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Look! Up in the sky!

It’s a huge ass moon!

No, seriously. Tonight’s moon is a “perigee moon” — meaning the moon’s squashed orbit brings it closer to us than it will be for any other full moon during 2010. So it looks about 14% wider and 30% brighter than usual.

And that is a total no shit. We drove home tonight sandwiched between two of the spookiest-looking rainstorms I’ve ever seen — one over the Channel and moving out, one over the hills and moving in. And we got home just in time to see THIS thing hanging over our back garden.

I’ve honestly never seen the moon look so huge and round and close to the earth. I know the photo doesn’t mean much, but you’ve got to go outside and see this thing for yourself, if your local conditions are at all favorable.

Good weekend, everyone!

January 29, 2010 — 5:52 pm
Comments: 35

I can has metaphor?

Hours before Obama’s State of the Union yesterday, perky Katie Couric tweeted this:

Just had lunch with the president who seems pensive, slightly deflated, realistic, aggravated and resolute. Didn’t eat his pie.

I haven’t really got the hang of Twitter yet, but I’ve figured out this much — with a 160-character message limit (less if you want to leave room for people to forward or “retweet” your message), complicated ideas are right out. A thought of even the teeniest ambition comes out like something your senile Aunt Irma might mutter in her sleep.

Katie’s first sentence? Excellent. Katie’s second sentence…oh god, it just cracks me up. Every time I think about it. Didn’t eat his pie.

“Pie” is a comedy word, like “pants” or “Schenectady.” It’s inherently funny. You don’t ever want to couple “pie” with someone whose stature and dignity you wish to preserve.

I can’t help thinking what a wonderfully useful metaphor that’s going to be in the next few years. Any time Barack Obama just has been or is just about to be thwarted, smacked down, brought up short or otherwise disappointed — who wants some pie?

The latest Rasmussen numbers were released today; Barack Obama didn’t eat his pie

Pie not on White House menu after April unemployment figures soar

Pie? No, thanks. Dems’ electoral hopes fade in latest round of voter polls

Oh, we’re going to have SO MUCH fun. Thanks, Katie!

January 28, 2010 — 6:21 pm
Comments: 15

Lose the accessories, maybe?

Christopher Buckley published a State of the Union parody for Barack Obama today.

Nah, don’t bother clicking. For one thing, it’s in the Daily Beast. And for another, it’s Christopher Buckley, who still writes in the painfully cute, brittle style that probably made him the star of his Advanced Placement English class in High School. You can be right and still be a twit.

I only bring it up because commenter Blast Hardcheese remembered the last time I made fun of Buckley and wondered if I could do it again. You know, now that he’s quietly sashayed into the anti-Obama camp without mentioned his earlier…infatuations.

I dunno, dude. It’s hard to mock a man who deliberately chooses for his profile shot that painfully twee photo everyone was snickering about last year. Jeezum crow! Best I can do is point out those accessories no longer go with these slacks.

Maybe Iowahawk will have some better ideas.


Don’t mind me. I’m grumpy today. I took my driving exam this afternoon and flunked.

Worse, I deserved to. I did a lousy hour’s driving. The thing that failed me, I made one of those judgement calls on a right-hand turn against traffic and called it too close. I knew instantly that I’d blown it.

Oddly, though, having gone through it once, I’m a lot less nervous about next time. I thought there were four or five things I should have failed upon, so learning that only my most boneheaded screwup mattered is some comfort. And failing isn’t at all uncommon; only 40% a day pass the test.

But every try is another month’s delay and £100 in moneys.

Fuck.

January 27, 2010 — 6:00 pm
Comments: 29

Blog ate my homework

Actually, computer ate my blog post. I’m having a hardware problem of some kind. Takes about six resets to get through a boot — after which, it’s usually stable. But tonight it spontaneously blue-screened in the middle of my unsaved illustration, and I just didn’t have the heart to do it over. I wasn’t liking it all that much anyway.

Meanwhile, Ace linked to my pudding t-shirt, so I’ll quit now and leave yesterday’s illo near the top to greet the bounce traffic. Dude is a traffic moncster.

January 26, 2010 — 5:51 pm
Comments: 23

I hear you, I hear you! But first — health care!

Did you guys see this bit in Politico?

Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.

“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.”

That’s Marion Berry talking. No, no…not the crackhead mayor of D.C. — Representative Marion Berry, Democrat of Arkansas, who is retiring this year. Apparently in a cloud of anger, hopelessness and pants-peeing terror. Them Arkansas boys know when to run for the hills.

And speaking of Arkansas boys — when that gem gets back to the Clintons, they’re going to be thrilled, aren’t they? I wonder how much of the Democrat machine they can still influence?

It’s been a spectacle this week, watching the Obama folks scream, “I get it!” while manifestly not getting it even a little teeny bit. I particularly enjoy those pundits who have decided the Massachusetts election went Republican because Democrats didn’t juke far enough left and ram hugely unpopular eye-wateringly expensive transformative legislation through the legislature hard enough. Yeah, people always vote for the Republican when the Democrat isn’t Democrat enough.

I’d be enjoying the hell out of this clusterfuck, if there wasn’t some chance these guys will find a procedural diddle to flick the health care bill over the finish line before they slink off and commit seppuku.

January 25, 2010 — 3:49 pm
Comments: 26

Pudding!

Pudding! So cool. So creamy. So silky smooth.

I asked Uncle B to buy me a pudding cup for a prop (this being England, it’s called something gay like “trifle”). He said, “I still don’t understand this pudding thing.”

So I explained it to him.

He put on his best Colonel Mustard face and said, “firstly, you don’t have any balls. And secondly, I suspect this Ace person doesn’t have any balls either, or he would realize what an extremely unpleasant and dangerous experience that would be.”

Then he harumphed, brushed the deviled lamb’s kidney out of his mustache, rustled his copy of the Times and disappeared behind the Financial pages.

Yes, I’m whoring a t-shirt. Have a good weekend, everyone!

January 22, 2010 — 5:55 pm
Comments: 37

Could this week get ANY MORE AWESOME?

Air America is dead. Deceased. Pining for the fjords. Bleedin’ demised. Passed on. Is no more. Has ceased to be. Expired and gone to meet its maker. A stiff. Bereft of life. Rests in peace. Pushing up daisies. Metabolic processes are now history. Off the twig. Kicked the bucket. Shuffled of this mortal coil. Rung down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir eternal.

THIS IS AN EX-RADIO NETWORK…!  

 

January 21, 2010 — 6:28 pm
Comments: 32

Nancy’s last chance to pass the health care bill

You are getting sleeeeeepy. Your eyes are getting heavvvvvvvvy. You suddenly cannot wait to vote for a career-ending massively unpopular honking huge entitlement program.

— 5:58 pm
Comments: 18

Barack Obama whistling

There’s not really a post to go with this. I was flipping through the official White House Flickr stream and, I dunno, it just seems like a picture of Barack Obama whistling is the way to go today.

January 20, 2010 — 6:41 pm
Comments: 26

Not gonna jinx it…not gonna jinx it…

But I would recommend listening to Howie Carr right now. He’ll be on for hours yet. He’s a righty in Boston (if you don’t know Howie) and he’s feeling fiiiine tonight.

You have to sign up to their listener’s club to use their Listen Now link, but I think you can backdoor that by tapping into their player software without going through their link.

I listened to Rush earlier, too. He said that everyone was so confident how this seat would go that nobody bothered to pay for exit polls. However, Rasmusson stepped in at the last minute and offered to sponsor one himself.

So…may or may not learn anything about it tonight, but the general chatter out there is distinctly cheering.

January 19, 2010 — 5:01 pm
Comments: 46