Festivity

More details on the "holiday" here. Found via Neatorama.

The politically correct name for this holiday is Administrative Professionals Day, but it doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Regardless, if there is a secretary/administrative professional in your life- whether they work for you or for your employers- we're quite sure they are overworked and underpaid. Take him to lunch, buy her flowers, even a damn card- it's almost certain to make the other 364 days of your year a little easier.

A culturally insensitive Simpson's clip to celebrate this special holiday-

We just found out that today is an official holiday- International Women's Day. Never heard of it. So we did a little reading. According to the IWD website, "International Women's Day has been observed since in the early 1900's, a time of great expansion and turbulence in the industrialized world that saw booming population growth and the rise of radical ideologies." The theme of IWD this year is "women and men united to end violence against women and girls."

We have no idea how we are supposed to celebrate.

Apparently, neither does anyone else in the local media. We couldn't find IWD coverage by any media outlet in Southern California. At least President Obama didn't forget- he said in a statement:

We will not sow the seeds for a brighter future or reap the benefits of the change we need without the full and active participation of women around the world.

We only know about the President's statement because we read about it in a Chinese newspaper. Come on, people.

Paul McCartney will head the festival - which would explain why he was talking to Stephen Colbert.

Also the The Killers, Morrissey, Amy Winehouse and Leonard Cohen are going to be at the show.

LAT's Geoff Boucher has a whole thing on why an ex-Beatle headlining Coachella is weird.

We think they were all cool when they couldn't pay their rent. Now? Sellouts.

Complete list of the line-up after the jump.

continued...

Purple tickets are still in the news. Seriously. A week after the swearing-in ceremony, folks that had those tickets, some didn't get in - some got stuck in a tunnel huffing fumes for an extended period of time, (some people have that going on without a ticket of any color) are still outraged (think whining) about their experience.

WaPo's Mary Ann Akers reports:

During yesterday's late afternoon Facebook session with Gainer, here's how Hank Bennett of the District of Columbia, a member of the purple tunnel group, proposed compensating the doomed ticket holders:

"I recommend that you work with the President to set up another event at a DC location, like the Verizon Center or the new Nationals Baseball Stadium, where the President Barack Obama stops by and talks to those who had Purple tickets. He would only need to stop by for an hour or two. He could give a speech, shake hands, take photos, etc."

Bennett asked Gainer to "take this and other ideas to the President personally."

We were also Purple Ticket holders. It was uncomfortable and crowded. But it wasn't the New Orleans Superdome. Just because there is someone at the head of government that reads grownup books doesn't mean that government in all its forms works flawlessly.

Plus for every one Purple Ticket holder there were ten people that would have happily sucked on a little exhaust to be there.

Okay, first off - we saw our new stalker Christopher Hayes of The Nation at this ball too! We should never put up our schedule on the Internet. You never know who will randomly show up where you're going to be.

Anyway, this was the Obama Staff Ball - the final official event put on by the Presidential Inauguration Committee. Arcade Fire and Jay-Z preformed. The actor Kal Penn, who everyone in the crowd knew as 'Kumar' took the stage. He was a surrogate for the campaign so he spent his time on stage outing by name all the staffers who 'tried to kill him' by texting while driving through snowbanks.

Vice-President Joe Biden and his wife Jill made an appearance and then President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama took the stage. The new president said something to the effect of,"You guys are great." To which someone next to us said,"Hire me!" Hm. Seems to be a theme developing. Free beer dude.

First off, the Youth Ball was at the Washington Hilton Hotel where Ronald Reagan was shot. Why did you need to know that? Because it's weird and that's why you read blogs at work.

There were two ballrooms. One room had Aretha Franklin, Rosario Dawson, Kanye West, Kid Rock, Fall Out Boy and the new president's dance with the first lady.

Then there was another room if you couldn't get into the other one. That one had food. We were in that room...never wanted to be in the sweaty no food room.

Anyway, the Youth Ball was a couple of corsages short of being a junior prom. There were even prom type photos that you could pose for (we looking forward to the email when they're ready for viewing).

This gala was like if prom was only for nerds. Which is what you could say for all of DC. 'Nerd only' subway cars. 'We don't serve jocks' restaurants. 'Have to be a geek' neighborhoods. We want to know why no one has asked us to leave yet.

Two million people that descended on The Capitol and the National Mall to watch the swearing in of President Barack Obama. About 150,000 of those people had tickets. We got in line at 6am with our now infamous purple tickets. We stood crammed packed next to strangers (that now are no longer strange to us) for the next five hours. Some pushing. Couple of laughs. Chattering teeth. Little bit of confusion. More laughs.

There were a lot of people really, really upset that it wasn't done right - it wasn't the machine that was the campaign. It was two million people - which is almost an entire microtrend attending one event. Some were turned away. Some never got a chance to get to that point because of gridlock.

It was unprecedented but not totally unanticipated...so try and balance those two.

There were a couple of issues with people that had tickets. Tickets that were a really big deal to get your hands on. We kept on hearing that purple ticket holders got screwed. But then every other color we talked to (save the seated tickets) said they had the same experience with confusion and frustration trying to get through security to The Capitol.

Again, there is no amount of planning that would have made this event completely flawless to every single person attending. But there were no arrests or stampedes or anything else reported.

Man, there were a lot of people there. It was twice the population of San Fransisco clad in Obama winter gear.