MoveOn launched a site to promote what will surely be a standard Dem talking point this year: A McCain presidency will be like a third term for Bush. But to prove its point, it’s offering a quiz with five questions about which man supports such-and-such, with the answers being either Bush, McCain, or Bush & McCain. You’d think this quiz would be a pretty easy one: The point, after all, is to show how similar the two men are.

But if you pick “Bush & McCain” as your answer for all five questions, you’d get all five wrong. MoveOn, this is exactly how not to convince people that the two men are similar. To do that, you have to focus on their similarities, not their differences. Oof. It’s going to be a long slog to November.

Tyra Show viewers who couldn’t get enough of me from my first appearance on her website — and at least we know there’s one such viewer — can now hear me ramble endlessly in a post that went up this morning. My friend and co-worker Rachel is doing a single-gal blog for the show, and recruited me to analyize a mix tape some guy gave to her. It was fun but, oh boy, if some guy ever did this to a mix tape I made a girl back in my mix-tape-making days, I would have come rampaging after him, swinging a boombox. (For those curious, the segment with me was filmed at my desk at work. Also for those curious: Yes, next time I’m being filmed in any capacity, I’ll make sure my hair isn’t forming weird shapes against my forehead.)

This is probably the best thing to come of Made of Honor. I spotted it today (at the Boston Common theater) on my way out from seeing Iron Man, which was solid stuff.

In January, I complained on this blog about not being able to bring beer back from Prague. I didn’t explain what I was doing over there, though. I had gone to meet a guy (a prince, actually) who left his normal life in Boston to reclaim his family’s vast, lost fortune in the Czech Republic, but who has discovered that treasures can be a hell of a burden. The story, The Prince Is a Pauper, hit stands in the May issue of Boston yesterday.

(Above, that’s a picture I took near the prince’s palace in Prague.)

Somehow, I managed to go an entire day (yesterday) without realizing a pen exploded in my pocket. And what does it look like when you go an entire day wearing pen-exploded pants, then go to sleep, then wake up the next morning and are startled when you look at your leg? Well, it looks exactly like this.

In the comments of a previous post, some readers have pondered my mortality status. As in: Alive, or dead? It’s a fine question, seeing as this blog, which at its best was regularly updated twice daily, has now fallen mostly quiet. So here, via YouTube, is a quick answer to the question:

The slightly longer answer goes like this:

Since I started this site in 1997, some friends of mine have tried and failed to keep their blogs active, and asked me how I kept updating this one. My answer was always that blogging is a matter of habit: You set aside a bit of time every day, and soon enough it just comes as naturally as anything else—showering, eating, blogging. That was easy enough when I lived in the ‘burbs and worked fairly predictable hours, because there was always some free time to set aside. But that’s not really the case anymore. I’m far more enthusiastic about my current job than any previous gigs, and Boston has a way of keeping me occupied and away from the computer. That’s a good thing, I think. But HappyScrappy has suffered.

I’m not shutting the blog down, though. I still enjoy having it, and still appreciate what readers it has. But it is time to acknowledge that there’s no way, at least for now, that I’ll be able to update it as often as I once did. I’m not yet sure how to define that, but I’ll try to figure it out. In the meantime, thanks again for still checking in, and I look forward to moderately meeting your lowered expectations.

Dear Shaw’s,

Today I spent about 20 minutes your Huntington Avenue location in Boston, and brought with me a cloth bag that I always bring while grocery shopping. I generally only buy enough to fill the bag, which I do in part because I don’t want to use disposable plastic bags. (I prefer paper bags because they’re recyclable and faster to biodegrade than plastic, although cloth is clearly still preferable.) But when I got to your check-out counter, I realized I had too many items to fit into my cloth bag, so I told the bagging woman, “I’ll have paper, please.”

She obliged. But when I looked over, she was filling a paper bag—that she had placed inside a plastic bag. I nearly asked her to put the plastic bag back where it came from, but then I realized that you, Shaw’s, do not have handles on your paper bags. That’s why she had to double-up. And that’s why I’m writing you now.

Shaw’s, I appreciate the efforts you make on behalf of the environment, paltry as they may be. You have a recycling bin for plastic bags at the entrance to your store, and you have a small section devoted to organic products. But by not putting handles on your paper bags, you seem to be actively discouraging people from using paper.

I imagine you’re aware that Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic bags a year, and it takes more than 1,000 years for each of those bags to dissipate in a landfill. Whole Foods, you may have noticed, just recently did away with plastic bags. Even though the chain charges far more for its products than you do, this kind of eco-consciousness encourages me to shop there far more than I shop at Shaw’s. And I do.

I understand you wouldn’t want to take as bold a step as Whole Foods has taken—you are, after all, a less innovative company—but I would hope you’ll consider the small but important step of putting handles on your paper bags, so that shoppers may be encouraged to use less plastic. It’s better for all of us.

Thank you.

My friend/coworker Rachel has become a Tyra Show blogger, charged with sharing her insights on dating with the legions of bored housewives and whoever else watches Tyra in the middle of the afternoon. The comments are especially hilarious — they’re all addressed to Tyra, even though she has zip to do with these things.

However, one comment shines above all. It’s from a video blog entry I helped Rachel produce in our office, in which I have a cameo as the first guy she interviews. Someone named Tiff commented on the post, “All of the guys were great giving you such honesty which is really cool. BONUS, the first one was a total hottie!!!”

Excellent insight, Tiff! Couldn’t agree more.

That New York Times profile of Ashley Alexandra Dupré, Eliot Spitzer’s hooker, has created open season on Ashley’s MySpace page. The comments are especially great, like this one:

Because that’s just what the cause needs: “America, now that I’ve gotten your attention by fucking Eliot Spitzer, I have something important to tell you all: There really were no WMDs! It’s true!”

Seth Stevenson at Slate, whose opinions I generally share, is impressed with the new Holiday Inn Express ads that promote its new hot breakfast. They’re all the same: some traveling co-workers are huddled at a Holiday Inn breakfast, and their antics somehow involve the new menu items. Seth gives the background:

This Holiday Inn Express ad is part of a campaign announcing that new hot foods are available at the hotel chain’s breakfast bars. According to director of brand marketing Steve Ekdahl, the “consumer insight” at play here was the company’s realization that “people want hot food options at breakfast.”

He likes the ads’ humor. I dislike them because Holiday Inn is basically saying, “Hey, we just figured out that people like to eat hot stuff for breakfast!” And shouldn’t they be embarrassed by that? It’s a little late, isn’t it?

Similar, but more egregious, are the new Dunkin’ Donuts ads promoting the company’s new ovens. One features Rachael Ray, another features some dudes, but both are essentially the same: They start with a whacked-out scene in which little men unleash a fury of fire upon giant DD products, only to zoom out and show that the scene is a customer’s oven-lusting fantasy. The company is trying to tell us that they now have ovens, but here’s the problem: DD is bursting with pride because they just bought a household item that’s been around since 3200 BC. Way to catch up, guys.

I always knew Garfield was awful; I just mistakenly thought the whole strip was trouble. Turns out, it’s just the character that needs the axe. Because when he’s gone, this thing is genius.

You think today is a novelty — just an extra day in February, a one-in-four-year shot? Hooey, we say. Some folks and I are busily promoting a far better alternative. We may just take it to congress. Here, from our Facebook group, Anti-Leap Day Advocates for the Creation of AWESOME WEEK (which you should join right this second):

The only thing worse than February is an extra day of February. Leap day sucks. We propose that instead of having a ridiculous and unsatisfying 29th day of the second month of the year, we have a leap week every 28 years. This week would be positioned in the summer (I think most likely in July) and because this leap week would be such a rare and momentous occasion, it would have to be declared a week-long national holiday. There would be fun, vacation and awesome good times for all. And thus it would be called AWESOME WEEK!

Brilliant, right? Let’s make it happen, people.

Comic via Cooler Heads

We flew from Boston to Philadelphia on Friday evening, during the tail end of a snowstorm. The airport was pretty empty, so the TSA folks were bored and punchy. When I got to the security checkpoint (where there was no line), I did all the right things–took off my shoes, placed everything in bins, carried my ID and boarding pass with me through the metal detector.

“Good for you!” said the TSA guy, a tall dude in his 20s, as he examined my boarding pass. “You’ve followed government orders. You’ve conformed!”

“I don’t want to stand out,” I said.

“That’s right,” he said, a perfect mix of joking and absolute truth. “Just follow the crowd. Be a sheep.”

I guess it’s true: The TSA does have some actual humans working for it.

Portfolio ran an item about outsourcing Valentine’s Day, and it featured a hedge-funder named “Jason F.” who goes by the name “Douche.” To which New York mag wrote on its blog:

But a hedge-fund guy named Jason F. whose friends call him “Douche”? That sounds completely plausible. In fact, we bet that some of you readers know guys named Jason F that are — or should be — called “Douche.” Submit their names in comments below.

Somehow, somewhere, this is going to lead to an embarassing Google search. I just know it.

In this month’s Boston, I have a short piece about Bill O’Reilly potentially helping a local college newspaper—which meant, amusingly enough, that I got to talk to Bill on the phone for about 10 minutes. I still have the audio, but pledge never to listen to it again: Against his booming voice, I sound about as meek and stammering as I ever have. He was perfectly pleasant on the phone, but I was struck by how commanding he can be even when he’s not trying. I just blogged about it at work.