CHEKIT: Bottom 10

It hasn't been this funny in awhile - but the latest Strong Bad E-mail is everything you love about Homestarrunner - with even some booty shakin' thrown in.

CHEKIT: Diagnosis - GAY.

CSOTD directed us over to this important health news update from The Swift Report.

TOPEKA, KS—When Marybeth Witty stumbled upon her husband Dale watching a pornographic video on the internet, she knew something was wrong. Instead of looking at images of nude high school cheerleaders and young shaved lesbians as he often had in the past, the 37-year old auto parts salesman was taking in hot guy-on-guy action. "As soon as I saw what he was looking at I knew something was different," said Marybeth, a part-time manicurist who enjoys scrapbooking. "This was not the same Dale."

This news couldn't have come at a more providential time - my grandfather is about to get a kidney from a Republican.

CHEKIT: "green light no holds barred"

I had no idea this part of Craigslist even existed, but Ninjaburger sent me this post from their Best Of section - reading it, I felt like a seventh grader – a seventh grader about to experience a mother-related, fart-anecdote-induced embolism accompanied by incontinence and abdominal cramping, that is:

You have to understand, the fart is so rotten that you can't even pretend you don't notice it. It's unavoidable. It's like a human stink bomb. So of course everybody is standing in line wanting answers to the same question which is, "Who farted?" Everybody starts looking at each other like they are playing the board game Clue. This is actually my favorite part of going to Costco with my mom. She should get an Academy Award for every time she farts and then plays like she didn't do it. She'll start lookin' around, everybody else is looking at eachother, it's basically like a game of Texas Hold 'Em. Some people even become animated and start pulling their shirts up over their noses. My mom just looks around like, "Oh dear, who farted?" She knows it's her! The least she can do is apologize.

CHEKIT: Orisinal

Ferry Halim designs games that look like watercolor illustrations from children’s books, and have the subdued, hypnotic charm of a musical kaleidoscope. They’re also crazily addictive and fun to play.

CHEKIT: Diner Dash

All the fun of restaurant entrepreneurship without the 16-hour days and bribing health inspectors. Give it a go.

CHEKIT: Neuron Network Goes Awry, and Brain Becomes an IPod

I think this would be disorienting at first, and kind of cool for an hour or two – and then it would drive me absolutely donkey-piss crazy-go-nuts:

Seven years ago Reginald King was lying in a hospital bed recovering from bypass surgery when he first heard the music.

It began with a pop tune, and others followed. Mr. King heard everything from cabaret songs to Christmas carols. "I asked the nurses if they could hear the music, and they said no," said Mr. King, a retired sales manager in Cardiff, Wales.

"I got so frustrated," he said. "They didn't know what I was talking about and said it must be something wrong with my head. And it's been like that ever since."

Whenever I read about an illness as fascinating and freakish as this one, I’m afraid my own body - bored with its pedestrian gastroenterological mishaps - will spontaneously develop a similar malady. Although, with my luck, my brain would play “Hollaback Girl” in a continuous loop until I managed to drive a wooden spoon handle deep enough into my left nostril.

Anyway – Good luck to you, Mr. King.

POLITIK: Worse than Watergate

Frankie makes the case that the current conservative crazy-dog crisis biting the help and digging up the peonies in the Fourth Estate is a bloody damn mess:

When John Dean published his book "Worse Than Watergate" in the spring of 2004, it seemed rank hyperbole: an election-year screed and yet another attempt by a Nixon alumnus to downgrade Watergate crimes by unearthing worse "gates" thereafter. But it's hard to be dismissive now that my colleague Judy Miller has been taken away in shackles for refusing to name the source for a story she never wrote. No reporter went to jail during Watergate. No news organization buckled like Time. No one instigated a war on phony premises. This is worse than Watergate.

He goes on to call Time a bunch of punk-ass chumps. Or words to that effect.

CHEKIT: Hey! It's Ron Howard's Brother!

Fametracker's "Hey! It's That Guy!" feature takes the time to recognize the scrappy character actors leading comfortable, if not US-Weekly-worthy, existences playing wiseguys and cops and two-bit hoods.

Or, as in the case of Clint Howard, oddly menacing man-boys.

Let FT give Opie's brother his due, as MTV did a few years back. And enjoy.

MUZIK: Feast on Feist

Listen. There's nothing wrong with Rachael Yamagata. I bought her album. I like it. It's fine. But lemme tell you: Rachael Yamagata is to Leslie Feist as a Chicken McNugget is to a plate of homemade buttermilk fried chicken.

Tofu-pimp John has an interview with the perfect confluence of Astrud Gilberto, Fiona Apple, and Blossom Dearie over at the Hut. Did I mention she lived with Peaches at one point? Get going.

CHEKIT: Go Fug Yourself.

I don't normally go in for celebrity snarkiness, but how can one resist when the snark's so damn funny? Take the caption for the photo above, for instance:

The thing I like best about Lil' Kim is her delicate grasp of decorum and modesty.

The two women who run and write this blog sound like more clever, more biting Joan and Melissa Riverses. And their posts never fail to address the surreal nature of celebrity worship alongside the oftimes less-than-glamorous nature of celebrity fashion. Lines are crossed on a regular basis - but they seem to argue with their demeanor "haven't outfits like these pushed us over the edge? Don't we have an obligation to humanity to respond?"

"Dear Ben and Girl:

I am writing a note from my very important tour of venues that don't make me sing more than three songs, which Marc says is my limit, because I am filled with glee. Because, aha, lookit here! You will be shocked to learn that, even if you have the Bennifer II, it is I who has the Electric Boogaloo! The flatness of my abs makes fireworks ejaculate! Good luck getting your stretch marks to have that effect on Ben, girlie!

Oh, and have fun wearing caftans, while I am in daring gold lame harness-looking-thingies that I had George Lucas make me so that I would look like a lounge singer in that alien bar from Episode IV: Jedi From The Block, or whatever that thing was that the kids love. Hip! I am hip. I tried to sew cinnamon rolls onto my head for the costume, but they made Marc cry and go binge on peas. Sometimes I don't understand him, but then I realize that's because he is choking on something and I have to Heimlich some embalming fluid out of his chest. I don't know how that keeps getting in there! But that has nothing to do with you and your stupid bloated uterus, nor my super hot capri pants with a big X that marks exactly where you can BITE me, Special Agent Sydney Crisco! Ha ha ha!

Now shut up and let me stop writing. It's time for me to stop doing my Nutcracker ballet -- wait, why does that always make Marc giggle? Ben Assfleck, why does Marc always say how appropriate that is? Ben?..."

Go on over and wish 'em a happy birthday.

BOOK: I'm a Nestle Crunch man, myself.

With the new movie coming out, The New Yorker chimes in with a look back at the man who brought us the Everlasting Gobstopper - and his work:

...the essence of Dahl is his willingness to let children triumph over adults. He is a modern writer of fairy tales, who intuitively understands the sort of argument that Bruno Bettelheim made in his 1976 book, “The Uses of Enchantment.” Children need the dark materials of fairy tales because they need to make sense—in a symbolic, displaced way—of their own feelings of anger, resentment, and powerlessness. Children also benefit from learning about violence and brutishness in fairy tales, Bettelheim writes, for it counters the “widespread refusal to let children know that the source of much that goes wrong in our life is due to our natures—the propensity of all men for acting aggressively, asocially, selfishly.” Many fairy tales—and most of Dahl’s work—are complex narratives of wish fulfillment. They teach the reader, Bettelheim writes, that “a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence—but if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.” Or, in any case, this is a hopeful fantasy which sustains us all.

I know some folks will like the lighter, slightly less loony, more musical Gene Wilder take on Willy Wonka. But I'd argue that if the new film is closer to Dahl's work in tone, it will benefit, like chocolate, from being darker.

BOOK: Security measures tighter than the front of Harry's pants when he's thinking about Hermione.

When it comes to JKR's next installment in the Harry Potter series, the publishers aren't taking any chances:

Scholastic has closely policed the companies with which it works to produce and distribute the book. It requires many of them and their customers, including librarians and the managers of individual stores, to sign affidavits promising that they will not release the book prematurely and will undertake all necessary security efforts.

At each of Amazon.com's five order-fulfillment centers, for example, the books are kept in a restricted area that workers need a special pass to enter, where they are watched by security guards and are not allowed to carry anything in or out.

Needless to say, with the way the books have been expanding, there's no need for a cavity search. Though I'm sure some people have thought about it.