The lovely team from JibJab has blessed us again with their brilliance.  You remember JibJab, right? The guys who gave us This Land in 2004?

It’s probably just the immediacy of it, but I think their take on Campaign 2008 is even funnier than 2004.  Though, admittedly, the fact that they’ve chosen Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin‘ as the basis for this “equal” skewering probably makes me a little too happy.*

The video quality is significantly better on their actual website, plus they’re hawking a fresh(ish) take on e-cards over there, if you like to put your face on things…but who clicks on links?

I love the unicorn. And “alas, no cigar” is just a little too good. But oh, the unicorn.

Happy Thursday, my darlings.

………
*I spent a little too much time in college sifting through fascist and Stalinist propaganda. You develop a perverse kind of appreciation for this sort of subtlety. And before someone flips out on me, I’m not comparing the guys at JibJab to any dictators - I’m recognizing a technique.

You come away from this clip not humming It’s Time For Some Campaignin’ but rather The Times They Are A-Changin’ because it’s what you know. That, subconsciously or consciously, reinforces the theme of change, which, of course, has now become synonymous with…

Happy thoughts.

Of course, simultaneously, I have Jon Stewart in the back of my head screaming, It’s just a fucking cartoon!

And I think both are true.

As previously mentioned, there’s a disproportionate level of drama in my world at present. People are dying. People are having scary medical tests. People who are usually bastions of support are being assholes. (Seriously, we might need a meds check on that last one.)

And I am a million miles away. I can’t even just be there.

Drama.  Dramarama.

I arrived home tonight with the lyrics, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn, in my head. The YouTube whore that I am, I began my quest for the coolest version I could find of that rather depressing (at the very least sobering) song.

Instead, as I typed in the URL, my past brilliance paid off.  Another YouTube link, which I had the foresight to bookmark, popped up in its place. Curious, since I couldn’t recall what I would possibly need to bookmark on YouTube, I clicked.

I love Craig Ferguson.

The accent throws me, particularly since I never watched The Drew Carey Show, but…somehow comedy is always better with music.  And somehow, Craig always makes me smile.

Maybe I should re-read Between the Bridge and the River. That’s like therapy in the form of a novel.

Want…more…Craig’s…writing…

And apparently I’m channeling Cookie Monster to ask for it. I think I need to sleep.  :-)

I wasn’t going for an animal theme this week but, when I started sorting through the contenders, I realized I had quite the menagerie to work with.  And frankly, this kind of zoo is just more pleasant than the political kind.

White lion cubs delight crowds There’s nothing remotely amusing about this headline, but these baby white lions are cute beyond reason. I think I’m just going to sit at my desk and watch them nuzzle each other on the blanket all day.  Doesn’t that sound pleasant?

Suburban comfort for massive ram Good lord, people are weird. “It probably smells in here, but I’m used to it.” Can you not bathe your pet ram? Also, “Come 11pm he’ll have a swede or an apple and then he’s out for the night.” Ah, regional language disparities. Rest assured, my American readers, Nick Boing, the ram, will not be gnawing on my arm.  Apparently rutabagas are known as “swedes” or “snadgies” in Northern England. So, conversely…I’m a rutabaga. Gimme a sec to absorb that.

Cumbrian sheep beauty contest Does this make anyone else think of that hilarious, cringe-inducing line, Are there sheep? from 10 Things I Hate About You? Yowzah. I know we essentially have beauty contests for dogs, so this really isn’t so far-fetched but…there’s something just a little squicky about this video. Particularly the butt shots of the sheep.

I’m just sayin’.

Koala bearing up after car ordeal Hah!  Now there’s a headline. “A koala has survived being hit by a car and then dragged for several miles with its head stuck in the vehicle’s front grill, officials in Australia say.” Fear not. He’s “bearing up.” You can read it without trauma.

I admit, the koala came close to knocking this one out of the running this morning but, for the utterly round O my mouth formed as I read it, the Hot-W this week has got to go to:

Teenager finds bat asleep in bra Yes, read that again. “A teenager who thought movement in her underwear was caused by her vibrating mobile phone found a bat curled up asleep in her bra.”  Yes, pick your jaw up. There was a bat in the bra she was wearing. “Abbie Hawkins, 19, of Norwich, had been wearing the bra for five hours when she plucked up the courage to investigate.”

Can we talk about this? I don’t need to examine how this happened. I don’t want to fathom how you put on a bra without realizing that there’s a bat inside it. I’m not going to think about the level of denial you have to possess to try to write it off as your phone for five hours.

No.

What I want to know is, how the hell do I know about this?

Who finds a bat in their bra and takes it to the media?

There has been drama in my world lately. Some of it is stupid and fleeting. Some is serious and here to stay. Life is drama, I suppose. It would be pretty damn easy otherwise. But sometimes, we really need things to be easy.

Yesterday afternoon, I turned off my phone and went for a walk in Central Park with someone new. The sky was a perfect shade of blue and the sun beat down through the trees as we wandered aimlessly, walking just to walk.

Parallel professional interests intersected with parallel personal interests and rambling conversation devolved to have as little direction as our feet. Light banter covered heavy topics and, for the first time in ages, everything was just easy. There was no drama, no psychobabble, no hidden agenda, no manipulation. We just talked. And covered a lot of common ground.

Over two hours later, our conversation hit its first lull and I realized that my phone had been off for over two hours. In my absence, surely, rabid bunnies had launched nuclear missiles at Philadelphia and declared martial law in the streets of San Francisco.

As we headed back to the hotel, I realized how rare it’s been for me lately to have a conversation that is free from both drama and work; a “normal” human interaction that doesn’t involve discussion of medication, police reports, hospitals, cheating spouses or, literally, pulling teeth.

It was a perfect, glorious two hours. And exactly what I needed.

Don’t you worry about the rabid bunnies, though. I did turn my phone back on. And, two text messages, three voicemails and a 45 minute negotiation later, I think I caught them all.

I think.

I have to say, late last week I was starting to get concerned: I hadn’t spotted any headlines that made me snort or snicker.  I’ve never had to seek them out before, I just always seem to stumble across some happy snark in my usual news consumption.  Sadly, as of last Thursday, my media seemed oddly tame.

Anxiety, begone. You were thoroughly unwarranted.  Oh, the tyranny of options…

As usual, the BBC finds many ways to make my news consumption both informative and entertaining:

Pringles ‘are not potato crisps’ - Leave it to an American corporation to pollute the British courts with this.  But they won.  Good news for British junk food addicts - no tax on Pringles!

Chelsea make ‘massive’ Kaka offer - Yes. I’m a 12 year old boy. A “massive Kaka offer” makes me snicker. No shame.

Hey, I almost gave you a headline related to Tyson Gay “going down” and being “out” at the Olympic trials.  What can I say? I was far too serious as a child and I’m making up for lost giggles.

The BBC almost brought it home with this one:

Police say UFO was just the Moon - But this one’s really about the article, not the headline.  It’s short, sweet and deadpan. Oh, the Brits and their humour.

My love of the BBC notwithstanding, it had been a while since I’d visited Deutsche Welle. While the Germans might not be quite as well known on this continent for being funny (stop it), their cheek is definitely underrated.

Day Two Of Uninformed Coverage Of Obama’s Iraq “Shift” - All right, it’s not a funny headline, but I still love it. American media providing “uninformed coverage?” Never!

German Archbishopric Grabs the Devil by the Horns - Nice.  Also, I have to point out that stories about exorcisms wouldn’t be likely to make the news in the U.S. Our evangelicals cast out demons all the time. Save me Jeebus!

Alas, at the risk of reinforcing cultural stereotypes…I have to hand the Hot-W to this one:

Germans Pummel One Another In Mustard Feud
“It’s about the sausage” is German idiom meaning that the matter at hand is really, really important. But two men from the city of Münster took the saying literally, engaging in fisticuffs over a bratwurst.

Sausage jokes, mustard feuds and use of the word “fisticuffs” - Deutsche Welle for the win. And in case you’re still determined to insist that Germans don’t have a sense of humor:

Excellent use of snark. Ah, Deutsche Welle.  It’s been too long…

For those of you who aren’t tennis fans, today Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played the longest Wimbledon final in history. John McEnroe declared it to be the best tennis match he’d ever seen.  It went 5 sets (the maximum) and Fed came back from being down 2 sets to 0 to push it to a 5th.

I’m a Federer fan.  I have tremendous respect for Rafa Nadal, but I’m a Federer fan and the final today was a little heartbreaking.  It’s hard to be disappointed when the tennis is that amazing, but I wanted Fed to win.  I wanted the record 6th consecutive Wimbledon win. I wanted him to slam it in the faces of everyone who’d said he was finished after the French Open.  I wanted it.

As much as I wanted it, obviously, Fed wanted it more.  And, despite fighting back tears and getting hit by something of an identity crisis (if you’re not the same champion you’ve been for 5 years, who are you?), he was, as always, unbelievably gracious and complimentary of his opponent. Devastated, though he was.

And that makes me even more of a Federer fan.

I drafted this back in January, around the Australian Open. It’s long and it’s about being a tennis Roger Federer fan. If you find the latter half of that sentence to be a little out of character for me, rest assured that I do too…

My assistant and I have been in all out war over the Territories of Passive Aggressiva for the entire five months we’ve worked together.  I want things done my way.  She wants things done her old supervisor’s way.  It’s fabulous.  While I have no qualms about requiring work to be done differently, it’s much harder for me to call someone out on having a craptastic attitude and needing to grow the fuck up.

Perhaps I should follow a bit of my own advice?

There has been open resistance and closeted whining.  There has been faked laughter and forced smiling.  There has been overloud talking and awkward silences.  There has been anything and everything vile and unpleasant.  What there hasn’t been is something – anything – resembling fun.

Until Roger Federer.

We were collating papers and assembling binders (and people actually think my job is glamorous) when she mentioned that she was exhausted.  She’d been setting her alarm to get up and watch the Australian Open, live, which meant a 3:30 wake up call.  Holy shit, Batman.  We’ve finally found some common ground!

This was the day before the first round of semi-finals in Australia’s primary contribution to the sport of tennis and, instantly, our eternally strained dialogue shifted to easy, naïve banter over the inevitability of the Federer/Nadal final to come.*  Stilted conversation turned to giggles and, for the first time since September, we actually agreed on something.

Granted, agreeing on the genius of Roger Federer is kind of like agreeing that the sky is blue.  Whatever. After five months of hostility, I’ll take what I can get.

As the Federer-love was spilling from my mouth, my brain raced to find a way to keep this volley going. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from past matches with my assistant, it’s that I do not win a point. If I can serve up easy anecdotes, she’ll lob them right back to me.  I just have to remember to keep my returns nice and soft.  Nothing backhanded.  No spin.  Nothing anywhere near a line.  As long as I can keep this game going, she feels like she has the advantage and, if she wins this match, I win a fucking grand slam.  I just need to somehow keep the ball squarely in her court.

Wondering just how far I can play the tennis metaphor?  You don’t love it?

I’ll stop.

While I’m blathering all things Roger Federer, it’s quickly clear that my assistant is a serious tennis fan.  Shit.  I grew up in a house where every goddamn sport that exists was perpetually on the television, so I can follow along but…I’m really just a Federer fan.

I stopped watching sports when I fled the nest at 18.  I just wasn’t interested.  Until Fed. It was a cold, grey day in January 2005 when I surfed through the channels on my tv and happened to pause on tennis.  That was one bleak January and I was still mired in the post-2004 election / 2005 inauguration gloom of four more years. I remember staring blankly at the screen in utter defeat, wanting nothing more than to shut down my brain with the perpetual back and forth of a tennis ball.

Except this guy was really good.

Again, I understate the blatantly obvious facts about Federer, but really.  I kept getting yanked out of my haze of depression by the sheer amazement of what was going down on that tennis court.  I couldn’t not pay attention to the match.  While I never sought it out, I absorbed enough Sampras and Agassi in the 90s that it was obvious – this guy is different.

Y’think?

I slowly started paying more and more attention until last year I caught myself googling tennis matches to make sure I didn’t miss them.  What.  The.  Fuck.  Just when did I become a tennis fan?

Federer fan.

True, I’ve watched the occasional match without Federer over the last couple of years and perhaps…perhaps I’m slowly becoming an actual tennis fan.  (Please see previous on, What.  The.  Fuck.)  Alas, I have a hard time believing that anyone outside of Fed is going to hold my interest for very long.

The thing about Federer is, it’s not just the best tennis I’ve ever seen.  Yes, he breaks record after record after record and the media endlessly postulates his position as the Greatest Of All Time (which I think is a stupid argument, but it does give us the greatest acronym of all time).  The record-breaking tennis is all well and good amazing, but that’s not what reeled me into this.

What truly fascinates me with Federer is how he’s managed to stay sane.  Imagine if for the past four years you had been, undisputedly, the best in the world at what you do; If media from around the globe constantly speculated that you might be the greatest ever at what you do; If the ridiculous compliments and obsequious questions about how amazing you are were always laced with an undertone of: just when are you going to start sucking?

Just stop.  And imagine that for a moment.

Not only has Federer stayed unfathomably level-headed and focused amidst intense flattery and pressure, he is, generally, ridiculously gracious regarding his competitors.  His post-match interviews are almost always a spot-on, straightforward assessment and, even if he’s just decimated his opponent, he still finds a way to be courteous and even complimentary.

Dude.  You fucking rock my world.

Mine and everyone else’s.  Namely, my assistant’s.

It’s been two weeks since our Roger Federer gigglefest and not once have any of the daily hostilities from the past five months appeared.  Not once.  The first major test came earlier this week when she submitted a document to me for editing.  Our work is cyclical and, about once a month, we have periods of intense writing.  Last month, this process involved severe frustration on my end, as I tried to demonstrate that professional writing means not starting every sentence with the exact same phrase.  She openly defied me and refused to make the changes I asked for until I demanded them a second time.  Even then, instead of offering an explanation or even an argument, she circumvented me and complained about me to my boss.  Who, thankfully, backed me, 100%.  Needless to say, I was a little nervous that the Federer-inspired ceasefire would end when we revisited this process again this week.

As I opened her document, I braced myself for the first shots fired from Passive Agressiva in two weeks.

You cannot imagine my surprise – nay, my elation – when I opened her document to find…she made an effort to do things my way.  Better yet, her efforts were actually decent.  Maybe even good.  Honestly, tears welled up in my eyes as I read through page after page of work I didn’t have to redo.  This has been such a frustrating battle, for so many months.  It’s challenging enough to come into a new job and cope with a coworker who doesn’t like working with you, but harder still when they clearly don’t like you.

I’m used to having varied relationships with my colleagues - some good friends, some good colleagues, some I’d like to throw off a cliff.  Regardless, truth be told, I’m used to having a relatively high percentage of them truly like me.  (Insert Sally Fields speech here.)  And at the very least, I’m accustomed to them respecting me and the work that I do.

Last week, still in the post-Federer afterglow, my assistant made a special trip to my office to offer me gum.  A small step?  Yes.  A giant leap in our relationship?  Hell, yeah.

Today, she extended an invitation to a dinner party in her home.  It’s tangentially work-related, but she had no obligation to invite me.  Three weeks ago, she wouldn’t have.  My work environment has gone from openly hostile, to cautiously friendly.

Tennis.

Roger Federer.

Athlete.  Philanthropist.  Gentleman.  Hottie.

Mediator?

It may seem melodramatic, but Roger Federer is solely responsible for my newly positive work environment.  Were it not for his character, poise, and unfailing grace under tremendous pressure, I wouldn’t still be watching tennis. And that giggly conversation would never have happened.

The Greatest Of All Time?  Impossible to say.  (Though the guy who just beat him in 5 sets today calls him that.) Regardless, by the sheer force of who he is, Roger Federer inspired two catty bitches to retract their claws and find some common ground.

It might not be a 6th Wimbledon trophy but, for me, it’s pretty fuckin’ awesome.

Federer fan.

Federer. Fan. Who’s looking forward to the hard court season. Rock on, Roger.

………

*Not so much a Roger/Rafa final in Australia. Both got knocked out in the semis. Roger was playing with undiagnosed mononucleosis. Rafa just got outplayed.

Ummmmmm…I have no qualms with slash. Watching House M.D. is infinitely more entertaining once you realize that it’s written as an unrequited, and possibly unrealized, affair between its two male leads. Infinitely more entertaining. And by entertaining I mean hawt.

I have no qualms with slash.

I have few qualms with real person slash. I get that there’s a different boundary when you cross from character-based fiction into person-based fiction. Regardless, as it’s still fiction, I have few qualms.

That said, I don’t expect slashy videos from news sites.  Deliberately slashy. I know that Wimbledon is somewhat sacred in England.  I know that tennis coverage has a tendency toward melodrama.  I know that emotions are running high in what will be a historic Wimbledon final, regardless of its outcome.

But seriously, what the hell is this, LiveJournal? The violins? The romance novel script? The manipulation of images?

The BBC gives me quirky headlines, snarky stories and now…tennis slash?

As usual, there’s no embedding videos from the BBC so you’ll have to click through but, mostly so you’d believe me, I had to copy this image.

Um, yeah. I have no qualms with slash.  And apparently, I have no interest in Fed/Nadal slash. It’s funny, but I just don’t find it hot.

Update: My sincere apologies to the Federer/Nadal slashers who find this post instead of Pr0n. Sorry to be a little tease. I had no idea this post would rank so high in that Google search.  Hopefully the BBC video gives you a little bit of solace. I just some quick research and…looks like the Fedal communities are pretty new (hence this coming in so high on that search). Start writing, slashers! In the meantime, I can point you to some good House/Wilson, if you like…

Dianne has a gorgeous post about patriotism up over at Forks Off The Moment.  In her blog, she’s building this happy little corner of the web that’s positively soothing to read.  Even when she’s having a bad day, she finds a way to make it funny.  Eternally thoughtful and deliberately kind - Dianne’s is a blog to follow.  Here’s a tiny taste of her experience at the VFW on July 3rd:

One of guys mentioned how sick he was of flag waving and bumper ribbons and endless talk of Obama wearing or not wearing a lapel pin. He’s having a really hard time with the VA and would much rather hear about that. He can’t pay his bills and he’s terribly worried about his daughter and her kids – her husband is on his second tour and she’s having a rough time holding it all together.

“Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.” – James Bryce

When he mentioned not being able to pay his bills one of the others talked about how hard it was to stick it out with his part-time job. He needed it to pay for gas and heating oil and he was damned if he was going to lose his house at this point in his life. He wondered aloud who was responsible for this mess.

“In any free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty - all are responsible”. Abraham Heschel

I said I was sick of looking backwards, unless there was going to be impeachment, I’d rather look forward and hang on to some hope for things to get better. My second job is killing me too.

“Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.” ~Lin Yutang

She’ll make you smile and make you think. What more can you possibly ask?

Me: Hi, [an Assistant Director at a Large Government Agency] please.
Overpaid Government Employee: May I tell him who’s calling?
Me: Sure, [jt] at [small nonprofit you’ve never heard of].

Pause, during which I’m certain I’m being shunted into voicemail.

Assistant Director: This is [Assistant Director].
Me: You’re a brave man, [first name], to take a call from a woman you don’t know!
AD: *laughs* What can I say, I have no fear!

Friendly chattery and introductions ensue. My operating stance is: if you like me, you will give me what I want. And I want your time. So you will like me.

AD: You haven’t been in DC very long, have you?
Me: *laughs* No, just a year. Is it that obvious?
AD: You just seem to want to get things done.
Me: *head hits desk* Yes! I’m going insane in this town! Why does everything have to be 10 steps more complicated than necessary???

Lovelies, that is a Large Government Agency employee identifying me as a DC-outsider on the basis of my desire to actually get shit done.* I’m not hallucinating. This town really is that insane.

(And yes, mission accomplished on that call. My people received more time than I requested from that charming Assistant Director.)

————-

*We abbreviate this in the nonprofit world as GSD.  One of my lovely, lovely coworkers, seeing it for the first time in an IM (as in, “OK, I really need to GSD.”) paused and asked, “Go suck dick?”

It’s the little things.

I am not complaining.

I am not complaining.

Despite having a total case of the Mondays where nothing went to plan, I am not complaining.

I, with my endless melodrama and extreme emotional states.  I, who squeals for joy and growls in rage multiple times each day. I, of all people, am not complaining.

My sweet little baby cousin has safely left Iraq and arrived back in the U.S.

For good.

He’s a little less sweet, a little less little, and a little less of a baby at this point, but he’s home. And he’s safe. And he’s, physically, all in one piece.  (We’ll work on the psychological.)

Ultimately, it’s hard to view this as anything but a fabulous day.