Check out this Japanese Obama action figure, featuring Obama with changeable hands and face (mouth closed or open) and posed in a suit with American flag! But bizarrely, also posed with dual katanas, various firearms, and a lightsaber. 🙂
(via my old guild!)
On Tuesday, I watched the inauguration at a local cafe (The Aster Coffee Lounge) with some friends. Robin commented afterwards that it was amazing how many different forms of media were present.
We had a live stream of the event from the web being projected onto an inflatable screen. This was their workaround for a USB antenna thing that wasn’t working. The stream kept stuttering, though, with periodic stops for buffering. So we turned off the audio and were listening to the NPR live coverage while watching the video stream. But the video lagged about 5 seconds behind the audio, so that was kind of odd, especially when Roberts and Obama had their repair moment during the swearing in.
There was at least one live blogger at the event, at least one twitterer, and people texting and calling each other on their cell phones.
King 5 news, a local TV station, was there, as was print media in the form of Ballard News Tribune. Since I ordered one of the Aster’s special Inauguration Waffles, King 5 shot me taking a bite, and Ballard News took a photo, too. Here’s a photo Erik took:
After the inauguration ceremony, King 5 interviewed me really quickly. (Maybe because I was the only Asian guy in the place… They also interviewed the only Black guy in the place…) I said something like it was prophetic to have happened the day after MLK, Jr. Day and that I hoped that the nation took seriously Obama’s call for collective responsibility and action.
And, of course, there were the multiple sub-groups of people interacting with each other through verbal talk.
or maybe I should say that my emotions over elections are getting in the way…
Apparently, the governor’s race in WA might be going to the republican Rossi instead of dem Gregoire (even though she’s just barely ahead in polls) due to good early voting turnout in rural areas. I think the fear is that people in Seattle and other cities won’t bother voting since the country will go for Obama with or without us, not realizing that their state’s governor is at risk, too.
[Edit] What the ? Check out this completely different account saying that Gregoire leads by a wider margin than polls indicated among early voters.
In California, prop 8 looks scary as hell, too. 🙁
Makes it rather hard to concentrate on work and these two papers I have due later this month.
Fallout 3 gets delivered to my door this afternoon, which surely can’t be good either…