My new political orientation

I don't know where this comes from, but I shamelessly stole it from some guy who was using it as a signature line on a discussion group.

Things I think about, pt. 1

Would it be correct to think of the woman who gave birth to the world's foremost cellist as "Yo Yo MaMa"?

Things my five year old has learned

Frogs come from eggs.

Caterpillars become Butterflies.

Plants grow from seeds.

Saying fuck in the school gym is a bad idea.

Calling your camp counselor "gay" is also a bad idea.

It is possible to be expelled from summer camp.

Singing the Indiana Jones theme as loudly as possible is great way to make Dad start yelling.

Sometimes it is necessary to deal with an overbearing older brother with a controlled application of violence.

"Unbreakable" plates aren't.

Dirt tastes good.

Batting your eyelids in an adorable and apologetic way sometimes gets you out of real trouble.

Thanks for nothing...

My friends at Paste magazine cheerfully acknowledged their mistake recently and returned my check...

Every Homeowner's Nighmare

Oh my god, there's a leek in my bathroom.


Damn. Now there are multiple leeks.

Fine dining poetry

Two Cornish game hens;
We will eat the small chickens,
And remain hungry.

Ok, so this is really old, but...

I know this is all ancient and stuff, but I am still amused by my impressions from the Live 8 concert in Philly, which I helped cover for People magazine back in 2005. So now purely for my own amusement, my debriefing after the event:

Here, in no particular order, are the things that I know today that I did not know yesterday:

1. Will Smith has really astonishing pale brown eyes. Rather hypnotic.

2. Jaida Pinkett Smith is really, really short. I mean, really short.

3. The Rev. Al Sharpton is a shameless media whore who will maim and kill to get into pictures, but he is really goddamned funny.*

4. Sarah McLachlan is dazzlingly, heartbreakingly beautiful in a way that pictures cannot capture.

5. Anna Nicole Smith is crazy,** though she looks great these days and her breasts are still enormous, particularly when displayed under the "shirt" that she was "wearing" to Live 8.

6. Rob Thomas is a really nice guy, particularly when he is extremely high.

7. Jimmy Smits appears to be developing a beer belly.

8. The Kaiser Chiefs are really cool. Nobody's ever heard of them before today, but I can tell I am going to be a fan.

9. Dave Matthews is an inarticulate, boorish asshole.***

10. Natalie Portman's body is so small and delicate and her head is so freakishly large that she resembles a giant Pez Machine.

11. Jennifer Connolly is too thin, but still sexy.

12. Chris Tucker is a really funny guy. But his eyes are big and buggy, which is distracting.

13. Kanye West believes some really freaky conspiracy theories and generally makes Oliver Stone seem well adjusted and stable.

14. Rita Marley may be 60, but she is still hot.

15. Don Cheadle is really, really dull. I mean, really dull.

16. If this music thing doesn't work out, Alicia Keys should look into becoming a diplomat. Or a congresswoman. Or maybe president.

17. Hollywood publicists should be killed. Painfully and publicly.

* Actually, I did already know this.
** I strongly suspected this already.
*** Ok, so I knew this already too.

UPDATE: yeah, I know Anna Nicole isn't looking so good anymore. That's what you get for waiting three years to post an item. The rest I will have to assume is still true.

I'll get right on it

God, how I hate getting past due notices. I try to keep up with the bills but, you know, sometimes things happen. Sometimes the paydays don't fall neatly into sync with the billing cycles. Sometimes things get lost on my desk. So I was terribly distressed to find this in my pile of bills I paid today:



So naturally, I immediately settled up:

Narodnik

One of the more interesting things to me about Russian history is how big the Russians tend to think. Whatever it is, the Russians...



You know what? I started typing this post a few days ago, got interrupted and never finished it. So I came back to it today and I cannot remember what the hell I was talking about. But I guess it was really profound and important. I hope you enjoyed the first sentence and a half, 'cause that's all you're ever going to get.

You have my sympathy

With the world's smallest violin.

On the other hand

The only evidence I have a job

Here's what I spent the week preparing - a video poll for Time, asking voters who they voted for. What a strange new world. I used to write actual words about politics, but now I sweet-talk voters into talking to us on camera. Strange.

Lest anyone doubt I was at work today, here is the only existing evidence...

Living in hope

Join my evil cult

I am not sure how these people saw through my clever plan, but clearly my cover is blown. My hopes of becoming a world-dominating God-like cult figure are at an end. Now that my lifetime crusade is in ruins, I shall have to simply throw in the towel and become one with my cover story - that I am an average, generic white Yuppie with two kids and a BMW. Oh, Crap.

Seriously.



Actually, I think someone did try to recruit me into some kind of religious group once. It had something to do with Buddhism and it involved getting me and a whole bunch of other slacker college kids to help out on the inventory of a natural foods store. The people there were creepy, though oddly healthy and good looking, and the work was incredibly tedious. Then they took us out for a big lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. They seemed to expect us to be terribly grateful and kept waiting eagerly for something to happen. I never did figure out what. Of course, they made an elemental mistake. Being that they were some sort of demented Buddhist splinter cell, they only ordered vegetarian food and hot tea. The lack of meat or beer was pretty much a deal-breaker for college students in terms of joining some kind of cult. Had they been smart, they would have plied us with burgers and Moosehead. If they had, I might be their leader today.

I can't decide

This is either the coolest tank nerd thing I have ever seen or it is kind of sad:



The one thing that does annoy me is that he refers to it as a "Panzer Tank," which is wrong, or at least completely unnecessary. It's like saying a "Tank Tank" Or "Armored Vehicle Tank." But other than that, this is an act of geeky genius.

What worried me, though, is that when I did some research to find the right code to embed this video here, I discovered that there is an entire subculture of paintball-based tanks. Look what happens when you search for "Paintall" and "tank" on the video site Liveleak or Google "Paintball Tank."

Alarming, no?

Call me a geek, but...

I just find this irresistibly cool. It is a sand dune field on Mars, in the kind of detail you'd get if you were in an airplane flying over it yourself. I always thought it would be cool to go to Mars, but as that became progressively less likely, I had to accept that I would be stuck on this planet for life (a truth I had to embrace at around 12 or so). So now, 28 years after swallowing that bitter pill, I can at least look at really cool detailed pictures and imagine that I am 10 years old again, planning my future as a Mars-bound astronaut.

April Fool's Day

I hate April Fool's Day. In fact, I hate pranks and practical jokes of all kinds. Perhaps this is because for a guy who is so cynical, I am surprisingly gullible. That makes April Fool's Day a confusing and irritating ritual.

So in honor of April Fool's Day, I am going to undertake one last, great practical joke, this one of an existential kind. I am going to play a prank on April Fool's Day itself. I will pretend that everything I do is a practical joke and yet, in reality, I WILL NEVER PLAY ANOTHER PRANK EVER AGAIN.*


* This is part of my ongoing series of meta lifestyle choices. In about 1999 or so, for example, I made a New Year's Resolution that I would never make another New Year's Resolution. And I have been completely successful to date.

Sigh...

I am just glad I didn't turn up in this movie.

I worked for five years at The Washington Times. I must say, they treated me well, gave me lots of interesting opportunities and generally tolerated the fact that I was neither particularly politically conservative nor particularly fond of Rev. Moon. The editors rarely (with a few spectacular exceptions) attempted to meddle in what and how I reported on anything. I found that most reporters there by the time I got there, particularly on the smaller desks, like Metro and Business, were there because they wanted good jobs in Washington, not because of any ideology or affinity for Moon's church. And yet, unfortunately, much of what John Gorenfeld reports here is true. I suppose I'll wind up having to read his book.




Online Videos by Veoh.com

Why Cheney didn't run

Geode asks a perfectly resonable question that I actually, surprisingly, know the answer to. This is in part because I was covering the Bush campaign at the time and had occasion to cover Cheney a bit as well. It wasn't an awful lot of fun, largely because Cheney and his people hate the press and make no effort whatsoever to do interesting things or be nice.

Geode asks, in a comment on my Cheney-as-the-Penguin post:

How come Cheney's not running, Sean? I was trying to ask myself that the other day. I thought the veep of a 2-termer ALWAYS gave it a go.

Cheney actually said he wouldn't run back in 2000 - that was part of his agreement with Bush to start. The idea was that Bush could count on a loyal lieutenant who wasn't hamstrung by his personal agenda and by calculations about his political future. That seemed to appeal to Bush at the time. I think Cheney recognized that his medical history made him unlikely to win the White House. And really, I am not sure he wanted to be president, or at least to go through all the campaign crap that would be necessary. He's not a very enthusiastic campaigner. I even wrote a story about it.

I so stole this picture