Animals Save the Planet

My friend, Sandrine, the mother of little baby Maya, sent me a link to a wonderful and witty website, sponsored by the cable network, Animal Planet.

It's a series of mini cartoons that show the importance of being green (as in environmentally conscious, not jealous) and helping to conserve our planet for Maya and future generations.

Claymation, adorable animals, funny cartoons, and saving the Earth! How can you go wrong?

Click here to view, or you can cut and paste the following link into your browser: http://www.animalssavetheplanet.com/media/swf/design_video.swf?vidNumber=1

My favorite is the prairie dogs video! Drop me a line & tell me which one you enjoyed the best.

Awareness is like Conditioner

I have light brown curly or wavy hair. Depending on the weather, I can look very different. I have my Kate Beckinsale days, and I can also have days when I look like Elmo’s brown cousin, Shmelmo. Since I was a child, I have always had knots in my baby fine hair, and combing it used to be an ordeal until the magnificent day I discovered, drum roll please…, Conditioner!
All of a sudden, tangles became a thing of the past, as I could now actually run my comb through my hair without cringing.
Now, I’m not sure exactly how it works: I just know it has something to do with the hair's cuticle and miraculous botanical extracts and formulas closely guarded by Mr. Garnier & Mr. Sassoon. But even though I don't know exactly how it all comes together, the conditioner still works to dissolve & untangle all the little knots on my head.

But what about the jumbles and messes inside the head, you know, under all the hair? Well, awareness, the non-judgmental and non-preferential seeing of something, is just like conditioner for those messes!

Simply seeing what is without judging it or wishing it were different, is enough to dissolve our mechanical behaviors, no matter how long they have been previously stuck. So we have the choice to simply look at a behavior and say “oh. I did that” without tacking on the rest of the sentence which is usually, “I’m so _________.” (Which, let's admit, we usually fill in with an unflattering word, like ‘stupid’, ‘dumb’, ‘pathetic’, ‘lazy’ … And if you notice that you tacked something on, then just don’t continue the cycle. Just like you don’t have to read or forward a chain email telling you Bill Gates is going to give you a penny for every fwd you send, you can just hit ‘delete’ instead and get rid of the Spam in your thoughts. You can even make a game of it.

Thing a Week

My friend, Stephen, showed me this totally adorable video based upon a song composed & recorded by a wonderful artist, Jonathan Coulton. For those of you who have never heard of him, Coulton made himself a promise to compose & record one song a week for a year and post each one on his website, and he has been at it for many, many weeks. He calls it “Thing a Week.” I very much admire him because he is really going for his life with gusto and consistency. Coulton is also a very talented musician.

A catchy, cool song of his, Code Monkey, started a trend on Youtube about a year ago and is still going strong. Coulton first recorded the funny and touching song about a programmer in a nameless corporation and posted it on his website. Then an IT expert who works for Adobe made an animated video for the song, using images from videogames & put it on Youtube.
It started to draw a crowd, and this girl, Emily, found the song & made a pajama video of it (a pajama video is when someone dances around his/her bedroom in jammies lip-synching/dancing/interpreting a song in front of a webcam.)
Then Coulton gave a concert and found out Emily was in the audience by coi-incidence. He invited her on stage to re-enact her video as he played Code MOnkey. Anotherfan at the concert, filmed this and posted it on Youtube.

Now, I know there is a lot of pooh on the Internet in general, and Youtube in particular, but this is worth checking out.

Check it out in this order:

Original song + video made by “Spiffworld,” a fan who works at Adobe and spent lots of time animating a cool video for the song.

thh Emily’s pajama video of Code Monkey.

Emily performing her dance live at a Jonathan Coulton Concert in Chicago on December 8th.


I highly recommend that you check out Coulton’s website to hear more great tunes, like Tom Cruise Crazy, You ruined Everything, to hear more great music by Coulton.

Jonathan Coulton had a dream to make music & share it with people. He did not wait until his life circumstances showed up as "perfect." Instead he made a commitment to himself & his desire to create and he kept it. That's Transformation. He made no excuses. And he did it all while being a new Dad! Now I'm sure Coulton had lots of legitimate reasons to skip a week or two, but he chose not to take them and he kept his word.
And along the way, he created something wonderful and has become an inspiration for so many others. That's Transformation too.

Evolution of Dance

Behold, the Evolution of Dance...
What is most wonderful about this clip is how comedian Judson Laipply slides naturally from one dance into the next. He starts off with Elvis Presley and progresses all the way to NSYNC, hitting many musical milestones along the way. It's a very organic journey past Chuck Berry, Michael Jackson's Thriller, the Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian, Mc Hammer, the Running Man, the Macarena and other favorites.

Santa Chronicles

Merry Merry Christmas!

Do you find it difficult to shop for presents for your loved ones? Stuck on what to get your colleagues or friends? Well imagine Santa's task! Santa deserves major points! Ever wonder what he's up to this time of year?

I invite you to check out a wonderful blog. It's called the Santa Claus Blog, and it is written by Santa. Yes, that guy. I had no idea how taxing his job is and all the different legal hurdles he has to go through to deliver his presents.

I love this blog, and I will be checking in all through the year.

ROFL Cat

A humor break is a wonderful tool to get back into the flow.

If you like cute kittens, check out the rofl cat website here.
If you don't, what the heck is wrong with you? LOL

Enjoy!