What to wear...

...when someone tells you to "Put on your big boy pants!"


Or, if you are a naked Volkswagon.

Palin and Clinton address the nation

Sounds like the rest of the show was lousy, but this skit is tremendous:



I actually think that Tina Fey may have been one-upped by Amy Poehler this time around.

Happy Monday, everyone!

My life. My choice. My vote.

My alter-ego as a blogger is expanding. In addition to writing this blog, I'll also be contributing to the recently-launched blog of NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut. You can find it in my blogroll under the title "My life. My choice. My vote."

I submitted my first post today, about the danger and ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education in schools. Check it out here!

No, I'm not joking. It's another bathroom sign.

Didn't I mention I'd hoped to find crazy bathroom signs at my new job? Well, here's the latest:


It's a rather pedestrian effort: no graphics, no instructions. But it does have a sing-song rhyming quality, and the mixed closing parenthesis / emoticon at the end is kinda special. Mostly, though, it reminds me how I distasteful I find the word "pee."

Remembering Rent

Last night was the final performance of Rent's 12-year run on Broadway. I've seen it myself three or four times, saw the movie in the theater, and I kinda wish I'd gone to see it on Broadway one last time. I always found the story and the music to be incredibly moving, and despite not being a 20-something, out-of-work, East Village artist myself, I really connected with the characters. So in honor of the end of an era, I cracked a beer and had my own little Rent dance party after Joker and the Bug went to bed last night.

The McCain-Palin Ticket

I actually watched more of the Republican Convention this week than I did the Democratic Convention last week. I guess I wanted to "know thine enemy" or something. Suffice it to say, what I now know makes me like it less than before.

Sarah Palin came out swinging in her speech on Wednesday. She spoke in very partisan, very aggressive terms, and what she said was full of lies and misrepresentations of Obama's and Biden's records. She exaggerated her own so-called accomplishments as the Mayor of Wasilla and as Governor of Alaska. After a week of the campaign berating the media for focusing on her family's woes, she paraded all of her children - and her daughter's condomless teenage boyfriend - in front of the camera. Her speech was style over substance, and the style was offensive.

Last night, John McCain was so boring he couldn't even keep the RNC attendees on their feet. He did bring some substance into his speech, but much of it was also blatantly untrue, like when he discussed his tax plan versus Obama's, or when he said that Obama opposes nuclear power. He referred to himself time and again as "a maverick," and he spoke at length about how he and Palin are going to "shake up Washington." Last time I checked, the best way to shake up a regime is to kick it out and install a new one!

After allowing myself to reflect on the various speeches at the two conventions, I believe that the patina of McCain-Palin will fade quickly. If change is your priority, it cannot be brought by maintaining the status quo. The only way to truly affect change is to bring in a new set of policies, and the experience to make them effective.

If you haven't seen this clip yet, enjoy!

Sleeping in, baby style

A week or two ago, the Bug started sleeping in on weekends. For over a year she has risen between 6:45 and 7:00am every day, but lately she'll sleep until 7:15, 7:30, and even 8:30am on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It's funny for Joker and I to think that staying in bed past 7am actually feels decadent!

In other Sleepytown news, the Bug appears to be transitioning to one nap a day, from having a morning nap and an afternoon nap. It just happened on Saturday, and she did the same on Sunday and Monday. It's another of those funny little milestones you aren't even aware of before you have a baby of your own.