I like to do things with my time. More specifically, I don’t like sitting around watching TV every day. Because of this, I like to go to things like Music and Movies in the Park, or to sing karaoke, or play bar trivia, or any other number of fun, actively social things that I like to do. Soon I will join a bowling league.

But there’s more I want to do. Here is where you come in (maybe). There are two eccentric sports that interest me and that are available to participate in in the Twin Cities. The first is the Twin Cities Unicycle Club. I mean, how awesome would it be to learn how to ride a unicycle and then compete? And you get to unicycle in parades! I’m all for that.

The other option is curling. Apparently St. Paul has the oldest curling club in the nation.  A friend of mine suggested that amateur curlers (is that what they’re called?) could rise up pretty quickly, considering there aren’t many people playing this sport. I’m skeptical, but I think it’d be a badass sport to play regardless.

So yes. Those are my options. A lot of this will depend on cost, but I’m leaning towards curling at the moment. Who knows, maybe I will do both.

So, here is what happened this week:

Tuesday: Jesse isn’t running. Instead, Dean-o is. This makes me hope that Chuck, from the Mihos campaign,  will be coming out to Minnesota to do some work on his behalf. That would be pretty cool.

Wednesday: I got a twitter account. I hate myself for this, but I love it so much already.

Thursday, had to drive to Monticello via Plymouth to help my mom pick up her motorcycle.  Proceeded to get lost for an  hour, which robbed me of time to play bar bingo with the pops. I then played bar bingo with the pops. He won three times! Nearly $100!

Also saw Dark Knight on Thursday. Way intense. That’s the only word.

Today: I’m sitting in a library using their internet, blogging, and putting off getting the phone numbers for some temp agencies.

Yeah, twitter is pretty cool.

BAH. I’ve been hit… in the rear by a car for the second time in my life. (This is actually only kind of true: I’ve been in cars that have been rear-ended while someone else is the driver, and there was one time a car hit me because it didn’t get out of the way when I was driving behind it on 394. But that’s different.) BOTH instances involve Prii. The first was three summers ago, when I bolted into the street and was hit by a Prius who was paying attention and actually slowed down quite a bit, mitigating my injuries. In fact, I made $25 off the incident when I published my (hilarious!) account of it in Boston’s alternative weekly, The Dig. They have since taken it off their website. In fact, the Prius I drive now is named for the street on which that Prius hit me in Boston: Wigglesworth.

But today, I was at the intersection of Grand and Hamline in St. Paul waiting at a read light, when KABLOOMERS, destrucción! I was hit by a van, going very quickly. Goddamnit.

First, the van hit me square on, at (I’m guessing) about thirty miles per hour (the speed limit of the street). Unsatisfied, the van lunged forward again (after being jostled backwards from hitting me… in the rear), turned, and hit me again trying to drive away. Actually, he drove through my car, destroying my right break light/turn signal/bumper.

I called the police, waited, and then an hour later called the police again. Where the hell are the cops to help me out? I guess St. Paul has “a lot of emergencies,” as the police station lady put it, but honestly. Over an hour? I took them approximately an hour and fifteen minutes to get to me, to make a five-minute police report. Honestly.

But, I’m fine, my car is covered by insurance (minus a $500 deductible, LAME), I have a loving mother who is willing to let me drive her pickup truck, AND a bike so I don’t have to drive my mother’s pick up truck.

The nice thing right now is that I still have a job and I’m still living on my own, out in the world. BUT, y’know, that’s now.

My boss told me a few weeks ago that TLC only has money to keep me on half time through the end of July, and maybe into August for a while, maybe. I knew it was only temporary, but still. This blows. I do have some networking conversations set up and some applications in, but, you know, there’s not really an economy any more.

House sitting has made this a little better. I’m living close to work, I’m living close to a lady, I’m living close to my friends and bars. But I’m living this far away from my cat, and it sucks. I miss my cat.

So, basically the situation is this: I have a job right now, a place of my own right now, and it’s warm out right now. I have no way of guaranteeing that I will have any of these thing in a few months. It is hard on the brain, let me tell you.

This was a blog for political this and that for my friend (”tolchock”) and me. But, that didn’t last very long, so I bought out his half (actually whole, because he paid the up front stuff) for a twelve-pack of Newcastle and now it’s my personal blog. Which is OK, because I came up with the name and made the image from which the banner graphic was designed.

And yes, I used to post on here as Land Shark. The secret is out: my actual name is Art. I am not a shark.

Sometimes I will say things.

So, getting started, a poll: should I get a Twitter account, and why?

Listening to all the coverage of the election, something came up about John McCain being the Republican standard-bearer and I have found myself playing out that idea and kind of liking it. This led to the inevitable wondering: what if John McCain doesn’t actually get elected? Will he have the same impact? Probably not.

Think about it. The Republicans, as much as there is a “The Republicans,” really dislike John McCain, but they are, for now, stuck with him. McCain is America’s favorite Republican since Ike, and with good reason: he (relatively, generally) puts party politics aside. I heard a piece about him on the radio this morning, as a matter of fact, saying he’s from an era before the hyper-partisan politics we have today. And Obama is from an era (namely now) sick of the hyper-partisan politics era. Where Obama is post-partisan, McCain is, generally, pre-partisan. To round out the campaign, Hillary lands herself right in the middle: she came of political age right in the middle of the hyper-partisan 90s and 00s.

But, McCain. Let’s say he wins it all in November. I know a lot of people say electing another Republican would send an awful message to the world, and there is some legitimacy to that as a point to be argued. However, McCain is as diametrically opposed to how Bush is as he possibly can be while being within the same party.

Consider that for a moment.

McCain would take the Republicans in the direction many of them (secular, business-minded conservatives and basically all non-neocons) have longed for the party to go for the past 15 or so years: to the personal liberty, small government vision of Barry Goldwater, not the neo-con, no-tax-and-spend Republicans of late.

This is not likely to happen if a Democrat wins. I suppose it’s possible someone else in McCain’s mold could surface in the leadership of the party after a Republican loss, but more likely it will be someone like Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee.

Or maybe we just elect Obama and flowers will spurt forth in the desert and all will be right in the world.

The absolute definition of irony.

The headline reads: “U.S. sees planning gaps in Iraqis’ assault on Basra.” The US has, in its always positive, never-disapproving way, wondered if the Iraqi government’s foray into Basra was done as it should have been. The International Herald Tribune says:

But interviews with a wide variety of U.S. and military officials also suggest that Maliki overestimated his military’s abilities and underestimated the scale of the resistance. The Iraqi prime minister also displayed an impulsive leadership style that did not give his forces or those of his most powerful allies, the U.S. and British militaries, time to prepare.

I’m not a psychologist, so I’m wondering: what is the definition of transference again?

I will say I’m kind of disappointed this didn’t turn out the way people had hoped. As frustrated as I am with the whole fact that we went to war in the first place, I don’t want to see America (or Iraq) fail. I have no secret hope for America to lose the war because it will somehow put Bush in his proper place in history—I genuinely want things to go well. But, as we all know and have known, that is but a pipe dream, and this story—the fact that even Iraqis can’t figure out how to control the multi-faceted Iraqi insurgency—is just one more bit of evidence to support that fact.

Sure am glad there isn’t a draft.

I came across a really cool article in Architect Magazine via Planetizen.com recently. The basic premise of the article is that if you took all the infrastructure projects that are backlogged in our country, the total cost of doing them all would come to about $1.6 trillion. So, Architect Magazine asked about that many people how they think that money would best be spent.

And believe me, there is no shortage of diverse perspective. This article has something for everyone: pro-walking, pro-transit, pro-roads, pro-government, pro-privatization, pro-flavor-of-the-month, pro-time-tested-ideas. But I didn’t read this article with an eye out for my own opinion; I read it to take in the gamut of perspectives. I suggest you do the same—it’s a very enlightening read.

Being a forced suburbanite, the theme that appealed to me most in these missives was the idea of rejecting suburban sprawl in favor of denser development. Many of the commentaries reject the auto culture to one extent or another, which is fine. I personally love driving (especially given my hybrid car!), but I love it as a choice, not a necessity. The idea of mixed-use development like St. Louis Park is seeing appeals to me greatly and is offered up in more than one place in this article.

I don’t agree with everything here. I do, however, enthusiastically endorse the article as a whole, if for no other reason than for the light it shines in all the darkest corners on the ideascape of infrastructure planning.

I came across this quote, and it made me think:

“The best brain and the surest brawn of the nation is found here (in the Midwest) and it should be organized into one mighty moral, material and patriotic force to overthrow paternalism and plunder, and regenerate politics and the Republic.”

This is from Minnesota’s former Governor John Johnson (1905-1909). It may sound like regional pride over any actual fact, but there actually is something to this, as I think about it. If we take “brains and brawn” to mean in the political sense, then the people of the Midwest have shown over and over again that they are indeed the smartest and strongest (or, at least the most cantankerous and, well, libertarian). The proof of this is our voting record.

Minnesota has had one of the only third-party governors in generations, is home to the strongest third party in the nation, and even one of its two major parties is part third-party (the Farm-Labor part of “DFL” was a socialist party—shock of shocks—during the depression). But, it’s not just Minnesota. Wisconsin and Iowa both have very strong tendencies to vote for third party or independent candidates, especially Libertarian Party candidates.

I don’t really intend to draw a correlation between intelligence and voting record. However, we are much more skeptical here in flyover country, and that makes for much more interesting politics.

NOTE: I have a bunch of statistics and more interesting anecdotes I will provide, but I don’ t have immediate access to them. Soon.

There’s a good primer in the Twin Cities Daily Planet on cap and trade carbon trading systems. I knew John McCain was an environmentalist, and given he’s a Republican it’s common sense that he’d support a market-based approach to this problem, although I hadn’t concsiously registered the fact and put two and two together. Apparently Barack and Hillary are also cap-and-traders, which pleases me greatly.

The one thing about the global warming debate I have never understood is why it has to hinge on global warming. Fossil fuels are bad for countless reasons. Y’know, even if global warming was a hoax, who cares? Oil will run out. Soon. And, in a morbid sort of way, I’m excited to see it happen in my lifetime.

A few thoughts on the candidates before Super Tuesday:

John Edwards: Why did he wait until his concession speech to mention that he is the son of a mill worker?

Rudy Giuliani: Waste of a human being.

Mittens: His campaign is slipping silently into death, and that’s fine with me.

Ron Paul: Can’t I just vote for your position on no taxes on tips?

Obama and Hillary: Maybe they’ll make out at the debate tonight.

Ralph Nader: He doesn’t get invited to parties, that’s why he runs for president.

The Central Corridor project—running an LRT line between the downtowns—is at a crucial crossroads (no pun intended… for some reason). There are two issues that, to me, seem to be the most hotly debated: the tunnel under the intersection of Washington and University Aves near the U of M campus and whether or not to extend the line all the way to the Union Depot in St. Paul.

According to the news story on MPR’s website, the price tag sits at about $1 billion right now. But, if they can find a way to get it down closer to $840 million, the federal government will foot half the bill (Pawlenty expects this, too.)

That’s a $160 million difference. Now, I haven’t been able to find an actual budget projection document, but the estimated cost of the tunnel is $155 million—a mere $5 million off from the government’s comfort figure. I’ve spent a lot of time at and around that intersection, and yes, it’s a terrible thing. It’s crowded and confusing. When it was being worked on this summer, that made things even worse. Imagine how uprooting the whole thing to install a tunnel would go—all for a minor (and expensive) convenience. Plus, there’s the oft-forgotten 10 th St. bridge (which has not noticeably increased in traffic since the 35W collapse, even though it is the next bridge over) the line could run over if it was decided the Washington Ave route is just too much.

On the other hand, I see the extension of the line all the way to St. Paul’s Union Depot as a bit of a sacred cow. According to Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega, “Dakota County, Washington County, all their future planning or projection of lines or corridors of transportation they would like to see regardless of the mode link, especially if it’s light rail, to the depot.” To stop the line short of the Union Depot is not only unfair; it’s irresponsible. Putting off until tomorrow what can be done today is the worst mantra of them all—especially considering the history of drawn out funding battles for public transit. Thus, postponing building the full length of the line puts at risk not only that small bit of track, but also the integration (or, perhaps, existence) of a broader region-wide transit system.

An ancillary issue is whether or not to dig up University more than laying down the track requires in order to do otherwise-needed maintenance. This is pretty smart planning, and normally I would not give any qualification for my support of a plan like this. However, considering it is likely to put federal dollars for this project at risk, I’d say it’s only a sound idea if the money can come from a different pot and not count towards the $840 or so million. Creative accounting is needed here to prevent probably higher costs to do this in the future.

Does no one else see the dissonance inherent in playing Einleitung from Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra at a Huckabee rally? Seriously.

Hillary Clinton as tragic figure? Tossed aside by an egomaniacal husband, tossed aside by a capricious electorate for a younger and prettier love affair?

I guess she’s a Senator and exceptionally privileged, and maybe you can’t feel too bad for her, but in fact I think you can. Station has no bearing on the emotional toll of public and private drama.

Hmm.

I wish I could fall behind Obama, and I hope that he does well as President, but I’m pretty sure he’s just going to be a huge let-down. I don’t mean to say that I endorse Clinton, only that I am suspicious of Obama’s purported transformative abilities - and the country’s need for such magical skills. That, ladies and gents, is the difference between Hope and Experience.

And gets all of his ideas from me. You heard it here first.