♦ Read a good book (you already know how to do that)

♦ Register it here (along with your journal comments), get a unique BCID (BookCrossing ID number), and label the book

♦ Release it for someone else to read (give it to a friend, leave it on a park bench, donate it to charity, "forget" it in a coffee shop, etc.), and get notified by email each time someone comes here and records journal entries for that book. And if you make Release Notes on the book, others can Go Hunting for it and try to find it!

During the current study, Kellaris distributed surveys to 559 people aged 18 to 49 asking them about their personalities, how often tunes got stuck in their heads, how long the episodes lasted, and when the phenomenon was most likely to happen.

Ninety-eight percent of respondents said they had experienced stuck songs. Most said the episodes occurred "frequently," and lasted an average of a few hours.

Songs with lyrics were most often the culprits, a trend that Kellaris said is not surprising. Often what gets sticky is not just a tune, but also lyrics, a trend he calls "stupid lyrics syndrome." Combining a tune and lyrics ups the chance of song snippets staying with the listener for hours, he said.

A dozen maskers calling themselves the Krewe of Homeland Security wore plastic drapes and duct tape, with colored dots representing smallpox. Each carried cans of baby powder "anthrax" and handed out Mardi Gras Alerts, declaring the security status as purple, green and gold, the traditional Carnival colors.

"We figured if Tom Ridge could keep us safe for the rest of the year, we could keep everyone safe for Mardi Gras," said Jane Gardner Aprill of New Orleans.

Out of all the different things out there, why the heck would anyone take the time to make a tarot deck out of LEGO? Well, mainly, because I hadn't seen it done yet. And I did quite a few searches looking for them on-line.

Plenty of Star Wars and Star Trek out there. There's even a masterfully done deck featuring the Peanuts Characters. But no LEGO. Oh, there were a couple of places where people suggested making a deck out of them, or had them on a "to do" list. But nothing concrete...

...Until now, that is.

(As an odd bit of trivia, this deck was nearly postponed for a PEZ Tarot. But, perhaps luckily, I couldn't figure out many cards past using the Bride and Groom for The Lovers.)

[…] But I was listening to Marketplace the other day, and they said something interesting: no matter what the state of the economy, toy makers generally do pretty well -- after all, kids don't give a rat's ass if Lucent missed their third quarter projections by 7/15 of a cent, all they know is they need a Fashion Polly Sparkle Style House and, by God, they need it NOW!

That's what gave me Great Idea #57709: the US should make the four pronged square Lego the standard unit of US currency. The bigger Legos will be worth more, and the smaller Legos will be like coins, and those huge Lego plates will be, like, $1000 bills. […]