More other stuff

• Ted Talks: My Year of Living Biblically
• Barack Obama is planning to visit Tennessee!
• And who doesn't need to get rid of some clutter?
• Why You're Better Off Avoiding the iPhone (via cmwillis).
• Do you ever read something that is just so incredibly stupid that you have trouble even trying to process the folly? Usually I'm left speechless by extreme cases of idiocy like this one (also see here), whereas Naamah had no such trouble in responding (don't follow the link if you're bothered by colorful language).

And finally, there's this gem. Way back in the day, when Emmie was just a toddler and she thought that the TV only had one channel -- and that that channel had only one hour of programming a day (see, we ruin our kids when we let them go off to school and they find out about all sorts of evil stuff, like Disney and candy and Chuck E. Cheese) -- she used to get to watch Sesame Street. I probably wouldn't let her watch it if she was a kid now, but back then, before Elmo, and before Jim Henson died and the Muppets got whored out to anyone wanting to make a sleazy buck, it was a pretty cool show. And it was because of features like Put Down the Ducky.

I can still see her in my mind's eye, clutching her little plastic saxophone while doing a hoppy little dance and shrieking along with the song, while I enjoyed it for all the cool people who made appearances (John Candy as Yosh Schmenge from SCTV, Andrea Martin as Edith Prickley from SCTV, New York Mets Keith Hernandez & Mookie Wilson, Jane Curtin, Madeline Kahn, Joe Williams, Paul Reubens/Pee Wee Herman, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Wynton Marsalis, Celia Cruz, Ihtzak Perlman, Gordon Jackson & Jean Marsh as Angus Hudson and Rose Buck of Upstairs Downstairs, Paul Simon, Jeremy Irons, Pete Seeger, Rhea Perlman and Danny Devito, and NY Giants Sean Landeta, Mark Ingram, Karl Nelson and Carl Banks). I hope the video doesn't get yanked off of youtube, but if it does, I'll try to find a replacement somewhere...