My friends do cool things

Father Scott

One of the nice things about being the age I am in 2008 is the way I can follow what my friends are up to without having to actually, you know, talk to them. (A close second: not receiving copious AARP mailings like Pax.)

The whole social networking thing is obvious, but one thing that has pleasantly surprised me is people documenting special experiences via blogs.

My friend Alli is describing her experience on a Fulbright scholarship in Peru. Her blogging has dropped off recently (for which she apologizes in every post), but she has some interesting observations. In her most recent post she covered a few weeks’ worth of activity. Included in this was celebrating Halloween in Peru, and watching the US election of Barack Obama unfold:

We also celebrated the wonderful victory of Barack Obama and the democrats in general this past Nov. 4th. we had a party at Jan-Jacques house in san blas, and he cooked Indonesian Gadou-gadou, apple pie, and pizzas for the occasion. i brought two cakes that were supposed to say “Obama” on them… but due to a slight misunderstanding regarding the similar pronunciation of the English B and the Spanish V, I brought my two “Ovama” cakes to the party. hilarious, and delicious.

My friend and former editor Niraj has recently traveled to India with his family, after finishing up work in San Francisco. Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Didn’t they have some sort of terrorist thing in India recently? Gee, I hope that kid wasn’t affected.’ That’s very sweet of you to care, actually. Oh, and he’s fine, though he was close:

My parents and I left the Mumbai train station the day before yesterday, about eight hours before the shooting there began. We’re all fine, just sad and disappointed. […] I landed in Mumbai on Tuesday The flight was broken into two approximately nine-hour legs (San Francisco to London and London to Mumbai) with a seven-hour wait in London. It sucked, of course, but I did meet a cool Portuguese couple who spent four months in Mumbai in 2006 and were on their way back. In the interim two years they rented out two houses, one of which they built. (Random aside: the guys who run the Internet cafe where I’m writing this are blasting “Lean Back.”)

I’m excited to follow each of their journeys and Niraj in particular is a great writer (Alli probably is too, having hailed from the finest institution in the land).

But, hey, I’m doing cool stuff too. Like yesterday, I owned my brother, who’s five years younger, in basketball. We played on 8 ft. hoops. And we were both winded with the score at 4-2. And then I celebrated doing the “Lean Back”.

Peruvians give crappy gifts

Pax Arcana

I’m not going to lie — I’ve dished out some garbage presents in my lifetime. In my early 20’s, I gave my brother a used book for Christmas because I had totally forgotten to buy him something. Not only was it a used book, but a paperback that I had taken it to the beach that summer, dog-eared about 50 pages, written in the margins, and bent the spine lengthwise.

Sorry about that, homey.

Anyway, crappy as that gift was, it was a magic cotton candy dispensing HDTV hovercraft compared to what a bunch of Peruvians want to give president elect Barack Obama to celebrate his election.

According to this article, aficionados of the Peruvian national dog would like to send one to the new first family. In case you didn’t know, this is what they look like:

The above monstrosity is called a Peruvian Hairless Dog, and its supporters say it is good for those with dog hair allergies — like presidential daughter Malia Obama. It is also good for snarling at the gates of hell at the time of reckoning and for chasing Simba and Nala through the elephant graveyard.

You hear what I’m saying people? I’m saying that is ONE UGLY DOG! That dog is so ugly it looks like it caught on fire and they put it out with a rake! That dog is so ugly that even Rice Krispies won’t talk to it! That dog is so ugly it has to sneak up on a glass of water!! HEEYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Peru offers bald dog of Incas to Obama family [Reuters]

Last one, I promise

Pax Arcana

As globe-hopping dilettante Father Scott (I’ve sent him on the Grand Tour to mingle with the upper crust of the Europe — and hopefully touch a boobie or two) points out in the comments to this post, Pax Arcana has veered far from its anti-political mission statement of late. Obviously that’s my fault, as I was consumed by my breathless stupidity and sold out our nation’s future to a terrorist celebrity socialist who is going to appoint gangsta rappers to his cabinet and maybe try to close some corporate tax loopholes or something.

Barring any hilarious or totally obscure zombie, baseball, or science related angles to the big story of the year, we will refrain from mentioning it again.

But first, you have GOT to read this article on the Newsweek Web site. Basically it’s a collection of nuggets gathered during the campaign that were not released — for various reasons — during the home stretch. In it, we discover that Sarah Palin may or may not have spent way more than the reported $150,000 on clothes and shit for her family, that John McCain consistently demonstrated basic human decency when directing the tone of his campaign only to be sold out but good by Civil Rights (and Pax Arcana) hero John Lewis, and that Barack Obama hates debating because Brian Williams asks stupid questions:

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, “I don’t consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that’s green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.”

OK. That is all.

Hackers and Spending Sprees [Newsweek]

It could be worse

Pax Arcana

I once heard Garrison Keillor — famous public radio personality and writer of mostly-boring things for the hummus and pita set — riff on the central philosophical underpinning of the even-keeled Scandinavians of the upper midwest. The theory is that these lumbering squareheads maintain a certain equilibrium by greeting all news, good or bad, with the following mantra:

“It could be worse.”

Here’s a clip from an essay he wrote that sums it up:

Whatever bonehead things we’ve done, we have not yet put our tongue on the pump handle and let it freeze there, and this is a fact not to be overlooked. There are pump handles around, and in freezing weather they become lethal. You walk past them and they exert a powerful force on your body, particularly on your tongue. Imagine the misery of standing, tongue frozen to the iron, waiting for the firemen to come and pry you loose. In my darker hours, ever since I was 6 and went trotting off to Benson School, I have imagined that the pump handle would be my fate, but so far I have avoided it, and you too, my friend. Together, once again we hope to come through the cold season with our tongues intact, and if we do, then winter has no grip on us. It could be worse.

Anyway, I was trolling the Facebook statuses of my millions of adoring fans this morning, and it turns out some of them are displeased by the nation’s electoral decision last night. Reading their first reactions to the result is like taking a swan dive into a well of broken glass and menaced delusional fantasies about the man most of us chose to lead us out of this morass.

I sincerely don’t wish these people to suffer for their political choices. Despite the antagonism between the two sides during the campaign, I hope with all my heart that Barack Obama lives up to his pledge to be the president of all Americans — not just those of us who punched our chads in his favor.

But surely that sentiment alone will do little to quell the anger and frustration of those on the losing end of this election. In fact it may come across as patronizing or demeaning.

So the best I can offer my friends on the far side of the chasm is this:

It could be worse. And I have proof.

Your chosen candidate did not succeed, but at least you weren’t hit by a motherfucking rocket like this poor asshole:

Pictured: The dramatic moment a footballer is hit by a rocket fired by opposition supporters [Daily Mail]

You’re all a bunch of fucking racists

Pax Arcana

I’m writing this Tuesday night at 6 p.m., an hour before the first polls close on the east coast. And while I don’t know the “official” results of the presidential election yet, my intimate knowledge of district-level politics and the “Bradley effect” means I know the results beforehand. Here is my assessment of this election:

You’re all a bunch of fucking racists.

Everyone agrees that half-retard paintsniffer Republican president George W. Bush basically ruined the entire nation and wiped his ass with our collective reputation for the past eight years. But when presented with a choice between a brilliant young Democrat with an agenda of specific, needed changes and an erratic establishment Republican who carried Bush’s greasy water for eight years, you goddamn racist assholes dug deep into your rotten psyches and resurfaced with an act of cowardice so profound that it defies description.

I hope the whole fucking bunch of you dies in a house fire that a black firefighter refuses to put out.

Update: never mind.

Get ready for the Barack Roll

Pax Arcana

These guys are not the mothereffing truth

Father Scott

Pax Arcana and its members famously do not endorse political candidates; our eleventy gazillion readers are well aware of this.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t post entertaining juxtapositions of politicians’ basketball skillz, right?

Check out this AOL FanHouse piece showing first President Bush attending a youth basketball practice, then second showing an extremely well-done fake Nike commercial featuring Senator Obama. I’m a little disappointed by how much he carries the ball — if he’s that loosey-goosey with the rules of a simple game, should we trust him as leader of the free world?

Maybe this guy’s our best bet:

“Black is the new president, bitch”

Pax Arcana

As if I could love Tracy Morgan any more.

Don’t sleep on Derrick Ashong

Pax Arcana

I haven’t seen my friend Derrick since he moved to L.A. a few years back, so it was kind of a trip stumbling across him on this YouTube video dropping some knowledge on behalf of Barack Obama:

If he looks familiar, you may have seen him in the film Amistad. He’s also got a really fun band you should check out at www.soulfege.com or at their MySpace page.

Don’t sleep on Derrick Ashong. Love that kid.

The pirates like Obama

Pax Arcana does not plan on endorsing a presidential candidate publicly (at least until the reanimated corpse of Vice Admiral James Stockdale decides to run).

We do, however, support Lucy the Blog’s goosefacing campaign, and we’re happy to pass along any relevant endorsements we come across. Today we learn that The US Pirate Party has declared its support for Barack Obama, who is some kind of videogame character or something.

OK fine I’ll vote for Obama

We support the US Pirate Party, because it’s on the Internet and its press release seems  grammatically astute. We don’t know what the Pirate Party platform is, because it’s awfully wordy and there’s no pictures at all. Anyway, happy politics!

PPUS Endorses Obama [US Pirate Party]