Musings Before the Storm

With the “Super Tuesday” caucuses nearly upon us, I’ve been thinking about a few things while cutting out nearly three hundred ballots with a pair of scissors while preparing to convene one site here in Minnesota. Political volunteerism is far less glamorous than TV or movies make it out to be, what can I say?

The debate last night on CNN was stormy, uncivil, and the last before Tuesday’s big event. Rubio won it handily, to my surprise. More shocking was watching Ted Cruz not only fail at debating, but have a melt down while arguing with Trump. The pressure is clearly on and the tag team attacks on The Donald were unlike anything seen so far.

It is questionable whether or not this influences the upcoming vote, though it may allow Rubio a chance at Minnesota. He’s got more than a few supporters keeping quiet, I suspect. As it was, I’d expected Trump to win the state by a narrower margin than his previous wins with Marco coming in a close second. Now I really don’t know what to think.

Of course, predicting elections is more like gambling in a lottery than a science. The odds are always against you.

While cutting, cutting, and cutting some more, the new subwoofer was getting burned in through random music lists on the media center PC. A BIC V1020 10” sub that was a bargain on eBay thanks to it being an open box return item, it has been genuinely impressive making all my prior 8” subs look very, very bad in comparison.

Nothing quite like having a large amount of the audio spectrum finally being exposed and discovering just how much difference going from a bottom end of 50Hz to 27Hz makes. At the moment, the soundtrack to TRON: Legacy is playing and wow does it hit the lows. The best part of the BIC is the tight, detailed bass that is perfect for serious music appreciation rather than going “BOOM BOOM BOOM” in an attempt to move the house off of the foundation. Too many people think that is good bass.

Details matter, whether it be in sound or governance, yet the majority of people don’t care about them. This is why we have the leaders we have and why soundbars impress people. Not only do they not know any better, they don’t want to. It reminds me of reading a recent article on how breakfast cereal companies finally found out why millennials don’t eat cereal.

They simply don’t want to go to the effort of having to wash a bowl afterwards viewing it all as too much work.

Sigh.

During all the cutting, two phone calls interrupted me. One was my father relaying that the bladder in his stomach tube had burst requiring an emergency trip to La Crosse. Since he was already out and about, there was nothing I could do but wait to hear the results.

The other was equally unexpected and that was a phone interview with WIZM that parts of may be used for broadcast on Monday. Nothing quite like being put on the spot with no preparation beforehand. Hopefully I was coherent enough so the message that we want new people to come to the caucuses was clear.

An odd day is how I’d describe the overall experience.

Once the subwoofer is burned to the initial ten hour mark, I’ll be able to start testing it as part of more than a 2.1 setup. As beautiful as it sounds for music, I expect equally great things for movies. I really need to get Godzilla watched again for review notes now that giant footsteps should reverberate through the house.

I’d much rather write about that than the debates for they are both forms of escapist entertainment the way things have devolved.