BLOODY HELL

I know this isn't what you expected when you came to my blog today, but please, LET ME EXPLAIN!!! I tried to change the layout to something really nice, but I realized I would have to fix it up first but in the meantime I decided to put another nice one up. Well friends, that one made my blog explode. It got ALL messed up. So, in the meantime, here's this. 

New Look

A "new" look will be here in the coming days, so bear with me with this substituion layout. I was going to keep this one, but the fact that the square to the left of my post titles is showing "undefined" instead of the date, I'm not going to. This layout I'm putting into place requires a little clean up & maintenance as far as it's code goes, so soon, soon, soon.

Barack Obama's Acceptance of the Nomination - As it Happens

The place is BOOMING with excitement - and his intro is going on now. Shown on camera are Michelle Obama and Joe Biden. The intro is a little too longwinded, but what do you expect? This, leading up to possibly the most influential modern politician. Come on, let's get going. (I'm writing and texting Chiara, who's also watching at the same time.) "Yes we can!" chant begins, lasts about 10 seconds. A biography video is being played. It was amazing. Truly inspirational. Now here's Obama, in the midst of the perfect music, atmosphere, and crowd. Is he smiling? Of course. Is he looking on with a big chest? No. He's applauding back. That's big.

• The stadium is absolutely filled, with people STANDING everywhere. He looks a little taken. He seems to be very emotional and apalled, repeating "Thank you, thank you so much." The applause simply won't end.
• "I accept your nomination for presidency of the United States." Rousing applause.
• Screw the numbers, this is amazing.
• Did you know he is a first generation American, from his father's side? That is TRULY amazing. Living the American Dream, quite literally.
• "We love this country too much to let the next four years look just like the last eight. On November 4th, we will stand up and say eight is enough." Crowd chants "EIGHT IS ENOUGH!"
• A little bit of mudslinging going on, but that's given, and it was perfect. "John McCain has voted with President Bush 90% of the time. I don't know what it says about your judgement when you agree with George Bush's opinions 90% of the time. I don't know about you, but I don't want to take a 10% chance on change."
• It's a big rock Obama threw just now, implying McCain is out of touch, referring to a slip up, where McCain implied he believes a household income of $5 million to be middle class.

• "I don't know what kind of lives John McCain thinks that celebrities lead, but this has been mine. These are my heroes. Theirs are the stories that shaped me. And it is on their behalf that I intend to win this election and keep our promise alive as president of the United States."

  Barack, you're a genius.

• "So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am president. Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it. Unlike John McCain, I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America. I will eliminate capital gains taxes for the small businesses and the start-ups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow. I will cut taxes -- cut taxes -- for 95 percent of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class. And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East."

• "Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Sen. McCain took office." - He choose the perfect venue and subject to bash McCain on; the experience factor. He seems to be implying that McCain may have been around longer, but that Barack is making smarter decisions ALREADY, if that's what you believe.
• Barack is promising that all can afford college. Oh hell, he better hold to these promises, for his sake, and for ours. This directly affects US.
• "And now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons."
• He has the face of a president, unflinching, stern, and staring his opponents in the face.
• "John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the Gates of Hell -- but he won't even go to the cave where he lives." Perfect.
• "Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism."
• "What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you."

"America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. We must pledge once more, to march into the future. Let us keep that promise -- that American promise -- and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess."

-Barack H. Obama

Just like that, it's over. One hour later. It seemed like a few minutes.

Oh, and this is my 200th post.

I thought the roll call was amazing. Sadly, I was mistaken. I hadn't seen anything yet, fireworks and all.

Joe Biden's Speech - As it happens

• Begins with how he'd always dreamed standing in Mile High Stadium, only with a Denver Bronco. Good sense of humor, +2.
• Offers tribute to those that risk their lives making ours better. Touches many - +3.
• Looks EXTREMELY comfortable, +5.
• Makes very strong and concise point telling the public that Barack and hiself are there to represent the people above all, and names several professions/types of people. Ultimately successful. +6.
• Short, consise, to the point speech. A rarity in the political arena, and a long ways away from the longwinded Bill Clinton. +3.
• Though comfortable, he seems to jump in his thoughts a little too much. You could tell the speech was improvised (+2) but he's not all that great at it (-3.) Overall -1.
• View from the other side - "Yeah. It's just a lot of fluff talk." -3.

Score for Joe Biden = 11 x Length of Obama's speech/7 = Obama didn't speak yet.

More than just a town

Before I get into the meat of my post, (sorry vegetarians, maybe I should say the asparagus of my post) I want you to take a look at Michelles blog, at this post. I'm a fan of How I Met Your Mother, and I'm semi-familiar to Les Mis, so it's all good. I just saw a member of the Eisenhower family give a speech at the Democratic National Convention. Let's repeat that again. I just saw a member of the Eisenhower family give a speech at the Democratic National Convention. Why is this such a problem? This is like a paradox. This is like telling me I need to dry myself off with a hose. It's like telling me to brush my dog with yarn. ITS LIKE TELLING CHIARA TO...actually, idk what, and I don't feel like being mean ;-). She's a republican, as is the family, most notably the grandfather, who was the president. Unity is a beautiful thing, as you can see American flags pumping in the air, in rythm to "YES WE CAN!" and "SI SE PUEDE" (Yes they can - kind of a modified yes we can - it carries the same meaning.) Now Bruce Springsteen songs are blasting. This is something we'll talk about when we're 80. "Where were you when Barack accepted the nomination, in front of a crowd of nearly 100,000?"

History & Schedule

Today - We Americans have made history.

                      see how -

                                                             obama-biden

                             We most certainly can.

DNC '08: Denver

Senator Edward Kennedy gave an amazing speech at the DNC last night. Here it is if you missed it, I suggest you watch.

"Yes we can, and finally, yes we WILL!"

Keeping tabs - Schedule inside

I'm back home. Long Island was amazing. I was only supposed to stay for one week, but that soon stretched into four. I spent the entire time with my aunt, uncle, and cousin, who's 24. She's a sister to me, we have so much fun together, and my aunt and uncle are more like my second parents. They have a dog, too. His name is Bentley, but I'll post more about him when I finally get these stupid pictures out of my new phone. I have way too many stories for one post, but here's one of my favorites:

I went out with my aunt and uncle and a few of their friends that I'm close with, too. Their names were Kevin, Lisa, Ginny, Mike, Rob, and Fran. Fran is a TON of fun, she lives down the street. (Maybe I should have started off by saying that my aunt and uncle live on a street of 22 houses. 20 of the houses are very social with each other. They often do big breakfasts outside in the street with all of them together, and they do an annual block party. The chemistry on the street is amazing. All seem to have an open-door policy, and if you're ever bored, just walk down the street and plop yourself in someone's home. It's really awesome.) We all decided we wanted to go to this restaurant in Patchogue (pronounced PATCH-aw-g) which was about 15 minutes away. It was called the Oar House. It was a very nice restaurant, fairly large and on the docks of the Great South Bay. We had a reservation for 9. With a RESERVATION, the wait was roughly an hour. That's all fun though, the adults got drinks from the bar, and I ordered a coke, on the rocks, of course. [[insert eye roll here]] It was all good, Fran and I sat apart from the rest of the crowd and talked while watching the Met game. FINALLY a lady came to us and said our table was ready. Just for kicks, my uncle said emphatically, "But we're not hungry anymore!" The lady looked back, snarled, and continued walking swiftly to show us to our seats. Not even a chuckle. What a stick in the mud. Well, we sat under this awning right off of the docks, on a large round table. I had my back facing the docks. It was a beautiful night. In the distance, fireworks could be heard and the faint white flashes lit up the pitch-black sky. The waitress took FOREVER to finally come to our table and give us menus. I'm not sure what I had to drink (might have been a San Pellegrino, but it doesn't matter, right? We ordered our drinks, and they took about 20 minutes to come. Alright, that's cool. Luckily the ice hadn't yet melted. We order appetizers right after. I ordered a few baked clams. The special of the night was BBQ Shrimp on a corn pancake. Sounds odd, but many people ordered that. After that we got salads. (By this time I was full, and about an hour had gone by.) We got this cool italian bread that you dunk in italian seasoning and olive oil. It was delicious. We ordered food. Fran and myself had the seafood fra diavolo. (Penne pasta in a mild marinara sauce topped with clams, mussels, scallops, and shrimp.) A few people ordered seared tuna, among other things. Every dish except for Fran's and mine came out EXTREMELY cold. One dish of seared tuna was taken off of the menu, and the owner gave us a round of free drinks (dessert for me.) The drinks took 3 days to come. Instead of giving me a dessert menu, they came with a platter of freshly made deserts. I chose the fried cheesecake & bananas flambet, and they prepared a fresh one for me. It was absolutely delicious, but before I get to that, our waitress decided to take a large round platter, and pile all of our dinner dishes on top of it. As she went inside, she dropped the entire platter, we heard porcelain and glass shatter, and 3 very sharp, loud screams. The glass slit the calf of another employee, and it was a very bloody, deep gash. While she was screaming, you could hear the owner shushing her, which I found horrible. They weren't going to take her to the hospital, to avoid a worker's comp case or a lawsuit. My friend Mike called 911, and after asking him a thousand things, the ambulance came. The conversation went a little like this: **M for Mike** 911: Hello, 911, what's your emergency? M: Uh, a lady here in the Oar House in Patchogue just cut her leg on some glass, shes a waitress. 911: How old is she? M: Uh, I don't know, couldn't be more than 24 or 25. 911: What restaurant, sir? M: The Oar House, in Patchogue. 911: What's the approximate location? M: Uh, I'm not sure, I don't live around here, I'm sorry. 911: I can't bring it up in the map... M: Miss, she's bleeding a lot, can't you just trace this call? 911: What's your name, sir? M: Mike *insert last name here* 911: How old are you? M: 43. 911: Where do you live? M: Sayville, NY, but does it really matter? 911: Sir, I can't find the address. **Mike calls the attention of a waitress, who tells him it's the intersections of West Street and Montauk Highway** 911: An ambulance will be there shortly. -END- The ambulance took about 20 minutes. All was good, and she went to the hospital. Our waitress went with her. We decided to leave after that, and we got the bill, which was $450. We double checked it, and it only added up to $405. My uncle argued with a waitress until she let up and let him pay $405. After that, we went to the bar to see Micheal Phelps's last race. I was standing next to Rob, and quietly he said, jokingly, "Oh, I hope he drowns." Everyone in the bar glared at him. I watched the US relay win another amazing one, and we went back to my uncle's house, all of us, for some late night fun, where we played a game involving money. I won. Three times. More about that later. In other news, a certain someone by the name of Jess and I have reconnected. Just for those of you that have been asking incessantly, as it's a little annoying. (You know I'm just kidding, right? About the annoying part. Jess and I actually HAVE spoken.) GOODNIGHT! MORE STORIES ABOUT LI TO COME. My schedule is very messed up:

1. French 1, Merritt
2. English 10H - Brozycki-Smith
3. Study Hall/Earth Science Lab (going to change)/Gym DEF - Matteson
4. Spanish 3 - Murphy WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH (I hope they don't change that)
5. Global 2H - O'Connor WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH
6. Earth Science (Going to change)
7. Studio Art 2/Photography WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH - Manno/Cooper
8. Geometry (Gonna change)

So close

To all of you that care - I've extended my stay in Long Island until the 23rd. I'll definitely be coming home then. I know it's only like 10 days before school at that point, but I really want to hang with you people. Thanks to Javi (for those of you that know who i'm talking about) I'm getting a new cell phone to replace my broken one. He said I can order it Friday, so I expect it Monday or Tuesday. As for the kind of phone, I'm not telling. You'll find out. Who wants to go to school the day before to find our classrooms and say hi to our old teachers? Off to swim

Headaches & Back scratchers

I just came back from a nice walk through the town of Sayville. It's very quaint, much like Warwick. It's a bit smaller in size, but about the same amount of residents, so it's just a little closer together. Main Street was kept very original, as Warwick. It's a hamlet of the much larger division of Islip. So that's what I've done so far today. What have you done? I don't know when i'll be back in Warwick at this point...so yeah. See you guys soon. I'm getting a new phone in the coming days. I can text again. Off to costco.

le piscine

where I'm staying in LI

Busted - A Note of Importance

To all of you that think it's acceptable - it's not. In the past I've had numerous comments misleading readers into a link carrying a virus. This will not be tolerated. Your IPs will be reported and banned. For the safety of the readers - domestic and international (AUSTRALIA!) all comments left will be moderated (approved by me before posting.) To the friends and patrons - keep commenting. Thank you guys. Readership is back 45 yesterday from 6 countries. More from Long Island soon to come.