Philly Kids Go Crazy for Obama

I love to keep an eye on my home town, especially when some fun news comes my way from back home to make me smile. Unfortunately Philly doesn't always give me reason to smile, like when it was recently announced that Phillies star second baseman Chase Utley will miss a good chunk of the start of 2009's baseball season due to hip surgery. Luckily the other day I saw a piece on Huffington Post about how kids at a Philadelphia school caught sight of Barack Obama on the street (he was in town for a meeting of governors from across the nation) and just went nuts.

If you follow the link you can see the young folks screaming and reachign through a fence to try and shake hands with their soon-to-be leader. It's an electric little clip, and a reminder of the excitement that so many of us feel displayed in a very unfiltered and wonderful form. Thanks, kids in Philly.

Venice is alive and well

and reading the collected poems of W.S. Merwin. I've loved Merwin ever since discovering The Folding Cliffs in college. I've heard that his mature style eschews traditional forms for a rhythm that mimics human breath. My favourite poem by him is called "losing a language." I would try to find a copy and transcribe it (I assume that it is in the collection mentioned) but even if I was sure that would not violate copyright laws, I cannot bring myself to ask anyone to read poetry on a computer screen. It's bad for the eyes and the eyes, as we all know, are webcams into the soul or something. I leave you with this observation. the poem laments the loss of a language and the many things expressible in that language alone. one of these things is "the verb for I."So go to your local library and get a copy.

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?"