Secret Christmas names Everyone has a special, secret Christmas name. What is your name? more inside

Sort-Of Pseudo LA Meetup I would like to meet you all (features ulterior motive!) more inside

MonkeyFilter Tagline Thread v.2.0! It's back, and it's better than ever! Exclamation point! more inside

Curious George In the next couple weeks I'm going to be doing a lot of shopping. Every goddamn time I walk in or out of a store I set off the security arch. Maybe I'm an android and no one has told me, but I suspect that it is one of the many stupid cards I must carry in my wallet to be part of the 21st Century. About 30% of the time on my way out I am asked to stop while some monkey in a uniform rummages thru my bags. more inside

I will be killed soon as Toshiba planned.
I want the World to ruin atrocious criminal Toshiba Corp. Of course, I hate Toshiba's HD DVD. I care even Americans and Russians yet can't realize Mind-Control by radar of satellite but Toshiba Corp could do it in 1997. [via Gizmodo]

"a mixture of 17th century Scotland and 20th Century Fox" Casa Loma, for a time North America's largest private home, was built by Toronto's answer to C. Montgomery Burns, Sir Henry Pellatt, early in the 20th century. It was the first fully electrified home in Toronto, and the first to have an elevator. Delightfully, it also has honest-to-God secret passages, which are open to modern visitors. Its construction bankrupted Pellatt, and he was forced to sell it. Since then, it's been a tourist attraction, a secret factory for the wartime development of Sonar's British precursor, ASDIC, and Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Children.

Curious George: Short story writers If you could commission any living writer to write a short story for you (NB not about you), who would you ask?

So what would peanut butter be? I want Gigi Padovani's job. It would look great on a business card. My own take: peanut butter - right; mayo - right; jelly and jam - depends on the type; lemon spread - ann coulter right; honey - socialist.

"It's close enough for folk music". Looking for an online a440? McCabe's guitar shop has what you're looking for. Almost. While you're there, check out their bagel.

Democratic Bitchslap! MoveOn.org to Demoratic Party: "We bought it, we own it, we're going to take it back." more inside

Change of Roles: Parents in strike after children disrespect them, don't do chores. lol...I would so do this if I were a parent.

Curious George: Regifting. How do you monkeys feel about regifting an item? It's an issue around the holidays, when, um, persons (such as, let's say, myself) receive, ah, items (quite similar to, ahem, this) that others (namely, my sweetie's mother) would absolutely adore.

Curious George: Learning clarinet. Can anyone recommend a good beginning music book for the clarinet? more inside

Curious George: Messy vs. Unsanitary Can anyone recommend a mature but effective method for confronting a roommate (or 3) who insist on leaving dirty dishes in the sink for days, and will leave the trash in the kitchen for weeks? more inside

The Robert Crumb Museum - If you don't know who R. Crumb is, then you've never read underground comix, never heard of Fritz the Cat, Mr Natural, The Amazon, nor will you keep on truckin'. I have, and do. Here's some more stuff. A lot of Crumb's work is NSFW in any shape or form!

Curious George: Learning to Swim I'm wanting to learn how to swim. Any advice/stories? more inside

The lost cosmonauts. According to this site, there where many more manned spaceflights done by the soviet union, some even before Gagarin, but where kept quiet because they went wrong and the cosmonauts died. Fascinating, if this is true. Especially heartrendering is the last transmission of what should have been the first female cosmonaut.

I Have Been Cited In A Case Against John Ashcroft More more inside

Words fail me ... The funniest damn thing I've read all week. [probably NSFW] more inside

1930's Japanese Military Propaganda Photos - Rare vintage prints used to create propaganda. In the late 1930’s Japan was at the zenith of its military power. The government hired photographers & their work was heavily retouched by hand to enhance their nationalistic fervour-inducing qualities. These photos have never before been seen - well, by us, anyway.