For a long time now, I’ve been kicking around the following quote inside my head:

Make a peace within you.

I could’ve sworn such a message would have emanated from the works of Ghandi, or even the Buddha. My research doesn’t bear that out, though; in fact, I can’t find any outside reference to it.

If that means I’m the one who’s invented this mantra-like aphorism, I’ll gladly take the credit. I mean, it’s no “Serenity Now!”, but it’ll do.

Whatever pangs of guilt I feel over carrying a couple of Lady GaGa songs on my iPod, at least I haven’t gone as gaga as these two GaGa medley-makers:

It is a rather spirited three minutes of musical tribute. I especially like the lyrical intertwining of “Poker Face” with “Paparazzi” — probably more than I like the songs. The gender mismatch in having a guy sing lyrics that were originally delivered by a woman contributes some awkwardness, but I suppose it’s worth it for the overall infectious effect.

This acoustic duo consists of Sam Tsui (voice) and Kurt Schneider (guitar). Since this little video of theirs has racked up one and a half million views as of this writing, it’s safe to assume that we’ll be seeing/hearing more from them.

Long-time fans of “The Simpsons” know this Homer-scripted jingle by heart:

Call Mr. Plow
That’s my name
That name again
Is Mr. Plow

Why mess with that simple perfection? Ask Moby, who feels compelled to apply his own spin(s) to that animated ditty:

If that song wound its way into your brain and parked itself there for nearly two decades, you’re not alone. In the documentary “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special: In 3-D! On Ice!”, which runs on Fox this Sunday, the musician Moby tells the filmmaker Morgan Spurlock he is so obsessed with the song that he created six different remixes of it.

And here’s one of those reworkings, the old-school hip-hop version, with clipped-up video:

The other mixes: Bossa nova, electro, Latin lounge, psychedelic and punk rock. The best I can say about them is that they’re all mercifully short. And while Moby is entitled to play around all he wants, I think he should find a different target for his musical obsessions. Maybe do a new, fresh-fly remix of “Do The Bartman”!

My just-wrapped trip to Los Angeles was mostly business, but there’s one after-hours moment I won’t soon forget:

Sitting in Yamashiro Restaurant’s main banquet room. Because, as you can tell almost immediately from the decor, it was the filming location for the Crazy 88s-versus-The-Bride scene from Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Almost as obvious was the central Japanese garden in the same room, which served as the outdoor winter scene from the same movie, when The Bride and O-Ren Ishii have their final showdown.

Actually, the banquet room came off as too small for all the action that took place in those two scenes. But that’s moviemaking magic for you. I haven’t bothered to verify that information — I was told of it upon entering the restaurant — but even if it’s somehow not true, I prefer to believe that it is. I happen to have just watched that movie again a couple of weeks ago, so the visuals were definitely fresh in my mind, and synced with my surroundings regardless.

Attached to that pop-cultural sensation — and weirdly extending it, even — is the impromptu spasm of song that gripped a tableful of my dining companions that night. Someone mentioned a weekend karaoke session, and next thing I knew, four or five of them started belting out their version of (what else?) Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, all around me. Acappella, of course. Which I found weird, even though it wouldn’t have been had the karaoke never been mentioned in the first place — it would have been just an ordinary sing-along.

Only had Quentin Tarantino sauntered by the table during the merriment, would the evening have been really complete. Maybe next time.

This morning, my old 20Q techie-toy suddenly chirped to life, for no apparent reason. I’d barely touched this little plastic ball since getting a brief novelty thrill out of it almost five years ago. It’s just been sitting on my bedstand all this time, amidst a few other random trinkets.

The weirdest part is that it started its tinny little electronic noise just as I was walking in its general direction — I was headed for my cellphone, which was recharging nearby. So that burst of sound was that much more shocking.

Considering that the 20Q is/was marketed as an artificial intelligence device, maybe I should be concerned. If it figures out how to get mobile, I’ll have to pull out the hammer and provide my own final answer.

For Americans, today’s month-day-year timestamp works in reverse:

That’s because it’s only the second palindrome day of the 21st century, meaning that if you flip the day over it reads the same: 01/02/2010. (And, no, this is not another story about Sarah Palin, though it could be since “Harass Sarah” is sort of a cool palindrome…

The rest of the world, with its alternate (and, I think, more logically progressive) day-month-year method of dating, misses out on this palidromic sensation (even though they’ll get their version on February 1). Then again, they also miss out on having Palin on the poli-cultural scene for at least the next four years. So it’s an even trade-off.

The stats don’t lie: This here blog has been getting a distinct uptick in Web traffic over the past couple of days. And the tracking confirms that the reason is the odd little photo above, which I first used on New Year’s Day 2009.

That year-old post pondered the upcoming chronologically-delivered demise of these goofy double-zero party specs. Based on all the Internet searches landing here, I guess party people aren’t ready to give up the ghost on these glasses just yet.

I hope everyone looking for these oh-10 accoutrements finds a source. Obviously, I’m not selling any — heck, I have serious doubts that the photo on display here is even Photoshopped-free. But at least I can provide a point of reference.

And with that, and with the strategically-set timestamp at the foot of this post (think 24-hour time), I’d say it’s time to usher in the new year-slash-decade…

It’s a shame that upcoming new release Legion is such an apparent piece of crap, because I’m partial to angel imagery. Something about the wings. And the rich history of Judeo-Christian-Muslim mythology that those wings represent.

Probably the most distasteful part of this movie is the obvious copycatting of zombie, vampires, and other cinematic supernatural creepies. The freaky shape-shifting exhibited by these scary seraphs makes them nothing more than second-rate horror glyphs, interchangeable with any other movie monster. They could have subbed in space aliens without missing a beat, the Biblical reference to the Legion demon aside.

Oh well. I can always turn to one of my favorite angelic works of art: Salvador Dali’s “Allegorical Saint and Angels in Adoration of the Holy Spirit”, pictured above. Those bold, single brush-strokes that form each wing convey a stark energy worthy of the symbolism on display.

I don’t know why the unremarkable square-blocked text logo for Bible Crusade caught my eye on the subway this morning. But it did, to the point that I’m compelled to jot down the three-line wording:

BIBLE CRUSADE
with Pastor Ock Soo Park
featuring Gracias Choir

It’s the seeming multiculturalness of the elements here: A Korean holy man with a Spanish-themed singing group in tow. Although it appears that the Gracias Choir is, improbably enough, composed of Korean singers.

Part of the production-prep for this weekend’s blockbuster release of Avatar was the commissioned creation of a full-fledged language for the film’s aliens. And indeed, with the movie now out in theaters, the analytical dissection of Na’vi has heated up.

As with the similar fascination in developing science-fictional tongues like Klingon, I really shake my head at these linguistic exercises. Fill these massive code-sets with all the vocabulary you want, and get as many geeks as you can to speak/write it — that doesn’t change the fundamental fact that they remain fake languages. They don’t exist in any meaningful context, other than a few hours and/or pages of escapist fantasy. It amounts to a lot of intellectual energy expended upon very little.

In fact, in the case of Avatar, which is just getting off the ground as a sci-fi franchise (assuming it will take off as such), this early promotion of the in-film language comes off to me as little more than an overdeveloped marketing stunt. Hardly an inspiring foundation for building a mode of interpersonal communication.

Matisyahu is getting a lot of mileage out of this customized dreidel-shaped disco ball. I stayed up late enough last night to catch this funky ornament shining brightly on “Late Show with David Letterman”, during the singer’s performance. I guess the dance club installations of this signature prop have been a success, and it’s now a built-in part of his stage show.

Alas, no accompanying rendition of the Dreidel Song. I’m still waiting for Matisyahu to put his own unique spin (yes, pun!) on that old traditional number.

It doesn’t take a shoe fetishist to get wowed over this light-refracting fashion statement for the female foot:

These are shoes that will freak people out. Yes, we know that her “invisible shoe” is basically a wedge made of mirrors, and looks about as comfortable as the inside of Steve Buscemi’s mouth, but there’s really nothing that says “I’m a fashionista” like showing up at a party with your feet gone A.W.O.L.

Pedal camouflage via polished glass. This is what you can expect from a “footwear concept” designer.

I’m not buying Tom Vanderbilt’s contention of a backlash against drive-thru structures — not by a long shot, when the bulk of American society/infrastructure is firmly car-centric to the core.

But I do appreciate his eloquent description of the interplay that takes place at the drive-up window:

There has always been something odd in the encounter between automobility and architecture; the driver momentarily breaks her sense of hermetic enclosure, while the fast-food employee briefly thrusts himself out of the window, the two meeting amid the sickly sweet commingling of ambient grease and tailpipe exhaust. The car driver doesn’t fully shed her sense of vehicular privacy and has a seemingly easy means of egress (surveillance cameras notwithstanding), which might explain why drive-up windows have become a particular locus of pranks (employees have been subject to sophomoric raps and “fire-in-the-hole” beverage assaults), deviant social behavior (driving naked), and crime (although here the car driver, temporarily exposed, is as much at risk as the employee).

It’s cocoon-on-cocoon action. The human flesh involved almost seems incidental to the process.

This cold, blustery, and beautiful Friday morning has inspired a rare haiku from me. Behold:

Sun shines through, brightly
Throwing light, but no warmth
Wintertime cruelty.

Best I can do, pre-caffeine (and without autogenerating help). The 5-7-5 structure hinges on how you pronounce “cruelty”; I’m invoking artistic license in going with the less-enunciated two-syllable rendition.

If Jesus always came off as too namby-pamby for your liking, the Conservative Bible Project will deliver a Scripture free from suspected liberal-leaning translative interpretation:

The project’s authors argue that contemporary scholars have inserted liberal views and ahistorical passages into the Bible, turning Jesus into little more than a well-meaning social worker with a store of watered-down platitudes.

“Professors are the most liberal group of people in the world, and it’s professors who are doing the popular modern translations of the Bible,” said Andy Schlafly, founder of Conservapedia.com, the project’s online home.

Experts who have devoted their careers to unraveling the ancient texts of the Scriptures, many in long-extinct languages, are predictably skeptical about a project by amateur translators.

“This is not making scripture understandable to people today, it’s reworking scripture to support a particular political or social agenda,” said Timothy Paul Jones, a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., who calls himself a theological conservative.

Religious publishers already provide an alphabet soup of Bible translations for a range of theological outlooks, from the King James Version (KJV) to the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and beyond. The most widely used traditional translations were overseen by scholars who are considered the best minds in conservative Christianity.

“The phrase ‘theological conservative’ does not mean that someone is politically conservative,” said Schlafly, who lives in Far Hills, N.J.

This liberal slanting, Schlafly argues, ranges from changing gendered language — Jesus calling his disciples to be “fishers of people” rather than “fishers of men” — to more subtle choices, like the 2001 English Standard Version of the Bible, which uses “comrade” and “laborer” more often than the conservative-friendly “volunteer.”

I guess these conservative cranks have run out of secular topics on which to focus their outrage, so now they’re turning to the spiritual. When you start probing for conspiracies among chapter and verse, I’d say you’ve pretty completely lost touch with this mortal coil.

As long as they’re looking for historical material that will jibe with and validate their pre-conceived notions, I’ll point the CBP in an obvious direction: Albert Rosenberg’s weirdo Gnostic/”Aryan Christ” theories. It’s a brush of Nazism with which to tar this latest Bible-cleansing effort; but it shows how unoriginal the effort is to begin with.

It’s December, so that means it’s time to put my snowman figurine on display. See him in his fuller-sized Flickr format (where I dubbed him “Sno Bro”, in a spasm of cameraphone-inspired cuteness).

I can’t say why I’m fond of this 12-inch high metal figurine. Probably his emerald-green sweater. Or the low-key holiday cheer he lends to a room.

What I can’t figure out is why no one else cares for him. I’ve had this little trinket for three years now, and each Christmastime, I have to put up with a fair amount of bitching over even this minor bit of decoration. I guess not everyone likes an indoor reminder of the wintry weather that accompanies the season.

Behold above, a common sight at this time of the year: A Christmas wreath. (Heck, behold it in its embiggened, Flickrized glory).

Look closely enough, and you’ll notice some unconventional wreath-borne elements in this holiday specimen. The garland, pinecones, and stray elf? Check. The artichokes and pomegranates? Not-so-check.

Artichokes? Pomegranates? Granted, they’re fakes, but still, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such oddball vegetation in a Christmas-themed ornament. What exactly do those two produce products have to do with this time of year?

I pondered it for (a short) while, and came up with this theory: This is a California-origined wreath. Only on the left coast would you find unconventional vegetable/fruit combos festooning your wintertime decor. The only thing missing from this Golden State ring of holly is an avocado or two.

What this West Coast expression of holiday cheer is doing here in New York is the bigger mystery. Hopefully, I won’t wake up Christmas morning with a stocking full of some weird artichoke-pomegranate puree…

A long time ago, I took quite a shining to the following quote. It’s by none other than Albert Einstein, from his book “Living Philosophies”:

“I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years.”

You could say I once identified closely with this sentiment. I still do, although decidedly less so; if anything, I think I’m moving in the opposite direction, toward more personal connections later in life. As usual, I opt for the backward approach to life. Of course, I presumably have more than enough years left to shift gears yet again.

Well, Sarah Palin just blew it with one key constituency — hardcore Scrabble junkies, who object to this seemingly family-friendly passage from her new autobiography:

“Everybody in the family played Scrabble and took great pride in hoarding Ks and Qs and slapping them down in long, fancy words on triple-letter scores.” — “Going Rogue”, p. 12.

The problem? Not only can’t you hoard those particular letters (since there’s only one of each in a Scrabble set); but furthermore, even if it were possible, it’d be bad gameplay strategy to do so:

K doesn’t mesh well with most other letters and so you should try to dump it quickly. Q is paralyzing unless you have a U to go with it. If you are happy because you could lay down “quit” on a double word score, for 26 points, I would say you are not a very ambitious Scrabble player, all the more if you hoarded letters and waited turns to do that. (You have some chance of “aliquot” or “quaeres” or “quinoas,” but do you really expect to score “obloquy,” “quassia,” or “qigongs”?, keeping in mind that if you build upon an already-laid tile you need an eight-letter word with q to score the bonus.)

Sounds like somebody’s still stinging over that Katie Couric newspapers question, and slipped in this anecdote to suggest a homespun-smarts intellectual foundation. Palin should have vetted the editing to someone more familiar with the tile-slapping, triple-word-scoring tradition.

Interestingly, beermaker Molson Canadian recently rolled out a low-calorie brewski called Molson 67. The number in the name refers to the calorie-count per bottle.

I find that interesting because, being a student of history, I instantly recognized that “67″ as a reference to 1867, the year that Canada’s nationhood was established. Invoking the year of independence, in whole or in part, is fairly recognizable as a patriotic gesture north of the border, exemplified by a storied junior hockey team in the Canadian capital. The parallel with America’s 1776 — Spirit of ‘76, 76er’s, etc. — is obvious.

It can’t be a coincidence. You have to believe that Molson purposely concocted this special beer with a caloric value that matches Canada’s birth-year, all for the subtle-but-inherent marketing value. What red-blooded Canuck wouldn’t want to knock back a couple of cold ones that suggest love of country merely when you ask the bartender for the brand?

And yet, a cursory search of the news mentions and corporate communication surrounding last month’s launch of Molson 67 doesn’t seem to mention the patriotism angle. They wouldn’t want to be overbearing with it, but I’m surprised it didn’t get at least a passing mention. Is it possible that this crucial part of the marketing message got diluted by the time the beer hit the market? Or are Canadians not sufficiently gung-ho enough about their history to care?

It’s amazing some U.S.-based brewer hasn’t thought of a similar 76-calorie beer for the American market. Molson, of course, is part of Molson Coors, which is headquartered in Denver. So I’m guessing that a red-white-and-blue festooned “Coors 76″ will appear on Stateside store shelves in the near future.

For Thanksgiving, I’ve taken it upon myself to meet the needs of both the generational extremes that will converge at my mother’s house this Thursday. Translation: I bought a small batch of toys and games for my little nephews, so that they’re sufficiently occupied-slash-out of our hair; and I sprung for the wine, so that they rest of us have sufficient social lubrication.

As always, I’m a sucker for standout novelty wine-bottle labels. So when I saw this Rudolf Müller “Rabbit” Riesling on the store rack, I couldn’t resist adding it to my selection. Heck, it even calls itself “aka The Bunny Wine” on the back label.

Hopefully the taste measures up with the cutesy bottle-art. I like rieslings anyway, and I’m guessing the dry sweetness will match well with the turkey meat. If not, at least I’ll have a conversation piece.