Liveblogging Super Tuesday

It's a frosty February evening, and we're gathered here for the first great sporting event of 2008 - Super Tuesday, live from the USA.

So far... Mike Huckabee's won in West Virginia, much to the relief of fundie Walker: Texas Ranger fans everywhere. Elsewhere, Obama looks like taking Georgia in his never-ending battle for a stalemate with Hillary.

Elsewhere...

Cyman: Don't forget Ron Paul's policy that we're all descended from a guy who fucked his own rib.
warrenellis: Why are people still talking about Ron Paul?
Cyman: Haha. Point.
Whitechapel

Walnuts? Wonkette reminds us of key points of John McCain's campaign.
(00.45)

What was that thing about a "good day to bury bad news"?
(00.51)

Matt Frei has just compared the "poetry of Obama to the hard prose of Clinton" on News 24. I think he just called her a Cylon...
(01.05)

ABC News is projecting an Obama win in Illinois, to the surprise of no-one with eyes, with McCain taking New Jersey and Conneticut. (Source, 01:04)

Results - Clinton projected to win Oklahoma for the Dems, McCain for Illinois, Romney for Massachusetts.
(01:20)

Whitechapel is providing the goodness. (01:25)

Orwellseyes: [WGN] reporting that the storms in arkansas knocked out power to Huckabee headquarters. God is apparently not happy.

Officially renaming this post "Liveblogging Whitechapel's Super Tuesday Thread. (02:45)

tikistitch McCain is starting to look kind of inevitable. Interesting that this doesn't come 'til he's 8,467 years old. I wonder if he'll be our first president who's a head in a jar.

FyreBryhte: Better than his head in an ass. I mean his ass. Oh never mind. It was funnier in my mind.

Cyman: McCain would be the oldest president ever; but his mother is still kicking at 95, and he seems fine healthwise. I can't see why his age would be an issue for 4 years. His insanity, though... another story.

What does he do with all that rage? I imagine that the lasting image 90% of people have of Howard Dean is of his infamous scream speech in 04, so when I see him talking all monotone and unshouty I can't help wondering if he has to kick a kitten on his way home. (02:56)

Genuinely Terrifying Thought, courtesy of a Romney supporter who told the BBC's correspondent in Boston that if Mittens didn't get the GOP nod, she'd have to vote for Hillary. Ringing endorsement, that. (03:09)

Genuinely Terrifying Thought #2 - Mike Huckabee needs three microphones? (03:10)

Political speechwriters aren't WGA-affiliated, are they? Huckabee's at the microphone, and he was doing so well up until he mentioned the Second Amendment and...didn't really have a point to go with it. He's ended up quoting what I assume are college football chants. Which is why you should stick to the autocue. (03:15)

Genuinely Terrifying Thought #3 He may have been sticking to the autocue. (03:16)

Sweet creeping Jesus - if Romney wasn't in trouble before, he bloody well is now. His son's incredibly confused expression during the whole values/large military/RONALD REAGAN/America will become a second-tier power meander was surpassed only by that of his wife. Mittens! Mittens! Mittens!

Also noting that clearly "private sector" is a crowd buzzword up in Boston tonight, "wonderful military" not so much. (03:40)

Sam Seaborne? - Barry's got some awesome speechwriters hidden somewhere.

Full of win

PlayTV could totally be the PS3's killer app.

If only he had a voice. Well, pen. And some paper.

Dear Dr. Breen,

I am writing to you to complain about my recent trip to City 17. I had been led to believe that the city is the closest thing there is to a capital city these days, but I must inform you that what I encountered fell severely short of my expectations.

Given the general demeanour of the citizen, I can only assume that you have been contacted regarding the somewhat strident approach to security by many of your staff. I must give praise to one Officer Calhoun who made the time to assist someone who was clearly not a local when my other requests for assistance were met with derision and, more often than not, gunfire. Even my attempts at a leisurely boating excursion were hampered not only by your employees excitable trigger-fingers but also artillery fire and air attack support.

I would also like to draw your attention to the frankly appalling levels of civic cleanliness around the streets of City 17. I could not turn a corner without being confronted by headcrabs, zombies or next-to-impassable toxic waste. And that is without even mentioning the barnacles.

Don't even get me started on the barnacles.

All in all, I am bitterly disappointed with the experience I had in City 17. I plan to spend the next leg of my vacation in Ravenholm and I do not intend to return to City 17. If I do, you may expect to feel the full force of my disappointment.

Yours,

Dr. Gordon Freeman.

PS: Good luck with the new bosses, Wallace!

Flickrdump: Another day at the office

I'm not 100% sure I actually took these pictures. Funny story, that.

It's like a cheap knock-off of Out Of Africa. Or is that Salvador?

You, the largely hypothetical reader of this weblog, may recall my recent attempts to procure a bottle of Bacardi-produced Havana Club rum while in the States. Thanks to the wonderful guys at Bramble, I finally got to taste the elusive spirit in the UK.



It's quite nasty. One of the other bartenders present said it smelled of "something someone who's not very good at cooking has burnt". One of our hosts - who has some Cuban heritage - couldn't get beyond gestures to illustrate her distaste.

The Bacardi-produced Havana Club isn't on sale in the UK. Thankfully.

New Year's End: 07 Edition

New Year's End is something I've done in my head every year. It's a collection of things that stood out for me in the past year, though not necessarily things that were created or released in that year. This year, it is also staggeringly limited given that I've genuinely been living in work.

Videogame characters I actually cared about in Uncharted
Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy
Wayne Curtis' And A Bottle of Rum: a history of the New World in ten cocktails
The first chapter of Don DeLilo's Underworld
Chuck Klosterman
The West Wing DVD marathons
Assassin's Creed's free-running mechanic
Getting caught in a nuclear explosion in Call of Duty 4
Rock, Paper, Shotgun, even though I don't do PC gaming
Vanilla & Passionfruit Cosmopolitans (thanks SJ)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End in HD
TF2's sentry guns
And, of course, Weighted Companion Cube

Update: the hangover

There's always a problem with working in a bar over Christmas - everybody else in the whole world is on holiday, and wants to get drunk. This, fairly obviously, leads to a large number of broken bartenders and waiters come January whose employers in our specific case reward by giving them an effectively free bar for a night.

I woke up at 5 o'clock. At night. And thought it was the morning. Yesterday.