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.