Sg, I'm hanging out with you in your room, and using the computer when you would rather I help you put your lizards and reptiles cards back in their case (for the tenth time in fifteen minutes). I understand that repetition is an important part of learning, but I seriously have no further interest in assisting in the packaging and unpackaging of the aforementioned cards. Anyway, as I'm typing this, you're experimenting with hitting me to get your way.
It isn't working. And no offense, but you hit like a girl.
Sg, I left my phone's ringer turned on when I went to bed last night so that the email below would wake me up this morning. I had been hoping that either Obama would choose Biden or else surprise us with someone more exciting than those on the short list of possible VP candidates he'd been considering. Biden has a big mouth; this is going to be fun.
From: Barack Obama [mailto:info@barackobama.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2008 4:57:20 AM
To: McCord, Lance
Subject: The Next Vice President
Lance--
I have some important news that I want to make official.
I've chosen Joe Biden to be my running mate.
Joe and I will appear for the first time as running mates this afternoon in Springfield, Illinois -- the same place this campaign began more than 19 months ago.
I'm excited about hitting the campaign trail with Joe, but the two of us can't do this alone. We need your help to keep building this movement for change.
Please let Joe know that you're glad he's part of our team. Share your personal welcome note and we'll make sure he gets it:
Update: Here's the big mouth in action, talking during the primaries about Republican candidate Rudy Guliani. As background, anyone who had read a newspaper or watched television news in the preceding months knew that Iran was celebrating because they had just begun limited production of a kind of uranium that could be processed into the enriched material necessary for a nuclear device and that North Korea had actually tested a nuclear bomb. The difference, of course, is between a country that might have a nuclear weapon in 2-5 years if they hurried and one that has nuclear weapons right now.
Because the YouTube video embedded above probably won't be there when you get around to reading this, here are Biden's words (which are followed by a look that says "sheesh, what an idiot"):
I have known Rudy for a long time…Rudy was saying that Clinton and Obama weren’t qualified on foreign policy. And here’s a man who several months ago said, in a public statement reported in the New York Times, ‘I don’t know who’s further ahead on nuclear weapons, Iran or Korea.
Biden's also the guy who said of Guliani "there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11" (a reference to Guliani's incessant references to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which thrust Guliani—then mayor of New York—into the national spotlight and made him briefly very popular).
We got these colorful 5x7 frames at Ikea that have acrylic (instead of glass) and printed up these pictures to go in them. Sg likes the animals, you see, and these are some of her favorites. Except for the Zebras, these are based on pictures we took. The elephants were given a different, less incarcerated-looking background that ends up making them look like they're hovering. Which elephants have been known to do. The Zebras were borrowed from Flickr user mobilevirgin and used under a Creative Commons license.
It was bound to happen — I let today get away from me without taking a video. I've been so busy of late that I haven't even been processing or posting the video I have been collecting, but at least I was collecting it!
Until today. No video for today.
Interesting thing about your pa, Sg: this kind of failure — the kind where something that could have been perfect is irrevocably broken by some stupid failing — is a kind of failure that I handle particularly well. Lots of people get inordinately worked up over the death of perfection, but I usually find a little relief in that particular sort of sadness. After all, perfection was just impossible anyway, right? And what have we traded perfect for? Well, if I get 30 days of video in July, I'll have an awesome completed project with the kind of scars and flaws that give it character. That's at least as good as perfect, says me.
Here are a couple of tunes. The first is for Brian and Meredith, who visited and made this past weekend really great (despite my having to work and being all tired and wiped out). The second is for Erik, with his nutty devotion to reason.
“Chances Are” by Apostle of Hustle from National Anthem of Nowhere
“What We Need More of Is Science” by JBB from Songfight!
Sg, I'm selling some of the last remnants of my hippy days on eBay. The funds will cover the used Aeron chair I just bought for my office, and maybe a new Blackberry (depending on what happens to the bidding in the last few hours). The auctions (here and here) close in about four hours.
You won't remember these even in regression therapy, because they have been under the bed for two years. But here are some lovely images for your later consumption.
From two shows in George, Washington (no, seriously) in 1999.
From two shows in the Virginia Beach area in 1999.
In case you didn't check in over the holiday, here are a couple of key links: the video for the third and the videos for the fourth and fifth. And here are four pictures from my parents' honeymoon (or I think that's what they're from):
aquariumdrinker posted a text message @ Fox Theatre: “I love seeing my city from new angles. It's like a really good sequel you've waited for forever.”
