I just finished putting up a lesson about the election results. Since the cast only meets once a month to record our improvised English lesson dialogs, it had to be taped in advance, and since we didn’t know how the election was going to go, we taped a few versions (although interestingly enough, the English vocab for each was roughly the same).

The first one we did was if McCain won the election. Mason and Marni did a great job of pretending–so great in fact that they kind of scared themselves. “That was really eerie,” Marni said afterward. Keep in mind, these are unedited sound files, and not up the usual Ebaby! standard of quality.

Then we did the one we wound up using, the version for an Obama victory. The acting was really good on this one too. Although it was taped in advance, I think it really captured the mood of the day after the election. People were shooting off fireworks and honking their car horns well into the night in Portland.

After we made the first two lessons, we realized there was a third possibility. Everyone remembers 2000, when the election was a toss-up for a full month. So we recorded another version to be used in the event of another such quagmire. Notice how Marni just randomly decides that it’s Ohio that’s delaying the results. I guess I would have had to edit that out if it were New Mexico.

Thank goodness I knew exactly which sound file I’d be editing today! The thought of going through another month of indecision made me weary.

The Internet is necessary to do a lot of things. Being an active member of a national government isn’t one of them.

It has recently become news that McCain doesn’t use email. When questioned, a representative of his campaign responded, that the senator, “is aware of the Internet.”

Well, I should hope so. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who isn’t aware of the Internet, but I’m kind of surprised that there’s anyone in the US who doesn’t use it–let alone a senator and presidential candidate.

According to this article about increasing Internet penetration in China, only 71% of the US uses the Internet, so McCain is by no means alone. But what’s important here is that McCain might know English, baby! exists. Apparently his wife commonly logs on for him and directs him to things such as his daughter’s blog. So there’s a very small chance that she has directed him to our site. But, if we were to get on John McCain’s daughter’s blog, those chances would increase greatly. So I hereby pledge to do my best to get the attention of Meghan McCain and have English, baby! join the Internet in the category of things that John McCain is aware of. Who knows? Maybe I can even get her to create a profile here. Since McCain’s competitor, Barack Obama is leading him in polls of our members by 60%, he could use some help here, so maybe Meghan will step in. Stay tuned.

CNN Report on Internet use among US presidents and presidential candidates:

My first contact with Meghan’s blog:

Have you seen this magazine cover yet? It’s THE story in the US right now. The Obama campaign is very upset about it.

A recent video by Jibjab that takes the exact opposite approach. It shows Obama skipping through a magical forest full of animals and rainbows. It’s funny because his opponents accuse him of being both a villain aligned with terrorists and an unrealistic idealist. It’s funny to look at these two parodies together since they’re both based on actual claims by the media, yet such complete opposites.

As an added bonus, the video includes subtitles throughout the entire thing. It moves so fast that if you’re reading along, you’ll probably have to watch two or three times. Sounds like a good English lesson to me! In fact it fits perfectly with English, baby!’s style of making it fun to practice English. There’s even a new phrase to learn: “no cigar.” It means “no success” or “no luck” but sounds pretty funny coming from certain former president…