Nader predicts Obama to pick Clinton

“I don’t think he’s that dumb,” said Nader, commenting on widespread speculation that Obama’s choices are down to Sens. Joe Biden or Evan Bayh, or Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

The smart pick, according to Nader, is Hillary Rodham Clinton. Nader phoned into Politico on Tuesday afternoon to offer his prediction that a surprise nod to Clinton is actually what Obama has in store — never mind the talk of mistrust between the Clintons and Obama.

Ralph Nader agrees with me, but I still think I’m right.

Secret blog reader/roommate David S. continues to violently disagree with me (he shattered the bathroom sink this morning with his RAGE), but he’s having a hard time seeing around his massive Biden Boner. “I’d take that post down, it makes you look silly.” He said that to me! “And in a sane world, [Biden] would be picking Obama as his VP right now.” And I’m the one who looks silly!

Just in time for the closing rush of the presidential election, MSNBC is shaking up its prime-time programming lineup, removing the long-time host –- and one-time general manager of the network — Dan Abrams from his 9 p.m. program and replacing him with Rachel Maddow, who has emerged as a favored political commentator for the all-news cable channel.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Seriously. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the lady who ran against Obama in the primary. You remember her, right?

Here’s the thing: the accepted “short list” of nominees is totally lackluster and a great big pile of meh. I mean, no offense to my esteemed roommate, but when the most exciting prospect is the US Senator from MBNA, the honorable Joseph “Epic Fail” Biden, we’re not talking about the best and the brightest to begin with. Further down the list, we’re looking at Evan Bayh and Tim Kaine, both of whom bring nothing to the table but liabilities.

And then I thought — this has to be by design. The Democratic bench isn’t nearly that shallow, someone like Kathleen Sebelius would be an outstanding pick, allow Obama to double-down on “change,” and bring another burst of energy to the ticket. Obama/Sebelius also gets to downplay the quickly quieting charges of misogyny and provides an opportunity to talk all about all this feeling good — makes sense, right? Obama won’t play into the “pick a VP to cover my flaws” CW, he’s going to DOUBLE DOWN, right? So why is the shortlist chock full of the usual crummy suspects?

Because it’s a head fake and he’s going to pick Clinton. This way, Obama gets to say he took a good hard look at everyone out there, and Clinton was the best person for the job. (Which, compared to the Biden/Bayh/Kaine triumvirate, she totally is.) Clinton gets the spot on the ticket she wanted all along without looking like she used her leverage to force her way in, Obama gets to be the strong leader who chose his own running mate based on his own criteria, all of Clinton’s supporters piss themselves with glee, and Obama/Clinton wins by twelve points.

This explains why Sebelius was never seriously floated — she’s a better candidate for VP than Clinton. You can’t make the “I picked the best candidate on their merits” argument if Sebelius is on the shortlist, and picking Clinton over Sebelius makes the story all about how Clinton used her clout and made threats. Right now, Obama and Clinton’s supporters have, for the most part, in spite of the best efforts of the pundit class, moved on to how horrible bought-and-paid-for McCain would be. Clinton’s supporters are already breaking for Obama at a rate you’d hope they would. Obama doesn’t need Clinton, he wants to change the narrative to OMGZ EPIC DREAM TICKET UNBEATABLE GO HOME OLD MAN. Whether or not that would happen is even more pointless speculation, but I’m guessing that’s the guessing.

Of course, my phone could buzz at any moment with an SMS telling me I’m wrong. But I think I might be right, and if I am, I’m excited. If I’m right, it’s all over.

“It was, for lack of a better word: art.”

I swear to you, Internet, that Meaghan and I watched this over and over this weekend and laughed harder than we’d ever laughed before. And then when we finally caught our breath, we stared into each other’s eyes and kissed passionately and fell asleep in each other’s arms. Thank you for saving our relationship, E! Entertainment Television.

WIN: Meaghan came to visit and see the new apartment. Meaghan weekends are the best weekends.

FAIL: Ikea in Brooklyn. Our experience basically mirrored this, and we were so extremely frustrated that I just grabbed a dresser, a closet organizer, a couple of rugs, and got out of there. Which is to say, out of the showroom and into the line at the register for a good hour or so. I had grand plans for bags of frozen meatballs, but not so much, the food register snaked even longer. Also, when Meaghan and I spawn, we vow never to take our offspring to Ikea on a Saturday afternoon. Double also, as cool as the showroom is, it’s a crummy place to realize you need to use the restroom when you’re about midway through the maze.

WIN: Red Hook Ball Fields. This time was much much better than opening weekend — all the vendors were out, the weather was incredible, and the horchata flowed freely. I’d travel far and wide for pupusas stuffed with loroco flower and cheese, but all I have to do is drive to Brooklyn. And compared to Ikea, the ball fields were downright idyllic.

WIN: Michael Phelps.

WIN: David Byrne’s “Playing The Building” exhibition at the Battery Maritime Building. Byrne took an organ and wired the keys to devices that struck various fixtures in this wonderfully decomposing old room, making the building the instrument. But it was controlled by a regular eighty-eight key organ, which fooled a lot of people — my favorite part was watching musicians sit down and try to play the chords they know and get results they couldn’t intrepret. It really did democratize the results, the building sounded as eerie and discordant whether it was an obvious musician or a doughy Midwestern tourist. I tried to play a Devo song, failed.

WIN: Governors Island. Big big recommendation, y’all. BIKE RENTAL. PANORAMIC VIEWS. Go do it!

FAIL: Pinch & S’Mac on the Upper West Side. My lady wanted macaroni & cheese for lunch, and who was I to deny? This place got good Yelp, so I was pretty excited, but they didn’t deliver, so I wrote a moderately snotty review. Well, about an hour later, the owner of the place wrote me a very nice note to apologize for our experience and to offer me a gift card to return on him. His generosity is noted for the record, but I can’t take him up on it. Editorial integrity.

FAIL: Getting up early tomorrow to drive Meaghan back to LGA.

Overall, the weekend was FULL OF WIN. So much awesome.

Little Gordon’s on a personal mission to rid the world of rubbish food and pathetic service. So no excuses, yeah?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

My boy Dave Siegel is McCain #1 in this contest — so make with the clickity and vote it up.

Now, to ease the pain of moving into such a small space, I’m allowing myself the small comfort of a flatscreen television. The footprint of my current CRT television is way too large, so I sold it for a very reasonable price to a friend, and will put the proceeds towards a 32″ LCD television that I’ve already picked out. (Yes, Jeff, LCD. It’ll be fine.) I’m going to mount the television on the wall at the foot of my bed, and put shelving up for the cable box and DVD player and whatnot. It will be like the bedroom I’d have designed for myself when I was eight years old, but that’s ok. Meaghan is awesome, I think she’ll be able to handle living like this after we’re married.

The other small comfort I’m going to allow myself is a new digital media center. I don’t have the space to store or display all my DVDs, so I’m going to rip them to a hard drive and get myself a rig to effortlessly watch them on my television, then box them up in the dead storage space under the bed. For the rig, we’re down to only two options.

Option 1: Apple TV and an external hard drive for the iTunes library controlled by the Airport Extreme.

Option 2: Mac Mini using the LCD TV as a display and a wireless keyboard and mouse.

Both of these meet the goals of “watch things in the iTunes library on the television,” but naturally, the Mac Mini gives me a whole lot more flexibility — I could watch whatever Internet video I wanted, YouTube, Hulu, Netflix (when they get a Mac version), you name it, along with anything VLC can play locally. With Apple TV, I’m limited to YouTube for Internet video, and the formats supported by iTunes for local video.

The reason I’m tearing my hair out is the Mac Mini setup would run me about $300 more than the Apple TV setup. So, the decision is: is $300 worth the added flexibility for video plus practically having a spare computer? (I mean, it would be like sitting six feet away from a 32 inch monitor.) I’m leaning towards yes.

Am I missing another elegant solution? Do you have a rig that does something similar that I should consider? (I’m pretty well wrapped up in iTunes DRM at this point, though.) Please just tell me to get over it and shutup.