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So, in honor of this new personal best, a meme (what else). This one has 5 items in it and comes from Jeff and assorted unnamed others.
Christmas Song Meme:
1. A favorite ‘secular’ Christmas song. Happy Christmas/War Is Over by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band. I walk around singing it for a month.
2. Christmas song that chokes you up. O Holy Night, especially the second verse: “Truly he taught us to love one another/His law is love and his gospel is peace/Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother…”
3. Christmas song that makes you want to stuff your ears with chestnuts roasted on an open fire. Santa Baby by Madonna. Shut the hell up already!
4. The Twelve Days of Christmas: is there *any* redeeming value to that song? Discuss. No, but sung in Norwegian by Garrison Keillor (see #5 below) with sound cues by Tom Keith replacing the names of each of the true love’s gifts, it’s pretty darn funny.
5. A favorite Christmas album Jeff picked Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas and it is definitely up there for me as well, but I have to go with Now It Is Christmas Again by Garrison Keillor and company. Picked it up on a whim and was hooked from the fade in. It’s funny, touching, sweet, and dark and includes a beautiful version of Still, Still, Still and what may be the only listenable version of The 12 Days of Christmas ever recorded. And, of course, The Sons of Knute Christmas Dance and Dinner.
Technorati tags: christmas songs, sons of knute, garrison keillor
“Well I can’t get it out of my head
No I can’t get it out of my head
No I can’t get it out of my head.
No, no no.”
I just heard that song coming from the basement. My daughters were listening to it. At first I thought it was the radio but then a second ELO song started up, then a third. My two daughters, 12 and 10, were listening to an entire ELO disc.
They came upstairs and said, “that guy sounds like one of the Beatles,” so I was afforded an opportunity to explain to them the interrelationships between Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty.
They were riveted, as you might expect.
Good night.
Who knew? According to the New York Times, celebrities are more narcissistic than the rest of us. An entertaining (though not very earth shattering) read, the article yields this gem:
Interestingly, celebrities with the most skill (musicians) were the least narcissistic; those with no skill (reality-show stars) were, as Pinsky says, “off the narcissism charts.”
*Apologies to James Taylor (who has prodigious skillz and is probably not so vain to think that this post is about him), for the title.
Technorati tags: narcissism, james taylor
Don’t ingest it! Keep it away from children! Bread*. One of the most dangerous foods known to man.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
*Immediately below the article behind the link is a true (though slightly exaggerated) story of a science fair project illustrating the hazards of “Dihydrogen monoxide,” or H2O. The origins of this particular bit of fun are related here by snopes.com.
Today just after church, my wife was reading the current issue of Better Investing. When I walked into the room she asked, “Have you ever heard of self-cleaning fabrics?”
“What?” I said, unwittingly engaging in my wife’s tendency to answer a question with a question.
I chuckled. “Whoever heard of such a thing? That’s impossible,” I thought, but apparently it’s not.
These self-cleaning fabrics have a nanofilm coating of titanium dioxide nanoparticles, which can break down dirt molecules, pollutants, and microorganisms when exposed to visible and UV light. Clothes made this way could be cleaned by simply exposing them to sunlight.
[Speaking in late night infomercial announcer voice] But wait there’s more! These new fabrics don’t just clean themselves, they kill harmful germs and bacteria on contact!
This news is not even recent, here’s a CNN story from 2004. Where have I been? Have any of you heard of this concept? Tell me what you know.
Technorati tags: self-cleaning fabric
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