Thursday stuff

1. If any of you really love me, you'll buy me Number 5.

ETA: Ally Sheedy was my biggest celebrity crush when I was 14.

2. Green Day covers The Simpsons.

3. And Richard Cheese covers Green Day's American Idiot! This might be one of the most inspired covers I've heard in a while (even by Richard Cheese standards).

4. Best reason to let Vick play what his teammates and the opposition might do to him.

5. Amazon's Deal of the Day is Stargate SG-1 seasons 1-9 for $165.99 (63% off). That's technically a great deal, but I suspect that it's still a little rich for most folks (myself included).

5.5 OTOH, the Video Game Deal of the Day, New York Times Crosswords for the DS at $19.99 (33% off) is a lot harder to resist. Even if the DS technically belongs to my daughter.

6. Google Reader has just added an awesome "popout" view for embedded video/audio. Woo!

7. Lovely. Texas has appointed a creationist to head the state board of education. That's like naming Michael Vick head of the ASPCA.

8. Beowulf Trailer! Neil Gaiman! Angelina Jolie! Ray Winstone! Robert Zemeckis. John Malkovich! Anthony Hopkins!

9. A wooden car! I'd imagine that it's not very practical. Sucks when your ride gets termites, for example.

10. Finally, two comic/movie bits from Variety: Watchmen casting (Patrick WIlson as Night Owl, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhatten, Matthew Goode as Ozy, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, and Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre). I'm just as exciting about this cast list as you are. Unless you're actually excited. And Dreamworks has optioned Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things! And yes, I know an option doesn't mean much, but CCatNT is something that I could really see making a good leap to the screen.

Dude!

I'd known that Danica McKellar (Winnie from The Wonder Years) had become a mathematician, and I knew about her Stuff pinups.

I hadn't realized that she was also releasing a non-fiction YA book on math. I suspect that Math Doesn't Suck will have images that are slightly less adult-oriented than the ones in that Stuff shoot (although I don't doubt that a few of the sales will go to fans who could care less about math), but it'll probably be a pretty good book for actual, real-life kids. I'll wait for a few reviews to see if it skews too young for Elayna (the "9-12" indicator says it will, but the topics mentioned imply it won't).

New name for Bob Costas

Barry Bonds, responding to criticism over his cheating ways by people with more integrity than he could ever dream about, has called Bob Costas a "Little Midget Man."

I figure it'll only be a few days before HBO changes the name of Bob's tv series to "Little Midget Man Now."

Oh, for fuck's sake

So, are Hawaiian senators as dumb as Alaskan ones? I mean, I expect this sort of stupidity from Ted Stevens (because I expect all sorts of stupidity from Ted Stevens, since he's, well, stupid), but the fact that he found a bipartisan co-sponsor the latest round of "let's censor teh intartubes in the name of the children" is distressing. I'd hope for smarter folks to prevail, but this is Congress, after all.