Cattle call! Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire needs Asian/Indian twins. Rooaawwr!

MAVIN Foundation - addressing the unique issues facing multi-racial and multi-cultural youth. Projects include educational materials for parents & children, and a bone-marrow match program.

Wow! It sure sucks to be an artist daughter. Lucia really had a difficult childhood: Intermittent education, no permanent home or language, strabismus, an uncaring mother, and an semi-absent father. Just enough to make anyone go mad. But she got more than that. [Via Arts & Letters Daily]

Holy halitosis, Santa Claus! "As a new father, this is the first holiday season that I'll arrange for my son to sit on Santa's lap," said Mr. Anthony Shurman, president of Yosha! Enterprises, and the manufacturer of Momints. "I want to spread holiday cheer by ensuring that all authentic Kris Kringles nationwide can experience minty fresh breath at a 'momint''s notice." "If Santa had bad breath that would be icky," said New York-based Grant Thompson, age 3. "I have plans to see Santa soon to tell him what I want for Christmas."

Well, we're movin' on up (memory nudge:Jefferson's theme)...New luxury homeless shelter in Brooklyn is gonna have wrought iron beds, a bunch of 36-inch flat screen television sets, 9 IBM computers and a lot of people pissed off. (NYTimes)

An sordid tale from the net's early days. An epic of trolling pursued as performance art , and the chaos left in it's wake. I give you the contentious history of the MEOW .

Music and taxes Wondering what might be holding up the iTunes Music Store in coming to Canada? SOCAN, the country's music copyright collective, is seeking to tax the internet. It's bad enough they tax us for CDs already... but at least downloading is okay up here.

The Small Peace in the Big War Christmas 1914: A temporary truce is called so the British and Germans could have a game of football ("soccer" for us Americans). [link via Arts & Letters Daily] more inside

Throw me in jail, spit in my face, kick my ass if you want, but Don't Call Me "Dude."

How to make a sock monkey.

Finger flicking good Carabande is back! Now if only I wasn't so damn unemployed…

Mathowie launches Ask Metafilter. Looks Lovely!!! But what about us Monkeys? Do we still want in over there? Or are we happy here? And are there any special portals WE should be considering?

Every had a teacher who was just too cool? How about Mr. Adams from Nashville? He blogs. He documents his trip to Vegas for his students. But the best part? He has a couch.

Uptown theatre collapses. Though you may have already heard about this from Metafilter, it's still shocking news, both as a terrible accident, and for ex-pat Torontonians who didn't even know that the historic theatre was being demolished, because it was not wheelchair accessible. more inside

First Man on the Moon--The Awful Truth.

New monkeyfilter possible!

The Donkey Kong Megasite. more inside

The Anti-Banana Society. This organization, which calims to be a subdivision of the United Nations, aims to rid the world of all bananas. Obviously, this is a threat to monkeys everywhere. To arms, monkey berthren! [Via J-Walk Blog.]

Looking for a second opinion? It can be yours if the price is right! Or you can just ask this guy.(via Metafilter)

Kelly Ripa Explains How She Does It All Workaholic Kelly Ripa explains how she manages work, family and kids. It's the highlights in her hair.