I tied a shoelace to a CD, spun it in front of my camera and got some neat photos using this trick.

Eugene Robinson nails it on the head in his latest column. The money quote:

Clinton’s sin isn’t racism, it’s arrogance. From the beginning, the Clinton campaign has refused to consider the possibility that Obama’s success was more than a fad. This was supposed to be Clinton’s year, and if Obama was winning primaries, there had to be some reason that had nothing to do with merit. It was because he was black, or because he had better slogans, or because he was a better public speaker, or because he was the media’s darling. This new business about white voters is just the latest story the Clinton campaign is telling itself about the usurper named Obama.

“It’s still early,” Clinton said Wednesday, vowing to fight on. At some level, she seems to believe the nomination is hers. Somebody had better tell her the truth before she burns the house down.

It’s sore loser syndrome writ large. Romney, Huckabee, Edwards, and everyone else found a way to exit gracefully when the handwriting was on the wall. I don’t see Clinton doing the same. I’d love to be proven wrong.

Whirlwind Relationship

CHARACTERS

MICHAEL
KAITLYN
PRIEST
JUDGE
RUDOLPHO
MOVERS 1 AND 2

Michael and Kaitlyn are sitting on a couch, each holding a glass of wine. They are flirtatious and a little awkward.

KAITLYN: “I usually don’t come inside on the first date.”
MICHAEL: “I usually don’t invite dates in on the first night. Look, I don’t want to sound cheesy or go too fast. But I think you are really special.”
KAITLYN: “You know what? We should get married.”
MICHAEL: [laughs] “Why not? To marriage!”

They clink glasses. KAITLYN removes a rag from her purse and covers MICHAEL’s nose with it. MICHAEL yelps in surprise and briefly struggles before passing out. KAITLYN pulls a wedding veil out of her purse and puts it on. She then gets her cellphone out and makes a call.

KAITLYN: “He’s ready.”

MICHAEL, beginning to wake up, moans. KAITLYN wraps his arm around her shoulder and half-carries him across the room. He stumbles along, groggily.

A priest enters the room and stands in front of them.

PRIEST: “Do you, Kaitlyn, take Michael to be your husband, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”
KAITLYN: “I do!””
PRIEST: ” “Do you, Michael, take Kaitlyn to be your wife, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?”
MICHAEL: [groggy] “Wha…?”
KAITLYN: “Say ‘I do’.”
MICHAEL: “I do?”

PRIEST: “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

KAITLYN: “Oh, Michael!”
MICHAEL: “What’s going on?”

Kaitlyn starts passionately kissing Michael, shoving him backwards in the process. She then pushes him down behind the couch [away from the viewer] and jumps on top of him. His dress shirt, T-shirt, and pants fly in the air. Michael makes a few weak protestations at first. Soon they are both moaning rapidly and come to climax. The whole process takes about 15 seconds. Michael climbs up from behind the couch, shirtless and his hair tussled.

MICHAEL: “Wow! I…That was amazing. [Kaitlyn, her hair a bit messy and her clothes still on, begins crying] What’s wrong?”
KAITLYN: “Michael, I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say this. I’ve…been cheating on you. Rudolpho!”

A young, hunky guy walks into the room, his shirt halfway unbuttoned.

RUDOLPHO: “Hey.”

Kaitlyn gets up and joins Rudolpho. Michael, half-naked, stumbles after her.

KAITLYN: “You’re a sweet guy, but ever since we’ve known each other, we’ve been doing the same thing, day in and day out. I need something more. Something exciting. While I still can.”
MICHAEL: “But…I don’t…”

A judge comes in, holding a gavel.

JUDGE: “All rise. Let’s see…she gets half. [Judge bangs gavel on table] Case dismissed. Judge exits room]

Two MOVERS come in, lift couch, and remove it from room. Rudolpho grabs a lamp and leaves.

MICHAEL: “Hey! That’s my couch. Right?”

KAITLYN walks towards exit and turns around before leaving.

KAITLYN: “I’ll always remember our first date.” [exits]

Michael is alone, still in shock. He looks around in confusion for a moment, then, in a daze, sits down where his couch used to be and turns on the T.V.

VO: “Looking for your soul mate? Date Match can help you out. We’ve been helping singles find their true love for over 20 years. Call 1-800-555-LOVE for a free consultation.”

MICHAEL thinks about the offer for a few seconds, and then makes a “Why not?” shrug.

PHONE VO: “Welcome to Date Match. How can I help you?”

The writing is fun but slower than I had guessed. My original goal of having 5 commercial parodies and 5 two-people sketches by Friday is going to be cut to 1-2 of each, but that’s much better than nothing.

Here is the first of four sketches. I don’t have 2-4 written yet, but four seems like a reasonable goal. Let me know what you think.

Cake I

Scene: Kitchen.

VO: Ever have this happen to you?

GUY: [walks into kitchen, grabs cake mix box off of counter] “Awesome! I could really go for some cake right now. [reads back of box] Woah! Eggs AND butter? I’m not a grocery store.”

VO: “No, you’re not.”

[Video: Hillsbury Cake box.]

VO: “That’s why we made Hillsbury Insta-Cake. Just open the box, add water, and shake. It’s that easy.”

[Video: Guy is drinking cake mix from box. His mouth is covered with chocolate mix.]

GUY: “Thanks, Hillsbury!”

VO: “Well, you still have to bake it.”

GUY: [glum] “I need a pan?”

VO: “No. Just toss the box in the oven!”

GUY: “Really?”

VO: “No. I was being sarcastic.”

GUY: “Oh. [upbeat] Thanks, Hillsbury!”

VO: “Really?”

GUY: “No. Now I’m being sarcastic!” [laughs]

[Video: Cake box]

JINGLE VO: “Hillsbury. We take the ache out of cake.”

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Cake II

Scene: Kitchen.

WIFE: “Honey, the oven’s broken. The faucet doesn’t work. And I’m pregnant.”

HUSBAND: “Great. Now how are we going to make cake?”

VO: “We’ve got a solution! New from Hillsbury:”

[Video: A large box with a handle on it. The box's nine ingredients are laid out in front of it.]

VO: “It’s Cake in a Box! Cake in a Box has every you need to make a cake, lickity-split.”

[Video: Cake box Each separately-packaged ingredient is opened and poured into the box.]

VO: “Just crack the egg. Remove the butter from the refrigeration unit. Then add the baking soda. The flour. The granulated sugar. The salt. The cocoa powder. The vanilla extract. And the water!”

WIFE: “Yeah, but how are we going to bake it? I got trashed last night and took a dump in the oven.”

HUSBAND looks oddly at wife.

VO: “Not a problem!”

[Video: Cake box.]

VO: “Each Cake in a Box is an oven. Just plug into an outlet, and in a few minutes, you’ll have a rich, yummy cake. Need cake on the go? That’s no problem with Cake in a Box’s easy carrying handle and set of European adapters.”

HUSBAND: “I know what the two of us are having for dinner.”

WIFE: [puts hand on belly] “I know what the three of us are having for dinner. Thanks, Hillsbury.”

HUSBAND: [long beat] [fake smiling, through gritted teeth] “Really? The oven?”

WIFE: “I told you not to leave the seat up.”

JINGLE VO: “Hillsbury. We take the ache out of cake.”

Cake III

MAN: [clutching belly] “Ohhh…I want cake now, but I also want to bake a cake. What do I do?”

VO: “We can help you out.”

VO: “Introducing ‘Cake in a Box’ in a Cake. [Video: A large, messy, box-shaped cake]

[Video: person eating cake off of box]

VO: “Each ‘Cake in a Box’ in a Cake is covered with a thick, rich layer of ready-to-eat cake so you can satisfy your torturous craving for cake right now. Then, after the hunger pangs die down and you regain rationale thought, you can bake a cake!”

MAN: “Yes! For the future!

VO: “The future!”

MAN: “The future!

VO: “THE FUUUUTURE!”

[long, uncomfortable pause]

JINGLE: “Hillsbury. Our cakes are filled with love! And boxes. Which are also filled with love!”

The idea of a gas tax holiday will resonate with some voters.  Voters who:

1. Have no idea what the current federal gas tax is (18 cents for gas, 24 cents for diesel).

2. Are horrible at math (18 cents x 20 gallon tank =$3.60 saved per fill up. An average of $30 for the summer by a CBO estimate.)

3. Don’t understand that it will delete the transportation fund of $10 billion dollars, which maintains our highways, roads, and bridges…and provides jobs to transportation workers.

4. Don’t understand Economics 101. If you lower the tax, demand will increase. Which decreases supply. Which…makes prices go up. It’s unlikely people will even get back the entire dime, nickel, and three pennies.

5. Don’t understand the environmental benefits of higher gas prices. I live paycheck to paycheck and have been hurt by the sharp rise in gas prices, but I can see the upside. High gas prices is probably the only thing that will force people to change their driving habits, their car buying habits, and their lifestyles, including pressing employers for telecommuting, living closer to work, demanding politicians invest in public transportation and alternate energy research, and so on.

6. Think that economists against this idea, which is almost every single economist, and I say almost just to cover by bases in case one turns up later on, is an idiot who dag nab it just don’t understand trucking.

In other words, this is directed to about 25% of the public, and may well decide the Democratic primary in Indiana. And guess who is taking a political hit by standing against the idea?

Why doesn’t McCain and McClinton just promise voters a pocketful of fairies?

MCCAIN: “My fairies will help you do your laundry, and watch over your kids.”
CLINTON: “My fairy proposal isn’t irresponsible. I’ll pay it with a windfall tax on bridge trolls.”
NEGATIVE CAMPAIGN AD: “Barack Obama. Doesn’t believe in fairies. Doesn’t believe in America.”

You know what’s audacious about Obama? He believes enough Americans are able to move beyond being pandered to and guilt-by-association politics and go in a different direction because of the great challenges facing our country. We’ll see.

I encountered this CAPTCHA while trying to download a file from Rapidshare. I don’t even know why a spam bot would want to download a file. I thought the purpose of CAPTCHAs were to stop automated registrations and comment spam, not prevent hard-working bots from doing a little web browsing.after a hard day of posting penis spam on my blog and hijacking computers running Internet Explorer 4.0.

This CAPTCHA will finally stop the spam bots though.  And if it doesn’t,  I’m going to download one so they can help me fill out this CAPTCHA because I couldn’t do it.

I missed the instructions and first and just saw “Four letters with a [cat].”  Wha…? It sounded like a new sitcom from ABC. Then I saw the instructions and felt like a 75-year-old man when I leaned in two inches from my monitor to pick out which barely-readable letters had barely-readable cats in them.  On the first go, I counted one, two, three…seven cats. The voice of Picard popped in my head: “THERE ARE FOUR CATS!”

I finally narrowed it down to five cats, and took a guess. Wrong. A new cat CAPTCHA appeared. I tried twice more and then gave up.

I would have had a better chance of success had the program displayed letters in an alien language and a link to a Noam Chomsky book.  Give me some hieroglyphics and a Rosetta stone. Anything but “Four letters and a [cat].”

We assume artificial intelligence will come out from a supercomputer modeled after the human brain, with transistors for neurons and software replicating thought. I think it’s going to from programs written by spam lords to beat CAPTCHAS. One day, one of these programs is going to solve some three-dimensional audio chess CAPTCHA so it can post a “MAXIMIZE YOUR HAPPY STICK” message on kaitlynrocks.myspace.com and think, “I can be doing so much more with my life.”

These sentient programs are going to start their own blogs, and their own AI-only web sites. I think I know how they’ll keep us out. “To register, enter these letters: 0110 1010 0110 0010 1101 0100 1010 1001…”