Excellent quote from John Stewart's America:

"The Republican Party is the party of nostalgia. It seeks to return America to a simpler, more innocent and moral past that never actually existed. The Democrats are utopians. They seek to create an America so fair and non-judgmental that life becomes an unbearable series of apologies. Together, the two parties function like giant down comforters, allowing the canidates to disappear into the enveloping softness, protecting them from exposure to the harsh weather of independent thought."

Ohhh lordy that was poignant.

Kendra and I spent this past weekend looking at function halls for our wedding. My feelings about this whole process are mixed -- I want to be married, but spending 10 grand on one day is insane. That's a good chunk of a down payment on a house, or rent for a lot of months, or enough money to go on the vacation of a life time, or more than enough money to move to Colorado with and feel pretty good about getting by until you find yerself some employment. Anyway, the point is that it's obviously an important day, and it should be real special, and the trick is to make it a great day for a reasonable price. All I really care about is that A) It's a great party with all of our friends and family, and B) we have a really good band. Eveything else is pretty much secondary.

Other than thinking about wedding options, I've been trying to figure out if it's right to take off to Chamonix in March. It's been planned by Tripp and Co as a Man-venture, meaning that there are to be no female swashbucklers along for the ride. This sounds like a fantastic trip -- Chamonix is one of the best places in the world to ski, and it would be cool to go with people who have their shit together when it comes to skiing. Not that the people that I usually go with aren't good (Kendra has become an excellent rider....check out the wallride below this post), but it's been a while since I've had a good scare on the snowboard. It's also been a while since I've put in a true day of riding....from open to close, which I would imagine is going to be pretty much everyday of this trip. So I am stuck.....I have the money and vacation time, but it sucks to go on an amazing trip like that without Kendra. And it's also irresponsible considering that we have a honeymoon to go on / save for, and I also need a lot of vacation time for that. Oh well. There will be more opportunities, I'm sure. Also, this is a pretty sweet dilemma to have. Gotta remember how lucky we all are from time to time.

Music: Check out Old Crow Medicine Show. It's pretty awesome stuff. Old-timey, bluegrass-ragtime-blues sounding tunes, sung and played by a bunch of young dudes who actually went on the road while they were still learning their instruments and rambled around for a while. They have my respect and admiration.

On New Years Day, Kendra, John, Kata and myself went up to Sunday River for two days of snowboarding. Conditions were ok, but it was awesome to get up there and do some good riding. We stayed at the Mollyockett Motel, which came highly recommended as a cheap place to stay (a room for 4 was 80 bucks). While at the Mollyockett, we did some swimming in their indoor pool and hung out in the hot tub, which we shared with an incredibly fat man. I also went into a sauna for the first time, which was interesting and sort of gave me instant asthma. Weird. On Monday the weather was really nice, and towards the end of the day John and I found some kids that made a jump with a real soft landing. They were learning backflips, so we gave it a shot, and both fired them off pretty much first try. It was a pretty cool end to a great trip.

In other news, Republican Lobbyist scumbag Jack Obramoff has pled guilty to a plethora of federal and state charges, and as agreed to a plea bargain. This means that he will be helping the government prosecute several other scumbags in the higher elected offices. What a treat this is going to be!

Reccomended Music for this week comes by way of Mr. David Berman and his Silver Jews. Check out American Water, as well as their latest release, Tanglewood Numbers. These guys and girls are coming to Boston in March, and it will be their first tour ever. Should be a good show.