Alright so at around 3am a commercial is on Tv for this product--a handheld mini sewing machine.

Now, typical of such ads it shows melodramatically frustrated archetypes attempting to use the traditional product (in this case, an ordinary sewing machine) with no success, followed by an image of the new product being used with grace and speed.

The voice over says: "You couldn't sew drapes with an ordinary sewing machine!" Here a grandmotherly woman is shown holding in the air a full size sewing machine, turning it sideways and attempting to sew the edge of the drapes that are hanging on the window. Of course, this procedure is made much easier by the "Handy Stitch" but wouldn't it be even easier to just take the drapes down before sewing them?

This grotesquely exaggerated anecdote is intended to be an extension of the uses previously suggested in the commercial; for instance, "Sew your pants while still wearing them!" Which I suppose could be useful, but still why would anyone sew their drapes while they're still hanging on the window? I might as well sew my blanket while sleeping under it.

Blair Hull makes me itchy. He's a candidate for the Democratic Senate nomination and he's already spent $12 million of his own money on the race.

What troubles me is how some of that money is paying for banners on the Sun-Times website that magically appear with campaign news stories.

It's a good advertising strategy because it furtively positions Blair Hull in the mind of the voter as the most "newsworthy" candidate. But the best advertising is almost always evil.

And so how did Blair Hull make his money? Well, he's a former professional Black Jack player turned Day Trader.
Quick, somebody get me a ballot!

I'm officially endorsing Barak Obama for Senate.

Errata

Here's a little tip for all you young web designers out there-- don't put your lovely little page out into the world without testing it on multiple platforms.
Of course, any real web designer knows this, but I only discovered by accident that Internet Explorer displayed part of this page in a disruptive pink color.

The color of the main section, for those of you who were wondering, is #ffcc66. But for the "menu" strip on the right, I wrote #ffccc66. For some reason, Safari and Netscape displayed it as intended, but IE didn't.

The page also got smushed together and out of whack if you weren't viewing it through a wide enough window. It's better now. See? Play with your window! Smaller... Bigger... Smaller...

When I have a bit more time, somewhere between midnight tonight and Sunday morning, I'll actually write something of substance.