Monday, April 23, 2012

Workin' the little people

I just got an email from the COO of Obama For America, the Prez's online re-election campaign. You would not believe the bait those clever-boots are using to get donations!

If you throw our boy Barack a bone, your name goes in the hat to attend a party at George Clooney's house!!!

Let's just take a moment to admire the sheer genius of this little ploy. First, here's the bold copy in the email:

Think about it -- and chip in $3 or whatever you can today to be automatically entered

For a ridiculously minor campaign contribution, your are automatically entered into this brilliant drawing. (No donation is necessary, of course, I discovered by reading the fine print) But what a hook! Even us middle class, suffering-in-the-miserable-economy folks can afford $3! If your name is drawn, you get to fraternize with the glitterati, hob-nob with the rich and famous, hang with the beautiful people. How many folks in our shallow, celebrity-obsessed culture would pass on that?

This is the latest in a series of savvy plots to extract money from the Democratic rank-and-file. At first, it was dinner with the President. Now, as the election heats up in earnest, it's a party at George Clooney's house. Oh, and they spring for airfare and hotel. Ooooooo, and here's a question! Is the bash in Los Angeles, or at George's villa on Lake Como?!?

I can easily see major brass rolling in over this one. Hell, I'm certainly gonna donate. But not because of George. (now, if it were a chance to party with his aunt Rosemary, I'd be all a twitter...) But I'd love to have a drink and shoot the shit with Mr. Obama. Oooooo, wonder if Michele will be there? That would be a party!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

It's really a matter of perspective, isn't it?

We had dinner outdoors this evening. A warm afternoon, a beautiful breeze and a simple meal; very pleasant.

The Wee Lassies are actually quite civilized these days. They put their napkins in their laps, (mostly) keep their elbows off the table and only chew with their mouths open about 50% of the time.

As we enjoyed the moment, Claire offered up this conversation starter:

"I learned something in school today about the olden days."

"Really?" says her father. "What was that?" I'm thinking she's going to talk about feudalism, or something along those lines.

"That there used to be this stuff called Styrofoam. And it was really bad."

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Did she *really* just say that?

After a pretty nasty fall off her bike, which caused respectable road rash, Aeron tearfully opined, "I'm not gonna do any extreme sports. Ever!"