"So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time."

In the oddest news of the weekend:

“They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.”

Asked which blogs he read, he said: “Brooke and Mark show me Drudge, obviously. Everybody watches, for better or for worse, Drudge. Sometimes I look at Politico. Sometimes RealPolitics.”

At that point, Mrs. McCain, who had been intensely engaged with her BlackBerry, looked up and chastised her husband. “Meghan’s blog!” she said, reminding him of their daughter’s blog on his campaign Web site. “Meghan’s blog,” he said sheepishly.

As he answered questions, sipping a cup of coffee with his tie tight around his neck, his aides stared down at their BlackBerries.

As they tapped, Mr. McCain said he did not use a BlackBerry, though he regularly reads messages on those of his aides. “I don’t e-mail, I’ve never felt the particular need to e-mail,” Mr. McCain said.

Like hilzoy, I find the fact that he is "learning to get online" himself mainly just weird. In my job, I've come across a fair number of computer illiterate people... but I've never met anyone who has had to put much effort into learning how to get online. Often, it's the one thing I wish they didn't know how to do because they do it so badly and get my computers coated in icky spyware. I've also known a lot of doctors who farm out their computer related tasks to assistants, but I don't think I've met one who didn't do most of their own internet surfing... and you'd think if somebody was coming into your office, double clicking on internet explorer, and then typing in "Drudge Report" into the search bar, you might be able to pick that up by osmosis.

So I can only guess that he doesn't even own a computer and had, until getting made fun of for it, absolutely no interest whatsoever in the internet. I've got the Grandpa Simpson post up top, but the comparison seems a little unfair to Abe.