A whale’s vagina.

This week has been a bit of a roller-coaster with things culminating in what could’ve yielded a mental breakdown for yours truly. I was very much looking forward to a trip to San Diego when due to some circumstances beyond my control, things seemed to blow up in my face.

Add on top of that the surly bastard below me, jack-hammering to his heart’s content, and my week started to look like complete garbage.

I’m not one to give up easily though, especially when it means I get a 4-day weekend near a beach, so I set myself the parameter of finding a hotel for less than $100/night in San Diego and if I could swing that, I’d go.

After checking out Sidestep.com (which is excellent for car rentals and flights) and yielding nothing better than a 2-star in my price range, I did some googling to find a happenin’ area and came across a website devoted to it – with hotel recommendations. The recommendation was the Hilton in the Gaslamp District…at $250/night. Yikes.

Then I decided I’d go on Priceline, select the Gaslight area, and click 4-star to see if I could get a decent rate. Bam. Done.

I’m off to San Diego tomorrow with a $50 car-rental and $90/night 4-star hotel. I’m jacked. Even if I just spend everyday on the beach I’m not sure I could be more looking forward to this trip – No jack-hammering (or M.C. Hammering, or hammering of any sort), no bar that cranks it’s music below my room until 4am on the weekends, no cold, no rain, just sunny, 80-degree San Diego and a whole lot of nothing to do.

I hate you Jack.

Whoever the Jack was that invented the Jack Hammer, I hate you. I thought I was done with insanely loud construction directly outside my window when I left my old office, but it turns out even Rockefeller Center needs early morning jack-hammering to occur.

This just started a few days ago so I can only imagine it’ll be going on for months. Awesome. Well, at least my trip to San Diego on Thursday didn’t get cancelled…oh…wait…

Me so happy, me want to cry!

Obama won. He won the election and all the world over Americans seem a little bit less retarded than we have over the past 8 years. CNN this morning showed Spaniards reveling in the victory, Germans inviting Obama over for parlay, and even the nuclear savvy numb-skulls in Iran made a statement about coming to terms (not that they haven’t done that 1,000 times before but it seems more significant this time).

Great, I’m pretty happy. I’m happy McCain didn’t win more than I’m happy Obama won as my personal politics always seem to greatly contrast in one way or another with both candidates. I’m also happy the rest of the world will stop thinking all Americans are hot-dog-eating cow-herders who lynch black people and enslave the Chinese (or vice-versa).

However, I’ll be damned if the idiot press wasn’t tripping over themselves last night talking about “our first black president” and “isn’t this great, we’re not racist!” and “I actually cried so hard I puked, and then ate my puke for it was the puke of sheer joy!”

Obama won because he was a better candidate. Not because he was black. He was inspirational because he’s got a solid head on his shoulders and appealing policies and he’s educated. Not because he’s black! If the press keeps emphasizing the most shallow difference between Obama and McCain, I’m afraid Americans haven’t come very far at all. We haven’t been racist for a long time now (most of us anyway), in fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve never been racist.

I’m not saying this isn’t significant for American History, it definitely is and it definitely seems like America has turned a corner – but we’ve been working on turning this corner for a long time and this election is just the milestone that says “we did it, we’re here, and we’re ready to start changing other things too.”

My favorite part about Obama’s speech was emphasis on the fact that we still have loads of work to do. That is the biggest thing to take away. This is only the beginning of change – not the end, or the outcome, the beginning!

So my friends, please join me in congratulating our first, intelligent, well-spoken president in 8 years, and the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. Now, let’s roll up our sleeves and start whipping ourselves back into shape!