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After Friday’s announcement of John McCain’s choice as his Vice Presidential candidate, one question was on the lips of everyone.

Sarah Who?

While the media has spent the weekend scrambling to dig up everything about Sarah Palin, and the Democrats have been quick to respond, don’t be so sure the election is in the bag.

A lot of people are wondering, Sarah Palin? Really? What are the Republicans thinking? Are they even trying to win?

They’re thinking: they want to win. And, I believe their entire strategy is banking on the idea that the American people are stupid enough to get them there.

Sure, they’re banking on a couple of other groups as well. There’s the group of women voters who are so bitter about Hillary not getting the nomination they’ll vote for anyone who has a woman on their ticket. They don’t even care that Palin is probably against most of the issues they care about.

There are also, sadly, in this day and age, others who won’t vote for Obama simply because of his color.

With Palin, the Republicans give up the experience argument that they’ve had success with against Obama. But, they still have their main weapon. The weapon that helped them win the last election.

Fear.

That’s the GOP strategy. They’re going to make you afraid of change. They’re going to make you afraid of Obmaa. They’re going to try make look McCain/Palin look cute and cuddly next to the evil Obama/Biden ticket, and they’re banking that most of you (well, at least 51% of you) will buy into it.

Ignore that McCain isn’t in touch with the middle class. We’ve got the “hockey mom” raising five kids. She understands your pain. She’s living the American dream, and she has chosen to serve her country through public service. She’s the nice lady who lives next door.

But what about Bush? They won’t talk about Bush. If they do, they’ll say one thing. Bush was right. He was right in going to Afghanistan. He was right in going to Iraq. And he’s right in keeping us there.

But, if Obama is elected, the Republicans will say that he’ll pull us out of Iraq before the mission is complete. This will only embolden the terrorists in Iraq. It will encourage the other terrorist countries, such as Iran. They will come after us again, and we’ll have another 9/11 on our hands. Obama won’t have the experience to deal with it.

But, McCain was a vet. He served in the war, just like your grandpa did. He was a POW. He won’t back down from the terrorists.

And it’s not just the terrorists. Remember the Russians? Those wacky commie bastards are trying to stir things up again.

If Obama is elected, the Republicans will say the Russians will stir things up even more because they won’t be afraid of him.

But they won’t mess with Grandpa John. He knows how to deal with the Russkies.

What about the economy?

Oh, don’t worry about it, the GOP will say. The economy will work itself out. In fact, things are already starting to look up. The economy is like a wave; it has highs and lows. We’ve been riding a low point in the wave, but it’s on the rise again. In fact, the Republicans may even try to convince you that the low wave we’re now “rebounding” from is the result of economic policies passed by the Clinton administration over 8 years ago.

What about health care? Jobs?

Have faith in the market, they’ll say. The market will fix the job situation. The market will fix health care. Sure, those big corporations are out to make a buck, but at the end of the day they’re just normal people trying to support their families. Have faith that they’ll fix health costs and make them more reasonable.

But, if Obama is elected, he’s going to interfere with the market. He’s going to make everyone pay for a health care system. It’s going to raise your taxes. It’s going to be like Communist Russia. It will take forever to see a doctor, and chances are you won’t even get the right treatment.

See? The Democrats want to change things, but nothing is broken.
The Republicans will try to convince you to hold the line. We’ve almost weathered the storm, and if we stay the course, things will magically work out.

But, those bad bad Democrats, with Osama, I mean, Obama, (oh yeah, you really think the GOP won’t try that?) want to change the course, and they’ll steer us into the rocks. Remember the last two charismatic Democratic presidents? What did they do? One is remembered for messing around with his intern, and that other one almost started World War III.

Change is bad. Obama is for change. Therefore, Obama is bad.

Trust us. Have faith in us. We’re the GOP. G-O-P, after all, is one letter away from G-O-D.

Besides, would you really vote against your Grandpa John and the soccer mom next door?

I would.

Yeah, I’ll admit it. I was going to buy an iPhone 3G today.

I was going to buy one at first. But, then, when it turned out AT&T decided to up the rates to compensate for the cheaper phone, I had second thoughts. Plus, what I really wanted was a phone with 32GB of storage like the largest iPod Touch.

So, I’ve gone back and forth for a few weeks now about whether or not to buy one. I was leaning towards not getting one, and had just about decided not to after spending yesterday playing with the 2.0 software and downloading/buying my first iPhone apps.

But, then, this morning, I thought, “what the hell.” I can offset the new AT&T rates with my corporate discount. If the lines aren’t too bad, maybe I’ll stop by and pick one up.

How bad could the lines be, after all? Many of the naysayers have been saying the new iPHone won’t sell. Don’t buy one. It’s missing the same lame features that only a few pundits are desperate to have (which they bitched about last year). Everyone that wanted an iPhone in the US already has one. No one will upgrade. It’s still to expensive. And so on…

So, I thought, I’ll drive by the local AT&T store and see how bad the line is. If it’s not too bad, maybe I’ll stop and pick one up.

Heh…

There were at least 50-100 people standing outside the local AT&T store in McKinney at just after 8 am. On the way to downtown Dallas, I could see at least 100 folks outside another AT&T store in Allen.

So, okay, maybe some people wanted the phone after all. But, Apple & AT&T have their act together, so it should be smooth sailing for everyone to buy a phone. Maybe I’ll just swing by an Apple store on the way home from work and pick one up then.

Right?

During the day at work, I saw the initial reports of people having major problems with getting their phones activated. In fact, if you were unlucky enough to try to update your original iPhone to 2.0, you were now equally screwed. The Apple/AT&T system that iTunes used to activate phones couldn’t handle the load.

But, by mid-afternoon, things were looking up. One of my co-workers who bricked his phone before lunch was back in business, and another who spent the morning in line was able to activate hers. So, I thought, I’ll hit an Apple store on the way home and pick one up.

I walk into Willow Bend and saw people walking out the door with their new iPhones, and didn’t think anything of it. Once I got closer, I was not surprised to see a line in front of the Apple store. But, the line didn’t stop there. It wound around the elevator/stairwell couch area like it did last year. So, now there are several hundred people in line just like last years launch. The problem was, this line wasn’t moving.

So, I thought, let’s see how long the line takes to move…

Thirty minutes later, I had moved less than ten feet from where I started. An Apple store guy finally made an appearance, so I asked him how long the wait was. He said to order some pizza and get comfortable. I pressed him, and his best guess was that it would take at least two hours to get into the store from my place in line.

Thanks, but no thanks, I said. I stood in the lines last year, and although it might be nice to have the 3G and the GPS goodness of the new phone, I was not about to spend the night standing in line for it.

So, now I’m home a little disappointed that I came home empty handed without a nice shiny new toy to play with.

I don’t really “need” the phone. My iPhone has all of the 2.0 goodness of the new one. The GPS and 3G are “nice to haves,” I told myself. And, there are a lot of other things I would probably be better off using the money on instead of another new gadget.

Does that mean I won’t be in line first thing tomorrow? Maybe…

Yes, for those of you who didn’t know it, I play World of Warcraft from time to time.

MMOGchart.com from time to time attempts to chart the number of subscribers for the various MMORPG’s (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) out there. It’s kinda cool to check out.

Here’s the one with WoW on it: MMOChart

Here’s something interesting that I stumbled across this weekend…

This guy creates custom weapons and lego mini-figurines:

BrickArms

Gizmodo has an interview with the guy that goes into more detail about how he creates the products, which I thought was pretty cool.

Gizmodo story

Apparently, a new study has shown that cat owners are less likely have heart attacks.

Cats Help Prevent Heart Attacks

This probably isn’t helpful for the Garfield minus Garfield guy.