As many of my friends know, I have foresaken my XBOX 360 for reading, television, my podcast and other pursuits. But I still sometimes crack out my Nintendo DS from time to time.

Lately, I’ve been playing Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, sequel to the long-running Famicon Wars turn-based strategy franchise. What’s unique about the new game in the series is that it’s online — so I’ve been battling it out with players around the world a couple nights a week.

Tonight, I played a match against a Japanese player. To say that Japanese players are intimidating is an understatement — these guys know the game inside out. They understand how the units work, they move them in tight formations informed by Sun Tzu’s art of war, and generally they crush lesser mortals like myself with their insane Otaku knowledge of the game.

For all intents and purposes, he was a superior player. He used his units with bold intelligence, and he made short work of my lame expeditionary force. However, I managed to draw him into a prolonged fight with my main force at my base. Here is where his tactics fell apart — afraid of my heavier firepower, he kept his infantry well behind his armor and artillery, meaning that it would be a slow walk to capture my headquarters. Meanwhile, I sent a lone soldier in a transport behind his lines to his base. He could have gone after the transport, but he was too concerned with the remanants of my main force, who were dying in considerable numbers, but would have taken out his artillery if he turned to pursue my transport.

Before he knew it, I’d dropped a lone infantry-man off at his undefended headquarters and proceeded to capture his base. In two rounds, the game was over. I’d lost over 98% of my units, but I still kicked his ass. It was a cheap win — I’d been outclassed on the battlefield, but I’d managed to use his overconfidence and hubris against him.

I’ve largely given up playing FPS games, but strategy games still capture my attention. There’s something very satisfying about going one-on-one with someone in a game totally dependent on tactics and planning that you just don’t get with first person shooters. It’s a lot like playing chess as a kid — winning against a good player is an unmatched experience.

Beating a superior Japanese player in Advance Wars is even better than winning at chess.

Of course, I can’t help thinking what a lousy general I’d make. I won, but I lost almost all my troops. It’s a good thing I never joined the Army.

Guys, I’m as liberal as anyone, but I can’t help being pleased by John McCain’s win in Florida, tonight. I disagree with him on a ton of issues, but I respect him — he may be pro-war, but he’s honorable and anti-torture. He takes unpopular stances based on principle, and he’s not afraid to infuriate his own party when he thinks he’s right.

And let’s not forget the most important thing — he doesn’t hate us. Unlike Bush or Reagan, John McCain doesn’t hate Democrats or liberals. He’s willing to work with us, not for our destruction. Mitt Romney would have been an easier candidate to beat, but McCain’s comeback means that no matter what, the George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh Republicans have lost. They hate John McCain. And whatever his beliefs, that makes him an ally.

Even if we lose in November, a McCain presidency will be a substantial improvement over what we have now. Remember, despite her rhetoric, Hillary Clinton has no intention of pulling us out of Iraq, either. Either way, the anti-war vote loses. Health care reform, pro-worker legislation, that’s all off the table, too. Don’t believe for a minute that Hillary Clinton will follow through on any of her progressive promises — as a Senator, she’s positioned herself as Margaret Thatcher, not Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The Democratic party is just a means to the presidency for the Clintons — we work for them, not the other way around.

Obama’s our last hope, now. I want him to win, but the Clinton machine is very powerful, and they’ve never lost, yet. Keep that in mind — Obama would be the better President, but the Clintons will do whatever it takes not just to beat him, but to strangle the life from him, and destroy his political future simply because he chose to run against them. This wouldn’t be the first time that the Democratic party has made a stupid move during the nomination process.

The race between Hillary and Obama is become so nasty, that I can’t bear to watch it, anymore. It’s one thing to see that kind of hyper-negativity and cynicism between candidates of different parties, but what Hillary and Obama are doing to each other right now verges on cannibalism. Hillary’s veiled use of coded racist language through surrogates, and Obama’s inability to avoid taking the bait has reached Bush v. Kerry proportions. Hell, maybe even Bush v. Gore.

But the thing is, that this is hardball politics between Democrats, a certain type of family fight we haven’t seen in a very long time. Hillary’s banking on the fact that Obama supporters would never vote for a Republican, so it doesn’t matter how badly she alienates us, because at the end of the day, we’ll come home and vote for her in November.

The thing is, my vote in DC is meaningless. DC always goes so late in the primary process that usually there’s only one candidate left in the race by the time the party reaches us. My vote for Howard Dean back in 2004 was largely symbolic, as by that point, Howard had already dropped out of the race. Or was about to. In any case, John Kerry already had collected the lion’s share of delegates.

So, since I don’t get a say in the party’s nominating process, there’s really not much point in paying attention. Especially since the race is so mean. I have work to do, anyway.

I found this quote over at Andrew Sullivan’s blog. It’s very similar to something I wrote a short while ago.

“… it is crucial that people who do not have a sky god and don’t have a set of supernatural beliefs assert their belief in moral values and in love and in the transcendence that they might experience in landscape or art or music or sculpture or whatever. Since they do not believe in an afterlife, it makes them give more valence to life itself. The little spark that we do have becomes all the more valuable when you can’t be trading off any moments for eternity,” - Ian McEwen, in The New Republic.

I should have learned my lesson with Bill Bradley and Howard Dean, but here I am. I allowed myself to believe that perhaps an outsider could win — that we really could turn a page in American politics, and perhaps a candidate with real vision and inspiration could win.

But alas, that isn’t the case. Hillary Clinton has won New Hampshire, and the narrative will now be a “Hillary Wave.” The party will fall back in line behind her, and Hillary will steamroll her way through the primaries to the nomination. And then, in November, the Republicans will crush her.

How can the party be so stupid? Over half this country hates Hillary Clinton. Large numbers of Democrats distrust and despise her. I do not believe that she can win a general election.

Despite her recent conversion to progressive causes for the primaries, she has been a cynical centrist throughout her tenure as a Senator. She will not give us universal health care, she will not end the Iraq War, she will not end torture, and she will carry on the policies of the Bush administration as their true heir. Living in Washington, I am exposed on a daily basis to Washington conventional wisdom, particularly on foreign policy. Hillary is a creature of Washington. She is not able, or willing, to deliver change. And like Dick Cheney, she is petty, paranoid and entitled.

I guess it’s time for me to turn out the lights on my interest in this race. By the time it rolls around to D.C., any vote for any candidate but Hillary Clinton will be symbolic. Once again, the establishment has won the race — and just like with John Kerry in 2004, it’s regular Americans who will suffer. I thought people had woken up to this fact, but I guess I’m wrong. The “electable” candidate of the establishment is anything but.

Barack Obama could have been the next Kennedy. He could have change things and inspired the country. Now Hillary cynically appropriates the language of his campaign, just as John Kerry did to Howard Dean. And just as in 2004, Hillary will be beaten by the Republicans.

I know, I know — “the race isn’t over.” But all it took was one win to restore Hillary’s sense of inevitability. The race is already lost.

Without a doubt, I think John Edwards won tonight’s debate. Obama held his own, but it was Edwards who had the rhetorical chops to rise above. Clinton, however, came off as shrill and unlikable.

Hillary Clinton — what to say about her? We all know that she’s smart and capable, and that she’s been preparing for the presidency at least since her husband was President. Early in the campaign, when I was not particularly enthusiastic, I decided to put my dislikes aside and support her. Hillary is driven by polls and what passed as “centrism” in the 1990’s — give people what you think they want at all costs. She’s not particularly likable, and she’s been in the game so long that she’s forgotten why she’s in it. But she was the front runner and a woman, and I felt I should back her.

But here’s the thing, I’m tired of the Red/Blue fault line that’s governed politics in this country since the Clinton Wars, and I’m sick of the battles the baby boomers have been waging with each other since the 1960’s. Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, John Edwards, even Mr. Milquetoast himself, John Kerry, all embody the conflicts of the 1960’s, the Vietnam War, and the civil rights movement. Quite frankly, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the baby boomers and their belief that they’re better than the rest of us — they thought they knew more than their parents, and they think that their children should sit down and shut the fuck up and let them drive the car until they die. They took the greatest period of prosperity in the history of the world — the post World War II era — and they shit it away.

What were the Culture Wars of the 1980’s and the Clinton Wars of the 1990’s if not an extension of the conflict that started between the long-haired free loving hippies and the straight laced squares? And what about all of us — “liberal” and “conservative,” forced to fit a role a decade to decades before any of us were born? Why do we agree to this dance, this game of chicken, when we should move forward and turn a page.

Barack Obama, more than any of the other candidates, represents a break from the past. He’s one of us — the baby boomers claim him, but born in 1961, he is really a child of the first wave of Generation X. He was too young to be part of the fights of the 1960’s — indeed, he wasn’t even living in the continental U.S. at the time. His life, like ours, began in the wake of the baby boomers. A central plank of his campaign is to put down our weapons, put aside our battles, and come together as one country again.

This is not Hillary Clinton’s argument — in fact, I’m unable to conjure what her campaign themes are, other than, well “change” generically and “experience” specifically. As far as I can tell, she stands for focus groups and polls and what she thinks people want. Nothing specifically.

And John Edwards — he wants to be an old 30’s-style populist, breaking the back of big business in favor of the “working man.” But the thing is, that’s part of the old paradigm, too. Can he really accomplish anything he says with a congress dominated by K Street? In a perfect world, he would be an awesome candidate, but you deal with the world you have, not the world you’d like. Throw in his commitment to public financing, and John Edwards is not a promising candidate. In a general election, he’d get clobbered.

As I said, Obama represents a break from the old, a willingness to try to get to both sides to come together, again. No mean feat, but one worth attempting. His health care plan is more modest than his opponents, which makes it potentially more viable, and he has been right on Iraq and Iran, and foreign policy generally. When he speaks, he looks and sounds like a president. And lot’s not forget the symbolism of an Obama victory — both African American children and the children of immigrants can look to Obama as proof that America is their country, too. That all of us are Americans, and the policies of hate and Jim Crow are things of the past. That’s a powerful symbol, and one that has to be considered, as well.

With that said, I am filled with excitement at recent polls that put him at either 10 or 12 points ahead of Hillary Clinton. I’ve waited my whole life for the kind of change Barack Obama represents. I think it’s becoming clear that a lot of people feel the same way.

2007 was a remarkable good year for records. So much so, that it’s hard to get my choices down to five — instead I’ve selected six, with two tying for first place. Sadly, Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible did not make the list. As much as I love their first LP, Funeral, Neon Bible suffered from what I call “Belle and Sebastian” syndrome, where each subsequent record is a shadow of the last. Neon Bible, despite a few good new songs (and one classic re-run from Us Kids Know), is not as good as Arcade Fire’s past efforts, and is not one of the best albums of the year.

That said, here’s my list for the best records of 2007:

5. The National, The Boxer

Moody, dark and beautiful, The National takes Joy Division, Bauhaus, Interpol, etc. and comes out with something surprisingly earnest and substantative. The Boxer is a fantastic album, from the opening chords of “Fake Empire” onward. Tina and I saw them open for Arcade Fire this year, and felt that they were better than the main band.

4. Menomena, Friend or Foe

Menomena patches together various snippets of a song using software that they created. The result is somewhat off-kilter, but surprisingly traditional. Favorite songs include “Wet and Rusting” and “Rotten Hell.” When they play live, they have to approximate the recorded songs with real instruments. Great stuff.

3. Shout Out Louds, Our Ill Wills

This Swedish band does their best Cure impression on this record, which wraps the whole thing in a sense of nostalgia. I know to some that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, but Our Ill Wills surpasses simple pastiche into a sublime record of lost loves and wistful melancholy.

2. Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

This time around, Kevin Barnes dispenses with the Elephant Six-esque pop of the past in favor of a kind of manic blend of indie pop, electronic dance music, and pure madness. Personal in the same way that the best Mountain Goats records are personal, Barnes lays bear his own mental illness for us all to see. Sometimes uncomfortable, Hissing Fauna are You the Destroyer? is always brilliant.

1. Los Campesinos!, Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP and International Tweexcore Underground Single

Imagine sprawling bands like Belle and Sebastian and Arcade Fire, but making pure indie pop in the vein of bands like Talulah Gosh and Bis. It’s been years since there’s been an indiepop band this good — they channel youthful energy and enthusiasim in a manner of great dead bands. The old record collectors would never admit that they’re the second coming, which is exactly what they are. Can’t wait for the full length.

For the first time in over a decade of being a voter, my guy wins the Iowa caucus. Hurray for Obama.

I was prepared to post something snide about Hillary, but her speech tonight was positive and inclusive. Unlike Edwards, she actually congratulated the other two. After her husband and surrogates went on the attack against Obama over the past few weeks, it was nice to see the Clintons humbled.

The race isn’t over, but history has been made. Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and an American mother may well become President of the United States. The message this sends to the world is clear — America, for all the damage Bush did to us, is not the country the world says we are.

If Abraham Lincoln could win the Presidency and be mythologized in our culture after having served one term in Congress, then Barack Obama can do the same after only serving one term in the Senate.

Go Obama!