Almost no one could ignore the election, but they were told to "Vote or Die" and casting a ballot bordered on being fashionable.

There was also the discomfort and anxiety of the war in Iraq. Would the next call-up or casualty be someone they knew, someone from high school or in their college class?

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But if it became too much for twentysomethings to bear, 2004 also had some of the best distractions - from the click of poker chips and the slapping shuffle of decks to some of the best video games in years.

Looking back on the year, most twentysomethings immediately mention the election, perhaps because it was a month ago. It was admittedly hard to avoid.

Rock stars and rappers from Bon Jovi to P. Diddy and Eminem (who voted for the first time at age 32) tried to make voting cool and get more people under 25 to vote. And everywhere you went, someone was trying to sign you up.

"I went to a club for '80s night and there were people registering people to vote. I thought it was a weird thing, like, to be at a club," said Sonja Smith, 23, a lifelong Pittsburgher with wraparound tattoos on a leg and arm. "I'm all about people voting but I thought that was bizarre."

Jillian Gallagher, 21, from Lansdale, Pa., who will graduate from Duquesne University in May, remembers the election partly for the fashion it inspired, both responsible and irreverent. It ran from an Armani T-shirt reading "If you think fashion makes a statement, try voting" and P. Diddy's "Vote or Die" to "Bush is My Homeboy!" and "Kerry for President, of France."

"It was kind of great to see all of these twentysomethings and even teenage kids who couldn't vote yet being adamant that voting was the right thing to do," said Gallagher, who voted for the first time this year. "I don't think it would be the worst idea if they made it fashionable. What else has worked?"

They also shared worries about the war, the "quiet, big thing" among this age group, says Lance Bennett, director of the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement at the University of Washington.

"It involves young people so there is an attention factor because of the age of the troops and one degree of separation is me: Do I go next?" Bennett said.

Sarah McManus Bickle, a 26-year-old teaching English to recent immigrants in Plano, Texas, says she "maniacally reads the paper every day." She's been trying to keep tabs on call-ups, casualties and battles in Iraq.

She has relatives on active duty, and until late this year, she worried that her Marine husband, Scott, could be sent to Iraq under a rarely used reserve provision.

"We heard that they needed more troops. We thought he might be caught up," she said. "He got out on Nov. 3. Praise God in heaven."

As she followed the war and call-ups, McManus Bickle also found time to get hooked on blogs (Web logs), of which there are millions. "Everybody has blogs, even people who are boring," said McManus Bickle, who also had her own for a short time.

Blogs caught on with high school and college students, best-selling authors and journalists. Even some soldiers in Iraq started blogs.

In a nod to the power of the blog, presidential campaigns started online journals - including President Bush and John Kerry, Howard Dean and Wesley Clark.

Scott Bickle, now general manager in suburban Dallas of a Mad Science franchise, tried not to think about the war and his possible mobilization by playing poker and new games for XBox, including "Halo 2," one of the most anticipated games ever.

Twentysomethings were caught up in the explosion in interest in poker and other card games, fueled in part by programs like "The World Series of Poker" on ESPN and new online gambling opportunities.

Still, video games remained hot.

Keith Stockdale, 27, a college student and restaurant worker in Pittsburgh, doesn't consider himself a gamer. He has a PlayStation 2 and a GameCube, but only a few games for each because he is constantly buying and selling games.

Five years ago, he said, only gamers would be spending hours a day playing video games.

"Now, anybody you talk to is," he said. "It is the new form of TV."

Gregor Young, 20, a student at Duquesne heading to Belgium as an exchange student this spring, wishes he'd had more time to play this year. He said he'd have some real gaming on his parents' "decadently large TV" over the holidays.

"The video games that came out this year, there have been a few that have been awesome," he said. "Prince of Persia (The Sands of Time) is sweet, the new Lord of the Rings Game. I haven't been playing enough. I stayed up playing that Prince of Persia game until six in the morning. ... I may do it again."

Source: Associated Press