Congratulations to President-Elect Obama! This is a huge victory for you and for America! Ok, yeah, I supported and voted for Obama.

But let’s not forget that the President-Elect has some large hurdles to face; an economy in the crapper, a neverending war, a country that has lost so much credibility throughout the world. The challenges are indeed great, but I have no doubt that President-Elect Obama is the one who can not only overcome those challenges, but take this country into great new directions!

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Unless you have been living under a rock for the last year, today is election day! Did you cast your vote yet? If not, make sure you get to your nearest voting center and vote! You will regret it if you don’t!

Less than one hour ago, I cast my own ballot. I won’t say who I voted for (hint: I live in the Chicago area). I was going to mark the moment by taking a picture of me placing my ballot into the box, but there were signs plastered all over the voting place forbidding any kind of photography. I didn’t want to cause any problems, so I had to settle for the cool stock image you see on the left.

My goal tonight is to keep this post updated with the election results – and I’m determined not to go to bed until I know who the next President of the United States is!!! Why? Because I can!

Seriously though, I know this isn’t a political blog and I have held my tongue a lot during this election cycle. But now that election day is here, and it’s a very historic election to say the least, I thought it’d be fun to devote this one post to the election.

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I usually don’t like to dive into the political arena with this blog as there are plenty of other blogs out there dedicated just that subject. However, when one writes a blog on literature/writing, and deals with subjects like free speech, sometimes it’s hard to avoid brushing on a few political topics every now and then.

I’m sure many of you have already seen the news about The New Yorker magazine’s new front cover. For those of you who haven’t seen or heard, here’s a brief description from this New York Times article:

The cover of the magazine depicts Mr. Obama wearing a turban, while he offers a fist bump to his gun-toting wife. An American flag singes behind them in the fireplace.

The link to that article will also give you a glimpse of the controversial cover. Obviously, on the surface, the way Obama is depicted can be considered offensive. It’s meant to stir up feelings of hatred, fear and maybe even a little patriotism. But the picture is not meant to be looked at "just on the surface". It’s satire.

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It’s hard to believe that it has been one year since the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech. 32 people were killed, including the shooter himself. A few days after the shooting I wrote this post about the connection between real-world violence, and violence that can be found in literature.

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Every weekday at 4:35pm, the local oldies station here in Chicago showcases a song by the Beatles. Before the song plays, however, the host tells the story behind the song (without actually giving away the song’s title). These are always very interesting stories that show how the Beatles struggled to create many of their hit songs, and how the group was often filled with a lot of internal strife, especially in the later years.

I have come to look forward to 4:35 for a variety of reasons: The interesting Beatles story, the good music, and the realization there are only 25 short minutes until I can jump into my car and speed home to resume my normal life.

A few days ago, the broadcast really caught my attention. It focused on John Lennon, who I think it’d be safe to say, knew a thing or two about being creative. The song that they featured was Nowhere Man. Although I don’t have an exact quote of what the radio host said, this Wikipedia entry is pretty darned close:

Lennon, however, claimed that he himself was the subject of the song. He wrote it after racking his brain in desperation for five hours, trying to come up with another song for Rubber Soul. "I’d actually stopped trying to think of something," he said. "Then I thought of myself as Nowhere Man — sitting in his nowhere land.

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I don’t like to bring up the topic of politics, because that’s not what this blog is about (there are thousands of political blogs out there if you’re looking for your political news fix). However, I’m making an exception today because this particular issue is of concern to writers and other creative-types everywhere.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama was accused of plagiarism today, more specifically, lifting parts of a speech that was originally given by democratic Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Here’s an excerpt from a Yahoo! article I came across:

The Associated Press reported in January that Obama had borrowed ideas and speech points from Patrick, often without attribution. But with Obama now leading in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton’s campaign is using this example in an attempt to chip away at the premise of his candidacy.

First, there’s obviously a lot of petty political tricks going on here. This was known about back in January, when Obama was clearly behind Clinton. But now, with Obama in the lead, the Clinton Camp is throwing it into the ring to try and derail Obama’s momentum.

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As a recent college grad, this story hits close to home. Although the details are still sketchy, it appears a gunman opened fire in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University. Right now, CNN is reporting that 18 students have been shot. Early reports also indicate that the shooter was not a student at the university.

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In honor of today being Valentine’s Day, I was going to write a brilliant post that connected this holiday of love to literature in a way that would fascinate everyone. But then, I was doing some research for this post, I came across so many collections of "Valentine’s Day love poems" and other sappy works, that I had an epiphany. I realized that all those poems are stuff many of you read back in grade school. There’s nothing new. Nothing exciting.

I also thought about going into the history of Valentine’s Day. However, a quick search on Google showed me that the history of this holiday is pretty well known and already condensed into easy-reading form via Wikipedia (which I took the liberty of linking to in the first sentence of this post). I concluded that me writing a Valentine’s Day history would be like reinventing the wheel.

Part of the problem, I admit, is that I hate Valentine’s Day. I don’t get excited about it and I’m sick of everyone asking me what I’m doing today to celebrate. My answer is always the same: "Nothing!" No cards. No flowers. No gifts. Just business as usual.

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The snow has been falling all night around Chicago. Needless to say, I haven’t even left for work yet because I’m pretty much "plowed" in right now. And I don’t feel like spending another 2 hours stuck in rush hour traffic like I did last night. So I’m going to wait a little longer and let things settle down.

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A little over a month ago I broke down and bought myself an iPhone, and then wrote about it here. Well, now I’ve had the phone for a little over a month and I wanted to take a moment to reflect on this amazing little device: I LOVE IT!

First, I’m not very tech-savvy when it comes to figuring out new gadgets. But the iPhone was different because I didn’t have to read the instructions until about a week later (and even then, it was just to glance at them). The iPhone is very intuitive, to say the least.

Secondly, the iPhone is an excellent reading device. I actually like reading articles on my iPhone more than my laptop computer. Scrolling down the text has a very natural feel to it, more akin to turning a page in a book, but somehow still different. In fact, if I had a choice between reading an ebook on my iPhone or my Sony Reader, I’d chose my iPhone without even thinking about it. Which brings me to my next point…

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