And now, some politics

Thus far this blog has managed to make it to four whole posts without sputtering out. I have no idea what the Vegas over-under was posted at, but I think this is a good sign.

So it's 2 am, and instead of writing an email that's been on the to-do list for multiple days, I've just reloaded this engrossing little readout from the Mexican Federal Elections Institute for like the ninth time in ten minutes. Following elections in faraway lands has become a disturbing vice of late. The fact that it's holding my interest at this time of the night while involving people I hadn't heard of a few days ago... well, lets be charitable and say it speaks volumes to the degree of a problem I have. And problem is probably the right word, in total seriousness.

I think this marks random election-following-evening #7 or so in a bizarre streak stretching back over the past year and a bit: previous nights of rapt entertainment have involved Germany, Britain, Italy, Hungary, Nova Scotia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Anyway, remember in the second X-Men movie, how there's the mutant kid who can change TV channels by blinking his eyes, and you can't help but think the poor fuck totally got the shaft? Well, I have him beat, because my magical mutant power doesn't involve flying or weather control or bedding Anna Paquin. No, I can use my throbbing brain to turn faraway election results into unexpected cliffhangers. I'm serious, look it up if you want... at least six of the aforementioned elections ended way closer than anybody expected. And distant elections I don't follow--which thankfully, includes a great portion of them--seem to go on undisturbed. This skill didn't seem to kick in for the last Canadian federal election, unfortunately.

Anyway, the Mexican presidential race has at least been billed in advance as likely to be a Bush-Gore or Berlusconi-Prodi style squeaker, with various polls predicting a dead head entirely independently of my brainwave activity. Now, as of the last refresh righty Calderón still has nearly a 2% margin on lefty López Obrador, but López Obrador has been painstakingly closing the gap over the course of the night. (Here my l33t politics skills kick in, and I see fit to point out that this likely stems from slower ballot counting in the more impoverished southern states and urban areas, where the left is stronger. So it'll keep narrowing over the night, and the question is whether López Obrador can make the pass, and whether anybody outside of Mexico will be awake when it happens). Anyway, this is pretty much watching grass grow in terms of drama at this stage. In case you were wondering.

On the bright side, my Spanish has improved considerably tonight. Granted, we're talking vocabulary like "representación proporcional" and "el voto en el extranjero", but you never know when you might get tapped by CSIS to go undercover at a Mexican political science conference. Right?