Polls! Polls! Polls! Music! Music! Music! Poppers! Poppers! Poppers!

Polls! Polls! Polls!

Current state of the election got you biting your nails down to the quick? There's bound to be a poll out there to make you feel better. Spend hours fucking around with an electoral college map or John Zogby's prettier version. Paul Krugman sums it up:

A broad view of the polls, then, suggests that Mr. Bush is in trouble. But he is likely to benefit from a distorted vote count.
Florida is the prime, but not the only, example. Recent Florida polls suggest a tight race, which could be tipped by a failure to count all the votes. And votes for Mr. Kerry will be systematically undercounted.

Music! Music! Music!

Alexis Petridis at The Guardian tries to listen to every single cd released last month, but has to stop at 300 after going insane:

By the close of the third day, with no noticeable answers emerging, disillusion sets in. My notes are no longer meticulous. In fact, my notes now closely resemble homework done on the bus to school. I have become worryingly emotional. When I hear a track I like, by a chill-out act called Boomclick, I almost burst into tears. Hours go by when I can form no opinions about any music I hear. Is this DJ Sneak album any good? What about the new REM album?
I worry that I might have completely short-circuited my critical faculties, which, given that I am a rock critic, seems about as disastrous as it can get. Then I play the soundtrack to Shark's Tale, hear Sean Paul and Ziggy Marley's pop-ragga cover of Three Little Birds - a song of almost supernatural ghastliness even in the hands of Bob Marley, let alone his son - and recover my critical faculties in no uncertain terms.

Poppers! Poppers! Poppers!

In researching the effects of refrigeration on popper freshness, I came across this fascinating blog/journal: I love scare quotes...

So why do I like "poppers" anyway?
I don't really know. It's a "rush" but it only last a couple of minutes and then it's gone. So the "rush" is here and gone before you know it. But I'm the type of "fag" who needs to get "high" when having sex. I don't do hard drugs (although I did smoke marajuana once but I guess that's not considered hard). I only do "booze" and "poppers" and that's pretty much it.
I don't know why "straight" guys don't do "poppers" but it seems pretty much a gay guy kind of thing to do. Maybe "straight" guys do "pot" to get "high" during sex (this is just a theory). There is nothing like inhaling a whiff of "poppers" and getting the "rush" that goes right to your head. A lot of "bottom" guys enjoy "poppers" when getting "fucked" because a dick inside them doesn't seem to hurt so much.
So I'm fucking pissed that I'm gonna be out of "poppers" very, very soon. Only two bottles left and a bottle doesn't last very long.
[...]
It's been about a week since I had any "booze". I gotta lay off the stuff because my liver is not in the best shape it could be. No "poppers" and no "booze". What fun will sex be for me?

And finally...a clothing store finally lives up to its neocon name...Banana Republican

via jest magazine