First of all — I’m now an uncle. Lisa and Pat have a little girl named Isabelle Marie. I can’t post any pics until Lisa’s updated her blog.

So, yeah. Pretty amazing.

Then there was the election, of course. Kelly and I were both very happy and excited, but it was tempered by the fact that we were watching the results come in with my parents, who are pretty conservative. So we couldn’t jump on the furniture while giving each other high fives.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m not interested in discussing politics much here right now. I will say that I’m proud, that it was historic, and that both candidates’ speeches last night were inspiring.

That said, I do have something to say about the political climate. If my personal pick for president becomes obvious, sorry. Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised anyway.

Every 4 years, everyone proclaims this election to be the most important election in the universe. Ever. And it’s bullshit. Every election can’t be the most important. I could see the 2016 election (for example) being more important that this one. The 1932 election was probably more important that this one.

People say this because they’re trying to scare us. I don’t care who’s saying it. They’re trying to scare the shit out of us. And I’m sick of it. Our nation isn’t a delicate knick-knack. It’s not a fragile dish. We can weather terrible leaders. We’ve certainly done it before. We’ve weathered crappy Supreme Courts and crappy court decisions. Crappy Congresses.

I’m certainly not saying that we’re invulnerable. The question I’m asking is: How do we conduct ourselves in trying times? And a lot of us ought to be ashamed.

Western civilization is not in peril.

Support your candidate, be proud of your candidate. And don’t be an asshole.

Sorry. Just wanted to get that off my chest. I’ll get back to the humping dog videos without delay.

I love it I love it.

No, I don’t much care that the democrats picked up all those offices. I love the insane reaction some are having on some notable right-wing blogs.

It reminds me of the freak-outs that left-wingers had 2 years ago.

Some people are claiming (almost hoping) that a terrorist attack in the US will give Republicans their seats back in 2008. What a solid, inspiring gameplan.

Some are calling voters stupid. Which is just as charming as when democrats said the same thing.

Most of all, these people really, really see the other party as evil. I guess both sides are guilty of that to an extent.

No one has any perspective.

Or maybe it’s just the internet. It has a way of making the populace seem way crazier than it really is.

Along that line… I swear, if there’s any talk of impeachment, I quit. Not that I like Bush. Not the point. I will quit. I don’t know what I mean by that. But really. It’s like it’s easy for people to point out what’s wrong when they’re not the ones with the power to do bad things.

• My mailbox will be under control. Snail-mail mailbox, that is. It was being choked by huge political mailings.
• If I watched TV, I’d be happy that all the negative ads are now gone. Negative Ads say that they have our best interests at heart, but Negative Ads attacked every candidate of every persuasion. Negative Ads wants to give candy to terrorists and persecute golfers. Negative Ads also probably molests children and mugs old people. Negative Ads puts the dishes in the dishwasher without rinsing them off first. We just can’t afford to trust Negative Ads. (I’m Joe “Let’s get Negative on Negative Ads” Lillibridge and I approve this message.)
• I get to snicker about how the Republicans’ stupid stink about immigration completely flopped.
• I get to be very polite to potentially angry relatives. I could almost be smug, except I have as little confidence in the Democrats as I had in the Republicans.
• Santorum got canned. Never thought much of that guy.
• Pelosi will probably be speaker of the house. I don’t care much either way about her, but I know people who foam at the mouth and gesticulate wildly at the drop of her name. So this makes me snicker as well.
• The Democrats seem to be moving more to the center. At least, significant Democrat winners were closer to the center. Boo to right- and left-wing politics.
• Split control of the government makes me happy. Slow-moving government makes me happy. Gridlock even often makes me happy. Really. People think I’m kidding when I say that.
• I’m more annoyed by house representatives than by any other elected officials. So I like to see them get their asses handed to them.
• Dumbass FOX pundits will finally have someone else besides Bill Clinton to blame for… pretty much anything (did anyone else see Hannity try to blame the Foley crap on Clinton?). Seriously, it’s been 6 years. At least now there will be some novelty to their bullshit.

I was going to list some bad things, but I’m so overjoyed that my mailbox will be usable again that I’ll abstain from bitching.

Update: Oh, and this.

Just kidding. They’re all repulsive. I just voted for the ones with the most inspiring odor.

Remember this guy? He ran again.

I threatened to actually vote for him. Well, threatened in my mind. But it was a stern, angry threat. Ok, it was a whimsical threat.

I am so anxiously awaiting the results of today’s election that, if it occurs to me, I may pause FF XII tonight and, if I’m not hungry for some chips or if I don’t have to use the restroom, I might pick up the remote (thinking it’s a hot, naked stripper, for some reason) and accidently turn on the news.

But I probably won’t.

Go Democracy! And pick me up a burger. Accidently and incoherently fondling the remote works up an appetite.

What I like most about this is that my memory of Weird Al is that he just did silly stuff. I know I had “Fat” when I was a kid. And yeah, this song is kind of silly, but it’s not that silly. I mean, he isn’t joking when he talks about grandmas and 7 year old girls getting sued by the RIAA.

My point is that this is a great “Fuck You” to the RIAA, and I like it.

Also, the “We are the World” thing kills me.

Now 29, he’s had growths removed from his brain. He has suffered a small stroke — one morning he was shaving, having put down the razor to rinse his face. In that moment, he blacked out and pitched over. “Just as quickly as I lost consciousness, I regained it,” he said. “Except I couldn’t move the right side of my body.” After about 15 minutes, the paralysis ebbed.

Terrible.

I should mention that my grandfather (actually, my grandmother’s last husband) died of cancer due to exposure to Agent Orange.

Check out this little Q&A.

Choice quote: “‘The liquor lobby has got their hand in the pocket of the DFL caucus,’ Hesse argues. ‘They’ve got a relationship that has been going on forever.’”¹

Fuckers. Seriously. Read that whole thing. There is some serious irony in there.

So who wants to make a Sunday Wisconsin beer run with me?