Completely Unnecessary

I was reading this article on TPM Election Central today, and, gosh, if the older gentleman with bills didn’t look familiar!

Well, there’s a reason - he’s the same bill-checking older gentleman that was concerned about the economy at three am! Here’s him blue-hued by the Clinton staff to indicate ‘nighttime’:

How many thousands of hours of stock footage do you think there is available to both these campaigns?

So, it is just laziness or do you think the McCain campaign is trying to bring up memories of the Clinton campaign? Perhaps a subtle way of reminiding those anti-Obama Clintonites of their vows?

Yeah, or just laziness.

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I was sure this headline on TPM was going to be a joke:

Hillary Unveils Another 3 A.M. Ad, This One On The Economy

I mean, after the last one got raked over the coals, the Clinton campaign wouldn’t pull that out again. The video clearly linked to some SNL sketch. Right?

Right?

Erlgegh.

Firstly, how many homes are foreclosing at 3am? An economic crisis usually builds over time (see: American economy for the last number of years). If Clinton is only called after the straw breaks the camel’s back, that’s not a good sign.

But let’s not leave out the bad production values! The shots of the worried parents are clearly blue-hued stock footage of daytime scenes. And check out the older man in the middle shot; he doesn’t even look perturbed, let alone exhausted because he’s been at this for hours.

Finally, listen to the horns over the ‘approval’ message. Is that the Olympics theme?

When did this start the slide into farce? I really don’t remember anymore…

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That’s the title I’m going with, since I already used interwebs speak earlier today.

I totally failed this test; see how you do:

via SLOG

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I’ve never really felt like a grad student. Until this morning…

I’m finishing up my work in the archives when I get a text from Sara complaining about the myriad of first years with their orientation balloons. I emerge from the basement and look around in horror as the solace of my previous empty library is shattered by the mewling and puking of new students on their library tours. I glance with scorn at the noisy groups taking the exact tour that Sara and I took just one year ago.

I walk over to the loans desk to put a hold on a book I really have no right putting a hold on. There’s a weekly loan copy available, but I mention the word ‘thesis’ and the hold is placed. Sorry, other person probably also working on a thesis. See you in three weeks when you pull the same maneuver.

I leave the library, skirting the throngs of new students and the inevitable Socialist pamphleteers that the students’ presence has engendered. (New students are like standing water, should I be willing to compare MelbUni Socialists to mosquitoes, which I am.)

I ride to John Medley, expertly avoiding people on the too narrow path. Parking my bike, I listen to an enthusiastic American uni guide cheerfully mispronounce the names of her charges. One girl looks in my direction. I’m far overdressed for the weather, wearing both a long-sleeved shirt and a scarf. ‘It’s incredibly cold in the archives,’ I hope my bored glance communicates. ‘I’m willing to suffer the slings and arrows of uni fashionistas like yourself for the importance of my incredibly important research. It’s important.’

Scarf = grad student

I realize finally how I look as I enter the bathroom on the fifth floor. That bored look is really just exhaustion from staying up last night to type notes from a book into my bibliography database.

Exhaustion + Scarf = grad student.

The person I’m looking for isn’t around, so I head back downstairs, cursing my inability to get a mobile signal in John Medley. I have to ask the girl whose name was being mispronounced to move so I can wheel my bike and its tiger-striped handlebars past her. The corking is kind of coming off; I look like I’m living on a ’student’ budget.

Poor + Exhaustion + Scarf = Grad Student

Anyway, after that I wisely head away from campus, avoiding ‘O’ week. The emails and texts I get over the next 30 minutes indicate that pretty much everyone else is doing the same.

We are so cool now that we’ve been here a year. We don’t need orientation, though there are still times when I wind up stuck inexplicably in the Engineering section and not near the ERC as I’d planned. Whatever, my scarf says it’s just because I’m overtired.

ps - Despite what my handlebar corking might imply, I actually have some money coming in with a research job. I spent yesterday and part of today looking through 1949 newspapers during a coal mining strike. I was looking for government-sponsored ads, which were amazing enough, but some of the ads and stories they were running are hilarious.

For instance, did you know that ’scalp starvation’ is the cause of 9 out of 10 cases of baldness? Silvikrin has ‘14 organic elements’ to prevent this totally crap explanation…

Watson and Crick, 1953…

I’ll post some of them when I get a chance.

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The Bush Administration would like you to know that having premarital sex renders you unable to succeed.

And here I thought it just sent you to Hell.

So, I’m back on the virginity bandwagon, people - three cheers for my third virginity!

Something tells me this one will be a success.

h/t SLOG

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