So John McCain said Monday that in order for him to win the election he must convince the people that our current Iraq policy is working. If not then I lose. Now that is a very blunt, very true and very honest statement.

Almost everybody in the country is against this extended military operation in Iraq. Nobody will knowingly vote for someone who supports it. Yet McCain does. So really his only hope is to convince everyone that, what appears as a giant imbecilic debacle, is actually a great idea. Of course that won't happen.

McCain knows it won't happen. But he can't appear to expect a loss. If people think he thinks he will lose, then he will. So after he makes that completely correct and honest statement. He try to take it back. Let me not put it that stark. Let me just put it this way: Americans will judge my candidacy first and foremost on how they believe I can lead the country, both from our economy and for national security. Obviously, Iraq will play a role in their judgment of my ability to handle national security.

The fact that he thought he needed to obfuscate a truth into something that borders on an outright lie, is a reason enough not to vote for him. Even if he wanted to get us out of Iraq.

Today I did absolutely nothing. The kind of nothing some really boring songs would be sung of, if only were there something to actually sing about. Nothing is less interesting than nothing. In fact my day today was so empty the closest I came to doing something, was to take a picture trying to depict my feelings of nothing today.

Why was nothing happening today. I was waiting for a call about a baby. It hasn't come yet. Sure I could have called him. But I actually didn't feel like it. Not sure why. I guess I just don't feel like photographing a baby today. Or maybe I'm comfortable in being board. Sadly that is more likely the case.

So Vin is having a baby girl today. Or at least that is what I heard last. I haven't gotten the call for pictures yet. But I'm sure I will soon.

Babies are weird. I think they all look largely the same. Yet so many people claim that they can see relatives or even themselves in a newborn's face. I'm thinking it must be at least 60% psychosomatic. Of course there are broad general facial traits that different races have. Skin, hair, eye color. Even more subtle things. Southern Europeans have different looks from people of primarily Norse descent. Beyond that babies are all equally adorable.

That classic line from the grandmother Isn't ____ just the cutest baby ever?! Sorry, no. They are all that cute.

Of course I probably say this stuff every time I'm dealing with new parents. IN the imortal words of Dennis Hopper Zombies man, they freak me out!

For a long time people have been claiming that CD don't sound as good as Records. Those people have crappy ears. I have just spent a couple of days working with a new sealed copy of Tool's Lateralus on vinyl. Using my father's quality turntable I captured the audio on my PC.

The entire thing has a low level noise. Even when a record is silent it is still a needle being scraped on a surface. On this particular album there is audible sound on the CD that is almost entirely swallowed by this noise on the record. With a CD silence is exactly that. So every small nuance of everything is available.

However Lateralus is an unusually well mastered CD that takes advantage of all the dynamic range available. Most albums today are mastered to be as loud as possible. That kind of extreme artificial amplification causes distortion. That kind of amplification is not possible on a vinyl record. So I have one more test to run on an album with a typically crappy mastering job. I'm thinking Nine Inch Nails' Year Zero. More to come.

The newest SciFi action flick, Jumper is a film that is all about introducing the greater franchise. I think it will be some kind of trilogy. In which case this is absolutely the first chapter. However it spends too much time being just another SciFi action movie, and not enough being a cool, inventive, character driven, science fiction story.

In general I think it was possibly a well thought script. However It appears as though much of that was left out of the final film. I'm sure some people were more concerned over the action flowing. There is one sequence where the main character follows a fellow Jumper, who acts as though he is on some errand. He doesn't actually go anywhere. He drives a car through traffic using his jumping ability, which is cool and all. But he does not go anyplace. He doesn't act like it's some kind of joy ride, in fact he seems more upset and anxious than anything else. He just stole the car from a dealership, and jumps it around. There are other seemingly meaningless plot points, but that one was just so glaring at the time I had to mention it.

So I hope there is some kind of directors cut in the future, that is at least a good half hour longer. This 1:30 version, is seriously missing some important plot points.