Stuff happens, when you're either sleeping or or living the fabulous and fashionable life we know you have. So we're starting your days with a few tidbits to keep you the sparkling conversationalist your friends expect you to be.

From today's teaser photo, one of the strengths of Sesame Street that has allowed it to last 40 years is that they localize the characters in the 140 countries it plays in. You're looking at Kami, a Muppet that's part of the South African Sesame Street where the AIDS crisis has left so many orphans living with the disease. Kami is female and HIV+, teaching the kids what they need to know about the disease along with the alphabet. This National Geographic piece has more global examples.

Speaking of Sesame Street, it's evidently a piece of the left wing, communist agenda to indoctrinate children against the true America. This is all based on a 30-second clip of Oscar the Grouch as a reporter offending a viewer, who says she'll watch POX News. "Now there's a trashy news show!" It's an argument that fails on so many levels. He reports for Grouch News Network (GNN) which is parody of CNN, so Pox/Fox isn't singled out. Plus, I think that Grouches call things "trashy" as a compliment. 

The Daily Kos, making up for that tear jerker I posted Wednesday, has a funny piece on the schedule of a Maine justice of the peace. At least it's a funny look at a cruddy situation.

GLAAD shares many of the concerns our readers do concerning this week's South Park episode.

Evidently sex can trigger Transient Global Amnesia (TGA) in people, causing them to not be able to remember years of their lives, or even events that occurred five minutes before. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound as if it's a practical excuse for forgetting your trick's name.

Careful! Your cat can catch the swine flu. I know what you're thinking, and stop it. You feline overlord can catch the disease from you, the person he holds in utter contempt except at dinner time. I worry most about giving cats access to biological weapons. Another thing I learned from this article? Time magazine is aware that LOLcats exists, but they are unwilling to relax their spelling standards to commit to the joke. "I Can Has Swine Flu?" Come on!

Continued fallout from the election is mixed: New Jersey is going to attempt to rush a marriage equality bill through a lame duck session before their new anti-gay governor takes office. New Hampshire is going to see an unlikely-to-succeed attempt to repeal their new marriage law. And Michigan, fresh off the Kalamazoo discrimination victory, is moving to repeal their ban on same-sex marriage. Governor Patterson of New York has also called a special session for Tuesday to deal with budget issues and a marriage equality bill.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit challenging the state's domestic partner registery without comment. This is a particularly interesting case (which this does not completely resolve) because the state has a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage that many say also bans anything "like" marriage.

Neil Patrick Harris and AT&T are set to be honored by The Trevor Project, the only national, round-the-clock hotline dedicated to GLBT youth suicide prevention.  NPH will receive the Trevor Life Award from Jeff Probst, for setting a positive example to youth. AT&T will receive the Trevor Hope Award for its corporate policies towards GLBT persons. The awards will be presented at Cracked Christmas 12, the annual fundraiser for The Trevor Project.

There was the horrible shooting on Ft. Hood in Texas by the Army shrink who specialized in post traumatic stress disorder counseling. It's horrible, but I'm not sure we'll ever know why he killed a dozen people. But there are a bunch of nutjobs that are convinced he's a one man Al-Qaeda sleeper cell.

The Large Hadron Collider is almost repaired and ready to discover the origins of the universe. That is, if it's not being sabotaged from the future, like some think. And if the birds would quit trying to blow it up. Evidently a flying bird dropped a piece of bread down a ventilation shaft, causing the $6 billion device to warm from 1.9 degrees Kelvin to 8 degrees Kelvin. Maybe that was a design flaw? 

Kathy Griffin celebrated her birthday at the lengendary gay bar The Abbey. She was dressed...well, I don't know how to describe her outfit, and I'm afraid to offer an opinion, because she might hunt me down. The good news for Kathy? This time, she wasn't mistaken for Kathy Lee Gifford, which would totally harsh your mellow.

According to Star Magazine (don't judge me!), Adam Lambert isn't actually single, he's just switched men. He's done with Drake LaBry, but he's supposedly snuggling with his songwriting buddy Ferras Aqaisi. I don't really care who's keeping him warm at night, or helping him relieve stress, as long as it's not the girl from his Details photoshoot.

Sir Elton John, who has been in the hospital for several days with an e. coli infection, was discharged today. He's been forced to cancel several dates of his concert tour with fellow piano man Billy Joel. The two are expected to resume tickling the ivories November 14, presumably after Sir Elton has the chance to do some tickling of David Furnish.

The mothership over at MTV has a preview of the first seven pages of the official Zack Whedon Dr. Horrible comic book. Somehow, the artist has managed to make Nathan Fillion beefier and hunkier on the page.

Slightly different on the drawn page, or perhaps in this case the undrawn page, is "Garfield Minus Garfield," where they take Garfield out of his own comic strip and focus instead on the angst and enigma that is John Arbuckle.

TV Guide Canada has an interview with The Young and The Restless' Michael Muhney, who plays the heteroflexible Adam Newman, which touches on the character's psychotic nature, his blindness, the gay tryst and how it was portrayed. It also dips back into his past on Veronica Mars and his gay fans.

Proving that American excess has not been killed off by the recession, the Tundra Midnight Rider Tailgater takes an unsuspecting Toyota pickup and turns it into something from the Transformers. It's got Grill N Chill cooking space with infrared BBQ, 42" HDTV, separate Kicker sound systems for the bed and the cab, all tucked away under an automatic tonneau cover.

Out director Roland Emmerich says he hates sequels, so he always destroys the world in his movies. The he tells us his disaster flick 2012 has a television followup in development with ABC called 2013. And he doesn't see the conflict in those two statements.

Levi Johnson's father is expressing concern that his son is going to bring shame on the family. Not by knocking up Bristol Palin, famewhoring, or even posing naked. Daddy Johnson is expressing concern about the family jewels measuring up. 

Video Meme

We've got a selection of video that didn't seem to fit anywhere else, but we felt your lives would be better for having seen.  

While you're reading this, I'm probably having my standard issue blogger breakfast of coffee and gingerbread cookies. It's how we roll. CNN brings us a story of sweets as well - chocolate you can wear.

The conservatives in Congress had a weird tea party-esq rally yesterday at the Capitol. Missouri (It wasn't WV for a change - yay!) Rep . Todd Akin was giving a speech, and whipped the crowd into a froth about saying the Pledge of Allegiance, because "it drives the liberals crazy." He led the crowd in the recitation, where he got the words wrong.

Conan O'Brien isn't my favorite late night host. I think he currently ranks 4th or so. But I do like the occassional bit, like this one where he has William Shatner dramatically read people's tweets like poetry. Wednesday, he did Levi Johnson's tweets. Which turned out to be not from Levi. Doesn't make them less funny. Speaking of Levi, LOGOonline has a retrospective of Playgirl covers. From back when it was actually a magazine you hid under your mattress.

We had introduced you to Sliimy a while back, the French pop singer who was discovered when he uploaded a cover of Britney Spear's "Womanizer" to the web and got a record deal out of it. Now there's a studio version of "Womanizer" along with an official video. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'd rather listen to Britney.

I love Muppets - I own the box sets of The Muppet Show (with the disturbing fuzzy, Muppet-fur covers). I grew up on Sesame Street. So I'm loving the full court press on the 40th season. Wednesday night, Big Bird did Jimmy Kimmel's show. He's a surprising smartass for a 6-1/2 year-old.

Lady GaGa talked with the mothership MTV about her Gossip Girl appearance on November 19th. I've watched the video nine times, and while I have an idea of her wardrobe, darned if I know what she means when she describes the role.

For no real reason other than the fact that it came to mind today, EepyBird. These are the guys that gave use the famous Diet Coke/Mentos fountains. Here they take on Sticky Notes, and I hope that your office is this fun today.