For those of you following the trial of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, especially his testimony about the lounge chair in his house, will enjoy this:
[Thanks Kate!]
Superman makes Batman look like a little bitch in this pretty funny video from College Humor.
[Via]
I went to visit my old high school buddy Clay this past weekend in DC. The photos with an astericks in the caption were snapped by him!
Took Vamoose there from Penn Station. In what is developing into a pattern, I snagged the second to the last seat on this bus. Of course, this meant I had the seat right next to the restroom, which made me feel like a bathroom attendant handing out towels for tip.
After I arrived in DC, I got me some...SUPER POLLO!
Clay and his hammock. No bananas involved. Just a hammock. I want one of these in my apartment!
*After dropping off my bags, we headed out to a bar. But first I really wanted to wear this sweet hat that was in Clay and his roommates' house.
Jay, Chris, Ben, and Clay. Don't fret, that's just a BB gun. What's actually dangerous here are those mustaches they are sporting. This was about the only take I could get where they weren't cracking up.
This is more them.
We then went to a bar nearby for a few drinks and silliness.
*Jay and his aggressive mustache!
*Amstel Light, Clay, and his gal Cristina.
*Asshole! PUNCH! For those that know what I'm talking about, Clay and our friends during high school were obsessed with this game. Obsessed!
*Ben is attacked by hands.
*Ben's fiance Lauren is looking rightfully creeped out. LOL.
*Other than "LOL," I have no other comment other than the obvious one.
*FIST!
My non-existent guns. Must. go. to. gym. more. We then went to another bar.
We walked by a long fence. It was pretty long.
Ben and Jay sat comfortably in the trunk.
*Very comfortably.
Comfortable like sardines.
Back at the house we goofed around with the silly hats. I'm a big proponent of this. I want to get more hats to just keep around the apartment.
Clay keeping it fashionable!
I forgot the entire story but the housemates found this...random photo of this couple whom none of them know. This lovely but sort of disturbing photograph now sits proudly on their mantle.
Hats!
Switch hats!
Switch hats! Haha. Seriously, this was so fun.
And then we all passed out.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Proposition 8, a "state ballot measure to ban gay marriage in California is gaining momentum, with polls showing almost even odds of it passing after trailing by double digits a month ago" thanks in large part to "an advertising blitz heavily bankrolled by the Mormon Church, which suggests, among other things, that if Proposition 8 doesn't pass then schoolchildren will be indoctrinated about gay marriage." This Mormon presents a persuasive and cogent counter-argument that articulately explains why this is an untenable and hypocritical stance for the Mormon Church.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmaAyE9v5co]
It always saddens me when people with their own historical legacy of suffering from persecution deny equal rights to others. I don't understand it.
The 2007-2008 Birmingham International annual report on page 19 is pretty funny. But I figured none of you wanted to slosh through a pdf of it, so I took a screenshot of the report's unintentional hilarity for your enjoyment.
[Thanks Paul!!!]
I know this Daily Show segment including an interview with the current mayor of Wasilla, Alaska has been on every dang website, but I want to post it for those who haven't seen it and secondly, to echo what a reader wrote to Andrew Sullivan.
Why does it take a fake journalist from Comedy Central to show us the realities behind Main Street Wasilla?
No doubt.
Watch the Daily Show segment here.
Time photographer Callie Shell has been traveling with Barack Obama since 2004. The often intimate photos of him and his family on the campaign trail are quite wonderful, especially with Shell's blurbs accompanying the photographs.
I made this picture in October of 2006 during the Illinois State races. Just three of us in a car: Senator Obama, a friend of his who was driving and me. I don't think you could make this picture now. He had stopped at a rest area along the back roads of Illinois.There are no Secret Service agents, no staff, no motorcade or traveling press corps. It is a sharp contrast to the 200,000-person crowd that greeted Obama in Berlin less than two years later.
I loved that he cleaned up after himself before leaving an ice cream shop in Wapello, Iowa. He didn't have to. The event was over and the press had left. He is used to taking care of things himself and I think this is one of the qualities that makes Obama different from so many other political candidates I've encountered. Nov. 7, 2007.
Senator Obama was doing press interviews by telephone in a holding room between events. Sometime later as he was getting ready to begin his event, he asked me if I was photographing his shoes. When I said yes, he told me that he had already had them resoled once since he entered the race a year earlier. Providence, R.I., 3/1/2008.
View more here.
Danish designer N55 presents a working walking house. It appeals to my lazy side greatly. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvxIB83Y0PA]
[Thanks Annie!]
I experience a bit of cognitive dissonance watching this video clip of Muslim McCain supporters confronting and arguing with another McCain supporter espousing nonsense. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nv2-SpfgwCE]
It's like some political bizarro world, like the one from Seinfeld where things. just. don't make. any. sense.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIMra-7MsgM]
[Via]
The political compass questionnaire tests your political leanings on not just an economic left and right axis but on an authoritarian and libertarian axis as well. At the end you can compare where you stack up against political notables from Stalin to Margaret Thatcher. My result:
Economic Left/Right: -3.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.28
I'm not trying to imply anything, but I'm pretty darn close to Ghandi.
AND the Dalai Lama.
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This is a pretty fun Holiday Inn Express ad, cultural appropriation issues aside temporarily. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-PzDk_brV0]
Yea, yea, I know. You're thinking, "If I wanted to see a fucking commercial I would have turned on my TV." As compensation I offer you this kid's encounter with lobsters:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J95dJCeBZVg]
The cynic in me is suspicious that this is a viral effort from Red Lobster.
Victoria Secret created a miracle bra bedazzled with "3,575 black diamonds, 117 certified 1 carat round diamonds, 34 rubies and finishes with 2 '100 carat' black diamond drops." And it can be all yours for $5,000,000. What recession? The closest most of you will ever get to this bra or this future wifey modeling it is this photo (not me though: just give me 2 more years):
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On November 1, 2008, the New York Hall of Science in Queens, New York will be hosting a paper airplane contest. OH HELLS YES. The following categories will be judged:
- Distance flown (measured in a straight line from start point to finish point)
- Duration aloft (measured from time released to time it lands on any surface)
- Beauty (subjective measurement based on judges' assessment of both the plane's physical qualities and the beauty of the flight itself; this category does not depend on distance flown or duration aloft)
- Spectacular Failure (subjective measurement based on the audience's assessment of both the plane's physical qualities and the most spectacular crashes)
- Children's division (competition for participants under ages 13)
- Surprise category
More rules and details here. Don't ask: No, your radio controlled F-18 model airplane will not qualify.
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Richmond Times-Dispatch reports:
The 4-foot-by-8-foot Barack Obama campaign sign that McLaughlin had posted in the front yard of his Chesterfield County home was gone.
A Confederate flag hung in its place.
Surveying the scene that night, McLaughlin, 78, a Baptist minister and an Army veteran who lived to see the first black person nominated to a major-party ticket, had a message for whoever left the flag, viewed by many as a symbol of racial oppression: "I love you, and God does, too."
This is a hate crime. I shouldn't have to explain why.
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You think you're good? Well compared to this yo-yo champ, to quote Boyz n the Hood, "You don't do shit, and you never gonna amount to shit. All you do is eat, sleep, and shit." [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTnWviyGRnw]
I don't know why but I kind of love that this contest was held in Jamaica.
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This fork specially designed to streamline the process of spaghetti twirling would be immensely useful in my life, as spaghetti and its cousin from Japan, ramen noodles are a central staple in my diet. Yes, I want to speed up further the process of consuming two of the easiest dishes to make known to mankind.
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