The Pursuit

I will be blogging live from the GOP Comvention this week. But it won’t be here. You can find it at: http://fresnobeehive.com/opinion. Check it out and leave a comment.

The Obama campaign sent out an e-mail today announcing the “first edition” of new Obama-Biden car magnets; available now for only a $15 donation.

I know that my first edition Reagan-Bush car magnets are a special part of my car magnet collection. No one can underestimate the value of appreciation in a first edition car magnet in comparison to a second or third edition. This is a deal you should truly jump on.

I already have a first edition McCain magnet; I can’t wait for that first edition McCain-Whoever-he-picks I have on pre-order to be arrive.

That e-mail I was supposed to get from the campaign finally rolled in at 8:58 am. Geez, Barack, way to keep me waiting to find out that Biden was…oh wait, that’s right, you got scooped by CNN.

Barack Obama has chosen Joe Biden as his running mate, ruining the campaign’s plan to announce this via e-mail and text message.

The Obama site was quickly refreshed to reflect the fact that someone who said Obama was ““the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” is now his choice to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

So much for my iPhone giving me first notice. Instead I had to get it from Larry King. Uncool.

In only 17 days The Pursuit will be live from the Republican National convention. My role as an alternate delegate (I guess that means I get to cast a ballot if a regular delegate gets hit by a bus) will you access to the inside workings of a national political convention.

So far I’m beginning to feel like a high-class call girl given the number of invites I’m getting to high-dollar parties. Below is an example of the invites filling up my inbox:

Clearly sleep is one of the things I will not be getting this week. No problem. Between being a freelancer, adjunct professor, campaign chair and school teacher, and trying to lower my golf handicap that is not something I get much of anyway.

Sitting outside at Marketbar in San Francisco. Two weeks ago if I was here I would have been the only one here without a smartphone. Fortunately now that I possess my iPhone 3G I am among the accepted. It appears a smartphone is the modern status symbol. Not having one is like an email address with @aol.com at the end. Outdated.

So much going on lately with Edwards the Player giving his big confession on Nightline, Barack Obama starring as The One, and worries the iPhone 3G will shut down your illegal apps.

Been quite busy lately, but I will return soon to tackle these and more topics.

Today I thought I would give a shot to Windows Live Writer, a free software from Microsoft that lets you post directly to your blog. The interface sure is a lot cleaner than the clunky one in WordPress. And it syncs all of the key settings that you would normally use, such as tags and categories. The WYSIWYG interface makes for a more effective blogging experience. And even though a lot of what is great about it is just in aesthetics, there is a lot to be said for that. Read more »

Add rapper Ludacris to the group of people that Barack Obama “didn’t know.” After praising him earlier this year as among “great talents and great businessmen” Obama denounced Ludacris for his song, “Obama is Here.” The video (seen below) kind of speaks for itself.

But really, this is a surprise that Ludacris would offer such astute political analysis? This is the rapper with songs like “Get the F— Back” (lyrics below)

F— That!
Get the f— back!
Luda make your skull crack
Tuck that
B—-, your whole town’s on my n—–k
Cuff that
Put it in your weed, n—-, puff that
What’s that
People gon’ die tonight

Or there is of course “Roll Out:”

Twin glock .40s, cocked back
Me and my homies, so drop that
We rollin on twenties, with the top back
So much money, you can’t stop that

Obama is willing to connect with anyone who serves his interest, but then throw them under the bus when necessary. Ludacris is only talented in a culture where we expect the worst from ourselves. No one with any brains or love of decency should consider themselves one of the “we” that Ludacris is referring to. Racial reconciliation and American identity have far greater models that we should follow. It is tragic that angry, mindless words should be embraced by anyone.

But what do I know, I guess I just be hatin’ on him.

Few consumer products have been slammed in recent memory more than Windows Vista. It was the focus of mockery in the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ad campaign by Apple. Its had difficulty gaining traction among some areas of enterprise, such as the recent decision by Intel to remain with XP.

But Microsoft is (finally) hitting back. A stealth campaign dubbed “The Mojave Experiment” uses the time-tested blind taste test. Consumers are shown an operating system dubbed Windows Mojave. They are told it is an experimental version of Windows’ next operating system. After playing around with it and finding they like it, they are told it is really Vista.

While a little on the cheesy side, Microsoft is righ to insist that people give Vista another look. It is now stable and effective for everyday computing. I have been using it on my tablet for about six months with no problems (besides turning off the annoying Windows Defender).

Besides, if any of those two Apple commercial characters are likely to lose their email or experience a crash, it’s the one running MobileMe.