Happy Presidents Day

Go sell some crap, ad hos and marketing pimps. 

Every State Has a Springfield

Dominating the skyline like an Eastern European monument to thoughtless architecture, the Springfield, Illinois Hilton lends an eerie ugliness to a town whose chief qualities are eeriness and ugliness.

Scene of Obama's announcement to run for President (an impressive event) and the home of the Illinois State Capitol (an impressive structure) the town also hosts the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. This is no ordinary museum, and despite its overwhelming fascination with death and ghosts and creepiness (a wax figure of Mary Todd Lincoln sits dressed in black, the window reflecting a gloomy rain as she mourns the death of her son with a bible on her lap; a replica of the rotunda is dark and ominous, where Lincoln's body lies in state) the museum rivals anything Disney could do. Put together by BRC Imagination Arts (WARNING: exceptionally cheese-filled homepage video on their website) the exhibits leave you asking, "How did they do that?" which is a pretty decent takeaway for any museum.

We had a good visit, randomly deciding to stop in (at the compulsion of some roadside signs) as we drove through the very flat and uninspiring middle of Illinois. Springfield has an Arby's. We ate there. I had the French Dip, an inspired sandwich, the au jus of which was "CAUTION: EXTREMELY HOT" so I cannot sue them for a burnt tongue as they warned me ahead of time.

I took a moment to travel back in time to try to talk John Wilkes Boothe out of what he kept referring to as his "destiny," but alas, I was too late. His mind was made up.

Rewrites

grow your image

I wonder if anyone sat beside Abraham Lincoln as he traveled the 90 miles to a bloodied battlefield in Pennsylvania, reportedly composing the Gettysburg address on the back of an envelope.

Glad it's Friday. And glad I'm not the President during a Civil War.

It's all relative, I suppose.

Nothin' on TV

viel größer

Previously in "Messin' With Lincoln":

Long Lincoln Weekend
Lincoln: Bad Ad Man
Lincoln Takes His Facebook Picture

Update: How about with a corndog too?

vista máxima

Update #2: Drinking a fine German beer?

Rendez-le plus grand

Lincoln's fine German beer is here and I would very much like the brewers of this beer to note that I linked to their site and send me a case, please.

Polaroids From the Past

Perhaps a news series. We'll see.

Lincoln Takes His Facebook Profile Picture

In the bathroom mirror, no doubt.

size matters

Lincoln Couldn't Cut It

Biggest

This comic was inspired by an actual event that took place yesterday: I foolishly believed the advertising Coke has been using to sell Coke Zero. I tried a Coke Zero, expecting it to taste like real Coke. It did not. At all.

Long Lincoln Weekend

"What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself."
- A. Lincoln

bigger

In the Future, Google Will Declare the Holidays

Oh, those hipster Googalians. always changing their logo and making you hover over it to see the alt tag because you didn't recognize by the funky coolness that today was Share Water with a Third-Worlder Day, or the anniversary of some surrealist's death, or International Think Positively Day or whatever. (Here are all of the Google logo changes for 2008.)

And of all the birthdays Google might've honored today, from Christina Ricci to Franco Zeffirelli to Adolf van Egmond (duke of Gelre/earl of Zutphen), they went with Charles "Chuck" Darwin, the famed test pilot and space pioneer who died in a fiery crash off the coast of the Galápagos Islands. Not even a nod to the president everyone thinks was a god all of a sudden, Abraham "Cro-Magnon" Lincoln, whose personal love for his country we all celebrate every year on February 14^th with flowers, candy, teddy bears and sexy lingerie.

Google kids, you are too hip for me.