I Approve This Message

With political ads airing, I thought I'd share this wikipedia entry on how we ended up the phrase "I approve this message." Also, according to this entry, the phrasing is incorrect; it should be "I approve of this message."

Also, no matter what group you belong to, you should be able to find a button declaring your support for Obama. Here are three of my favorites.

Barack on Tiger Beat

This article from The Onion made me laugh out loud, so I had to share! The Onion may just keep me sane until the election. Andy and I have both been obsessively watching election coverage, campaigning when we have time, and donating whatever money we can to Barack. At this point, I am definitely hopeful, but after the last two presidential elections, I know not to underestimate the "willful ignorance" of the American people (to quote one of my coworkers).

If you didn't see the latest Palin parody on SNL, check it here.

By the way, several people have asked us why we always posted just as StuckeySpalt and not as individuals. The answer, embarrassingly enough, was that we didn't know how to add separate users. Thanks to a 10 second search using the help feature, I have figured it out and added us as separate users.

The Worst Thing Ramona Has Ever Done

While Ramona is a fantastic dog, she's had her moments (see for example this post). Well, this weekend she topped them all. Friday night, I baked a chocolate cake for a get together the next evening. On Saturday, Andy left the house at 6 am to run a 5k in Greensburg. Sometime between 6 am and 7:30 when I woke up, Ramona got the cake off the counter and ate almost all of it (she left only the four corners). In the process of knocking the cake down, she managed to turn on one of the gas burners on the stove. I awoke to a house smelling strongly of gas!! I woke Sam up (who was in town for a visit), and we left the house and called 911. The Indianapolis Fire Department response was quite impressive; within minutes, there were FIVE fire trucks and two fire department SUVs at our house. There were so many fire trucks that they wouldn't all fit on our street. It was crazy. The fire department blew the the gas out of the house (in the process filling the house with carbon monoxide from the gas fan), and we were able to return to the house.

We left a couple hours later for a day in Greensburg campaiging for Obama (quite sucessfully...we'll try to post more on that later). We came home around 7 pm to a house (not surprisingly I suppose) filled with chocolate vomit. We've cleaned the downstairs and are working on completely cleaning the upstairs (with the help of a rented steam vacuum). She's damn lucky she's so cute.

The Government Center Stinks

Around 8 am this morning, it hit me. My office smelled like shit...literally. It turns out state employees weren't alone, as all of downtown smelled like a sewer today. We were originally told that the city was cleaning their tanks, but these two sources blame it on an inversion or a sewer line hook up.

C'mon, just register...

We've been out trying to register voters; in honor of that, I thought I'd post the infographic (minus the graphic) from this week's Onion.

Voter Registration Efforts

As the election grows nearer, many organizations are out in full force to increase voter registration. What are they doing to encourage people to register?

U.S. Auto Manufacturers: Free voter registration and a gallon of gas with the purchase of any light truck or SUV

NOW: Free Grey's Anatomy poster rolled up with every registration form

Rock The Vote: Will spend fruitless hours explaining that you don't technically have to be liberal to be in favor of more people voting

AARP: Offering to register any senior who is able to not accidentally vote for Pat Buchanan

U.S. Army: Automatically registers and votes on behalf of any soldier whose deployment has been extended

NAACP: Announced plans for a record-breaking get-out-the-vote effort that will be undermined by bureaucracy, infighting, and massive administrative costs

American Dental Association: You'd be surprised what people will do just for some free cinnamon floss

Don Howerton of Brighton, MI: Will show unregistered voters a photo of that goddamned dead birch tree Phil Edmund next door still refuses to cut down, and encourage them to vote for someone who will do something about it for Christ's sake

Also, I really enjoyed this Onion video about the impact of Bush's leaving office on the anti-Bush merchandise market.

Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close To Collapse

The Foodiest!

While I disagree with the classification of 'Durham-Chapel Hill' as a single, small town (I see two problems there...), I do agree that there is some amazing food to be had, as chronicled in this article. Yea for tasty food grown on local farms! If you get the chance, you should definitely make trips to Magnolia Grill, Lantern, and Crook's Corner (all mentioned in this article).

Calmer than you are, dude.

This article on Slate.com is pretty much awesome. It discusses how Walter Sobcheck (as played by John Goodman) is a prototypical neocon. The Big Lebowski is a kick-ass movie, primarily because it is worthy of watching over and over again. And I think the reason it is so rewatchable is because there is always something new--if you are willing to look for it. And clearly Slate's David Haglund is willing to look for it. Huzzah!

And while I'm thinking about it, I've always maintained that I thought Goodman deserved an Oscar nom for that performance, but I've never bothered to look up his competition. Now that I have, I defy you to contend that he wasn't better than at least three performances on this list:

Robert Duvall, A Civil Action
Ed Harris, TheTruman Show
Geoffrey Rush, Shakespeare in Love
Billy Bob Thornton, A Simple Plan
and the winner that year: James Coburn, Affliction

Seriously.

Liberals are pimps too

I am going a little crazy right now with McCain's antics, so I had to post this op ed from the NY Times. The bottom line is that we liberals need to be proud!

City Folks Just Don't Get It!

So...I'm supposed to be posting about my PNC Park concessions fiasco, but something has taken precedence, and the concession story will have to wait. I was watching the Cubs-Reds game (the only one the Cubs took in the series) on Fox Sports Net Ohio, when I saw the following commercial:



Here's a link to the website, and here's a link to their other commercial, where they hate on "city slickers." Outstanding!

Let Ben Folds Five Eat Cake

For those of you whom I met post 2001, you may not know that the answer to the following question: "what is your favorite band?" had an obvious answer for many years. Ben Folds Five. I saw them four times, including their last show together before Ben moved to Australia. Now...Ben Folds Five is reuniting for one night only in my hometown of Chapel Hill. The show, which takes place September 18th, will be rebroadcast in October here. For all you Tar Heels, tickets go on sale tomorrow here. The band will be playing the album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinold Messner in its entirety. Ben Folds, new album Way to Normal drops September 30th.

Unrelated to Ben Folds, I came across this highly entertaining blog today, (thanks to one of John's Portland blogs, This Fare City of Portland, Oregon, which is also highly entertaining). Cake Wrecks describes cakes that have entertaining topics, such as the one to the left, or amusing mistakes (for example someone printing "Happy November & December Birthdays - abbreviate Nov. & Dec. if you need to" on top of a cake) as well as some very creative and strange cakes.

More Politics

This Daily Show video has been making the cyber-rounds since it aired last week. If you haven't seen it, you probably should. So here you go!

Indiana just might be a swing state

There's a new poll out today that shows McCain only up 2 points!! In a poll with a 4.1 point margin of error!! C'mon, Hoosiers, let's elect Obama!

[Unfortunately, the news about the governor's race is not as positive.]

Two Cool things on CNN

I am not a big fan of CNN. However, today I found two items on cnn.com that made me happy!

1) Obama raised $10 million after Palin's speech (10 x more than McCain). ROCK!!

2) Dan Savage at the Republican Convention!! "I spoke to a lot of [young republicans] because I've been running around the convention asking teenagers throughout the convention if they're virgins or not. 'Cuz I feel like I have a right to know because we've invested over a billion dollars in abstinence education programs under George Bush."

Not a No Hitter

The main objective of our trip last weekend was to see some Pittsburgh Pirates baseball. Our expectations were low since they were playing the NL wild card leading Milwaukee Brewers not to mention the fact that recent trades depleted much of their already sub par hitting. We had hoped for more than games 9 and 10 of a 10-game losing streak. We still had an excellent time in a beautiful ballpark, concession-drama aside (Andy plans to blog about this topic, so I'll leave it to him). We received a Willie Stargell collectible plate on Saturday and saw a controversial 1-hitter on Sunday. For our money, sitting 20+ rows behind home plate (see picture below), we say it was a hit.

We also learned my favorite new sports statistic from a guy sitting next to us. The Milwaukee Brewers are the only team in MLB history to have two players that weigh at least 270 lbs! They are C.C. Sabathia (6'7" 290) and Prince Fielder (5'11" 270).

I am oddly amused by the graphics used at baseball games. Here are some pictures of my favorites.

That'd be Nate Mclouth

Andy, not Adam, LaRoche

We saw this mural while driving around downtown. Here's a shot of the whole mural, and check here for a very incomplete listing of the players. Apparently the mural was just refurbished. I can't find a full list of all of the players pictured, but it includes both Pirates and players from the Pittsburgh Negro League.

Drinking in Church

Here's the first Pittsburgh related post. On Sunday, we appropriately dined at The Church Brew Works. It's a converted church that serves tasty beer and tasty food. The fare includes traditional pierogies* as well as special untraditional pierogies, which on Sunday were chicken cordon bleu with mustard. The food (both kinds of pierogies, meatloaf for the ladies, chicken pot pie for the gentleman) was excellent and the beer was quite tasty. If you find yourself in Pittsburgh around a meal time (and have already eaten kielbasa), head to the Church Brew Works.

The outside looks...well...like a church

the bar area - check the stained glass

Jackie contemplating her Pious Monk Dunkel

*Pierogies are dumplings generally filled with savory ingredients, most commonly mashed potatoes and cheese, and often topped with onions. The wikipedia article, which can't be wrong, says: "Pierogi are commonly associated with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania." After all, where else is there a Pierogi Race staring Oliver Onion.

...more Pittsburgh posts in the works....