News You Can Bruise for 2005 December 5

On the satelite radio on the way to Bakersfield we heard the title song for Jesus Christ Superstar. I noted that it sounded like it was being played by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. This opened up a fruitful discussion about a Muppet version of Jesus Christ Superstar. The problem is that Big Bird would have to play Jesus, for the same reasons he would have to play Gandalf in the Muppet Lord of the Rings, and I don't think Big Bird could carry a whole Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

So I proposed that the Muppets could do the book of Acts instead. That's more of an ensemble piece, so it would work better. Plus that makes it possible for Kermit to play the part of Paul, which is excellent because the Muppet Panic was invented to depict the conversion of Paul.

We went to a craft store the other day and I was looking at the aisles of scrapbooking stuff (when I was a kid there was no scrapbooking stuff at the craft store!) when I had an idea. The main problem with scrapbooks is that they're big bulky physical objects, and the cute stickers that go into them are incredibly expensive to buy or time-consuming to construct.

What if there were a DTP program for scrapbooking? Something like Kai's Power Tools that simulated the experience of real scrapbooking, except you ended up with a web page you could share, and you didn't have to buy those decorative scrapbooking accessories--you could use clip art. It would not be nearly as complicated as a normal DTP program.

Like my previous scrapbooking idea, this one is probably already implemented. But there's always the possibility that no one would actually want this, in which case the field is probably wide open.

Sometimes I post here Project Gutenberg texts where you can get a story if you read the names of the illustrations. This list of illustrations forms a story because almost every sentence in the story has an illustration to go with it.

• "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
  Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore."
• "Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
  And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor."
• "Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
  From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore."
• "Sorrow for the lost Lenore."

Really plays merry hell with the meter though.