Snack! Snack! Snack! CRUNCH!

Hot Cheetos and ....Takis? What are Takis? Mexican junk food, yo.
And this great viral hit was made in Minneapolis! Our favorite snacks of childhood are powerful memories.

MPR's show Wits with Neil Gaiman, Adam Savage, and Gollum: "I Will Survive"

I listened with great delight to the latest show in the MPR series "Wits" (check out the archives!) with John Moe as host and John Munson as musical director. Neil Gaiman was one of the guests, and he made possible this wonderful rendition of "I Will Survive" by Gollum (courtesy of a Adam Savage)

Thanks to Bob Collins at MPR's NewsCut for this.
Another guest that evening was singer/songwriter Josh Ritter.

Want more Adam Savage? Here's a Ted Talk he did on his obsessions and the creative process.

Dan Sinker aka "@MayorEmanuel"

pdf2011 on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Dan Sinker, the author/creator of @MayorEmanuel (the fake Twitter account of then-mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel), talks about his experience, which started as a way to entertain friends and later became a Twitter novella.
He was one of the speakers at the Personal Democracy Forum, where many other fascinating talks were delivered. I appreciate their availability online to those of us who can't attend.

History lessons as earworms

I bow down before the "historyteachers" YouTube channel! Their original lyrics give history lessons, set to popular songs, and combine their love of dress-up with clips from films to make learning fun. There are 47 as of now, and they are history teaching gold.
Some are tongue-in-cheek like this lesson on prehistoric anthropology to Britney Spear's "Toxic."

Others are oddly gripping like this lesson on the Vikings set to "Personal Jesus"("And when we expire we set our boats on fire")


I like how they the Canturbury Tales to the tune of "California Dreaming," and included a recitation in Middle English!


The Lady Gaga "Revolution in France" vid has received the most views, I think ('Bread bread bread, off with her head!") but I really like this one about the Odyssey.

Librarians Do Gaga

Felled by fibro flare-up

I had to cancel class today because my fibromyalgia symptoms have flared up.

Remedy to the blues: a little robot named Keepon dancing to a song by the band Spoon "I turn my camera on."

Oh, Jon Stewart, I love you!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rage Within the Machine - Progressivism
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Snowpocalypse forecast

My brother's family lives on the Eastern Shore, across the Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis, MD. Apparently, the unusual snowfall in the greater DC area is giving the weather people conniptions.

(via Bob Collins at MPR's NewsCut blog) Excuse me, while I go out and shovel the walk. I'm glad we're only going to get 5-8 inches in our storm.

When you get winter, make winterade

After the first big snowfall, put on the snowsuits, break out the sliders and hit the slopes!

Visual humor

Venn diagram humor.
An explanation of Venn diagrams, Euler diagrams and some funny stuff at Mental Floss.
Here is some more humor with diagrams: Jessica Hagy's brilliant blog Indexed

TV Party Tonight!

My nephew is off to continue his college education at Berkeley. I know that he will not be partying like this (he doesn't drink) but this song is the quintessential frat boy party song from back when I was at Berkeley (it came out in '81 and was recorded in 2-3 versions). Pre-gaming, pre-internet, DVDs, back in the stone age, man! we were still listening to vinyl and I still had a reel-to-reel tape recorder!

A very young Henry Rollins is singing with hardcore band Black Flag "TV Party Tonight" more fun than some of their hardcore ragers, but just as testosterone fueled. It's been trotting around my head lately, so I wanted to remember all the names of the shows they shout out:


Lyrics
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!
T.V. party tonight!

We're gonna have a T.V. party tonight!

Alright!

We're gonna have a T.V. party alright!

Tonight!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

All our friends are gonna hang out here tonight

Alright!

We're gonna pass out on the couch alright

Tonight!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Don't talk about anything else
We don't wanna know!
We're dedicated
To our favorite shows!

(That's incredible! Hill Street Blues! Dallas! Quincy!)

We sit glued to the T.V. set all night
And every night!
Why go into the outside world at all?
It's such a fright!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

T.V. news shows what it's really like out there
It's a scare!

You can go out if you want
We wouldn't dare!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Don't talk about anything else
We don't wanna know!
We're dedicated
To our favorite shows!
(Saturday Night Live! Monday Night Football! Dynasty! Fridays!)

I wouldn't be without my T.V. for a day
Or even a minute!

Don't even bother to use my brain anymore
There's nothing left in it!

We've got nothing better to do
Than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews

Wait a minute! My T.V. set doesn't work!
It's broken!
What are we gonna do tonight? This isn't fair!
We're hurtin'

We've got nothing left to do
With no T.V. and just a couple of brews

What are we gonna talk about?
I don't know!
We're gonna miss our favorite shows!
NO T.V. PARTY TONIGHT!

William Shatner reciting some of Sarah Palin´s speech

with bongo drums.

Cat yodeling, or autotune your cat

Ha! If I tried this with my 20-lb cat, I would get shredded. My cat yodels every night between 3-5AM, so I have no need to apply any of these techniques.

I have kept company with more than one engineer, so this makes me laugh.

All things Star Trek

Tomorrow, we will go to see the new Star Trek movie. For some of us, it will be shot through with memories, while for my daughter, it will be completely unrelated to anything she has seen before. She knows nothing about Star Trek: not the original series, the spinoffs, the movies. Nada. It's so wrong to start her out with the prequel, but them's the breaks. Before we go see the pumped up, slick, CGI explosion-filled testosterone fest that this is bound to be, let us delight in all things DIY + Star Trek:

Thredbanger: how to make a capelet out of a sweater

I'm going to do this. Look at those button closures, very sweet!

My alarm clock is hungry

Last day of Spring break. I slept in until 11! Well, I got up to feed the cat at 5:30, then went back to bed and slept until 11.

Last night, Krista and Fresca came for dinner and we celebrated Krista's new job, Captian Kirk's birthday, and the coming of Spring! Fresca brought spaghetti and a delicious vegetable-laden sauce, Krista made a ricotta-cake with lemon and currants, and I put out a salad and some cheeses. We took lots of pictures, of course!
Now Garrison Keillor is on, and Rory Block, one of my very favorite musicians of all time, just played two songs. I think I missed her show at the Cedar, but that's OK, I'll put on her music this morning to accompany my Sunday morning coffee.

"ThruYou"

I was feeling really blue today until I saw this site (via Kottke)
ThruYou. There is a list of tracks: try them all. They are mashups of YouTube videos made with so much flair, so much imagination. They made me smile!

Dog park by the Mississippi

I accompanied Diane and her lovely dog Maddy to a dog park between Hiawatha Ave and the Mississippi. The stairs leading down to the park were icy-snowy, so I held onto the railing with both hands going down. The sun was out, casting crisp shadows on the snow, and we ended up following a path down to shore of the river, where you couldn't quite tell where the bank left off and the frozen river began.
There were scores of dogs of all kinds, from Russian wolf-hounds to pugs, beagles, boxers and golden retrievers, an Australian shepherd that tried to herd all of us, a hound that treed a squirrel; there were spaniels, terriers, and german shepherds, mixed breeds of all shapes and sizes. Some dragged sticks, some chased balls, others chased each other or displayed their ever-shifting rank in the swirling pack. All were friendly and filled with joy, as were we, to be out and about. Maddy ran until she could barely respond to another dog's invitation to play, and the assorted people of all ages accompanying their dogs chatted and laughed and made sure the toddler didn't fall into the hole where there was some open water, in a little creeklet running from the slope to the river. It was not windy and the temperature was just right to be out without hat or mittens, snug in a parka and boots, but not hunkered down in the chill. I only got a few shots on my cell phone camera, but here is my favorite.
While we were hanging out with the dogs, other folks were frolicking with the Art Sleds!

Barack Paper Scissors--I get to round 2 in five games.

Ha ha! I am an awesome player! at least up until round 2.

Yogabeans, Woo!

Oh, joy! Elastigirl has posted a new Yogabeans lesson!