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JibJab with Katie

I have been seriously swamped and falling behind in my goal of three posts per week. I will try to catch up forthwith!

For my last post, I was doing a little bit of procrastinating while slogging through some writing that needed doing for work. (I really hate writing at work, which might be a surprising revelation given that I voluntarily write in my free time as a hobby blogger. The difference is that when I'm blogging I get to use fun words like "forthwith", but acceptable science writing is very dense and precise which makes it very dry. In blogging, I get to use synonyms if I'm talking about the same thing for a few paragraphs. In science writing, it's expected that you use the same term as many times as you need to: the most accurate term must be the best term, no matter how redundant or boring it makes the text sound.) My usual place to go is to watch the previous night's episode of The Daily Show, but Katie and I have been doing a good job of late watching that almost every night. So I went to JibJab, which often has fun political animations, to see if they had anything new since the last time I had visited.

It turns out they have a new toy, where you can upload personal pictures that get woven into the animation of your choice, including their most recent one on the presidential election. I thought this was a hoot, so I did it with a photo of Katie and then posted the result on the blog.

I was a little worried because it seems like the bit (near the end) where Katie's face is pasted on in the role of "the voter" goes a little fast, but I was able to clearly see her face and know that it was her. I wondered if it would be clear to someone who was not expecting such a surprise.

I got the answer when I showed the animation to Katie. She watched and (like I did) enjoyed the political humor contained therein. (We've been fascinated by all of the drama that has unfolded over the primary and campaign seasons. We're sad it's over, but I feel heartened that the whole process will start again in a year or so for the 2012 election.)

When it got to the place in the animation where her own face appeared on screen (on the body of "the voter"), Katie did not react. She seemed entirely unfazed, but it turned out that her subconscious was paying attention. The recognition that something seemed familiar yet out of place eventually bubbled to the surface in one of her unfiltered and delightfully naive (cynics might say "typical blond") comments that I absolutely adore:

"Was the voter character supposed to be Hillary Clinton? She really does look a lot like me."

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