I wasn't sure whether to stay up for the election results, so I consulted facebook, like any good nerd should in 2008, and my sister piped up to say of course I should; "Well, you should at least make it til midnight. What better birthday present?"
There's a brewpub downtown, by the way, the Arbor Brewing Company, which has fine beer (or so I'm told; no connoisseur myself, all I can say is that it tastes like beer), and which also sells its beer in bottles at local stores. A friend got a six-pack at the neighborhood convenience store. And something happened that's happened, oh, maybe half the time we've had bottled ABC beer--it was so impossibly fizzy that it would overflow and make a big mess if you didn't pour very carefully, and it foamed up in your mouth when you tried to drink it, in a way that made it more or less impossible to appreciate. Anyone know what sort of flaw in their process causes this?
Anyway, the solution, I have found, is to pour it out into a separate jar a few hours beforehand, store it in the fridge, and then drink it after the foam's subsided.
So last night I ate dinner, sat around a bit with the web and the radio and a little beer (carefully decanted the night before), heard McCain give a gracious concession speech, then right about midnight when the date flipped over to my birthday (the 5th), got to hear my choice give his victory speech. Just the birthday present I wanted.
Sara also gave me a couple excellent presents tonight, including a nifty cheap-o keychain digital camera with which I expect to take wonderfully bad pictures, my personal specialty.