This one is.

Wow, it's been a minute since I wrote! Sorry; been totally immersed in Little Big Planet and my theatre company. Plus I sleep in whenever I can. 

As usual, the world is on hyper-drive. Heard about Obama's new budget plan to slash the deficit in half by 2013? Of course some economists are doubtful, but I hope it works. It's not looking good out there. 

Also, after all those Cabinet nominations went horribly awry, here's the next possible pick for Commerce Secretary. Hopefully he's actually been paying his taxes.

Speaking of taxes, the stimulus package is still kicking up major brouhaha. Some states have said they will refuse to accept the stimulus money set aside for states in the package. This absolutely blows my mind since most states have their own alarmingly high budget deficits and a real need to start modifying their roads and infrastructure for the new millenium. For example, why are we trying to build our cities around our cars instead of ourselves? Of course the main problem are the staggering unemployment rates and the lowest stocks since '97 and the housing crisis and...

Let's think about something else, shall we?

All you need are knobs.

For awhile, I was writing a movie about bingo, and I learned that a mathematician by the name of Carl Leffler was tapped to create a bunch of different bingo cards because too many people were winning each game. He created 6,000 different bingo cards, and then went crazy and is still in an insane asylum today. Think about that every time you call out B-6. 

For less depressing secrets behind your favorite toys, go here. 

Fashion doesn't sound like a dangerous thing to get into, but history shows it totally is. Want more? Here's where some recognizable uniforms come from, and here's the origin of some crazy hairstyles we all know and...love?

This one doesn't stay on topic.

Someone left a Newsweek magazine with the headline, "We're All Socialists Now" at work today. I wanted to take it home and read it, but I forgot. Thank God for the Internet. Anyway, one of my co-workers was looking through it for a minute, then said if we got national health care, it would make us socialists."If we get national health care," she said, "I'm leaving the country." 

At the time I didn't say anything, because she and I disagree politically but she's a cool person, so I don't like to get into it. But if I had said something, I would have asked her where it was she was planning to move. The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized country where there isn't some form of universal health care. The only wealthy, industrialized country where keeping your citizens healthy isn't a priority. What is the beef? Why is it such a bad thing to have access to medicine and doctors? If it "doesn't work," how come every government is doing it but us? 

Speaking of government, the widely debated stimulus package is going to be signed by President Obama on Tuesday. Really don't know what's going on with this American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? This is what Obama says about it--and here's where you can tell him what you think about it. I'd read it first, though. There are some comments on it where the people implore Obama to talk to some economists and "do his homework" and let me tell you--he did. Although apparently it's over 1,000 pages long of legalese, and even Congress "didn't have time to read it all." Though why that's suddenly a problem after eight years of not reading any of Bush's bills, I don't know. 

Anyway, most people aren't so mad at the President. Here is an awesome photo gallery from NPR of a huge portrait of Obama and Lincoln made completely out of cupcakes. 

The above is called "Oversoul" by cosmic artist Alex Gray. Check out the Sacred Mirrors, if you haven't already. Extraordinary. 

What's up with the American space program's love affair with littering? Every launch involves some piece of machinery being jettisoned into the stratosphere. Why are we leaving junk all over the universe? Apparently, most of the debris ends up burning up in Earth's atmosphere, but here are 8 Weird Pieces of Space Junk to be on the lookout for if there's ever a Clean Up the Milky Way campaign. 

Everyone knows someone who is into a raw food diet, and while it does help you lose weight alarmingly fast, apparently there was a good reason man learned how to cook. 

While you're cooking, try out some of these foods which are touted for their ability to get you in the mood. Everyone likes that, right? Right? Unless you're this guy. 

OMG play this game.