A few days ago, Mike shared his Sesame Street Memories.

You know how lakes “turn over”? (If you don’t, read here or just fake it.) That’s what Mike’s fun little article did to my brain. Suddenly things that were sitting at the bottom of my brain rose to the surface and I suddenly forgot about my taxes, which sunk from the top to the bottom of my brain.

One of the curious things that surfaced was the crazy Sesame Street Martians. If you don’t recall, or haven’t read Mike’s great post, the Martians were little blue and red guys who always said, “yip, yip, yip, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh”. Mike shared this audio clip of the Martians meeting a phone and I was instantly transported back to the days of yesteryear.

Pretty soon I was asking everyone I talked to who was within the age range that grew up with Sesame Street, “Do you remember the Sesame Street Martians?” Most people’s eyes lit up and they would just start laughing.

When I told my brother, Justin, about remembering them, he had a different reaction. “Oh! Man!” he said, rolling his eyes. Then he suddenly started chanting:

Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip,
Uh-huh, uh-huh!
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip
Uh-huh, uh-huh!
Yip, yip, you,
Yip, yip, me!
Yip, yip, baby!
Yip, yip, family!
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip,
Uh-huh, uh-huh!
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, yip,
Uh-huh, uh-huh!

Immediately recalling the sketch he was referring to, I laughed heartily and said, “Now you’ve gone and gotten that crazy song stuck in my head!”

A long and bitterly held rage flashed in his eyes as he snapped back, “That song’s been stuck in my head since I was nine years old!“

And now it can be stuck in yours, thanks to the miracle of the Intarweb:

Sesame Street Martians Family Song

Enjoy!

Several months ago, Steve ventured into myspace.

Well, not myspace, but rather myspace.

After determining that he was alive some time later, I figured I’d try it out. Why? Uh, I have no idea. To be honest, more than anything I joined because I found out my little sister actually had a myspace, um, space.

And what is my overall opinion after spending a little time using the site’s services? Well, let’s just say I am supremely disappointed that I cannot be my own best friend, as demonstrated by this screenshot.

15? That’s probably what you’re thinking. Yes, 15. You read that right. It’s not that we’re bad at math (even though we are) - it’s that there is a “missing” session out there floating around on various storage devices.

Steve and I had some guests on mathcaddy radio session 14. A lot of fun was had by all, but we ended up with a two and a half hour radio session. If and when I have time, I might chop it up and Steve and I will do a highlights show… because it was supremely longer than our usual 30-45 minute podcast.

In this session of mathcaddy radio, Steve talks about his Spring Break Pillow Street Fight Tournament, his unique and tasty Sandwichy Fajita creation, and his sleepytime note-taking. Adam shares a Wet Detectives song to the horror of all.

Once again, “Interviews With Furniture” is back by popular demand because no one has told us to shut up yet…

We’ll see you inside…

mathcaddy radio: Session 15

Ben Folds - Trusted

Beck - Crap Hands

Crystal Skulls - Airport Motels

The Lashes - Sometimes the Sun

Wet Detectives - Circus Slavery

[40 MB MP3 :: 45 Minutes]

Linkage & Namedrops

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My friends, Brian and Beth, jetted back from their two week vacation in Japan on Monday. Kristi and I looked through dozens of pictures with them today. Being great camera folks, there were some fun and neat pictures, mostly impressive shrines, beautiful gardens, and hilarious Engrish sightings, as well as a few good samples of Japanese food, culture, and animal life.

This one floored me:

(See full-size 1600 x 1200 original)

Seriously. Can you believe this picture? I still can’t.

If you’re skeptical it might have been doctored, look closely and note the shadow on Beth’s face. Wow.

I wish I had a pet seagull. I really do.

I would name him “Buckets”.

I have a theory and it’s probably wrong. Or boring.

But I’m already writing about it, so what the heck…

My theory is this: People who do specific things very well are either normal, stable people who work very hard and practice a great deal or they are rabid, mildly insane and extremely eccentric people who are also phenomenally gifted.

See the diagram below:

This is certainly a very limited diagram. There are, of course, more than four quadrants of people. It’s totally silly to limit the vast number of people out there to just four categories. There’s like five!

I fall into that small, unnamed category of those who are rabid, mildly insane, extremely eccentric people who are not phenomenally gifted, but don’t practice either. Thankfully, I have taken care of the rabies issue. For now.

But seriously, here’s the problem: I am a dabbling jackass of all trades. (All trades except blacksmithery, that is. Bloody anvils!) As soon as something I’m working in or on gets too difficult, I find a new hobby or skill to take up.

There are several things that have haunted me for many years. One is this creepy ghost named Mr. Charlesworth Richenbacher. But he and I have been getting along for some time, so that’s really not a problem. But the other thing that has haunted me for so long has been my inability to practice things once reaching an operating level of proficiency.

For example, after playing guitar long enough, I could play most of the basic chords and all of the uncomplicated barre chords quite easily. At that point, my development as a guitar player choked, wheezed, and sputtered to a stop. When I could hack together a web page designed entirely in notepad without it looking horrible, I stopped working on my html and css skills. Same goes for Photoshop, Premiere, and a huge number of software titles, as well as the Linux and Mac operating systems.

More important to me than any other skill is writing, but I plateaued there as well and stopped practicing.

once I reached the point in college where I could crank out in 24 straight hours a high quality full term paper with research, full citations and multiple revisions, I stopped working on my writing. After I finished college, I didn’t write anything.

Unfortunately, when I was in second grade, after reading Alexander Key’s Sprockets, I determined that I would practice writing every single day of my life. Shortly thereafter, I signed my name in blood on the back inside cover of Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw. And the blood’s now about as crusty as my un-practiced writing has gotten.

Today, however, I have decided to make good on the committment I put myself to so many years ago. I am going to write something every day. To keep myself accountable, I am going to post something every day. I won’t necessarily post what I write, as a lot of it will probably suck ass. But I will do my best to post something just so I can keep track of my progress.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll be the next Steve Geluso!