. Ride the world's biggest rollercoaster.
02. Bungee jump!
03. Score the winning goal/basket.
04. Win an award, trophy or prize.
05. Learn an instrument.
06. Go backstage at a gig.
07. Meet your idol.
08. Play a part in your favorite TV show.
09. Meet someone with your own name.
10. Make a discovery.
11. Get away with the perfect practical joke.
12. Own a pointless collection.
13. Invent a word that makes it into the dictionary. (Ambitious.)
14. Conquer your biggest fear.
15. Raise money for charity.
16. Pass your driving test the first time.
17. Complete a road trip coast to coast.
18. Reach 18 years of age.

That's not a bad list. I'm turning 29 years old tomorrow. For a little while I've been building a list of things I'd like to do before I'm 30. Here's what I've got so far:

Things To Do Before I'm 30

01. Record an album of at least 10 songs.
02. Play a show in support of the album.
03. Write the first draft of a novel.
04. Make a music video.
05. Share a kiss while overlooking Paris.
06. Drink a beer in an authentic Irish pub.
07. Appear in a film.

I have a head start on a couple of those. I'd really like to go into my 30's thinking that I've done all I could to have some amazing experiences. I think I'll ask my younger friends what they'd like to accomplish before they turn 30, and try to come up with some more.

I really believe that American politics routinely comes down to one set of principles versus another. The differences between McCain and Obama were pretty much the same differences between Kerry and Bush, Gore and Bush, Clinton and Dole, Clinton and Bush Sr., and on and on. For the past three elections, people in America have been split almost right down the middle in terms of the popular vote. One American goes one way, another goes the other way.

Why does this happen? How can two parties, representing two separate sets of principles, have a tug of war with one another and win back and forth so routinely? Why would a Republican suddenly vote for a Democrat, or vice versa, or declare themselves undecided?

It comes down to who has the better words to act as a salve for America's suffering. The country is perpetually broken, can perpetually be improved, but this reality is rarely stated in plain facts, instead covered up by fancy buzzword rhetoric. Obama mentioned it in his victory speech last night in a way no politician has in a long time. America has not yet reached a state of political, social and certainly not economical perfection. It never has. Yet more often than not, I think, campaigns are run on the idea that America is perfect by virtue of its democratic process and freedom of cultural and religious expression - its faults are always the other party's. Obama's and McCain's campaigns generally followed suit, Obama armed with eight years of Bush policy failures and McCain chomping at the Democrats' willingness to spend themselves into slavery to the Chinese.

But Obama said something very significant last night - in effect, "I won't be able to fix this country alone."

I think you have in Obama a politician who doesn't idealize America in the same way McCain does, and that's important. Obama spoke to a truth about the country's imperfections that voters connected with. Beyond this, he represented it symbolically, a black man with the presidential office in his sights, a success in spite of socio-political imperfections. That's what he will base his first term as president on. Successes in spite of imperfections.

Will it make America better? Maybe. Obama has a background as a community organizer. He's trained to pull people together to accomplish goals in order to better their society. That's an important training for a president to have in a country so clearly divided down party lines.

A part of me wants to say that I'm glad Democrats gained the White House and strengthened their Senate presence because I despise certain Republican principles, base or otherwise - bans on abortion and gay marriage, a belief in the right to bear arms, opposition to stem cell research - and I believe these principles have no place in government because they promote discrimination while robbing what I believe should be the fundamental rights of people in a free nation.

But that's not why I'm happy that Obama won last night. I'm happy because America needed a leader who wouldn't disappear from the public eye in a silent declaration that he had failed the country in most of the decisions he made while in office. I'm happy that Americans elected Obama not out of fear, but out of a willingness to believe in his message of change. Hollow platitudes? Again, maybe. He hasn't taken office yet. No one is sure what he'll be capable of. But I'd never seen anything like the look in the eyes of those watching his speech last night - a crowd of thousands of voters across lines of ethnicity, religion, and sexual orientation. A unified belief, not in Obama, but that the country must get better, and that his election indicated that it's possible.

It's not really up to Obama how the next four years go. It's up to the people over whom he presides. Last night was a good start.

I've almost got the Reason work on a new song done, but I'm having a hell of a time with the arpeggiator on a couple of the keyboard effects. Should be able to get something workable done by next week. I abandoned a short story I was working on for something else. Hopefully it will go somewhere.

Winterson is a hell of a writer.

Still no word about the job.

I imagine I'll be watching the election coverage for most of the night. I'm pulling for an Obama win, but if I've learned anything from American politics over the last two terms, you can't call the race until it's over.

All I want is right now to find out once and for all about this job. The waiting is the hardest part.

I finished Headhunter. I enjoyed it, but it's a complicated book with a multitude of characters of often unspecified intertextual origin that deserves another read. Today I started The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, which Andrea was kind enough to lend me.

I went with Andrea and Christine to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno yesterday. I'm a huge Kevin Smith fan, and I thought the film was funny, but I was left with the sense that I want him to start getting into other territory. Kevin's an intelligent guy and a great writer, but he's notorious for calling himself a shitty director. He doesn't have a lot of faith in himself, and I think it prevents him from breaking out of the comedic mold he's been in for a few years now. It's still good stuff, but he really needs to move on to the great stuff that a movie like Dogma suggested he's capable of producing. I know he's got a horror flick in the pipeline and I'd be very interested to see how he can expand his repertoire a bit.

Clocks went back and I'm having a hard time adjusting. I think Andrea had a pretty good birthday overall. Her birthday/Halloween party was fun while it lasted. A lot of people turned out. The next morning we went to the diner and later on we watched Peep Show and had dinner at the Royal Oak during what I'm going to term "homeless karaoke" - the karaoke of the indigent looking for a warm room.

I'm set on finally finishing Headhunter this week. I also got a bit of writing done. Hopefully I'll be hearing about the job tomorrow.