Pull 'em up...

What's it like driving a school bus?

This would be a pretty bad day.





As a side note, this is one of the many reasons kids are not allowed to use cell phones in school or on buses. These frantic phone calls to parents stir everything up and escalate situations too fast. And the main girl in this situation makes everything worse by her attitude and actions.

Sparky

Quick plug for my favorite local band, Sparky's Flaw. They're the cover story this week over at C-ville weekly. You can check out the story here or by picking up a hard copy anywhere around town.

As a side note, I don't read C-ville Weekly as a general rule. I find it to be sophomoric in humor, genuinely unfunny, and slanted to the left; the latter I can understand, with liberal being the prevalent ideology here in Cville. I prefer The Hook instead, which is funnier, better managed and more interesting than its competitor. But I digress... [The Hook, for the record, has done a couple of cover stories on the band over the years.]

That all being said, this article is well-written and worth reading. It gives a interesting look into the lives of a great group of guys who have worked really hard to get to where they are. I highly recommend you read it and visit the guys' website.

SLLLLLLA

On Saturday a couple of us took the School Leaders' License Assessment. It began at 7:30am [!] and luckily for me it was given over at UVA. Some people drove in from D.C or other points. All for the privilege of paying $500 to take a 6 hour essay exam. Thanks, ETS.

My hand hurts. Still. It's Monday, and it's a little sore; this is most likely my fault, as I never mastered the correct handwriting grip so perfectly displayed to the left here. It's been a long time [never] since I hand wrote for six hours. I ran out of ink in one pen.

Compared to 'real' injuries or other professional licensing exams [e.g. the Bar, Medical Boards, etc], this has been easy.

But at least this exam provided an opportunity for a rare event: a January blog post.

And by the way, ETS [the company that produces and sells the academic cash cows of the SAT, GRE, SLLA, Praxis, etc etc etc] is listed as an organization on the web. Their website is www.ets.org. Get that? Dot Org! Not dot com. That means that they're an organization, not a company. Really? How is that possible?

What else would you do late on a Friday night?

Mike and Chuck, part deux

At dinner last night with AdHom and the K-Man it was revealed that there is a campaign ad out there that features Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris. After 2 seconds of searching YouTube, I found it.
Enjoy.

Take that, Barbara and Oprah

There's big news on the campain trails. It doesn't have anything to do with illegal immigrants cutting grass ["who knew?"], Iran, fun with Chinese paint, or elementary school essays on the presidency. Nope, this is bigger; much, much bigger. Mike Huckabee just picked up an enormous endorsement.

So Barrack can have Oprah. Hillary can have Barbara Streisand. Rudy can kick it with Pat Robertson.

Mike Huckabee has Chuck. Not Chuck Bartowski [voila].

Mike got Chuck Norris.

Chuck Norris. He of Walker, Texas Ranger and the Missing in Action franchise fame. And countless Internet references. A pretty cool soft drink commercial. And of course, the Chuck Norris Action Jeans. I remember these jeans from when I took karate in high school. The studio [call it a 'do-jo'
if you wanna poke fun and/or mock people who know 23 ways to hit you from the wrist down] got magazines that sold equipment, gear, weapons, etc. In them you'd always see an advertisement for the Chuck Norris Action Jeans. The "secret" of these jeans is that they stretch in the crotch [make your own joke here]. This allowed you to move freely in them. Why, you could even kick above your head in them; if you're Chuck, this meant your kicks could almost reach a normal man's waist [see Chuck is what is know as a bit undersized in the business...much like Sly Stallone.].

Evidently Chuck feels that Mike is the best hope for the country [or at least the party], and so they had a nice little press conference to announce his support for Mike. By the way, Yahoo!!!! is reporting that searches for Mike Huckabee have gone up an astounding 457% since this endorsement. Read about it here.



Here's Chuck explaining why he supports Mike:














And here's Mike, already following Chuck's lead with the arm extension:


If this copying continues, I'll expect to see Mike on basic cable, either roundhousing some schmuck or dragging an American soldier out of the jungle. Both of those should add points to his polling numbers. And I expect that Mike will be able to stay in shape on the campaign trail by using Chuck & Christie Brinkley's Total Gym.

By the way, you know that this endorsement has won Mike Huckabee at least 10 votes in Iowa, if for no other reason that there are people who will think it's funny to vote for Chuck's guy.