Will Hines Dot Net

For those of you discouraged by criticisms of Obama’s first year, I point you to this — it was item number one in The Economist‘s “The World This Year” round-up:

Barack Obama was inaugurated as America’s 44th president. In a whirlwind first year in office, Mr. Obama overturned a prohibition on federal funding for stem-cell research, eased some restrictions on dealing with Cuba, lifted a ban on people with HIV traveling to the United States, pushed Congress to pass health-care reform, promised to close the detention camp at Guantanamo, pledged a cut in American’s emissions and promoted the first Hispanic person to the Supreme Court.

I’ll remind you that The Economist is a conservative British magazine, which has a skeptical attitude [...]

The Big Picture, a really cool photo blog over at The Boston Globe, has great pictures from yesterday’s inauguration. Among the cool stuff:

• The envelope that Bush left behind for Obama (shown above)
• Bush on the helicopter as it passes over Washington
• The two dudes who gave the “black power” salute at the 1968 Olympics watching Obama get sworn in
• Guantanamo Bay changing their photograph of the current president

Nice.

I can’t find a copy of The New York Times out there. Scooped up!

Great pictures of Barack’s campaign at The Big Picture.

Edited to add: The NY Times confirms they and most major newspapers sold out big time yesterday.

Kottke.org points out the NY Times used their bigger headline typesize ever, used only three times before.

The front page of the NY Times looked like this, btw.

I walked into the school behind McCarren Pool to vote. It is, at best, a confusing scenario. The guy at the door asked if I had my voter registration card, which I didn’t. And he shook his head. Were I nervous or hadn’t done it before, I would have gone home. But I’ve done this three or four times and I said “I’m sure I’m registered, and I have photo I.D.” And he waved me on. My name and signature was in the voter rolls, and I showed my ID and voted. I had checked a month ago that I was still registered, but what if I were a nervous non-English speaker who had never voted?

I passed my landlady on [...]

Dry Hump the Vote. Written/starring Rob. Directed by me. Thanks to Damian Chadwick for the logo.

A few things:

• Rob and I have worked on this video for 14 years.
• Any video that’s just jump cutting someone listing a bunch of silly things; I’m down for it.
• I shot it in (fake) 16:9, but tried to export it 4:3 — a process that resulted in me uploading the video 6 times to FunnyOrDie. UCBComedy and YouTube handled the first try no problem though!

Here’s a fun/depressing game: Go to YouTube. Notice how they show you five videos that are being watched at that moment. If you refresh the page, you’ll see five different videos being watched at THAT moment. Now notice how many of them are either a) Sarah Palin or b) Tina Fey’s impression of her on Saturday Night Live or c) any other impersonation of Sarah Palin. My highest score is four out of five, and I’ve never gotten lower than one.