Mmmmm Turkey, hey, could you pass the Rick Rolls?

Was this part of your Thanksgiving conversation? It was if you watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! Wha? Please oh please, check it out below.



Amazing moments:

• 1:50 when little Cartoon Network guys bounce around to the sweet sweet sounds of Astley


• When the song finishes (1:56) and one of the cartoon characters says, "I love Rick Rolling"


• When the erstwhile announcers describe (2:03) what you just saw as "Rick Astley singing the Rick Rolling phenom, 'Never Gonna Give You Up'." Seriously!?!?! There is basically no chance the announcer understood what that meant.

Ok, that's it. Happy Black Friday, everybody! I hope none of you got trampled at a local WalMart today.

Add this one to the not-so-cuddly list

Over in China a 20-year old male student was at a zoo and decided that the panda bear in the cage could use some cuddle time. He hopped the fence into the panda's enclosure and frightened the bear so badly that the bear bit him all over his arms and legs. The guy is luckily ok, but I imagine he won't be back in the market for bear hugs anytime soon.

Things Ann Coulter has to be thankful for this week!

1. A new book coming out soon to provide even more cash for her bed of cash where she lies and plots new and devious ways to be a nutbag jerk.
2. Her jaw has been wired shut, so she has even more time to mull over creative ways to bash those fiendish dastardly liberals.
3. She's a calendar girl.

Wow... I really can't think of anything nice to say about Ann Coulter. She's an awful and disgusting blowhard. Yup... that's it. Alright, moving on!

So So Good, why Wonkette + Star Wars always works

Yesterday the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department rolled out the second phase of the bailout where they don't even get congressional approval... they just toss a crap ton of more money on the problem. Awesome. If that doesn't sound exciting to you, check out Wonkette's coverage, where they throw a little Star Wars reference into the mix to make it all go down smooth. They're like Mary Poppins with a spoon full of sugar. Mmmmmmmm BAILOUT!

Things that are fun and funny: Tirades!

No, seriously, they are! Check out this clip that didn't air on SNL but could/should have. It focuses on the reportedly firey temper of Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's choice for chief of staff.



I especially like the nodding of the camera man around the 2 minute mark in the video, also the calm tone at the end.

Eagle Killers: Friends of Bush

So... today President pardoned a bunch of crooks and weirdos who have connections to the current administration, at least enough of a way to make it seem worth the President's while to drop their prison terms, etc. This is nothing out of the ordinary, in fact it's a pretty standard piece of the whole Presidency thing. Anyway, among the pardoned is some bozo who was in prison for killing bald eagles by poisoning them... so all I can do is ask this:

Is there a better metaphor for what the last 8 years have been about?

Where are my Colmes, damn it?

WWSHD? Not sure what that means? It means What will Sean Hannity do, now that Alan Colmes has announced that he's leaving the Faux News staple named for the two hosts. Honestly, I don't have much to say about Alan, or this news... honestly I've never paid much attention to the guy, but then again, who ever did?

He seems like a nice enough dude, which is probably why he worked so well as the soft-spoken guy who couldn't really turn up the fire to match Hannity's crazy.

UPDATE: Ok... so if you want to see Colmes go rogue and really stick it to Hannity check out video here. Nice to see the token really go after an issue, in the case of the video he's taking on the hipocracy of right wingers attacking John Edwards after his affair became public last year.

That Turkey Thing

Wow... so... apparently Sarah Palin has decided to keep making our lives more interesting even though she isn't a heartbeat away from the Presidency. Case in point? Um... yeah.



Ok... you've probably already seen that, huh? Oh well. Just tryin' to catch up here.

UPDATE: Letterman took up turkeygate last night in his top 10! Meet the new Joe the _________, America.

Well... hello there!

Hi folks! Damn, it's been a little while since the last post, huh? What happened? Anything?

Oh, right! That election happened! That was pretty fantastic, huh? Also, I started a brand new job, literally the next day. The new job is great, but as one might guess I have less time to blog than I did while I was unemployed and job hunting. First, let me say thanks to anybody who's still reading. After taking literally weeks off, I'm hoping some folks still check in.

I'll be trying to post on a somewhat regular basis now that the new job is evening out a bit and I'm getting the hang of my responsibilities, schedule, etc.

Meanwhile, I'll have to also diversify my content a bit as most of my posts prior to November 4th were focused on the election. I guess there's still some election stuff to talk about, in fact my favorite Senate seat is still up for grabs and it looks like there's some chance Al Franken may still grab it. We'll see.

I'll toss up a couple posts tonight and hopefully this will be the beginning of a new surge of bloggination. Sorry for the long long long long long layoff. I hope that you, like me, have been basking in the mere notion of being able to say, "President Obama" for the next four years. It has a nice ring, doesn't it?

Newsweek Wraps Up the Campaign

It's been out for a few days but if you were following the presidential campaign over the last two years, you owe it to yourself to check out Newsweek's seven-chapter "Secrets of the 2008 Campaign" wrap up of inside stories from the campaigns of Obama, McCain, and Clinton. They've assembled behind-the-scenes items that they agreed to keep off the record until after the election into a narrative of which I cannot get enough. Read the highlights for the most sensational items about hackers and phone calls between McCain and Clinton. Delve deeper for passages like this:

Obama's plane was taking off from Denver airport around 9 a.m. when Axelrod got confirmation that McCain had indeed picked Palin as his running mate. He went to the front cabin to tell Obama and his new running mate, Joe Biden. Biden asked, "Who's Palin?"

Election Day News, Notes, Anecdotes, and Thoughts

Today I decided to do an almost live-blogging type thing. At 2:30 pm this afternoon I voted in New Haven, CT at a fire station that was fairly sleepy. Then again, likely most folks were out working. I start a new job tomorrow myself (very excited about that!). Meanwhile, I was speaking with a new co-worker this evening and she shared the following anecdote:

Apparently, while Barack Obama's grandmother passed away very late Sunday evening there is a tiny bit more to the story. A few days before she passed, she cast her absentee ballot for her grandson, whom she raised for significant parts of his childhood. I can think of few more breath-taking images to encapsulate this moment. Thinking of my own grandparents, god rest their souls, this story does give me very pleasant chills of family pride and connection and makes me again reflect on just how historic this day is. I've verified the story here, here and here.

Meanwhile, I was on Purple State Blog, one of my favorite politically-related blogs (and also an almost daily source for some sort of fun video) where they linked to the article, "I Didn't Vote for Obama Today," which is very much worth your time.

I'll post some more thoughts when I get opportunities between watching the results and having some dinner this evening. I don't know about you, but I'm excited. Here we go folks... this evening should be an interesting and hopefully a very exciting ride!

7:00 PM - Huffington Post has a nice slideshow of polling place and voting photos from today, and on the page linked above they have links to slideshows from today in the life of each candidate for Pres and VP. Meanwhile, CNN just called VT for Obama, Kentucky for McCain. Neither is a surprise.

7:05 PM - I just checked in on a cool interactive map over at Daily Kos, and on a fun side note, a friend of mine, Melissa, works for Free Range Studios, the design company that helped put this page together along with all the mechanisms that make it work. Oh, and CNN just predicted that Mark Warner (D) will win the open Senate seat in VA. Very cool! I'm a big fan of Mark Warner. Seems that VA will soon have 2 sitting Democratic Senators!

7:17 PM - CNN is now reporting the election via hologram technology! Princess Leia is live in the "Election Center" via hologram talking to Wolf Blitzer who is on the Death Star with a wookie. It's amazing. I'm... speechless. More later.

8:31 PM - Results continue to roll in. Looks like all of New England is going blue in the presidential race, and like the Senate seat in NH is going from R to D. Meanwhile, Liddy Dole is getting a gigantic run for her money in North Carolina and networks are calling PA for Obama (not a big surprise given recent poll results there have tended to all show Obama with a double-digit lead). The interactive map described above continues to get more and more and more interesting over time.

9:33 PM - From the comments: Shaheen just won NH.... BTW, This is only the second time in history that two Americans with Arabic names have faced each other in a senate race... I am proud of my home state!

Very cool, Venice! Meanwhile, NC continues to look good. Looks like Dole is flat-out done down there, unless something weird and big happens soon. What an interesting and exciting evening for socially progressive folks... in many ways more than usual I'm pretty speechless right now. Wow! MSNBC just called New Mexico for Udall in the Senate... interesting given the votes currently popping up. More to see here folks... definitely more to see.

10:55 PM - CNN calls VA for Obama... that means that he has 220 so with CA he has 275... 5 more than needed.

11:01 PM - CNN Fox and MSNBC call it for Obama. I'm so happy so elated... this is amazing.

11:06 PM - Perhaps even more amazing, the comentators on Fox News are talking about what a likable guy Obama is.

11:09 PM - MSNBC is gushing enough to make up for what I can't quite seem to form words around...

11:17 PM - I'm not going to lie, the image of Jesse Jackson crying tonight got me a little choked up. This really is a truly historic night, and while I've been looking forward to the history that might be made today, it is nice to have an image to really help drive home the massive significance.

11:23 PM - Can't keep up with live blogging it, but here a couple minutes into McCain's concession speech I am struck once again by just what a dignified, honorable, and remarkable guy he is. His kind words about Obama's grandmother, his words urging his supporters and fellow Americans to work together to help make change... just all around respectable and damn cool.

11:34 PM - Hi comments crew! I totally just realized that you all are here!!! It makes me so happy, and is anybody else a little overwhelmed right now??? I'm just so relieved an d happy, like something I had lost is coming back... my belief that something this good can happen ... kinda like the way things changed when I realized it was possible the Phillies just might win the World Series but on such a different scale... honestly, I'm totally losing composure. This is a very cool moment, and I'm glad that out there in cyberspace you all are taking it all in at the same time... I keep hoping that 56 number CNN is projecting for Dems in the Senate will keep going up... but I don't want to get greedy with what I hope for tonight!

12:15 AM - "To those who would tear the world down, we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security we support you, and to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright, tonight we've proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals, democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope."

Air Cars! Awesome

By 2011 tiny little "air-powered" cars may be scooting around the streets of your town, transporting folks to work running mainly on compressed air and getting roughly 105 miles to a gallon of gas, vegetable oil or alcohol...

COOL!

Rest in Peace, Madelyn Payne Dunham (a.k.a. Obama's Grandma)

Madelyn Dunham, known to most of the world simply as Barack Obama's grandmother, who raised Obama for large portions of his childhood, passed away today. Having read large portions of his first book, Dunham had a huge impact on Obama's character and was quite an impressive character herself. Sad that the passing of such a central person in the man's life would happen literally on the eve of the biggest day in his career, at least so far. Our thoughts are with the Obama family.

When Worlds Collide

The campaign is reaching its final feverish pitch and my worlds are colliding as Jimmy Rollins and several other of your World Champion Philadelphia Phillies are going to be at a rally with Joe and Jill Biden this evening. I'm getting butterflies...

Video Mess For Thursday... er Monday!

Ok, so many thanks to Venice who yet again picked up the slack in the last two days posting while I lapsed a bit! I greatly appreciate it, my newly employed friend. I hope that your move has gone as well as it has gone swiftly. Meanwhile, it's apparently the week for employment news at The Best Way, because a big piece of my reasons behind not posting over the past couple days was the fact that my own stint of unemployment came to an end on Friday!

We'll aim to keep bringing you high quality content, even if posting becomes more concentrated in the evening and/or weekend hours over the weeks and months to come. That disclaimer said, here's a video intensive update I meant to post last Thursday... then we'll get back to your regularly scheduled semi-relevant and non-stale content:

Last week Tina Fey visited Conan Obrien and hilarity insued. If you missed their conversations, including talk about Tina quizzing her young daughter to see if she can tell her own mother apart from Sarah Palin, then please check it out.

Seriously... perhaps I should just ditch this post. Um... yeah, moving on

Wait! This makes the staleness worthwile! Last week Wonkette posted the following um... just incredible video that illustrates an incredibly strong reason why everyone should vote: the person voting before or after you just might be insane. Seriously folks, have you met someone who says they just don't vote because they can't keep up with it all? Did they seem at least somewhat able to think coherently? Next time this happens, encourage them to vote... because of that one crazy glue sniffer out there whose vote they can cancel out.



In other happenings last week that are insanely important, John McCain went to an Ohio rally expecting to be joined by his buddy Joe the Plumber, but guess who didn't show up? Yup... um... Joe, you know... Joe, the Plumber. Oops.



Oh, and the Phillies WON it ALL!!!!!!!

John McCain endorses Barack Obama for President of the United States

Just kidding, of course, but the way things are going out there I wouldn't be surprised. Anyway, I will probably be blogging lightly or not at all this week, even on Election Day. I will try to sound in at some point though. Although it's fun to think of an Obama blowout, I have a suspicious feeling that the race will actually be closer than conventional wisdom says. I admit there isn't much evidence for this. Even if you took out presidential polls, there is reason for Obamafans to be optimistic. He's raised insane cash from a record number of donors. He's dominated advertising and, by all accounts, has a superior ground game. Congressional Democrats look poised to sweep their Republican rivals. All these things point to an Obama victory, so the presidential polls showing him ahead are really only icing on the cake. However, I honestly thought that Kerry and Gore would win too (arguably Gore did win, but let's not get into that). So all I can feel now is cautious optimism. In any case, I feel this election is going to be a win-win for this country. No matter what happens, we're coming out of a long dark W.-inter.