Author: Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

This author has written 1987 articles
Read more about the article This is the moment

This is the moment

[Liveblogging throughout the day, because I want to remember as much of this as possible…]

11:45pm: Wow. President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama. Drop the “elect” and it rolls off the tongue. I’m kind of speechless, actually. It’s all over but the big speech; a speech that, after a string of amazing speeches, will be the biggest speech of Obama’s life. And, perhaps, ours. So far…

11:30pm: Graceless idiots in the audience aside, McCain’s concession speech was a welcome return of the principled statesman I imagined I might be able to cast a reluctant vote for back in the Spring. Palin looked crushed, though, while Almost-First Dude looked ambivalent. In a just world, they’ll slink off to Alaska and not be heard from again, unless, of course, she decides to hold an actual press conference.

10:46pm: Switched from MSNBC to FNC to see what they’re saying and they’ve called Virginia for Obama and the mood of the pundits is rather somber as they’re discussing Obama policies as if he’s already won. Which he has, I guess, but I’m still waiting for it to be called officially.

9:52pm: Obama won New Mexico and is handily winning the Latin vote in Florida by double-digits. Remember, way back during the primaries, that meme about Latinos not voting for a black man and Clinton was the only one who could deliver Florida and Ohio? Hope trumps fear.

9:30pm: OHIO!!!!! This just might really happen…

7:30pm: I can’t stand it anymore! I’m turning on the news.

7:00pm: It hit me earlier this afternoon that, because Salomé and I had registered so recently here in New Jersey, we might not appear on the registered voter list and have to vote via provisional ballot, and that’s exactly what happened. It was more than a little anti-climactic and disappointing, but even as I’m typing these words, it’s settling in…

I JUST VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA
TO BECOME THE NEXT PRESIDENT
OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

That’s the kind of huge my mind just can’t fully grasp at the moment.

(more…)

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Read more about the article Review: The Incredible Hulk

Review: The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk

I skipped The Incredible Hulk in theaters because I was fully expecting to be disappointed, but my son really wanted to see it and Iron Man was unexpectedly good, so we picked up the DVD and I was pleasantly surprised.

Ed Norton isn’t as dynamic an actor as Robert Downey, Jr., unlikely to carry a blockbuster superhero movie on his own shoulders, but he brings the right level of intensity to the Hulk’s conflicted alter ego, Bruce Banner, that combined with some precision casting — and, according to several rumors seemingly backed up by many of the DVD’s bonus features*, exerting influence far beyond his own character — makes for a movie that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Tim Roth and William Hurt shine in their roles, and Liv Tyler manages to escape the confines of the cliché “female interest” as she and writer Zak Penn (who takes an impressive step forward from Fantastic Four and X-Men: The Last Stand) make her character work as the emotional centerpiece of the story.

It’s a well-paced action movie with just the right dash of drama — many of the deleted scenes featuring psychiatrist Dr. Samson are deservedly so — and the CGI Hulk and Abomination are even more impressive than last year’s Transformers triumph, especially their final battle which is arguably the best balls-to-the-wall fight scene put to film in recent years.

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Read more about the article Buyer’s Remorse

Buyer’s Remorse

Happy Halloween
Originally uploaded by bloomfieldguy

Actually, not at all.

It’s been five months since we bought the house, four months since we moved in, and excepting the unexpected $1,000 expense to fix a leak in the living room ceiling coming from the upstairs bathroom, homeownership in the ‘burbs has been quite the enjoyable experience.

Despite the somewhat disappointed tone of my last post, Bloomfield has been a great choice for us for all of the important reasons: we’re very happy with Watsessing Elementary School; my commute into the City isn’t too bad; and our neighbors on both sides are very cool people.

I worked from home yesterday so I could go to the kids’ Halloween Parade and class parties, and also be done early so I could go door-to-door trick-or-treating with them for the first time. (Me with them; my wife had taken them out last year right after school.) Following the recommendations of several people, we cut through Watsessing Park to hit Glen Ridge where many of the houses were elaborately decorated, and people were taking advantage of the comfortably cool weather by sitting outside to hand out candy and goodies.

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Read more about the article Apology Unnecessary

Apology Unnecessary

The K Chronicles: Tales From the Campaign Trail
The K Chronicles: Stories From the Campaign Trail

There’s a bit of a tempest in a teapot happening over at Montclair State University thanks to a “controversial” episode of the Keith Knight comic strip, The K Chronicles, that was published last week in the student newspaper, the Montclarion, and included the word “nigger”.

Twice!

Well, kind of…

Seemingly lost on most of those in a tizzy over the strip (reading some of the comments is just one more reason to not take anything for granted before the election results are in and officially certified) is the fact that Knight was simply repeating a story told by a canvasser in Western Pennsylvania, where conventional wisdom has it that people are simply too racist to support Obama, as evidenced partly by Hillary Clinton’s thumping him out there during the primary.

It’s a story that’s been referenced in several places over the past week or so, and Knight’s take on it was simply addressing what has become one of the more fascinating sub-plots of this election as the economy has taken center stage and helped turn John McCain’s ill-conceived selling of his soul campaign into a sputtering hot mess: Racists for Obama.

“I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times recently.

One Obama volunteer told Politico after canvassing the working-class white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, “I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are … undecided. They would call him a [racial epithet] and mention how they don’t know what to do because of the economy.”

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Read more about the article Morning Cup of Zen

Morning Cup of Zen

I’m currently subscribed to 13 (coincidence) podcasts, three via NPR and a few other NPR-style programs like KCRW’s Left, Right and Center. Of them, my favorite is NPR’s Most Emailed Stories, a daily assortment of “the best of Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other award-winning NPR programs,” based on reader recommendations.

Their “This I Believe” series of essays is often a good read/listen, and yesterday’s episode featured Randy Komisar, the author of The Monk and the Riddle, and a self-described former “typical Type-A: an ambitious Harvard lawyer on the rise who [moved] to Silicon Valley during the go-go years to help start and run a succession of companies.”

I reinvented my work around creativity. I love entrepreneurs and innovation, and I decided to piece together a new role working with entrepreneurs to help them create the future.

This of course was a challenge. I was used to the story being about me, but now it was about them. I was most successful when I faded into the woodwork and my protégés took the limelight.

This seemingly small nuance turned out to be the door that let in the whole world. It was not just making room for the people I worked with, it was making room for everything — my family and friends, a dog’s bark, a warm breeze, the crackle of lightning.

Certain Eastern philosophies interpret the world as a blend of Form and Emptiness. Form is the world we know through our five senses — the world of struggle and suffering. But Emptiness is not what it seems. To the senses it is a void, but when the senses retreat in confusion, Emptiness illuminates with compassion and insight.

In truth we live in both worlds and I believe that it is the ability, the willingness to bridge these worlds until they are one — to engage both mind and heart — that makes this life so precious.

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Read more about the article Election 2008: D&D Style

Election 2008: D&D Style

This might be one of the funniest — if narrowly targeted — spoofs of the election I’ve seen so far:

HILARY: C’mon you guys, I’ve been playing this shit since Gygax was in eighth grade.  Why can’t I be the party leader with the magic sword for once?

MCCAIN: Because no one wants to see you in a bronze bra.

OBAMA: Oh dude, BURRRRRNNNN.

HILARY: SCREW YOU, Grandpa. I will so kick your ass.

MCCAIN: Yeah?  Bring it!  I didn’t spend 3 years in the Abyss with Githzerai hooking my nads up to a car battery to get beat by some Wellesley girl.

HILARY: WHATEVER, you can’t even lift your arms over your head.

RON PAUL:  I brought my Planescape character!

OBAMA: Dude, we’re playing Forgotten Realms.

RON PAUL: I rift in from Sigil!  I’m a Chaotic Neutral Tiefling Barbarian/Monk/Rogue!

MCCAIN: DUDE, that is not even LEGAL.

RON PAUL:  Ronpaul the Barbarian say: suck it!  Guns and abortions and weed for everyone! WHEEE!

PALIN: Hi folks!  Sorry I’m late!  I brought caribou burgers.

HILARY: Who the HELL is this?

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Continue ReadingElection 2008: D&D Style

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