Nature

When the whipperwill is singing in the forest
When the gentle brook is murmuring a tune
When the mockingbirds are singing in the wildwood
When a lonely wolf is howling at the moon
When the leaves of the old oak tree start a rustling
And the waterfall makes sounds like woman's tears
When the whole world is filled with Mother Nature's noises
That's the time to stuff cotton in your ears.

Rowlf the Dog (The Muppet Show)

Make Mine Shoebox

Thanks to ljtourist for pointing this out to me:

http://www.chrisharding.net/animation/shoebox/

Now if someone could make the equivalent about the software development process, I'd pay real money for it.

Grover Norquist wishes the Democrats were stronger

I didn't get around to reading Sarah Vowell's Times column on Wednesday (didn't know she had on until watching Friday's Conan), but in there I found:

A pessimist might complain that thanks to N.S.A. wiretapping, American civil liberties are woefully at risk; an optimist might point out that sure, things are bad, but they are so bad that even the crabby conservative strategist Grover Norquist has been driven to sweetly rooting for his political enemies, telling The San Francisco Chronicle last week, "For 40 years we always assumed the left would take care of our civil liberties." He added, "If there were problems, the Democrats were the ones who would push back. But now with a Republican Congress and a Republican in the White House, the A.C.L.U. can't get their calls returned."

http://tinyurl.com/8hzws

"Grampa" from the Munsters is dead

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/388644p-329778c.html

"Lewis was widely reported to have been born in 1910, but his son Ted said yesterday that his father was born in 1923 and was 82."
Interesting trivia: He had a PhD. in child psych.