Sam's L33t Journal

The motto at the end was “Man’s… last… stand!” but it might as well have been “Compensate… for… something!“ This is not, generally speaking, behavior that your audience is going to want to emulate. [...]

Are we to understand, then, that the add is targeting mid-life crisis sufferers who are so far gone that they just don’t care anymore? Or is it targeting aging hipsters who think that the crisis-of-masculinity is going to be the next trucker hat, making this the first ironic muscle car?

[...]

To sum up—the premise of the commercial, to begin with, seems like it would only appeal to someone whose basic attitude is “Look, honey, I feel emasculated, and want a big car to make myself feel better.” The specific aesthetics that they bring to bear on it makes the message even darker: “Look, honey, deep down underneath, I scarcely qualify as anything you’d recognize as human. The only thing that makes me feel alive is driving this car, and quite honestly, this persona that you think you know? The one that you were planning to introduce to your parents soon? Is a lie, and I only created it because it’s the most efficient way to trick society into letting me drive this car on a regular basis.”

• Japanese people mortified by crazy US media.
• Don't use regular expressions to parse HTML or Cthulu will devour your soul.
• One of the most dramatic examples of missing the point I have ever seen.
• "Thinking about your own beliefs" and "thinking about God's beliefs" look suspiciously similar on an MRI.

• It looks like Obama might squeak out one more electoral vote by carrying Omaha (Nebraska divides it's electoral votes by district).
• Here's part one of the post-election GOP asplosion watch. Prepare for many popcorn-worthy moments in the weeks ahead.
• There's something really fishy going on in the Alaskan election (a native on the ballot and unprecedented registration and turnout is much lower?), which matters because the senate race has still not been called. If the convicted felon Ted Stevens wins, it would be a spectacular failure of polling.
• The website for Obama's transition office is up, so share your vision. Meanwhile, the ACLU calls out Obama with a detailed and demanding transition plan. There's also a reddit-style website for political policy suggestions; no idea who's running that, though.
• Obama was quite the candidate, but his campaign-level strategy was also quite something, especially in Pennsylvania, where McCain committed vast resources to lose by double digits. The Obama campaigners were apparently masters of the political rope-a-dope.
• Hey, the high-speed rail ballot initiative passed in California! This is very good news, I hope it's a trend-setter. High-speed passenger rail is one of the best investments we can make now. Provides jobs and gets people where they need to go when the airline industry is failing, lowers fuel consumption, takes pressure off overtaxed highway infrastructure. Good for the economy, gas prices, and the environment.