How to tell if your cat is plotting to kill you.

Yesterday my one year old family friend, The Other Aidan, came over for a visit. He seemed a pretty solidly happy child, smiling, clapping, waving. Usually my evil cat, Spikey, hides from visitors, but for some reason he came and sat in the middle of the living room floor and stared at the baby. The Other Aidan stared back. Silence. Staring. Silence. Then suddenly Aidan burst into tears, and the standoff was over.

So you may like your baby and all, but my cat is way more badass.

You know I have the best friends ever because they tell me about things like an article by Simon Pegg on why real zombies shamble. Running zombies are scary — the new Left 4 Dead game is terrifying — but they’re not really zombies. What can I say, I’m an old school Romero purist. (Thanks, Kate!)

Interesting local fact: The phrase “cougar” was coined by the Vancouver Canucks in the 1980s to describe the oversexed older ladies who would hang about hoping to nab themselves a sports hero. Now it just basically means any older woman, usually over 40 (in my defense), who prefers the company of much younger men.

I learned this fact from last month’s issue of Details magazine. A magazine, I should add, that I picked up soley because the cover featured 21-year old ugly prettyboy Ed Westwick from Gossip Girl. Stupid poetic justice.

That’s right, I’m not ashamed to admit that I watch Gossip Girl. I not only watch it, I LOVE it. I anticipate each Monday’s new developments. It’s the most trashy fun hour of television imaginable, and at least once an episode Westwick’s character, Chuck, glowers at the camera in his dashing silk scarves and I feel a little lightheaded. So moody. So evil. Rrrrrrowwwwwwr.

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“[Kurylenko]‘s supposed betrayals will be forgiven, The Communist Party of St Petersburg promised in its statement, if the actress delivers her co-star Daniel Craig to the Russian secret service. ‘Let him tell what other plans are being written in the Pentagon and Hollywood…’”

I can see it now. “Capitalist pigdog — you will betray your Hollywood masters and tell us who the villains will be in the next Batman movie! We.. um.. really like where Nolan is going with that franchise.” (Thanks for the link, you.)

Dear person who found this site by searching for “insouciant”: you made my day, thanks.

You might be missing out on the microblogging movement, but what does your houseplant have to say about that? One day soon my cats will get their own Twitter, and then the Internet will fill up with tweets about tuna and ineffective plans to take over the world using purloined dental floss and that hiding spot behind the couch.

Sorry, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ve developed something dangerously close to a life over the past little while which combined with all the yummy November vidya game releases means right now I’m not even sure what’s going on around me, much less what I think about it. I DO know that my friends and I are rolling a zombie Death Knight with stat bonuses to Science, Speech, and Energy We– wait, hang on…

Anyway, trenchant mordant insightful insouciance (eat that, Google) will have to wait for another day.

If you’ve ever wondered how the American election is viewed outside of the United States, consider this: last night people in Vancouver were lighting off fireworks when Obama won.

I read somewhere that 71% of new voters voted for Obama. That’s.. amazing. I don’t know if these new voters were mostly fresh 18 year olds or people who previously couldn’t be bothered, but there is just the sense that people had to get involved. The beauty of last night was not just that it was a final reaction to the very bad men who have been in power for eight years. It wasn’t simply that a visible minority became the “Leader of the Free World”, or that now Sarah Palin can go back to whatever god forsaken hole they found her in. No, what I loved most about last night was for the first time ever in my life it felt like democracy was taking place.

People thought about the issues, they considered the process, they cared about making the right decision, and they went out to vote and make that decision heard in record numbers. And good on you all for it.

Now comes the tough stuff. Now the new team has to actually try to reverse the most egregious nonsense of the last eight years, help the economy, work on international relations, learn the real story of space alien encounters (they live under the Denver airport!), and try not to get shot. But for at least a brief moment last night, during Obama’s speech, my little cynical heart grew three sizes.