I need a vacation. More importantly, I need vacation time. Also, I need a thief to come in and rob me of 20 lbs. Is that asking too much?

So we watched the Democrats debate tonight. I think Obama was the clear winner, and Hillary (if anyone was paying attention) continued her waffling ways. No, not eating waffles and chicken nuggets at Meridith. Tim Russert would read a quote from her on NAFTA and how she said it had helped New York and was good for the country. Well, apparently that's not politically convenient for her anymore, so in the VERY NEXT SENTENCE she said that NAFTA is not good for New York. Well which is it? Is it good when it's "a great step forward for the country" or is it bad when "it allows companies to export our middle class to Mexico." I guess it depends on what time it is. When Bill Clinton is singing it's praises, it must be good. When George Bush says that it's working, it must be bad.

I wish people would wake up and ask themselves one simple question. Do they really want to vote for a liar? If the answer is yes, then by all means, vote for Hillary Clinton. If the answer is no though, then I don't see how in good conscience you could even consider voting for her.

That said, her (current) politics and Obama's politics are quite similar. They both are for universal health care, which will completely destroy any chance this country has of getting out of debt. Where does the money come from? Oh, it must be mommy and daddy government. They just *poof* it out of thin air. Uh, I don't think so. It comes from my pocket and your pocket. But, you already have health insurance you say. Sorry about your luck, because now you're paying more because you need to cover the people that don't. You think we have high taxes now? Wait and see if universal health care goes through.

One of the best parts of the debate was when Hillary asked "should we make social security optional?" She, of course, was using that as a bad thing. I, however, nearly jumped out of my seat and was screaming "yes, yes yes!" I would love to have my money back and be able to invest it myself. Instead, 6.5% of my income is flushed down a toilet called social security. I'm never going to see any of that money. The system will be completely bankrupt well before I touch a dime of it. Then I hear the argument "people can't trust the stock market. They'll lose all their money." Too bad! It is not the governments job to take care of people. If people lose their money then they have to find a way to deal with it. Give me my money and let me invest it. If I screw it up, I have only myself to blame. If I get rich though, don't tax me at 60% of my income because I must've been born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

By and large, rich people are rich because they worked hard for it. How are they rewarded? They're punished with ridiculous taxes. Do you really want to see a return to 1970's style taxes? I know I don't. I already give far too much money to the government and see far too little in return.

We went snow tubing at Alpine Valley on Saturday. Everything was going along just fine until the very last trip down the hill. Lindsay had called it quits one trip earlier. The couple that we went with had ridden down together on the fastest hill, and I would follow. I gave, what I thought to be, ample space before I headed down. I would quickly be proven wrong.

It was like the old Batman TV series...

*CRASH* *POW* *ZOOM*

There was an intense explosion of tubes and body parts. I believe this trip was my fastest of the day, and the couple in front of my had somehow stopped short. Well after yelling out a warning, I crashed into them at high velocity and went flying through the air. I'll tell you this... snow isn't as soft as you'd think it should be.

I had gotten kneed in the chest and landed on my side, but otherwise was okay. Everyone was able to walk away from the crash, and I was happy that we had already called it a day.

Maybe I'll post a picture of the carnage.

So the Cavs have made one of the biggest trades in NBA history. The 11 player swap means that in tonights game the Cavs will have 6 players, along with two that they've just signed out of the D-League. Hey LeBron, I think that means you'll finally get that playing time you've deserved for so long.

I'll break down this trade from a Cleveland-centric perspective.

First, they traded Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Shannon Brown, Donyell Marshall, Ira Newble, and Cedric Simmons, the hot dog vendor from section 132, and the mens room attendant from club level A.

Of those, the only one I will miss is the hot dog vendor from 132. Oh, we had some good times, but sadly, they are no more. Actually, I don't like getting rid of Gooden. Yeah, he had mental lapses, but he put up numbers, and that's ultimately what matters. Especially with Varejao, Pavlovic, and now Gibson being injured, the Cavs have no depth to speak of. Literally. They have 6 players right now, and one of those is Eric Snow, so not only does he not count, but it almost takes away another spot. They might have to go Hoosiers on the Wizards tonight. And no, I don't mean call Gilbert Arenas and tell him that the Cavs are hiring his dad as an assistant coach.

The Larry Hughes experiment never really amounted to anything. He was often injured, and when he was actually healthy, he was best at launching crazy 20 footers instead of actually driving to the rim. Larry, I hate to break it to you, but you're not a jump shooter and you never will be.

Shannon Brown never amounted to anything in Cleveland. He had the hype from the Cavs draft class 2 years ago, but Daniel Gibson has blown him out of the water. Brown may one day develop into a decent player, but if the Bulls are planning on him replacing Ben Gordon after this summer, they're sadly mistaken.

Cedric Simmons, we hardly knew ye. You played, I think. Congratulations, you make millions of dollars for sitting on your butt. We should all aspire to so much.

Ira Newble, I dislike you. You played some defense. Occasionally you scored. That's it. That's the list. You had no motivation when you weren't getting solid minutes, and you actually refused the coaches decision to come into the game. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Donyell Marshall actually hit some big shots in a Cavaliers uniform, but he won't be missed. He is essentially just a tall set shooter. Kind of like Bill Lambeer, except black.

In return for half of the team, the Cavs got Captain Consonant Wally Szczerbiak, Ben Wallace's afro, Delonte West, and Joe Smith. While I liked getting rid of Hughes' contract, I don't like taking on Wally World's and Ben Wallace's contracts. The key to this deal will be in Wallace an be re-energized by playing on a contender. I'm not sure. The Cavs scouts apparently think so, as they've been watching him for the past 3 weeks and have said that he isn't playing up to his potential. Is it really a good idea to bring someone one who gets paid $15 million per year to play basketball and yet cannot motivate themselves to actually play the game? We'll see. Hopefully the answer is yes.

I think the real steal of this trade is getting Delonte West. Everyone seems to talk about how tough he is and what a good shooter he is. Those are both aspects that the Cavs are not especially strong in. He may not be a pure point guard, but then again, no one on the team is, so it's not really a problem. Maybe they can bring Mark Price out of retirement.

Sczcerbiak should be that shooter that can really benefit from LeBron James driving the lane and then passing out. Hopefully this can allay some of the 5 on 1 defenses that have been drawn up against the Cavs. I also hope that this means the Cavs can actually run an offensive set. I mean, one other than "Everyone stand around! LeBron's going to do something!" If Wally can consistently hit his shot while also playing olé defense, then maybe he can be the next Craig Ehlo. I'd take that.

The Cavs also picked up an additional 2nd round pick. I'm pretty happy with that, because their second round picks seems to work out much better than their first round picks not named LeBron. Reference Boozer and Gibson as proof of that.

One thing I'd love to see come from this trade is to have the whole team start sporting fros. It would truly be a sight to see. Just imagine...

We got back from Nags Head safely yesterday. With any luck, I'll be able to put up some pictures as evidence. When we landed in Cleveland I saw about 20 seconds of the IU - Purdue game, right at the end of the first half. I watched as Robbie Hummel launched a horribly ugly shot after they wasted their entire possession. Not a good sign. Still though, they're at least a year ahead of schedule, so that's good. It's nice to be in a position where we can talk about a meaningful game this late in the season.

Anyway, back to Nags Head... the weather was fantastic. Everyone had a good time. It was much too short a stay, if anything.

Blah, blah, blah, I'm full of boring tales lately.

I took Lindsay to see Wicked last night. It was ok. I liked Lion King better, primarily because of the good technical set work in that.

The story in Wicked was clever and easy to get in to because of the familiar Wizard of Oz setting. I liked how they tied in the xenophobic attitudes into world history and into our present times. "You're a crusader or an invader, depending on whose eyes your looking through." That sort of thing. I saw strong parallels to the civil rights movement and to the war on terror. That part I wasn't expecting. It was nice to see some depth there.

I guess that's about it for my review.

We're heading down to Nags Head NC tonight. We fly into Norfolk and then take a rental car the rest of the way. We'll be there until Tuesday.

It's supposed to be in the 60's most of the time we'll be there, which will definitely be a nice departure from Ohio at this point.

I just found out that Clinton and Obama are having a debate in Cleveland on the 26th of February. Lindsay told me that the debate is being sponsored by MSNBC and because of the "pimping out Chelsea" comment, Hillary was not going to participate.

Well, how quickly that changed after she got her head handed to her in the latest primaries.

What's also interesting is that this has stopped Hillary from actually pimping Chelsea out. At Cleveland State today, Chelsea Clinton will appear on campus at a live question and answer session. What could she possibly have to talk about other than he conniving parents?

"Um, Chelsea. Hi. It's Tim. I'm a big fan. What's it like to have red hair?"

"Hi Tim. It's great. I like it a lot. It reminds me of that time when my mom completely failed at installing a national health care system that would be a complete bomb and would in-debt the entire nation forever."

Is that how it's going to go? Give me a break.

We're heading to Nags Head this weekend for a little family vacation.

It'll be nice to get out of the snow and the cold weather. In it's place, we'll have rain and not as cold weather. It should still be fun though. I'm looking forward to it.

That's it. Boring post.

I had the day off of work yesterday due to illness. I'm back today and ready for more!

Dear Disease,

You can't keep me down.

Sincerely,

Pukey McPhlegmstein

I just read an interesting article, in the NY Post of all places.

It's titled Once John wins, he'll make a left.

It details his prediction that once McCain secures the nomination by pretending to be a conservative, he will actually return to his roots and try to woo the left by being like the left. Bigger government. More federal control. Higher taxes. On and on.

Remember the movie War Games? Would you like to play a game? Let's play global thermo nuclear war. All that jazz. Well the WOPR had a key insight at the end of the movie... The only winning move is not to play.

That's how I'm starting to feel about this election. The only way to truly vote for America is by not voting for any major nominee.

We need a "None of the above" category. If the "None of the above" category wins more votes than any of the other nominees, then there's a re-do of the whole process until we can get someone that America actually likes, instead of someone that we as voters simply dislike less.

Yes, yes. We all bitch and moan about bad candidates, but I guess the nation as a whole is a willing accomplice to the media machine picking our candidates for us. If there's anyone that's too far from what the media is used to, then they just get left out in the cold. They aren't covered in the debates, on the TV news, in the newspaper, etc. They essentially fail to exist in the campaign. I don't really have any answers to this problem, but it is definitely a problem. Media and money buy the Presidency every 4 years and the America people fall prey to the ploy time and time again.

In a big surprise (to me at least) Mitt Romney pulled out of the race. That all but seals it up for McCain.

I've never liked McCain because I've always seen him as a flip-flopper. In this case, he reminds me of Bob Dole though in that he seems like the lamb being led to the slaughter.

At this point I think that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination then he will be elected President. If Clinton wins, I think it will be much closer and McCain stands a chance.

If it were Clinton vs McCain, I'd unfortunately be voting against someone rather than voting for someone.

That seems to happen more and more these days...

Oh well. It looks like there aren't going to be any good candidates for President come November. Flip-flop McCain is in the drivers seat on the Republican side of things. Obama and Clinton are neck and neck on the Democratic side.

None of the three is the candidate for me.

If you don't know where you stand in relation to the candidates, you can use this handy tool to find out who is the best candidate for you.

Want to see whom the candidates are taking money from? MapLight shows you. Once you see who's giving the most money, try to read between the lines to figure out why.

Attorneys and law firms are the number one givers to both Clinton and Obama, with over $13 million and over $9 million respectively.

McCain gets his largest donations from those that are retired, but that comes in at a comparatively paltry $3.5 million.

Follow the money... it'll lead you to where the crooks are.

There is a difference of thought between those who live in Cleveland and those in the rest of the country. The rest of the country apparently believes that there is no way that the Indians won't re-sign C.C. Sabathia. We that live in Cleveland know that there's about a .5% chance that they do re-sign him. If he is willing to take 4 years and $60 million, they'll re-sign him. If he wants a deal within $35 million of Santana (which he'd get on the open market) then they won't.

This is Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome all over again. They both said that they wanted to stay in Cleveland. They both left. C.C. says he wants to stay in Cleveland. He'll either be gone at the All-Star break in a trade, or he'll walk and the Indians will get nothing at the end of the year.

There's no way that they'll pay a single player 20-25% of their total payroll. There's too much risk for them to do that. The Yankees can afford to bite a $15-$20 million bullet and still have flexibility to sign other players. If C.C. were to injure himself and the Indians were on the hook for his salary, they'd have no ability to do anything about it. They couldn't afford to replace him with any meaningful impact player. That's truly the difference between a big market and a small market. Big markets can recover from mistakes (see Carl Pavano) and small market teams cannot.

Tomorrow is Super Tuesday. Yesterday was the Super Bowl. It's just that time of year when everything is apparently super.

I'll tell you one thing. If I eat any more beans, there won't be a super smell...

We're having a small Super Bowl party today. In honor of the biggest gambling day of the year, the over under on attendance is 8.5. One of Lindsay's friends and her new boyfriend, a married couple from church (basically the only other couple our age at church apparently), and a married couple that are our neighbors across the street. So that's 8. The question is will our neighbors bring their 18 month old son. So... who wants to take the over and who wants to take the under? Minimum bet is $50. Payout is 1 : 100.