Love these! I may have to try my hand at one next year!

Cool, but how are any of these last-minute?

Very cool!

The Obama effigy is going a little far. Leave politics out of it. And yes, if you threaten the president, ANY president, you might get a visit. And the middle finger thing, well, Halloween should be fun, not provocative. But Halloween is for making fun of gruesome things, for laughing at death. And, by the way, if you see a guy hanging from a gutter, or buried up head first up to his knees, why the hell didn't you just go help the person, instead of calling 911?

Hilarious! One sticky point with me: I don't get why they're called Improv Everywhere. Their stunts are staged, not improvised. Or did they just misspell "Improve Everywhere", like, they make places better wherever they go....?

Makes me like her more. Cool animation, too!

Yeah, you missed something. Every bass note the guy who starts it plays is on the harp part. And the 5th guy who walks in is also playing bass notes on the harp. Once the whole group comes in, I see several harp notes being hit. The thing is, it depends on whether you have the strings tuned to the notes needed for the particular song, so some of them might not have the right harp notes for this tune.

If you want to hear a more modern take on harp guitar, seek out Michael Hedges. He played regular guitar, too, but had many wonderful tunes on harp guitar. A master that we lost too soon. Try this one, one of my favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTC7kPZZmuM

I went there as a kid! The swimming pig was o.k. It wasn't exactly a surprise that a pig could swim. I actually liked the way the mermaids would swim down to the bottom and breathe from an air hose (which in itself I imagine was tricky to get used to), and then lie on the bottom and blow perfect silvery air rings! I would go to my local pool, put on my mask, go down to the deep end, and practice doing it.

Yeah, I'm actually confused by the question. Why would the dealer inflate the price of the car? Then he'd have to cheat MORE on the trade-in.

Wow, what a beautiful, amazing girl. I hope she does get to have and live her dreams. I hope this video helps the world see this insanity for what it is.

Holy crap, I was not expecting that! A cute kitty or a ferret or something. Wow.

Umm... so, this counts as clever? All the dog does is look at stuff. And, oh yeah, he gets uncomfortable when something he doesn't understand touches him or is thrown at him. Isn't that hilarious???? Jeez, at least Maru the cat has a personality and a creative owner....

I was in Reno at the time of the Judas Priest trial. At first, they were being sued by the kids' parents for the actual lyrics in the song. But that pesky 1st Amendment reared its ugly head (I believe it was Judge Mills Lane who threw out the original case), so they did a quick switcheroo, saying "Oh, no, no, that wasn't it. It was, um, oh yeah, subliminal messages in the song. Yeah, that's it." So, it was silly from the beginning. I remember that the band was bored in their hotel during the drawn-out trial, and decided to find other backward-masked "messages" in the song. I don't remember exactly, but one they found was something about lawn chairs. Hilarious. They testified about how they were grown men who had kids and played golf, and had no reason to want to kill off their source of income. It was a circus.

I went to see the John Williams concert last year, and it was incredible. It's amazing how one man has written so many recognizable themes. One part of the concert that I really enjoyed was the small jazz combo playing music from Catch Me If You Can. A nice surprise.

While I probably agree with the findings that they summarize in this story, it seems to me that it's not the best test. For example, the music that was deemed "angry" went into the lower musical registers. So that may just mimic an angry person's voice, and we get our cue from that. The "peaceful" music was slow. I think the study needs to be widened. What about slow music that's very dissonant? Probably not peaceful. What about angry music that's high in pitch? Maybe not angry anymore. I think they're making some assumptions that aren't necessarily completely true, and leaving out some of the possibilities that cause people to interpret music emotionally. Rhythm, pitch, instrument timbre, arrangement, orchestration. Music has so many variables, and this seems to be far from being able to make such definitive statements as it does.