Dejection 2008: Episode One

Yippee! We are over a year and a half away from the election and the Clinton campaign has already started using its typical playground tactics of pulling pigtails then smirking and saying “who me?” when the victims point the finger.

In case you missed it, the big three of Dreamworks SKG, Spielberg, Katzenberg and Geffen, held a 1.3 million dollar Hollywood fundraising event for presidential hopeful, Barack Obama on Tuesday, February 20. In and of itself, this is something of a slap to the Clinton campaign as Hollywood, and Geffen in particular were former FOBs (friends of Bill). I imagine having these entertainment and fundraising powerhouses come out in favor of another candidate was a bitter pill for Her Majesty to swallow.

To make matters worse, David Geffen, the G is SKG and the mogul behind Geffen records, had the following to say in Maureen Dowd’s NYT column on Wednesday: “Everybody in politics lies. But they (the Clintons) do it with such ease, it's troubling”. He went on to say: “Obama is inspirational and he's not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family," and added that Hillary is an "incredibly polarizing figure" who would not be able to bring the country together and other further the divide between red and blue.

The Clinton campaign immediately retaliated, calling for Obama to apologize to the Clintons and foreswear from using personal attacks on the campaign trail. Hillary’s communication director Howard Wolfson said: “If Senator Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money” Effectively, he's calling Obama a hypocrite.

Hillary herself took a smirky, smarmy, “I’m intellectually superior that thou” approach and claimed to a crowd of supporters that she was “above” using such back alley dirty tactics and mud slinging and only wanted to “talk about the issues and what is important to America.”

Barack, a man seemingly possessed with common sense and a bit of wisdom, logically responded:
“It's not clear to me why I'd be apologizing for someone else's remark.”

Ooh! I’m already starting to swoon over this guy. He's dreamy!

All I’ve heard since Bush took the White House is how they (the Bush administration) can’t abide criticism and work to silence opposition (and they do, I may return to the subject of Scooter Libby someday, cmon dude, you know you did it, just fess up) but Hillary seems to believe that her opponent should have some sort of magical-Obama power over American voters and should be able to render them mute with a wave of his hand. What does Obama have to do with what Geffen thinks? Isnt Geffen an American citizen with the right to say what he thinks? Now if Geffen was in support of cat-rape, child-tossing and the beating of the elderly, then yeah, maybe he should return the money (because Im strongly anti cat-rape). But Geffen calling the Clinton’s liars? Please! If anything we should chide him for stating the obvious. "oooh! You figure that out all by yourself Davey???"

Did you catch this one? In April of 1995, while she was First Lady (lady my ass), Hillary had a chance to meet Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Hillary then proceeded to tell reporters that she had been named after the famous mountain climber because her mother had read an article about him while she was pregnant and liked the name.

Ahem…I’ll save you the trouble of looking it up…Hillary was born in 1947 and Sir Edmund reached the peak in 1953.

Does lying come easy to the Clinton’s? You bet!

I don’t know about you, but when Bill wagged that finger at me on television, looked me straight in the eye and said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”. I think I vomited in my mouth a little bit. Don’t you every wag that dirty Lewinsky-stained finger at me and act like you are my moral and intellectual superior! How jaded do you have to be to incorporate cigars into your…ah, but I digress.

Lets get back to Hillary. Remember her Senate race fundraising scandal? Peter Paul is a lawyer, entrepreneur and former partner of Stan Lee (much to Lee's chagrin). He is an all around sleeze bag who’s been convicted of fraud and drug related offenses (including trafficking). Well, guess who’s his buddy? That’s right. Paul raised over 1 million dollars for her Senate campaign, but when news of Paul’s background leaked out to the press, Hillary did the “right thing” and returned the $2000 contribution Paul made to her campaign. Somehow, Hillary reported that Stan Lee donated $250000 to her campaign, which her fervently denies, while the actually fundraiser only donated 2k? C’Mon!
Im not even going to get into Whitewater. "oh we cant find those files, oh wait, they were in this closet the whole time"

What bothers me about this latest Obama/Clinton tangle is that the Clinton campaign is back to its old tricks and daring us to call them out. They continually make incursions into the neutral zone to get the other side to flinch and respond. When they finally do, the FOH’s and FOB’s start howling and pointing fingers and accusing the other side of resorting to bad behavior.
(I wasn’t sure if I was going for a football or Star Trek analogy there so I just gave up on it)

If you are thinking about voting Clinton, spend some time looking at the Presidential pardons Bill gave out like Halloween candy to his billionaire crony buddies before he left office. You KNOW what a Clinton in the White House means. A vote for Hillary is not a vote for change, but a return to politics as usual and more campaign contributors with plots in Arlington National Cemetary.

The argument that “its time for a woman in the White House” makes me nauseous. Im all for a woman President, just not HER! ANYONE but her. Don’t be fooled either. Their campaign strategy is to make this about her being a woman. I’m already hearing story after story about “Is America ready for a woman in the White House? Lets see how far we have come with the next election.” People, a vote against Hillary is not a vote against woman. No more so than a vote for someone other than Obama is a vote against African Americans. We need to elect the best person possible. The last time we voted for someone “different” in order to make a “change”, look who we got. A guy who had to have his daddy get him every job he ever had and failed at everything he ever tried to do. If you want Pat Robertson as president, then go ahead and vote for Hillary in 2008. The backlash in 2012 will be monumental. Personally I blame Clinton and his trailer park antics for a madman loser like Bush getting elected. (I may talk about that in depth at later date)

Just think about things before supporting any candidate. Spend as much time with this decision as you would choosing a quarterback for your fantasy football team. Actually…spend more time! Think about what the candidates are saying and why they are saying it. Don’t let them get away with their typical two-faced re-interpretation of events

I'm not sure Ill be voting Obama. I like him and like what he stand for, but he's just so inexperienced that it makes me nervous. And if I can say that about him, where does that leave Hillary? Ill continue to follow the campaigns and save judgement for the end. At the moment, Edwards is actually looking pretty good. Ill discuss McCain at a later date.

Oh by the way, his birth name is William Jefferson Davis Clinton. He was not named for Thomas Jefferson, but the president of the Confederate states. How’s that for rewriting history?

GenCon Madness

A lot of people have said a lot of things about the housing/hotel reservation process for GenCon Indy 2007, but I thought I would share my own experience, just to show perhaps another perspective on the situation.

This will be the first year I attend the massive gaming convention held in Indianapolis. I’m really not much of a live-action gamer these days. Most of my pursuits of this manner are of the computer gaming variety. However, my old gaming group attended en masse last year and it sounded like it wasn’t too bad. Most all are returning this year so I thought, “what the hell, it’ll be a good chance to hang out, play some games, drink some beer…”

I want to pause a minute just to add that my most frightening nightmare is a room of shoulder-to-shoulder men ages 14-45, mostly unwashed, donned in “aren’t-I-cool” t-shirts (you know what I mean), attempting to outdo each other in their knowledge of obscure sub-culture trivia. Dude, if you quote some throw-away dialogue from Blake’s 7 to me, don’t expect me to act like I know what the hell you’re talking about or show you any measure of respect. You females better stop smiling too. We ALL know EVERY line from every Monty Python movie, please stop quoting the Holy Grail. (Flying Circus quotes are still ok…but strangely enough, not the Spam song). Oh, and Kes was NOT the coolest Star Trek character ever and Kirk can kick Picard’s French ass any day. Whew, I think my blood pressure just dropped a few points, guess that had been bottled up for some time…..

At any rate, in terms of registration and hotel reservations, I was pretty much told what to do by the group of people I was going to hang out with at GenCon. I trusted them and their information and to be honest, I didn’t feel like scouring the GenCon website for registration information. I meant to register or "buy the badge" or whatever on Sunday, but I forgot. It happens. Mrs. Greyjoy wanted to go shopping so we spent most of the day driving around town. By the time we got home I was tired and it was almost time for the Grammies. I was pretty pumped up about the Police reunion so I was a tad distracted. Finally, I recalled there was something I was supposed to do about 6am the next morning. I jumped on the computer while still wet from the shower and “bought the badge”. To be honest, this wasn’t the most clear-cut process in the world either. But I figured it out with my oversized brain and succeeded where many of you other lesser beings would fail. When I finished, lo and behold, there was a link asking me if I wanted to continue on and reserve a hotel room. Nervously, but with a certain sort of curious titillation, I followed the link. I found out I was able to reserve a room, so I did so and, quite pleased with myself went on my merry way. Although I had been told by a gaming buddy that room reservations didn’t start until 12 that day, I figured my buddy got it wrong or the time had been changed or I had misunderstood...whatever.

At any rate I emailed my group and told them they could reserve their rooms early. That’s when I first learned about the "glitch" (or THE Glitch as it has now entered into sub-culture lore). One of my buddies, who will be a vendor at GenCon, emailed me and let me know my reservation was probably invalid. “Invalid!?” I thought. “As invalid as your reputed heterosexuality.” and with that I began calling and emailing people in the frenetic fashion that only a solid middle-level, cubicle bound, bureaucratic administrator can muster. Well, as it turns out it was a darn good thing I mentioned it to my buddies AND that I had some friends "in the know". Apparently the “Glitch” allowed people to start registering at 12 midnight and not 12 noon as they attended. (Lets be honest here, this isn’t a glitch but more evidence that Americans have too much lead in their diets, not altogether unlike the “conversion error” that led to the loss of the 125 million dollar NASA orbiter, in other words, someone frocked it up). When it was discovered that some people had registered early, there was an outcry of “unfair!” from the gaming community, and the admins of GenCon decided, in the interests of “fairness” to wipe clean all reservations that had occurred, then restart the process at 2pm. This is the moment I began to get grumpy. Now, I didn’t receive official notification about the cancellation until 2:40! Now, explain to me how it’s "fair" that people weren’t notified until well after registration resumed that their original reservations were cancelled. This part is what really makes me laugh. This was tacked to the bottom of my confirmation email:

“A kind note about calling the hotel "just to be sure": Please do not call your hotel "to be sure" until after August 8, 2007. Please understand that processing your reservations from the Housing Bureau into the Hotel system will take a few days. Rest assured that if you have received a confirmation number already from the Housing Bureau, the hotel will honor your booking. Thank you for your consideration.”

Ha! Apparently not.

Just to add more fuel to the fire, it also turns out that the registration site is blocked at my workplace! Luckily the guy I was going share a room with was home and did it for us. And yes...I should have checked beforehand, but it never occurred to me. From postings on the GenCon forums, many other’s were also blocked from the site at work. Now, how is this “fair?”

What really started to get me angry were forum posts that were sort of accusing people who got in early of either duplicity or stupidity. Here is one post:

I got home at 12:10, fired up the laptop and tried to get in. Of course, that's when I find out it's been moved to 2pm. Then I go to the message boards and find out it's because a group of people took advantage of a glitch in the system??? *grrrrr*
Everyone's known for weeks, if not months that registration was at 12pm eastern. *shrug* Moving it to 2pm sucks for a good number of people who tried to take care of things over their lunch hours. I feel for everyone, I really do. But anyone who registered 12 hours in advance has no room to complain, since they knew it was a glitch in the system.”

This is only a sample, believe me there were plenty more. I can say with complete honesty that I wasn’t trying to "exploit" or “take advantage” of anyone or anything. I just wanted to register and go to Indy to hang out with friends and play games. I have to imagine most of the 200 or so people who got in early didn’t have any mischievous intent or thought they were "getting over" on the system. In fact, there was another thread on the forum that showed that many of those early birds simply read “12:00” and assumed “midnight”. As for railing against those who were angry and complained out their (our) registrations being cancelled…well…all I can tell you is that life isn’t fair. If you need mommy to cut the cake in equal portions for everyone so that your little sister doesn’t get two crumbs more than you, well then, fine. Vote for Hilary and let the fairness reign supreme. What you are missing is the fact that a registration is a legal contract that bind two parties into upholding their respective ends. Here’s another little angry gem:

“That kind of stuff happens, and I'm not really mad about it. Because, seriously, there is no debate here. This has been posted and confirmed for how long that the housing goes live at NOON today not midnight last night.
So those saying they'll be 'pissed off' because their reservation is wiped out when they already KNOW that midnight was not the correct time, is just absolutely ignorant. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but I am always amazed at people who don't think rules apply to them. They think 'rules' are just there for someone else's enjoyment I guess. Like people who decide to cut in line at amuzement parks. What, do you have some bonus perk on life that the rest of us don't? Do you have some 'free ticket to ride' that only you get to have?
Sorry folks, but to think anything other than the registrations getting wpied and done properly, and AS stated in the beginning, is just plain stupid. And to hear the people trying to justify why a computer mistake should mean they should get some complimentary registration before the rest of the world is comical at best.
Could we maybe use just a BIT of common sense? Wow. And here I thought gamers at least had some good mental skills. Funny how people can let you down on a daily basis!

Wow, that’s some deep rooted anger. My being upset doesn’t really have as much to do with the fact that I didn’t get a registration, it’s really more about the whiney, cry-baby “lets play fair” attitude that resulted in a decision that blanked over 200 people’s registrations. People, I might add, who did nothing wrong. Dudes and dudettes, I don’t “live” for this kind of stuff. I don’t spend hours upon hours on the GenCon forums and websites. I just wanted to go to have fun. I really don’t care about you, what Yu-gi-oh card you stole from your little brother, how many times you saw Star Wars or who you think the next captain of the Enterprise should be. If this is so much of a disaster in terms of organization that I have to reserve my room within 30 minutes of registration being open or get left out in the cold…well…this will be my last year.

As for what to do next year, I don’t know what to tell you really. I would suggest that the organizers look outside of their organization (organization! Ha! See how I made a funny?) at other examples and ask for help in designing their registration scheme. Of course, I realize this is somewhat unique in that they seem to use their own system for managing reservations, but I can say that Ive gone to the Neuroscience conference for the last 4 years and not ever had a problem (30-32k attendees). If I do this or anything else like it again, I will gladly pay full price to reserve the room ahead of time. If I had to summarize this experience, I guess I would classify it as just a tad bit...well...unprofessional. Maybe that’s harsh. "In need of some polishing" might be better, but in light of the language used in the posts above….well…..