Cool and poignant video ... that makes you think about memories, aloneness, rooming houses, friends, happiness and...running! Oh yeah, and photos. Lots of photos. The music is called "Breathe Me" by Sia. (requires Quicktime) 4 mins.

Take University Courses for free over the Web. Type in your subject. Check out the courses available. Now you to can study cognitive robotics at MIT, pathophysicology of infectious diseases at Tufts, or causal and statistical reasonaing at Carnegie-Mellon. Or how about some artsier stuff? more inside

His shoe phone no longer rings.... RIP Don Adams, Maxwell Smart of "Get Smart", one of the funniest comedies i remember watching as a kid. "Noooo, not the Craw...the CRAAAWWW!"

Glenn Gould - his hat and scarf. It's his birthday today. One of the 20th century's greatest pianists, his recording of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier stands as a monumental musical achievement. The Prelude in C from that work was placed onboard Voyager 1. But along with being an extraordinary prodigy he also had a subversive sense of humor. So in honour of Glenn today, I present to you his hat and scarf.

Beautiful Books: Illustrated The best-looking and most interesting website devoted to beautiful books and illustration I've seen this year. Points out the best in digitized illustration on the Web. Sample excerpt: From Harvard University's Open Collections Program comes Women Working, 1800-1930. It is a huge storehouse - 3,500 books, trade and consumer magazines, vocation pamphlets, photographs and lots more - all digitized in an annoying framed interface....But where else could one learn about the anarchist woman of yesteryear or how to raise chickens? I'd say it has the monkey stamp of quality. You should all take a peek kay.

Ricky Gervais: Extras. Coming soon to HBO. One difference between it and his earlier comedy series, The Office, are the celebrity guest stars including Kate Winslet, Samuel Jackson, and Ben "It still Counts" Stiller. Some funny scenes, check it out.

Riveting NOLA photojournal. These are sad/beautiful/awe-inspiring/ugly. They're taken by a Nicaraguan hotel worker in the French Quarter and they describe the disaster all the way from the storm preparation measures, the hurricane itself, the aftermath and initial optimism to the flooding, social breakdown and evacuation. If you've ever been to the French Quarter, you'll recognize the streets in the photos.

FEMA, so, so, infuriatingly sad. (WM video) "Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. ...FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis". Testimony from Aaron Broussard president of Jefferson Parish in New Orleans. At the end of the clip, he tells another story that just breaks the heart. There's just nothing else to say.

Curious Pearl Jammin' George ...Gotta take a break from the dismal news.... Okay, so I'm going with my sister and a friend to the Pearl Jam concert here in Ottawa in a week. I want to intro my friend to PJ music, I know some of their songs but not all of them. (e.g. I only found out about Yellow Ledbetter by accident, now it's one of my faves). So what are your favourite Pearl Jam tunes?

How to Save Kids from Math Anxiety Given that kids can learn to speak a language and that language is more complex than math, why is it that our educational system leaves so many math-illiterate or math-anxious? more inside

Curious Screenwriting George: Has any monkey ever attended the Los Angeles Screenwriting Expo? I took a one year diploma program in scriptwriting and enjoyed it immensely. Me and a buddy of mine would like to learn more about the art of screenwriting. Is the expo worth going to? What have been your experiences? What other events like this have you attended and would recommend?

The worst foods for your health You there! Put that French fry down and come out with your hands up! Actually when it comes to bad foods, the French Fry, though a culprit isn't the worst. #1 on the list is a little suspected breakfast item. And zounds what about that fettucini alfredo?

An Unusual Japanese Monastery "The Jingu is rebuilt every 20 years. This ceremony is called the Shikinensenngu. All the shrines in the Jingu, including the Goshoden, are rebuilt. In other words, the gods can live comfortably in newly built shrines (animation) at a cycle of 20 years." Sounds ordinary until you find out they've been doing this for 2000 years. And that up to 173,000 people participate. more inside

Live8 Concert videos. Friday video goodness. If you missed it, here it is: video footage of all of the concerts broken down by artist. Click, enjoy.

The Joy of being Five Years Old It's about drawing, daydreaming, flying, monsters, and blocking up traffic. It's about how time spent with kids is never wasted. Five years old, I was that once. This video brings it all back.

The biggest financial bubble in history is about to burst . Or so says The Economist. Problem is they don't know when exactly. One hint: watch the mainstream press. Whenever there's exuberant front-page coverage, a crash usually isn't far behind. Uh- oh. When bubbles pop, the aftermath isn't pretty. But if we're talking ugliness this is the one to beat. more inside

Curious George: Learning Vacations Any monkeys been on any learning vacations? Like this one for book-lovers or this for gourmet cooks and um, even something for those who are into moose photography or ukeleles . How about picking one randomly from this 100 page (PDF) catalog at Chautauqua, the grand-daddy of summer course madness. more inside

Are you an upper-class monkey, a middle-class monkey or a lower-class monkey? This is a nifty little interactive graphic from the NY Times recent articles on class. Thought i'd FPP it because it has a Curious George thing to it. The graphic postulates that class is a combo of occupation, education, income and wealth. You select what applies to you and it'll crank your class score. Thanks to jb and rhiannon for the references from that other thread. ...and yeah, no matter what class you're in, you are still classy, you monkeys you. more inside

Free Trade Killed Off the Neanderthals! Or maybe it was just bad weather . Neanderthals were as nimble-fingered and intelligent as homo sapiens. Ya know what I think? I think one of you monkeys rubbed him out! He'd still be around if ya hadn't killed him and set Cro-Magnon up with the rap. I'd send the likes of ya up the river but the past's the past. Just tell us why ya done it. (Bonus points for reasons expressed in verse.)

Muddled-up Posting George On the physics of posting: One thing that always gets to me is that i still can't remember off by heart the recipe for the html for links, all that stuff. Do monkeys have secret techniques to make the posting of links easier? The other thing that's difficult is finding out whether there's been any new comments on ancient threads that you're interested in. (I'll be darned if someone's going to get the last word in!) It would be nice if it showed me all new comments that have come up on all threads i've posted to?