Attention North Carolina: you’d better vote for Obama. You do NOT want Chris or Marlo mad at you.

From the best electoral projection site anywhere, 538.com:

Three cast members from The Wire — the greatest show in television history (tied with Deadwood) — next took the stage. A fiery Sonja Sohn told the large crowd, “When you look at The Wire, you see how institutions fail.” Passionately, she advocated for Barack Obama because, in her view, he was the candidate who would not continue to ignore those who fall through the cracks. “He said to me, ‘I am my brother’s keeper,’ y’all!” Sohn reminded the crowd.

Seth Gilliam, who had to follow Sohn’s powerful address, had a simple but clear message about the importance of voting and the importance of persuasion: “If you don’t vote, who will? No one! Who knows your mother like you? No one! Who knows your father like you? No one!” If you do not act, or make an effort to influence the world around you, he urged, nobody will act in your stead.

The thoughtful and soft-spoken Gbenga Akinnagbe went last, and had a personal observation shared with us offstage about his experience with the British health care system decried in a recent dispatch by Republican volunteer David Goldman. He’d recently sprained an ankle, and the U.S. citizen merely waited an hour on a busy Saturday night in London. He was treated for free, “and all they wanted was my name.”

Fallout 3 ships this week, and this video retrospective on the series and its roots makes me nostalgic.

[EDIT: Embedded player removed because it was too wide for my blog column. Follow this link instead.]

Wasteland! Somehow I knew the narrator was going to pick “exploding like a blood sausage” as his example of its colorful combat text, and I said it right along with him. It’s quite the memorable phrase.

Finding out that the Bloody Mess perk made it into the new Fallout made me unreasonably happy. There might be something wrong with me.

During my lunch breaks, I’ve taken to choosing a street and a direction and exploring it to see what’s there. I found a good comic book store and a refreshingly inexpensive deli that way (so far: great Italian sub, mediocre chicken parm).

Today I started at that aforementioned deli and hiked east. I stumbled across two things:

1) The studio for Rachel Ray’s cooking show, with a line of audience members waiting to get in; and

2) The United Nations.

Working in this city is SO. WEIRD.

You have no idea how much I need this coming weekend. These whole “working” and “commuting” thingies are exhausting.

Meanwhile, some old favorites are learning new tricks:

• Last week, Weird Al released a new single to iTunes: “Whatever You Like”, a spoof of… er, “Whatever You Like” by T.I. It marks the first time Al released a spoof while the original song was still #1 on the Billboard charts, and he has noted that the Internet allows his comedy to be more topical. Check it out for a buck.
• Meanwhile, the ex-MST3K folks at Rifftrax have somehow merged their riff audio with an episode of the old Bixby/Ferrigno Incredible Hulk hosted by hulu.com. Neat trick! Best of all, it’s free to stream — I assume they get a share of Hulu’s streaming advertising money.

As we concentrate on Obama vs. Johnny Drama, other important votes are sliding under the radar, such as Prop 8 in California, which would outlaw gay marriage in the state.

Polls over the summer had the proposition losing by 5%. But after a $25 million advertising blitz led by the Mormon church, Prop 8 has moved ahead in polling this week by 5%.

I just attended a going-away party for an online friend who was moving from New Jersey to California, in part so he and his partner could legally get married. I really hope they aren’t victims of tragic timing.

Not to mention, this law would nullify the existing marriages of, say, Ellen Degeneres and George Takei. (Er… to their partners, not each other.)

If you’re outside of California, please consider donating to No on 8, even if it’s just ten bucks.

If you live in California, please consider volunteering for the No on 8 cause. Most of you probably want to canvass for Obama. Trust me, he has California locked up tight. But apparently, there are a lot of people who will vote for Obama and also in favor of Prop 8. Work on them instead.

Thanks, and pass it on.

What’s good and evil about my new home, based on the first two months?

GOOD: Bagels! Much better than the west coast, and at a fraction of the cost — I can walk around the corner and get egg and cheese on a toasted bagel for $1.95. Beat that, Bruegger’s.

GOOD: Delis! In Tucson, Boar’s Head meats and cheeses were a rare treat. The only places I found them were Sunflower supermarkets and an Italian deli in the northeast. Here, every little hole in the wall serves Boar’s Head, and some of the other stuff is even better.

EVIL: Humidity! And on a related note, mosquitos! Which have been eating us alive for the last week, following a couple of days of soul-sapping humidity. At the moment, I look like I have mild chicken pox, but only on my arms, upper back, and feet, which tend to be uncovered at night.

GOOD: Jews! Specifically, Jewish holidays! There are so many Jews at Kristie’s school that she gets days off for the major holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Considering how little we’ve seen each other since school started, we’ve enjoyed her last couple of days off. Of course, once I start work in Manhattan, it won’t be quite the same.

JURY STILL OUT: Seasons! Tucson has two seasons: nine months of dry, sunny heat, followed by winter. Seattle had nine months of cool, overcast rain, followed by summer. So going from wilting summertime heat and humidity to the present fall-like chill and drizzle in less than a month is taking some getting used to. I’m liking it at the moment — and looking forward to the leaves turning — but I reserve the right to hate having four actual seasons when it’s snowing and 20 degrees and my balls have frozen off and rolled into Long Island Sound.

EVIL: Eastern time zone! Everything happens so much later here that it seems like I’m always waiting for something, be it a football game or a debate (like tonight). And it makes it a lot harder to talk to my old friends in Tucson — by the time they’re ready to chat, I’m almost ready for bed.

GOOD: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds! Or rather, the opportunity to see them, which did not exist where I used to live. They play this Saturday at the WaMu (JP Morgan?) Theater at Madison Square Garden. I’ve never seen them before in over a decade of fandom, so this is a Life List event for me.