is it just me?

"No, really John. Thanks a lot for the endorsement. I mean...it's great. I..um...appreciate it. Maybe it would be best if we didn't hang out a lot together or anything. Just so, you know, the other candidates don't feel jealous. Or whatever."

haha. In fairness, this is a 2004 photo and I am sure does not actually reflect how Barack feels, but still. (I stole this from the nytimes.com it is an AP Photo and I am sure they have the copyright.) The other good news about this being a 2004 photo is that it kind of explains the LiveStrong bracelet which otherwise would be kind of tragic. I find it funny that they picked this picture, though today they have one of Obama looking much happier about the whole thing. But maybe they were trying to say that Obama (whose initials are unfortunatly B.O. which probably caused him some trouble at some point in his youth) might not be leaping for joy. Is an endorsement from John Kerry really all that great? Apparently even the Kerry camp isn't sure that it is, since they held the announcement until after the New Hampshire primary since they were not sure what the 'political impact' would be. I mean, the guy couldn't beat George Bush when he ran the SECOND time. So really, that doesn't say that many great things about him. But oh well, Obama can put him on the list and make him go places and say nice things about him. But let's be honest: he is better off with Oprah on his side than John Kerry, which is probably a sad statement about American politics but there you have it.

I actually watched live coverage of the New Hampshire primary the other night, which has to be a first for me. It was quite exciting! Although MSNBC was seriously abusing their fancy new technology, all of which is very iPhone-esque. Sometimes the reporters were so enamored with showing off the way they could move photos around that their accompanying commentary made no sense. Hopefully they will tone it down a little over the course of the election. I love democracy, and I love voting, so I am happy that everyone is so excited about it. This is going to be quite the election year indeed.

go big red

last night we got to go to a UW basketball game which was super fun as always. They were playing Illinois and it's funny for me to see Bruce Weber right there on the floor since for me he is one of those tiny people who lives in my television. I watch a lot of college hoops so I see all the coaches on TV, but then I get kind of confused when I see them live. Fortunately our basketball arena has a fancy scoreboard with a TV so if I get overwhelmed I can just watch there. haha. A few years ago Dick Vitale came to do the commentary on a Badger game. I was nearly beside myself, and forced my husband to go stalk him with me at our local Borders where he was signing his book. Since I had absolutely no interest in actually purchasing the book, and you really could only get him to talk to you if you were asking him to sign it, I pretended to be browsing the shelves around his table for a while. I am such a dork. I mostly wanted to know if he talks like that in real life and the answer is mostly yes, but he's a lot calmer. It was kind of cool because there were two high school boys there and he asked the first one if he played basketball (of course he did) and then he said do you know (insert name of good h.s. player here) and his friend said "that's me!" HA! How awesome would it be to have Dick Vitale know who you are before he met you? Apparently the kid was a top prospect and so Dickie V asked him where he wanted to go and the guy said Stanford and Dick told him to keep his grades up. Good suggestion. Anyway, there I was skulking in the aisles pretending to look at cookbooks or something. My life is very glamorous.

So, I was watching the cheerleaders to tricks last night, and they have some good ones. I don't think cheerleading in general is all that great, as a no look pass makes me want to 'Get On My Feet and Make Some Noise!' more than some co-ed in a short skirt holding a piece of posterboard that says "GO!" but still. I can't do flips or hoist other girls onto my shoulders so I shouldn't judge. I think I really got turned off to cheerleading because my high school and my university did not allow stunts, and cheerleading without stunts is boring. Here, the dance team does cheerleading without stunts and they shuffle around in their horrible nude tights and soft shoes and wave their pom poms and do not get anyone excited about anything. At Duke, they banned stunts because some girl years ago got very seriously injured, so they decided cheerleaders should not really leave the ground. This just shows that cheerleading is not a sport. Can you imagine if Duke decided they would only play touch football because someone got hurt? I mean, I feel badly for the girl who got dropped on her head, but that is a risk that you take when you engage in physical endeavors. Anyway, it meant all the cheers were boring but I have a new appreciation since here they do lots of flips and stuff. The end.

finally it is the weekend which is good news because baby Lizard has decided that sleeping lots of hours in a row is really not her cup of tea which is causing mama Lizard to be extremely cranky and look like hell. so hopefully I will be back up to par next week.

Go Packers!