Even closer

2 minutes now.

Thomas.

Not long now

Less than 10 minutes left for 2008. For as long as a year seems, it seems like less than 10 minutes itself.

Thomas.

2008 – II

May. The US political race, for those of us backing Obama, had come to an end. Except Clinton was still trying to do something. Obama pulled a (then) surprising victory in North Carolina, and people started to think about state-based campaigning for the presidential election (finally). Demographic make-ups, geographical location, and state-based politics started taking focus, with Obama being the candidate ahead. Then the thought of VPs started to hit the Democrats – was Clinton campaigning for that spot? Who else might get it? Would it bring any states into play? Democrats, like Republicans, started thinking ahead – VPs, the election. Democrats couldn’t get over the problem that had slowly grown in weight of Michigan and Florida – what would they do about the stripped delegates? The authorities were adamant that they not be counted, the Clintons that they be reinstated in full, and Obama had no comment at the time.

Towards the end of May, Obama had the majority of pledged delegates and now the superdelegates would decide the race. Clinton promised she would stay in it to the end – a mark of respect to her voters (she said). Really, we now know that it’s because she had plunged enough money into her own campaign that she was in big debt. This would be an important point in removing her from the race next month. Obama made a presidential-esque speech the night he won Oregon (and the most pledged delegates) and, with more votes and delegates than his opponent, rested his case. That case wouldn’t be fully solved until June, which at the time made for some tense and anxious supporters.

Somehow I was able to pay attention to all this, even as I ploughed on through my mountains of university work. I look back, in which I probably had the most (by number of assignments, not number of words – that would come next semester) assignments due in a month – that month being May. I was very eager to get through them, as I had other things to do – get a head-start on a take-home exam I would have that was due a week before my holiday; get ready for my holiday; work as much as I could for the extra money. In what became a trademark of mine, even when the university work started to pile up, I didn’t cut back on my work hours. I usually just found extra hours in a day by staying up well past midnight. It worked well enough, scoring my best results for a semester – a 99 in one subject. I wouldn’t know this, however, until I got back from my US trip in late July. Funnily enough, it didn’t weigh on my mind as much as results have in the past.

I managed to sort out most of the issues that had come up in my life the previous month, so I was able to actually have a bit of a care-free time. It certainly wasn’t the end of all my problems, not by a long shot, but I was able to have some enjoyable time with all of my friends. My friendship with Diana, who lives in New York, went from strength-to-strength in the wake of the news I was headed over there soon-ish. This was after some troubled times, so I was glad I have her around. The holiday was starting to weigh on my mind a fair bit as well – I hadn’t fully thought it through when I booked it up, and now I was coming to terms with it.

In Australia, we had our budget handed down to us with little surprise. Liberal leader Brendan Nelson’s budget reply was good (for deliver and attack, not for policy and critique). Most of it had been accounted for in the election the previous year, or released from February onwards when the Rudd/Swan ‘razor gangs’ started to go through the Liberal’s spending patterns. Also here, there was some talk about the need for an Australian space program. Jim Belshaw and I had a small debate on this. It wasn’t so much the debate proper that I want to note (as interesting as it was for me), rather that it was around then I started to think of people I had met through blogging (primarily Jim and Ninglun) as this strange sort of e-friend. Having never met them, I still liked them as much as I did those people I see on a day-to-day basis.

Something else that actually made me stop and think, and probably changed me a little, was the realisation that the students I’ll be teaching – some of them will have been born close enough to September 11 that they will have no understanding of a world without terrorism, a war on it, and all sort of rhetoric that I can acutely remember not being around one day, then suddenly appearing wherever you looked. It made me modify the way I thought about some things – all for the better. It would inadvertently help for the next semester’s work in my education subjects.

In world news, the Chengdu quake in China killed some 69,000 people – and the call for help around the world was met with warm reception. Cyclone Nargis, on the other hand, that killed some 133,000 Burmese, had all sorts of political problems. Efforts to help were initially declined by the local dictatorship, and eventually only partial assistance would be let in. The Nepalese monarchy was voted out by their national assembly after 240 years as the head of state in May too. These three events were examples for everyone to see: of the world community coming together, of democracy still at work, yet that the problems of the world that are still rife. On a lighter note, great female tennis player Justine Henin retired from the sport – notable because she was my favourite player on either circuit. Women’s tennis really did take a nose-dive after this.

June, and the end of university semester was the thing that occupied  my mind second-most. I got everything done, did my take-home, and had a couple of weeks to work extra. But nothing mattered all that much – I was too excited because the first thing on my mind was that I was flying out to the US on the 27th, 4pm. I was productive on my blog, I was productive at university, and I worked a head – all because the excitement and jitters about my holiday kept me going. Whatever reprieve I had of problems in May was gone through June, so I was anticipating the holiday more than ever now. It was a chance to get away and clear my head. Problems with some of my friends, and that girl, kept on popping up. Though they got me a card at work on my last day, which gave me hope that things would resolve themself with time. I thought the holiday would be exactly what I needed, and with each passing day got more excited.

I would leave, and the first few days of the tour would fall into June – which can be read on the Legend of the Moustache page above.

Worth a little mention: I took my grandfather to Star City for his first time in June. He enjoyed it (winning some over $100 on a pokie), I enjoyed it (winning some $300 on blackjack); I finally, after some months absence, caught up with St. Ives before my trip; I had a lecture from Bob Carr in my Australian Social History subject (I was planning to blog about this at the time, but forgot, and never go around to it. I recorded it, and will upload it somewhere); I attended the funeral of a member at my golf course, a regular customer, and a genuinely good guy in  the week before I left for my trip.

Politics, and in the US the Democratic primary finally came to an end – Clinton saw out that last states and went on to endorse Obama after suspending her own campaign. The pledge, behind the doors, was that Obama’s millions of donors would be asked to help Clinton get out of debt, while Clinton’s handful of fat-cat donors would be asked to support Obama. He really didn’t need Clinton’s money launders, but it was all part of the deal. John McCain, by now, had been such a non-register on the political radar that when he finally emerged to take up the fight, he had no interest, no popularity, and no platform. Obama had the upper hand of 4 months of press coverage, national exposure, and a well-defined platform because of Clinton’s attacks. We should have seen it back then, but we didn’t: Obama had an easy path to walk to victory. Pundit’s focus then turned to Obama/McCain national polling. People with any real knowledge of the race, and who had pegged an Obama win back in 2006, turned attention to state polling. This would be the difference between a tight race or a confident Obama victory.

To make things a little more interesting for myself, I took an interest in the Virginia senate race, and backed Mark Warner for a win there. Also on the US political front, after being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Ted Kennedy had surgery which was reported to be successful. And Michigan and Florida were finally sorted out for the Democrats: half-count for their original delegates, which gave Clinton no advantage (and rightly so).

The Australian cricket team was playing the the West Indies, and while they were performing well enough, I took the time to warn about the problems we would face in the medium to long term if actions weren’t taken. Funnily enough, yesterday Australia lost a test series at home for the first time in some 16 years. I don’t want to say that I told you so, but what I suggested back in June, to fix our cricket team, would have gone a long way to ensuring we didn’t lose the series here. I’m shattered to see it happen.

Around the world, and only listed first due to the amount of times I heard about it at work (and I did watch all the rounds) Tiger Woods wins the US Open with a ruined knee. It was a display of technique and sporting achievement that ranks among the best. “President” Robert Mugabe was “reelected” with “85%” of the vote in a second round in Zimbabwe. And still this would not settle the problems of the election, nor the country. Taking a leaf from Kevin Rudd, Canadian Prime Minister apologises to their native population for their residential school system. And Bill Gates retires as the Chairman of Microsoft, after 30 years in the position. Computers are no better with him gone.

Australian politics, and the implementation of the budget was the big thing – and getting it through the senate. That was no easy task, and wouldn’t be completely resolved for months. The Coalition took issue with some new taxes and not increasing some benefits. All stunt that would be exposed as such in due time. The other big story was that Australian troops in Iraq, 550 combat troops, would be withdrawn, fulfilling another of Rudd’s campaign election promises. While not of huge importance to the situation on the ground, it was very symbolic in Australia as probably the final step needed to signify moving on from the Howard years.

July, and majority of the month was taken up with my holiday – to the 28th. For accounts of it, again, go to the Legend of the Moustache page.The rest of the month, for me, was strange. I stopped into work, and there were no problems there anymore – and wouldn’t be for the rest of the year. I was glad. With the girl, however, while I had changed she had not, and it was only a matter of time before things would come to ahead again. But it didn’t bother me, I was too taken up in my holiday, the experience, and the great people I had met there. It was a life-changing experience, that holiday, and something I desperately needed. I vowed to do something like that every year – just to keep me sane.

I met my friend Diana in New York and spent a few days hanging out with her and her friends. I had an enjoyable time, though unexpected. I realised I met a person that I had a genuine friendship with, the same as I have with the handful of people that I call friends here. I’m eager to get back to New York again now.

In Australia, I managed to miss World Youth Day. By all accounts, it wasn’t that bad to be out of the city then. Some people enjoyed it – and for them, congratulations. Around the world, there was a G8 meeting, and when I looked back over the news at the end of the month in a catch-up session, I noticed something: India had been going through a lot of problems. Their embassy was attacked in Kabul, Afghanistan, and two series of bomb blasts over the country through the month showed that the country was struggling. The government there also (only just) survived a no-confidence vote. There had been some bomb blasts through May as well. I remarked to a friend casually that you wouldn’t want to be traveling to India any time soon. I was reminded of these remarks come December.

While I was away, The Dark Knight, the latest Batman film and Heath Ledger’s last completed on-screen role, was released. It was a blockbuster – breaking records from the day it came out to now. We wait to see if Ledger gets rewarded for his supurb performance as the Joker at the Oscars coming in the new year. I was skeptical of the movie and the hype at first, but I have to say that it’s a movie I’ve watched no less than 10 times since getting it on Blu-Ray. You really should see it, as it probably was the most enjoyable film of the year.

August, and while I had resumed university at the end of July, I was in no state to remember it (I took off from New York on the 25th and landed in Sydney on the 27th, began university again on the 28th). It wasn’t long before I started feeling the pinch of this semester’s demands: I had to do 20 hours placement in a ’special education’ setting, I would do prac. placement later in the semester, all while holding down 4 other subjects which had the same assessment demands as the previous semester. Most of all that (assignment due dates and prac.) were towards the end of the semester – and a few months away.

On the US politics front, the national campaigning has begun, though not proper. That would happen after the conventions. Now, it was trying to craft the media’s story – which Obama won easily. The historics of the election, the change that the election would bring, and the importance of it, all were messages Obama was sending out, and the media wanted to repeat them. McCain’s messages of experience, Republicanism, and status-quo with a bit of difference, were largely ignored. Then came the next big announcements: the VPs. Joe Biden, a former primary candidate, was announced as Obama’s and well received. This lead straight into the Democratic National Convention, where we had a star-studded arrangement of political heavyweights endorsing Obama and getting the base all worked up. Hillary Clinton nominated Obama from the floor, and it almost seemed that any issues between them were gone. In less than a month’s time we would find out that they weren’t, but we had hope at the convention that they would work together well. Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Michelle Obama, Howard Dean, John Kerry Evan Bayh (important, as his traditional Republican state of Indiana would go Democratic in the election), Tim Kaine, and Bill Richardson all has speeches, among others, and the convention was a massive hit that ignited the base and kept them alive until November 4.

Obama was dominating the media, dominating the rhetoric, dominating the policy, and dominating the minds of voters. McCain needed to change this. He only had one move left, and it would come in September.

Also in the US, there were little tremors going through the economy. A few small insurance and investment firms had hit the wall some time back in the year. Only through my connections in the US – my Dad’s associate in Kansas, some friends scattered across the land – and my interest in how my money is being invested, I heard towards the end of the month that a huge, Wall Street mainstay company called American International Group, or AIG, was about to go to the wall. I didn’t care much when I heard this because I invest domestically, but it would be the start to the perceived end of capitalism come September.

August also saw Russia invade Georgia – an event that made a lot of people sit up. It signalled to the world the Russia was making a play for their old position in the world. Cool heads prevailed, but I suspect that Russia won that skirmish – everyone is keeping a keen eye on them now.

In China, Tibetan protests came to a head right before the Olympics began. I casually paid interest in the Tibetan’s case, but was more interested as to how China would react with the world watching. Not all that great, I would argue. It certainly could have been worse, but it did cast a worrying shadow over the Olympics where everyone was expecting something to happen. It didn’t, and the sporting achievements were the main focus. Australia performed a little worse than in previous years – but that was to be expected. China surpassed all expectations (and they were already high) with their performance. I suspect that now, instead of assuming that the USA and Russia will instantly get number 1 and 2 place on the tally, it will be a fight for 1, 2 and 3 between these two and China. England is the country to watch as well – they host the next Olympics, and they made a good showing in China.

The most memorable achievement, in my eyes, was Michael Phelps knocking off Mark Spitz’s record of the number of individual golds in one game. Pehlps won 8.

Months after the election in Pakistan, President Musharraf finally resigns from his post – only when threatened with impeachment. It was good to see him go – and I suspect that he only really went ‘peacefully’ because the world was watching them for so many months.

Hurricane seasons began in the US with Gustav and Hanna sweeping through the Gulf of Mexico. Thankfully, with anticipation of another Katrina-esque disaster, the damage is less severe, though deaths still as tragic. Haiti, of all the countries, suffered the most. Politically though, McCain had to fend off attacks about the Republican response to Katrina. Really, McCain as Bush’s 3rd term began here. Try as he did (delaying the convention, sending Republicans back to their states to help with any disasters that would arise, etc.) he couldn’t shake the idea that he really was another Bush – the Democrats employed this effectively. It would be a label that stuck with McCain right through the election.

And a good note to finish August up on: leadership speculation. Brendan Nelson’s budget reply was his high, and he had been sliding ever since. He hit some astronomical lows in polling and prefered prime minister against Kevin Rudd, and towards the end of the month there was an informal countdown to a leadership challenge, or at least a vote, in which it was widely expected to see the Liberals walk out with a new leader in Malcolm Turnbull. But that is all news for September.

Thomas.

Fixing Australian cricket

The cricket has been fantastic to watch of late. Certainly for the past two matches, South Africa has shown a skill that only Australia has had for the past years. It seems that there’s a new kid on the block. I stand by my statement that Australia is the world’s best team until they are beaten in a series at home. India came close last season but couldn’t do it. South Africa are poised to do it now. If they do, they will leave the country ranked #1 and, in my opinion be the best test-playing nation out there. The team that wins the World Cup from us will be the best one-day playing nation. But that’s some time off.

It’s easy to point to the reasons why Australia has come down from such heights: the retirement of Shane Warne, Glen McGrath, and Adam Gilchrist. There’s no argument there. We will probably never return to such a skilled team – they were once in a generation players, and to all come at once was an extreme rarity. But we can certainly improve in quality from the state of the team now. So how do we do that? After watching the past year’s cricket, thinking about it intesively since New Zealand were playing us here, and having conversations galore about the topic, I feel that the following are the best moves to make to lift up our team.

First up, drop Matthew Hayden tomorrow. I advocated dropping him before the series. He is not performin at all, and a player has no right to hang on to his spot because he made a massive score against Zimbabwe quite a few years ago. Nor does he have a right to be in his spot because of his past performance a year ago. Hayden isn’t just out of form unfortunately: he’s past his prime. He may want to play for a few more years, but he cannot justify it with his most recent matches. When Warne, McGrath and Gilchrist retired, I argued that we need to bring in new blood to gain some experience with the ‘veterans’ around them. The ACB decided against this and brought in some old hands. They were wrong, and I was right. Now, we’ve lost that opportunity because the ‘veterans’ aren’t performing.

The player I would bring in to replace Hayden is Phil Jaques (I’m a long-term supporter of his as you know). I argued that he should have been in the team before Katich. I’m not one to swap and change with my picks – you pick someone and you stick by them. They put him in, then dropped him for Simon Katich. Ok, so Katich has performed well in his role, and was going gangbusters in the domestic competition. You wouldn’t have had such a problem dropping Hayden if Jaques was already in the side – you could replace him with Katich, who is in-form. But, regardless, I’d bring in Jaques and give him the Sydney test to have a crack and settle in (because it might not count).

If you’re opposed to Phil Jaques, then Chris Rogers (opener for SA) and Phillip Hughes (the other opener for NSW) and Michael Klinger (a traditional opener, playing #3 for SA) are the three leading scorers in the domestic Sheffield Shield at the moment. There’s four viable options to replace Hayden with – and any other batters who might begin to slip.

Second, after the series I would sit down and negotiate with Ricky Ponting to take the captaincy off him and give it to Michael Clarke. It’s my belief that we need Ponting the batter more than we need Ponting the captain. If we can take the captaincy from him, we will also take the added pressure and off-field duties from him. Michael Clarke has stepped up a few times this series, and he was the only batter proper who could hold his head up after the previous test. He has matured, and has a good head about him. With Ponting around, he could still have an input, what with his experience and that, but Clarke would be calling the shots.

That’s assuming Ponting would give up the captaincy and keep playing. If it meant Ponting would retire, let him keep it. As patchy as Ponting has been of-late, this match now shows us that he does have the skills to lead from the front. I honestly think he will be a better player without the captaincy, but if he needs to keep it so-be-it.

With Clarke getting promoted, I’d make Brad Haddin the vice captain. In my ideal team, Phil Jaques has only just returned, Ponting has given up the captaincy, Mike Hussey is no good as captain, Andrew Symonds has been in trouble before, and the bowlers are a special case, which leaves Jaques or Haddin. It was a hard call between the two, but I find it hard to imagine a situation where Haddin could be dropped, whereas going out of form for long enough is reason for me to drop Katich, and be replaced by one of the domestic players who are ready and able. You want to make your vice captain someone who will stick around, and your wicket keepr who is a gutsy batter at the tail is one who will be around for a while.

Next, the ACB should state that a place in the team is a ‘horses for courses’ situation or a merit system, and settle on this. ‘Horse for courses’, for those who haven’t heard the saying before, is picking the best team (the horses) for the ground they are playing the match at (the course). If you are playing a spin-friendly wicket, and you are picking on ‘horses for courses’, you would drop a pace bowler, have two specialist spinners, and an all-rounder who can spin. If its a batting wicket, you would drop bowlers for batters. If its a pace ground, then you drop batters and spinners for specialist pace bowlers. If its a merit system however, which is what I endorse, you pick someone and for as long as their immediate performance record allows, they stay in the team. The selectors used to do this, but now they are all over the place that it looks like they are ‘course-ing’ it.

From this, if you are going to pick a specialist spinner in the team, pick on, settle on him, and stick with the decision. Personally, there are no specialist spinners in the domestic league that really warrant getting in the team – they don’t move the ball much and have little variety to trouble international teams. I would free up this spot for an extra pace specialist and rely on our part-timers. Without McGrath, we need that extra pace bowler. I’d pick Ben Hilfenhaus and stick with him, giving you a pace line-up of Stuart Clark, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson, and Ben Hilfenhaus. Your part-timers are Andrew Symonds (medium pace and spin) and Michael Clarke (spin), and the rare appearance of Mike Hussey. That’s seven bowlers, and with enough of a pace line-up to rotate with adequate rests.

I don’t want to repeat myself, so I further endorse the principle of making the ODI team a sort of ‘farming’ team for test callup that I proposed here. From this, they then have a clear call-up replacement for anyone who gets injured, instead of making injured players play (Lee, Symonds in this match), or struggling to figure out who should get the place that gets freed up (the Hilfenhaus/Siddle debate before this match, the problem of who to replace Hayden with).

Mike Hussey is an extremely talented and skilled player. He is in pitiful form at the moment though. He is ok up in the order, but much better, in my opinion, further down. If  you can sure up the openers and the upper order to get decent scores without quick loss of wickets, then Hussey at #4 works fine – he doesn’t have pressure on him, and he can play his natural game with some batters. But if you do lose quick wickets, Hussey gets in and is facing the new ball; he isn’t that good against a new ball. Drop him down at least one more place, so that he comes in right ahead of Haddin, and then he can ground out a gutsy partnership with Haddin if it is called for (where they can score three or four an over, and there’s something of a total already there for them to build on), and we aren’t relying just on Haddin to wag the tail.

Finally, moving on to the ODI series that is coming up. Here’s a chance to test some things and get the team into shape. Let’s write it off now as a competition and treat it purely as an experiment that we don’t need to win. We need to rest our injured players so that they are fit and ready for the up-coming Ashes tour. Rest Brett Lee and Andrew Symonds from the ODI team, keep Stuart Clark out of the series to recover his operation, drop Hayden from the team, bring in all these new players and get the gears working together. Here’s a chance to get the team into a ready position for the Ashes – the next big thing on the radar. I don’t want to see the Poms win them back. , and cannot watch that again. The ACB has a duty to get the team into shape to successfully tour and defend that little urn that means so much. Now’s their chance before it’s too late.

Thomas.

2008 – I

There’s years that go by and they fly because they are so enjoyable. There’s other years which draw out to prolong agony and tension. Strangely enough, I think 2008 was both. I think back to some things and they seem like yesterday, but there were months that seemed like years that we went through. I suppose that’s because the year wasn’t all good, nor was it all bad. It had its clear ups and its clear downs, and a bunch of grey bits in between. Let’s get through them, and see where we’ve been over the past 364 days.

January began, and across much of the Internet was the US election. Coming up to a year of polling, campaigning, debating, and mismatched messages, the Iowa caucus was being held on January 4 – moved up from its traditional date due to other state pressures. A further consequence of this was the stripping of Michigan and Florida delegates in the Democratic race, and a halving of them for the Republicans. In the first few days of January, we had only one pollster (Ann Selzer) saying something unbelievable – Barack Obama would run first, John Edwards second, and Hillary Clinton third. Every other pundit and poll indicated a clear first place for Clinton, and a tight race between Obama and Edwards for second.

As we all followed, Selzer would be spot on, and Obama’s stunning victory in Iowa would be the first stride in a monumental primary campaign, and a historic presidential campaign. New Hampshire would be Clinton’s ‘comeback’ – only to be killed off a couple weeks later in Nevada on the 20th, where Obama won, and South Carolina on the 26th, which Obama trounced. Michigan and Florida were given some attention in the early stage, but more would be given later as the primary race between the Democrats tightened. The Democrats, unlike the Republicans, had a clear message to choose between: An experienced, ‘Washington-insider’ with Clinton or a fresh, youthful face with less expeerience but a heap of hope and change with Obama. The Democrats, awash in these two messages, decided to turn their backs on the economics-based campaign of Edwards because, well, who could see anything so drastic happening in the next few months?

For the Republicans, January, in hindsight, is evidence of a party in trouble. Wyoming was won by Mitt Romney, Iowa by Mike Huckabee, and New Hampshire by John McCain. Then Romney would win Nevada, McCain South Carolina, and the write-in statement of ‘Uncommitted Pro-Life’ (yes, those words and not an actual candidate) won Louisiana. The party was just as confused at the end of January as it was at the start. The party had no idea about a face or a message or a national platform they wanted to take into the general election. Would it go to the base and go to a Huckabee ticket? Would it take notice of the small, little economic tremors that had been felt late last year and go with an economically sound Romney ticket? Or would it do the unlikely and elect the ‘maverick’ that hardly towed the party line, would be the oldest elected president, and run to the McCain ticket?

January, for the rest of it, had all sorts of news coming and going. Heath Ledger had died, an absolute tradgey. Australia and India were playing cricket, the end of a test series marred with serious troubles and lacking sportsmanship on all sides (not just the Australians as some tried to portray). Those economic tremors I was talking about in January culminated in a stock market crash around the world by late January – just the first in a long series of them that would still be happening today in the US. And the price of petrol finally hit US$100 a barrel – the first time ever. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were still going on. And we were waiting to see how Australia’s election of Kevin Rudd would play out when parliament reconvened.

For me, I was preoccupied with three things. The first was work. Having started my second-ish job in November, I was just settling into routine come the third month, having gone through a busy period in December too. I was working quite a lot of hours, and glad. I was earning a bit of money, and keeping myself busy. The second thing on my mind was obviously the US election. In 2006 I had pegged Obama to win. For the whole of 2007 I had kept tabs on the race, and in the last half of the year began blogging about it in-depth. I wrote a good post on Superdelegates at the request of two readers – a post that would prove to be widely popular across the blogosphere over the next few months. The third thing … well, it was about a girl (to borrow a line). All three of these things would dominate most of my mind for the rest of  the year.

February, and the biggest thing to hit this blog was Super Tuesday. The all-important day that would decide if Obama was a January flash-in-the-pan or a serious contender. He came out tied with Clinton – meaning he was here to stay. We with some inside knowledge, and had been keeping pulse of the race for a while, knew that Clinton had not planned her campaign beyond Super Tuesday. That Obama kept the race alive through it meant he would have the upper hand – especially since then next week of primary races were ones he would definitely win and win some very big. That happened, and Obama took over the delegate lead by mid-February. Finally, by the end of February, we all came to see what Obama’s secret weapon was: money. He had fundraised a heap over January and February. By the time he was elected to office, Obama would have raised over $700 million.

For the Republicans, John McCain emerged the clear favourite for the party through Super Tuesday, and February was just one of the formalities in waiting for all his opponents to drop out of the race. Eventually, by early February he would be the party’s nominee (in name), and would have a 4 month advantage and head-start over his Democratic opponents in the general election. Pundits, seeing the Republican maverick getting nominated and seeing how much of an advantage he had in terms of time and (at that point) money, began to expect a close general for whichever Democrat got up.

That week of Obama victories though, I was enjoying a holiday with Andrew up in Queensland – a good escape from those three things that were weighing on my mind. We had a good time, going to themeparks, the casino, the beach, watching DVDs, drinking, and staying up to all ends of the night.It was a good escape from the run-of-the-mill that had set in, and gave us both a chance to get away and relax. We had quite a good time, and the taste of travel started me thinking about a trip further abroad later in the year.

We had such a good time that we almost missed Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generation – certainly the biggest Australian piece of news for the month, and one of the top ones through the year. A moment for Australia, that’s for sure. Around the world, it was reported and taken in. When a business client of my father’s from Kansas came our way later in the year, he asked me about it. Also on the Kevin Rudd front, I penned a post that summed up his achievements, while the traditional media was busy covering a whole bunch of people saying he was doing nothing. The result was that (shock aand awe!) he had actually been working! Other news from around the world was that Fidel Castro resigned as President of Cuba (and was replaced by his brother Raul), President of East Timor José Ramos-Horta was attacked and nearly killed, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf suffers defeat at the polls, and Iran launches its first rocket into space. The Australia/India cricket series/fiasco was still going on, but would be coming to an end very soon thankfully.

The blog got its 4000th visitor then. You can see the latest tally to the right of the screen now. And I wrote a silly little post called The Obama Photo Album, taking a poke at some hysteria that was going around at the time, at Clinton, and writing some sarcastic tid-bits about photos I found of Obama. There have been times I regret writing this. The post would bring in excess of 16,000 visits by the end of the political season, and a lot of vistors were blind to the sarcasm and thought I truely was telling people not to vote for Obama because he had an afro.

Into March, and, for me, university restarted for the year. It was a semester for the last of my Arts/interesting subjects, because for the year after this semester I’d be doing just education/boring subjects. My work hours were cut down through the week, but increased over the weekends (not to my disappointment – I get paid more on the weekends). I was doing a US Civil War subject – and would write a good essay that I would later post up here due to interest. However, the rest of university was time-consuming and boring for the most part. Perhaps worst of all, I had to go back to using the CityRail system for transportation.

You would think that being time-rushed would cut down on my blogging. Instead, I posted 52 times for the month – a record that still stands. Of course, US politics dominated the topics on the blog. The main US politics concern was March 4 – Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. ‘Clinton’s Last Stand’ it was being called – she had to win big in Ohio and win Texas to justify staying in the race. When the first results came out, it went her way. A week later, when the official results were released, she had lost Texas. But everyone was past that. The media, by now, realised that they got more viewers and money through creating a race that didn’t actually exist. You see, Obama had all but won the nomination by now. All that had to happen was Clinton to drop out or superdelegates flock  to Obama. Some behind-the-scenes deals were made that Clinton would be allowed to run through the entire race without intervention by the Democratic leadership or superdelegates, and if she didn’t drop out after it was clear she would lose, then the party would cut her loose themselves.

The shining moment of March was Barack Obama’s ‘A More Perfect Union’ speech. It’s gone down in politically history as one of the best speeches ever. We were given an insight into how great a politician Obama was – and the sort of person that so many people had underestimated.

Zimbabwe would hold a national election – it would take months and months to actually get a workable result. The Republic of China has an election too – with promising results.

On the Thomas-front, a bunch of issues came to a head in my life that took me through a few bad weeks. It was about the girl, again. In its wake, I decided that I really did need to get away from all this for an extended time, so I started looking into holidays. I had been saying that I should go to the US seeings how the exchange rate was quite good – 80-85 cents for the AUD at the time. I started collecting catelogues. At the behest of my mother, I got a diabetes test – negative.

April, and the US election was beginning to hit a rutt. Obama would win polls against Clinton, he would win state elections, but Clinton wouldn’t drop out. McCain had disappeared and people wondered what he campaign would be like. But even the US politically news had died down. People like me (that is, with no life) were interested in the fine, acute movements – but there wasn’t much to blog about. Which was probably a good thing – university had started to bite into my time. Mountains of assignments and what-nots were forming, and they needed attention.

For me, April might have been boring, but it would turn out to be a very important month. I booked my holiday – a Contiki tour that would span a month, taking me from the west coast to the east coast, and some time at the end to spend with a friend I have over there. The second I booked it, I was very excited to get it underway – it would be my first chance to venture out into the world on my own, without a guiding hand of a parent or relative.

And that’s about how memorable April was. Australian politics was perhaps more interesting – talk of the budget, a failing Liberal party leader, and some other headlines made for some interest. But, really, the month passed me by quietly.

I’m going to break this post into parts. I don’t expect I’ll finish it before the new year, but it gives me something to work on each time I log on.

Thomas.

Gratuitous consumerism

I am slightly ashamed of myself, but in no way surprised. The thing most occupying my thoughts at the moment is whether to buy a top-of-the-range camera that is small, handy, and good for taking indoor people photos (the sort of camera you can take to a party and snap some pictures), or a top-of-the-range camera that takes excellent outdoors/scenery photos, distances photos,  and isn’t small and handy (the sort of camera that is ideal for a tourist like myself). Each have advantages over the other – i.e. the small ‘indoors’ camera I’m looking at records HD videos, while the ‘outdoors’ camera has 15X optical zoom. I have a video camera that record 1080 already, so where the ‘indoors’ camera would have probably won out with that feature, it doesn’t advantage it all that much in the end. I would like a small, handy camera to take around. I also want to take great scenic photos on my holidays – better than the ones my video camera takes at the moment.

I’m not going to compromise on either’s quality – buy the top of the range and it requires upgrading later rather than sooner.

Probably the worst thing about all this is that I’ve been thinking about it for 2 weeks and haven’t made a decision – which probably means I’ll just get both and spend well over a grand doing so. Though, for the amount I’ve earned from work this month, that honestly is a negligible amount.

Ugh, sometimes I disgust myself.

Thomas.

Closing out the year, planning for the future

I’ve not been much in the blogging ‘mood’ of late, nor have I really had much time – my apologies to you all. I had 3 days off in December from work, and those were filled with catching up with friends and family (yes, those people I live with I hardly even saw). Work is less busy through the week in January (as the schedule goes at the moment), and probably February as well (again, as it stands now); meaning I’ll have more time to get back into the thick of blogging.In an effort to spur me on, I’ll create a Belshaw-esque list (if you read his blog, you’ll realise he is as much a fan of making ‘to-do’ lists as Ninglun is a fan of changing layouts – perhaps more-so!) on what I’d like to achieve in the coming month.

My attempt to troll my readers seems to have worked on the Internet filter. I’d like to revisit it, as Jim’s comment actually made me think about perhaps changing what I believe should be done. That’s not to say that all the other comments weren’t appreciated. Thank-you for taking the time to comment, loyal readers. I might do it again down the track when I’m looking for a ‘community topic’ to write about.

I still need to finish off me blogging community post. It’s getting out of hand (it always happens when I try and write on this topic), so much editing is required. Either way, I would like to get it rolled out – I’ve been promising it for more than half a year now, and working on it for more than a full year. It’s just too large a topic, I feel. But I will try.

Ideally, I’d like to wrap up my Lack of Opposition series with a fourth and final post. I was quite happy with what I was getting out there. It generally sums up how I feel about the Liberals these days. I suspect others feel the same way, though perhaps not so personally invested in their opinion.

My Holiday Road/The Legend of the Moustache series continues – some 7 more or so of the tour. I’ll have to decide if I want to blog about my side-trip around New York with my friend when I get to the end. I probably won’t.

I’ve been fiddling around with my holiday videos and editing them to upload to YouTube. If I do this, I’ll certainly return to writing the series because I’ll have a great supplementary … source?

I’ve written in my head (as much as you can mentally write a post – perhaps formed a framework is a better way of putting it) a year’s end post that I should be able to write in the space of a day. Look out for it on Monday, as I have it off. Perhaps it will stretch into Tuesday, but not beyond that. I suspect it might catch some people off-guard in that it will have quite a bit of personal spin on it – unlike the end of 2006 post I did, and most unlike the predominant topics that appear here.

Of course, I’ll be far too careful to say anything meaningful in that post, so I don’t want to talk it up as some sort of window into my world. I wouldn’t dare put that up for the e-world to see. It would scare even the most hardened e-veterans!

The cricket on, at the moment, is marvelous! I have had half a dozen conversations with people, at work and at home, that I really want to turn into a post on the topic. That will probably also come on Monday.

Barack Obama’s cabinet is a series I was proud of, but have lost interest and grasp on it since I’ve been so busy. For the most part, I covered the most interesting ones, and the most applicable to wider Australia. I’ll probably post a recap and a ‘fill in the blanks’ on Monday too (a list of dot points, links, and a paragraph on each of the ones I missed). It is starting to shape up to be a busy Monday – the type of day I like. I thoroughly enjoy being busy and having to concentrate on working, especially after the past month. I don’t really want to lapse into sloth-mode.

Returning to my early December To Do List post I see that there is a high degree of overlap. Of that list, I’ve lost my acute interest in imperialism at the moment (while my broader, more general interest remains, I don’t feel the need to write about it), while the rest I have already mentioned above, funnily enough without checking it prior to right now. Of the movies I’ve most recently seen (not all for the first time), I’ll list them here and leave them up to you, the readers, to pick. Of course, last time I did this I didn’t get any preference, so if no one suggests one or two then I’ll probably just skip the topic of movie reviews and critique. Oh, and I don’t intend on writing some 8000 word plus piece, just something manageable and concise. Here goes:

• The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
• Sweeney Todd
• Nixon
• Quantum of Solace
• Hors de prix (Priceless – the English title for this French film)
• The Dark Knight (if I write this one it will probably also be a glowing review of the new Blu-Ray format)
• Almost Famous
• Closer

Somewhere into next year I’d like to write a post like the Amelie and Amelie vs. Garden State posts, but with new movies and a lens of belonging. Those two posts were popular because of the journey-scope I put on them, so I suspect with a change in AoS concept I could capitalise on this. I’ll have to get thinking on that soon.

Anyway, that’s probably enough planning to get me through the holidays – especially if I keep my eyes open for the occasional off-topic post every few days. A moderate post rate is acceptable to me for the next few months – 20 for every 30 days? Something around there. If I set this goal, I might try and extend myself and break it. Who know how it will end up though.

Thomas.

Cricket! Yeah!!!

Could this be the best season of cricket this decade? Millennium? You really can’t afford to miss a session these days, such is the competition.

Thomas.

Merry Christmas

Merrry Christmas folks. Hope you all have a good day.

Thomas.

Just something

Strange to say that I feel very happy and very sad at the moment. I’m revisiting my videos from my US trip and remembering the great time I had.

Thomas.