John McCain and Elder Discrimination

John McCain has come under minimal attack recently for having "senior moments". From referring to the Czech Republic or Slovakia by their name from over 15 years ago, "Czechoslovakia" twice in two days to flipping out on reporters routinely, the man is what those of us who have known elders would call "slipping". This is not a gradual decline.

In the PC primary season, it was said that those of us who spoke the obvious, that he's too frikkin old to be President, were discriminating against him because of his age. He's a war hero!

Yes, it is sad to see someone who was once quite sharp fade into the oblivion of old age. He's not going to be wandering the halls of his hometown tomorrow unsure of his name. He's got some time. But he's way past the age where he can be relied upon to consistently be himself.

I shudder to think of him in a high level diplomatic meeting, flipping out as crotchety old people sometimes do, on a head of state. I imagine him in a Cabinet meeting frustrated because he can't remember a word or a new capital city.

There are plenty of policy reasons not to vote for the guy, but I think his age alone should disqualify him. No, we probably shouldn't mandate a maximum age for Presidential campaigns, of course not. But we should judge on a case to case basis, and in this case, the McCain is too old.

UCLA Football This Season

This is the post I haven't wanted to write. I'm not a football expert, though I have lost my voice plenty of times as a result of a UCLA football game. This will be the first season for UCLA's new coach, Rick Neuheisel. We retained defensive coach DeWayne Walker and added Norm Chow for offense. But we don't have a lot to work with on the field. Our two quarterbacks are injured. We lost a few other players due to injury, a few to other schools, and a few to graduation.

During the Pac 10's media day last week, UCLA was projected to take fifth in the Pac 10 after all is said and done. Don't know that I believe we'll do that well.

In the end, the wins and losses don't really matter this season. There is no magic number of wins that will make me feel that this season was a success. More important is how we play the games. And that will reflect how Neuheisel and his staff do in practice. Already there have been some good signs that the coaches are forward thinking, not just thinking of our season opener against Tennessee (where we will likely be beaten badly) but of the long term. For instance, bruinsnation has a great article about (injured) QB Ben Olson's intense workouts. Neuheisel didn't praise him for those workouts, said they would definitely help him prevent more injuries, but what really matters is going to be how he steps up in the games when the stakes are high. This should be shouted from the rooftops. Practice obviously is important, but all the practice in the world matters little if you choke during the games. If we lose and the other team is just better, fine. But I cannot take too many more awful losses to worse teams (last year's Utah and Notre Dame games, for instance).

My expectations are not for a perfect season. But I will judge this year's season by how we play our games. How the players handle themselves. So far, so very, very good. There hasn't been weird bragging and bravado on the part of the players, and Neuheisel has sounded like the wise coach we all dream of...but I will wait until the season is over to make my judgment.

Bright Eyes, MGMT and Chris Walla

My obsession with Bright Eyes continues, but not unabated. It seems that other than "Lover, I Don't Have to Love", I am only a fan of Bright Eyes when he goes acoustic. This week I have found another non-acoustic masterpiece: "Take it Easy (Love Nothing)". I also bought Home -- Volume 4 this week where Bright Eyes sings with Britt Daniels and Spoon. Big fan of "You Get Yours" (can't find on youtube).

A few weeks ago I bought the whole MGMT album Oracular Spectacular on the strength of "Time to Pretend" and "Electric Feel". There are at least three other songs on the album that I love, but the album does sound oddly similar to the Trainspotting Soundtrack in some parts. The lyrics are poetic yet bitter and almost too simple on most of the songs, but the real joy of the album is the music, not the singing.

Chris Walla of Death Cab's solo album is tempting me lately. I worship "Sing Again" and have been leaning towards buying the whole album. He apparently has produced albums for other big acts such as Tegan and Sara, in addition to producing the Death Cab albums.

Grieving for the Death of a Parent and Friend

My dad died 13 months ago. I am still dealing with it, and one thing that has really helped me is reading up on the specific process of grief that goes along with the death of a parent.

There is a surprising amount of literature about this (five whole books) given that my dad did not die in my childhood. For all intents and purposes, I was an adult when he died (I was 30). Yet, because I do not have a family of my own, I feel as though he died young.

Another thing that has made it hard is our family's lack of religion. There is no comfort of a ritual after death, other than the funeral. I have thus tried to make a ritual for tough days like his birthday and father's day. I eat his favorite cake or meal and focus on the good times.

I am currently reading the book Death of a Parent by Debra Umberson. This book is unique in that it discusses more than just the grieving process. It talks about the transition to a new identity after the death. I am only 30 pages in, but about to learn the different ways the gender of the deceased and the adult child influences the grief after the death.

One thing that has already been said is that for the death of a father, because the relationship was more action oriented (such as my dad and I watching sports games) as opposed to emotionally based, many deal with the death by drinking.

I don't know what I think about this. I don't think that my drinking has increased since the death, in fact I actually have tried to drink less because drinking while sad is usually a recipe for trouble. But my sports watching has definitely gone up, while it was pretty high to begin with... My guess is the author uses drinking as a stand in for action, assuming most people will drink more. While I think the theory of action-related distractions is a good one, I find the supposition that grieving adult children are out on benders to be a strange one. However, overall, I have high hopes for this book and will continue to discuss what I learn.

The Text Message Generation

There is this silly shorthand that has taken hold of older writers who want to describe Generation Y. I missed Generation Y by only a few years. So perhaps I am just the right age to tell the world: I'm an early adapter of text messaging. I started texting in 2003. Even if you could argue that maybe texting started a year or two earlier, that still leaves quite a few formative teenage years for kids who are now graduating from college to have gone without texting.

As such, articles that contain sentences like the following really get to me:

For a generation that came of age texting and instant-messaging, driving two hours to sit at a cubicle outside the boss's office doesn't make sense if there's an office down the street.

A kid who graduated from college in 2008 would've been at the tail end of high school when texting started. Instant messaging did start much earlier, but that's half of the sentence that is incorrect. I would prefer some precision when I'm reading an article about trends for the future. If you can't get the basic facts right, am I really going to be able to count on your analysis and predictions?

Photo by: ee seuu via flickr page, used through Creative Commons.

My First Migraine

Friday night, during my friend's 30th birthday celebration, I had four beers. Nothing particularly out of control about that, had them at the rate of one beer an hour. Three Pacifico's (three stars out of five, very watery and very little flavor) and one Hoegaarden (maybe three and a half stars, although I used to like this beer much more) I woke up Saturday morning feeling like I'd been hit in the head with a sledge hammer. This I am used to, I have about 20 god awful sinus infections a year, so I'm familiar with it. I decided not to take the Excedrin Migraine medicine I usually take when I feel these monster headaches coming on because I planned to meet my friend Caroline on the mall for the OUOCS event later that day, where I would want to drink. I had a lot of water and some caffeine.

By the time I got back from Dim Sum with my college friend Todd, I was feeling nauseous. This is a symptom I never get, but I thought maybe I was hungover.

After several hours on the couch, I realized I was not getting off that couch for quite some time. I reviewed the symptoms for a migraine in my head (via WebMD):

* Throbbing or pulsating headache on one side of your head.
* Moderate to severe headache intensity.
* Your headache getting worse with routine physical activity.
* Nausea, vomiting, or both.
* Sensitivity to light and noise, and sometimes smells.

Definitely had the headache, it was getting worse, I'd closed all the blinds and turned off all the lights, could smell everything within 20 miles, and the nausea was intense.

I've always known that migraines were no joke, and that my father and sister had gotten them. But I thought with the sinus headaches, maybe I'd be spared the migraines too. Of course not. I woke up this morning with the headache still there, and took an Excedrin Migraine again, just in case.

Bad News: The Samsung Blackjack

Today at work I received some bad news: the Samsung Blackjack that I brought to BlogHer for the weekend is now...mine forevermore. I'm not what you would call a fan of the phone.

For the past seven years I have managed to avoid any sort of Blackberry-type device, and with one unfortunate request to borrow one for a conference, now I'm stuck with it. I don't really have anything to compare it with, but I don't like it.

I'm hoping to get an iPhone this week, which I'm sure will blow the Blackjack completely out of the water.