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Neil-Mania
One weird thing about having been in the fifth grade in 1975 is that you end up having memories of things like the "cool kids" standing around at recess air-keyboarding the Daryl Dragon *wow* sound from the chorus of "Love Will Keep Us Together" and arguing about who's cooler: Neil Sedaka or Elton John.
That Neil Sedaka was in the mix at that late date, a full seventeen years after "The Diary," was mostly because of the song "Bad Blood," a #1 hit on which Elton John sang the response vocal to Neil's "call." I'm pretty sure that much of the nine-year-old interest in that song derived from the fact that it had the word "bitch" in the chorus. (They probably had no idea that Sedaka co-wrote "Love Will Keep Us Together," too, but he did.)
This unlikely latter-day wave of Neil-mania was as genuine as that kind of thing ever is, though. Several girls in my class took the time to write Neil's name in glitter-decorated balloon letters on their paperbag-covered math textbooks. And actually, the dance he's doing here looks a lot like the dance the fifth-grade girls used to do when they gathered around their cassette players at recess to work on "cheers" and other routines. Their jeans were similar, too:
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If you want to see just how long four minutes and forty-five seconds can be...
...click on this youtube PSA of condescending reverse-psychology celebri-torture. How long can you stand it? I made it all the way to around 0:34, but that's only because of my nerves of steel and can of Hamm's.
(via Althouse.)
Google-ympics: the Return
Every day people arrive at this weblog via searches through Google or other search engines. I'm not systematic about it, but I do glance through these referrals every now and then and save those that are funny, weird, disturbing, or what have you. From time to time I'll post a sort of "best of weird searches" item that I have sometimes called the Google-ympics. (In case anyone is interested, the last one can be found here, along with a handful of other "here" links to past editions.)
As always, they have been divided into categories, followed by a final "winner." Such searches often suggest tantalizingly unspecified backstories, in that they invite the reader to imagine "just so stories" to account for why on earth somebody might have been compelled to enter those particular words in the search box. A plausible explanation for today's winner, however, is beyond my grasp.
Practical
how high can your turn up your radio without losing your earringCan You Change From Cute To Geeky?
how to you check an area that has mine so that you mine their again
ketchup where can i purchase in austin texas
how to get ghost powers
True Confessions
i hate people who pronounce worship warshipi am insecure about my pecs
i am not much of a drinker
i am becoming bald
my mustache taste like salt
Just Wondering...
how long were richie & fonzie banned from arnold'swhat's that big ass piano called
why do they call colorado the centennial state? why do they call colorado the centennial state? why do they call
what's in bubbles
what do organic people smell like
Sometimes I Think the Internet Knows Me Better than I Know Myself
why do I detest condescending peopleto what extent am i a noncomformist
why do my lips move when i read
what's making me fat
am I about to get dumped
Other
the spell cast on the family with the ultraglidewhy was the cather in the rye banded
Christian marriage large breasts
pete townshend transvestite
girls acting like monkeys
...and the winner is:
sarah palin bridget jones bertie wooster terrorism scam