Homoeroticism Between McCain and Obama in MSNBC Banner Ad?

I was going through my feed reader this afternoon when this banner ad for MSNBC’s political coverage came up in my browser.

I don’t know about you, but to me, it looks like McCain and Obama are about to start making out. I know this is a totally frivolous observation and has nothing to do with anything — but I just can’t resist pointing it out.

What do you think? Am I crazy? Does it look like that to you?

Update 10/7/08: Another one!

Fallujah Gets a Kentucky Fried Chicken

What’s next? Strip clubs?

Blog Break for a Couple of Days

Andy is in the midst of moving apartments and I’m helping him. It will be an intense couple of days and I doubt either of us will have time to blog.

If you’re hankering for some interesting reading, you might want to check out this very interesting story about the role my friend Mónica Guzmán has played in the future of newspapers and their relationships to reporters’ unions.

Outrageous Things You’ve Done Just For You

Every Sunday, I read PostSecret because it’s moving and voyeuristic and a wonderful new art form that has been enabled by this thing we call the Web.

Today, this secret jumped out at me:

And I asked myself, “when was the last time you did something totally outrageous just for yourself?”

I can’t think of anything at the moment, but I’ve made a pledge to myself that I’ll take the first opportunity to do such a thing this week.

What’s the last outrageous thing you did just for you? How long has it been?

Christina Aguilera and the American Flag

These are a few of my favorite things:

Fox Starts To Get With The Program

Fox has started broadcasting some of its top shows (Family Guy, The Simpsons, House) on fox.com. While I still think that they are idiots for not broadcasting EVERY episode that they have rights to, at least it’s a start. In the meantime, however, if I want to watch an old episode of Arrested Development or Futurama, I have use SurfTheChannel.com, tv-links.cc, or google video.

Google video, by the way, is amazing. I still don’t fully understand why it is that movie and tv studios want me to have to go all the way to a theatre or blockbuster to watch a movie that I really want to see, as opposed to paying a fee and watching it off their website. I’ll still go out and see movies socially (saw The Other Boelyn Girl last night), but if it’s a Sunday night and I want to watch Walk Hard, I have to watch the crappy version shot with a video in the theatre off of Google video.

P.S. Walk Hard was terrible. If I had actually had to put on pants, drive to a theatre, and pay ten bucks, I would have been really pissed off.

On Mortality and Acceptance

My dad and I had lunch this afternoon with a longtime family friend who will soon be celebrating his 80th birthday. He pointed out a phenomenon that I’ve been noticing recently: time seems to move a lot faster the older you get.

It makes perfect sense if you think about it. Each second you’re alive, a second becomes a smaller fraction of your total experience. In other words, where x = the number of seconds you’ve experienced, and y = the subjective experience of the length of a second, y = 1/x. If you look at this on a graph, it plots out something like this:

Obviously this is a gross oversimplification. The sensation of time passing is impacted by other variables. The moments tend to go more quickly when you’re having a good time. And we all know how the seconds can seem to stand still in a boring meeting. But in general, this graph resembles what a human’s perception of time should look like.

At first, this can seem like a terrible thing. Life begins so lazily that we take it for granted, then it’s over before we know it. It’s enough to make us do crazy things. Botox, sports cars at midlife, and even the truly substantive achievements of modern medicine are all responses to our ingrained knowledge of one central reality: we are mortal.

Life grows exponentially shorter by the second. Everything changes. We get crow’s feet. We are no longer children. Everyone we love will someday die. We can struggle mightily against these truths, or we can accept them and muddle along.

It’s hard, but I’m working on doing the latter. How are you faring with this?

What’s Your Transportation Plan for Tonight?

As we all get ready for New Year’s Eve, there’s an important question we should all be asking ourselves: “what’s my transportation plan? Is that really feasible?”

A few things to ask yourself and keep in mind:

• Getting a taxi, especially in cities like Vancouver — which is suffering a cab shortage — might be extremely difficult. So have a backup plan.
• Where will you park your car so that it can be safe overnight if you end up having more than you planned to drink?
• Who is your designated driver? What will you do if that person winds up drinking?
• Ladies, do you have something warm to throw on over your cute little clubbing outfit?

Everyone be safe. Don’t drive drunk. Don’t drive with anyone who is drunk. Don’t let your friends drive drunk.

Have Fun.

Happy 2008!

Do Men Want Women to Play Dumb? Not in My Experience.

In her latest article, Guardian writer Tanya Gold wrote:

Like every single woman, I walk through life asking: what do men want? Why are my beautiful, clever female friends living alone, watching DVDs and eating cupcakes, like a gaggle of rancid Bridget Joneses? Why does the loneliness never end (© Charlotte Bronte 1855)? A month ago, as moonlight splashed across my pillow, I devised an experiment to find the definitive answer. I decided to attend a speed-dating night as a fabulously successful, dazzlingly literate human rights lawyer, and then another as a gibbering idiot who works as a florist. Who would the men fall for?

This sounded suspiciously like Miranda’s experience on Sex and the City when she had a lot of success at a speed dating event by pretending to be a stewardess instead of a corporate lawyer. So I read on to find out whether Gold’s experience was a little closer to the world I know. It wasn’t. Then men loved her as a florist, not so much as a brilliant lawyer. At the end of the article, she writes:

Everything my mother has ever told me about men is true. They didn’t care that the florist couldn’t recognise a chair. They liked it. The feminist revolution didn’t pierce their hearts; it only made it into human resources. If you want to be loved, just scoop out your brain and act like a child. After 40 years of feminism we shouldn’t really burn our bras. We should burn our men. Love may be dissembled but statistics never lie. Reader, let me tell you: men want me - and you - to be lobotomised.

I can tell you one thing, I’ll never attend a speed dating event. It seems like all those men are complete and utter losers. They couldn’t be more different from the guys I know.

The guys I know like music, art, fine wine, literature, politics and science fiction — and they love that I do too. I make no bones about the fact that I’m a feminist, work in computers, speak Klingon and have an obsession with politics. Men find all of this fascinating.

Why was Ms. Gold’s experience was so different from mine? I boil it down to two major points: Read more

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone out there enjoys today, either as a religious and spiritual holiday, or simply as a day where they don’t have to go to work.

In the spirit of the day I thought I’d share a news story I saw on ABC, about a very selective club, called the Fifty Percent League. The group has about 100 members, all of whom claim that this is the most rewarding club anyone could be in. All of you have to do to join is give away fifty percent of your income.

Collectively, the group has given away over one billion dollars in the past decade. Obviously the group is not for everyone (I think if I gave away half my teacher’s salary I’d qualify for welfare). But it is very cool that there are people out there doing this.

What Are The Worst Presidential Blunders Of All Time?

In 2006, US Historians were survey to determine the worst presidential blunders of all-time. They are listed below, in order (note: the Iraq War was not included because it is still a blunder in progress).

1. James Buchanan’s inaction before and after the secession of the Southern States in 1861.

2. Andrew Johnson’s decision just after the Civil War to side with Southern whites and oppose improvements in justice for blacks beyond abolishing slavery.

3. Lyndon Johnson allowing the Vietnam War to intensify.

4: Woodrow Wilson’s refusal to compromise on the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War.

5: Richard Nixon’s involvement in the Watergate cover-up.

6: James Madison’s failure to keep the United States out of the War of 1812 with Britain.

7: Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807, a self-imposed prohibition on trade with Europe during the Napoleonic Wars.

8: John Kennedy allowing the ill-fated Bay of Pigs Invasion to overthrow Cuba’s communist government that led to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

9: Ronald Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair, the effort to sell arms to Iran and use the money to finance an armed anti-communist group in Nicaragua.

10: President Clinton [censored] with Monica Lewinsky.

My guess is the Iraq War will end up at number 7. Which from a historical perspective helps put things in perspective. I mean, at least the Iraq War won’t result in the White House being burned to the ground by the British (the result of #6).

I Just Wanna Be Famous

This is just an awesome music video some guy on YouTube made.

Ashamed of the American Media’s Coverage of Hyderabad Bombings

Over our post-climbing dinner this evening, my friend Rama told us about his trip back home to India to for his sister’s wedding. He’s from a town called Hyderabad, which has recently been experiencing a wave of strange and tragic bombings.

On May 18 of this year, a bomb exploded at the Mecca Masjid mosque in the old city. Then on August 25, two simultaneous bombings in different parts of the city killed 44 people. Terrorists with links to Al Quaeda are suspected. Rama was in one of the two targeted facilities only an hour before the attack began.

You would think that terrorist bombings in an allied nation would be headline news over here. But I’m pretty well-informed and the first time I even heard of the bombings was tonight.

Meanwhile, Britney Spears’ “paunch” and her lackluster performance at the MTV Video Music Awards has everyone’s tongue flapping.

I ask you, what is WRONG with this country?

Who are You, Britney Jean Spears?

I have a secret. I’m not above reading the supermarket tabloids. Beneath this geeky, intellectual exterior lies a woman who wants to know all kinds of things about the lives of celebrities. Actually, one celebrity in particular: Britney Spears.

The fascination with Britney is difficult to fully explain. It started when I was in high school. Part of it was pure professional jealousy. At 16, she had achieved more than I could ever have dreamed of with — forgive my arrogance, but it’s true — less vocal talent than I have in my baby finger. But despite the jealousy, I identified with her. She clearly loved performing. It almost seemed like she needed something from the audience, a feeling that I wasn’t completely immune to.

It seems like her recent troubles — substance abuse, marriage falling apart, custody battles and family squabbles — are all fallout from a lifetime of relying on external validation. But recent rumors have raised another equally intriguing and tragic possibility: Britney is gay, gay, gay and repressed, repressed, repressed.
Read more

A Hot Air Balloon Over Woodinville

On Monday, a hot air balloon came flying over Woodinville while I was working at Steve’s house. We heard the fire from Steve’s study and came out to gawk at it. They were so close that we could shout back and forth.

Here are more shots of the balloon as it crossed the sky.

Kids Complaining of Summer Boredom? Get them Rube Goldberging.

My little brother — who turns 12 tomorrow — was complaining tonight that summer is massively boring. We suggested all the usual remedies: ride your bike, read a book, clean your room, but he wasn’t having any of it.

That’s when I suggested that he get out his K’Nex, his legos, and all the other stuff in his room and turn it into a massive Rube Goldberg device. That got him going. We spent the rest of the evening working on it, but we’re still not finished. The goal, to start out with a weight pulling downward and finishing by knocking a pickle into a jar.

We’ll see how this goes, but one thing’s for certain: Rube Goldberg devices are excellent remedies for summer boredom.

Let He Who Didn’t Smoke Pot in the 60’s Cast the First Stone

This summer marks the forty-year anniversary of the “Summer of Love,” or more aptly, the “Summer of Drugs” as Ted Nugent called it in his recent Op Ed piece. In 1967, the parents of today’s twenty-somethings were twenty-somethings themselves, and many of them were running around making fools of themselves with wild parties, unprotected promiscuous sex and profligate drug use.

That’s why Jeffrey Zaslow’s article in today’s Wall Street Journal about my generation’s sense of entitlement pisses me off so very much. In it, he relies on the same tired complaint uttered by generation after subsequent generation, “kids today!”

He opens his article with a quote from Louisiana State University finance professor Don Chance about how very entitled his students feel. Every semester, Chance says, his students make “a pilgrimage to his office” to grade grub for A’s they haven’t earned.

Zaslow then makes a huge, unsubstantiated leap from one professor’s experience to blaming Mr. Rogers for a whole generation’s supposed sense of entitlement. Zaslow argues that by telling us that we are all special just the way God made us, Mr. Rogers set us up for a lifetime of believing that the world owes us a living.

Zaslow goes on to make a number of excellent points about parenting. He says that kids should be held accountable when they behave badly, instructed to call adults by their last names instead of their first names, and made to listen to adult conversations without interrupting. I agree with all of these parenting practices. But I still find Zaslow’s assertion that there is something wrong with my generation as a whole — based on anecdotal evidence — to be profoundly misguided and offensive.

But as long as we’re relying on anecdotal evidence alone, let me run down the list of kids today that I know:

• Jeff Sommers, an officer in the Marine Corps, Jeff is on his third tour of duty in Iraq.
• Elliot J. Partin is also in the Marine Corps. Elliot is about to ship out for his third tour of duty in Iraq.
• Andrew Sparrow, my beloved fiancé who spends his life preparing today’s high schoolers for the flat world challenges they will soon face. He could be making bank as a computer programmer. Instead, he teaches and I love him for it.
• Ellie and Dan Swanson. Recently married, Ellie and Dan are honeymooning in Costa Rica during their final summer vacation before returning to medical school. Incidentally, they’re staying in hostels, not four-star resorts.
• Mark Melief, a good friend of mine who recently put his whole life back together from scratch. Instead of pouting about the tough times, Mark finds the silver lining and keeps on slugging.
• Nicole Cotes, recently returned to the Pacific Northwest after teaching underprivileged children in Chicago for a year.
• And on…and on…and on…

My generation are no slouches, Mr. Zaslow. Many of us are just as tough and hardworking as you and Dr. Chance. I’ll admit freely that we don’t measure up to our grandparents’ generation. But there’s absolutely no way that anyone born after 1940 has any right to complain about our supposed inadequacies as a group. And you certainly have no right to blame whatever sense of entitlement we do have on Mr. Rogers. After all, his show wasn’t on the air when your generation was out running around stoned out of their minds and trying to fix the world by throwing flowers at the Russians.

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