Hello everyone. How are you all? I'm doing great. There is a circus outside my room!

School (and a new job!) has swallowed my life again, resulting in my unplanned hiatus. Lots of exciting things have happend since our last substantial conversation.

I saw this band:

The Fratellis - The Parish at the House of Blues, New Orleans - September 25, 2008

All I wanted from this concert was a crazy dance party. I left both extremely satisfied and probably sweatier than I had ever been in my life.

I went to this beautiful place:

Cheaha Mountain - Alabama

A rough version of the new CD by my favorite band, Anathallo, leaked recently. They said they are ok with fans downloading the link. It's not the final version, but I'm liking what I hear. I can't wait for the release on November 18th! If you're interested in hearing an AMAZING song from the final version, go here and listen to "The River." It's gorgeous, and I'm so excited for the full album + concert I'm going to see. It's been about 2 1/2 years since I've seen Anathallo or since they've released anything new, and I've missed them!

R.E.M. is in like two weeks. Amazing.

I hope everything is well for all of you. Sláinte agus beannacht!

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html

According to that article from Time Magazine, Palin talked to a librarian about wanting to ban books because of offensive language. You know what I have to say to that? **** government censorship. Sorry Mrs. Palin. I was already really iffy about you, but this tips the scales.

I finished the Watchmen graphic novel this weekend... wow, it was so good! The ending was incredible and really raises an interesting dilema. I hear it's going to be changed a little for the movie, though which is dissapointing to me. I have faith that the movie will be good, though. David Hayter co-wrote the script, and I have liked the other Zack Snyder movies I have seen. I'm really banking on this to be basically the best movie ever.

So who watches the Watchmen? No one, in the end. Some people have power, and others don't. While you can never fully trust a powerful person to do the right thing, sometimes you just have to put your faith in the best avaliable option. That's how I feel about the current election. It's easy to be jaded and mistrustful of politicians, and I think that cautious approach is a good thing. After researching it a lot though, I have decided to support Barack Obama for the presidency. There was an event at my school the night of his big speech at the DNC where students got together and watched the speech as a group. I made cupcakes for the event. Check them out:

Ok, so I'm not the world's greatest cupcake maker! They were supposed to resemble the Obama campaign logo, which looks like this:

Luckily I got progressively better at making them. Here is the Watchmenized version of me with one of my better cupcakes:

Luckily they tasted really good!!

http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/adventure/metalgearsolid4/player_review.html?id=601828

I just finished my review. I tried to include all the parts, good and bad, that I felt strongly about, while also trying not to bore people with lots of information they already know. Hopefully I kept it sufficiently short and sweet enough to be interesting but also informative. Hope you enjoy! Feel free to leave comments or critiques if you'd like.