While, yes, technically, the U.S. is not a pure democracy, but a constitutional republic, it's also clear that the U.S. was founded on democratic principles, and that democracy is critical feature of our government.

It seems like no one remembers how contentious and vitriolic the Democratic Primaries in 2008 were.

Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.

I like to think that I know how to build (very specific, mostly useless) things. How to put things together in a playful (and sometimes even artistic) way.

My standard excuse is that I wouldn't know what love is if it bit me in the ass, but after all this time and heartbreak, that's not really true. Although I suppose it's not really about recognizing love, but about recognizing that spark that has the potentiality of becoming… something more.

So, yeah, up until 1 am for no good reason, except I got sucked into YouTube and the Hype Machine, finding covers and mashups of pop songs that have finally burrowed their way into my consciousness after constant exposure. And it both delights me and makes me a little wistful that I'm not the first person who thought two songs just happened to fit really well together not just thematically (lyrically speaking) but even in terms of key signature and rhythm.

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I have developed the habit of coming home from work and making a beeline to my bed. I seem to be running out of gas much too early these days.

Interesting flash animation set to the melancholy strains of Thom Yorke.

I skurffed a random essay through Blogdex about Los Angeles and the way it is depicted in various media. The author in particular talks about the abstracted representation of Los Angeles in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and how strange it is to have been to a real place and find it recreated in a video game. I imagine the emotional impact is quite different than if one had grown up in L.A., where one becomes naturally trained to appreciate the gradations between "real-real," "fake-real," "real-fake," and "fake-fake." (Or maybe it's just me.) I tend to assume that the rest of the world tends to simply dichotomize experiences between "real" and "fake," since that seems to be the most useful distinction.

I am beginning to think that aspartame makes me depressed. Either that or caffeine. Time for a science experiment, I suppose.