If you haven’t yet seen JibJab’s amazing political parody animation set to the tune of “This Land,” go watch it right now. I’ve transcribed the complete lyrics in this entry, and I annotated them myself for those who may not be able to watch the video. You should, if you like the original, also pay to download the flash file—support these guys, they deserve it. Oh, and read their blog.
I realize that I haven’t told you about my most recent camping trip. It took place the final weekend I was up in Vancouver. This outing was not, shall we say, without incident. These days, _my_ idea of a great outdoors experience usually involves fresh sushi and patio seating; the trip planner’s involves scaling something tall while carrying four days of food and a first aid kit.
The song contest is off to a good start. Participants are psyched and somewhat obsessed with the idea of putting together good mixes. Today, I sent out the participant packs with blank CDs, etc. Take a look at the photos.
This is the 1,004th post on this blog. I’m including the side links, the quote section, and my occasional rant here. I always miss when my car hits a 10,000 mile mark, and I also missed post 1,000. Still, I thought it was worth mentioning.
My friend Liz came by today. She was out for a walk with her small person, Alex, riding in a jogging stroller. It’s his first visit to our place since he acquired mobility; he’s about 15 months old now. It soon became evident that our house is somewhat of an instant baby death zone.
Earlier this week I wrote about an idea for a contest. I was hoping for 7 people to compete. So far, I have 3 confirmed and one maybe. But when I got no additional responses, I looked into it a little more deeply, and discovered that, lo! My column had not successfully been emailed since July 1! Apparently, when upgrading my ISP account in early July, my mailing lists were destroyed. And unrecoverable. Gotta love those ISPs.
While driving in may car, I had an idea for a fun contest for EXACTLY SEVEN people who like music. It seemed brilliant when I was cruising past Medford; you tell me me if it’s still that way where you are… The premise is this: Seven people each create a mixed CD and swap them by mail with each other. Then, each person tries to identify the songs on the CDs that arrive in the mail. Winners are given valuable (seriously!) iTunes gift certificates. Sound fun?
In an attempt to sample on this trip the full spectrum of healthy to unhealthy activities, I spent this morning in a brutal form of self-flagellation known as Hot Yoga.
“Almost every American I know does trade large portions of his life for entertainment, hour by weeknight hour, binge by Saturday binge, Facebook check by Facebook check. I’m one of them. In the course of writing this I’ve watched all 13 episodes of House of Cards and who knows how many more West Wing episodes, and I’ve spent any number of blurred hours falling down internet rabbit holes. All instead of reading, or writing, or working, or spending real time with people I love.”
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
You can scroll right easily by holding down the SHIFT key and using your scroll wheel. (Firefox users trying this will end up jumping to old Web pages until a) Firefox releases a fix, b) they change their settings like so.)