I'm not usually a PB fan, but the recharge station makes me want to steal the idea and make my own for like $4.37

Of course, I'll never actually do this.

Aw. JZ, that story is so typical. ::hugs JZ in mutual Rogerslove::

Totally Random: How cool is it that I am using the Bene Gesserit litany against fear in my class tonight?! I will subvert the mudanes...um, subversively?

Also, I'm listening to QI episodes on youtube while I write the class (because I can't get enough of Alan Davies, god help me please) and I just heard Stephen Fry say 'loomed up' in this great booming voice. Immediately thought of Pete. With whom I've never even had a pixeled conversation...how odd and wonderful the interbunny community is.

Mr. Rogers seems like he was a very nice man. Maybe it's a generational thing - I just didn't get into it. I loved Capt. Kangaroo and of course the Muppet Show. I totally cried when Jim Henson died (I was about 20).

Beej, there's a feature in today's Home section in the Post - the one where they advise people on what to do with a problem room. One of the things suggested is using magnetic chalkboard wall paint (also magnetic chalkboard primer) to paint a room in so that the entire walls can be used for notes, etc. Could be awesome ... or horrible. But they won't get mad if the kids color on the walls (as long as they use chalk).

_I_ need this paint. Having an entire 'notable' room would make my writing life so much easier.

Seriously, I'm going to go get that article. Thanks Todd!

_I_ need this paint.

Yeah, a friend of mine did her kid's room in chalkboard paint and confessed that she fantasized the whole time they lived in that house about kicking him out of that room to take it over as a study.

One of the blogs I follow (sounds like Lifehacker but I'm too lazy to be sure) had a bit the other week about making a 4x8 foot whiteboard out of the stuff they use to line super-cheap shower stalls. This is probably where I got my "hack my own charging station out of home depot materials and duct tape" fantasy, now that I think of it.

Thanks Tom and JZ. I LOVE Mr Rogers and always have. And it seems to run in the family. We don't watch the show regularly but every time Frances comes across his show (yes, they still air it on PBS) she wants to watch. We saw the Koko episode just the other day.

From the land of I'm Too Damned Lazy To Google: Colorado is Mountain time zone, yes?

First floor swept and mopped.

I? Am Mr. Mom.

Never mind.

I can't even think about Mr. Rogers for too long or I get all teary at how thoroughly, down to the bone decent he was, and how that decency was a kind of genius. The haters clearly have not seen or read anything of him in ages and are just working their hate off of fuzzy memories and a general pall of get-offa-my-lawn grumpitude. They make me want to say words that would make Mr. Rogers very disappointed in me so I won't say them, but it's hard not to.

He wouldn't be disappointed in you, JZ, just in your behavior.

Mr. Rogers died three weeks to the day after my father died. I didn't think my heart could take it. I don't know when I ever felt so alone. The two were already very connected in my mind. My father used to watch Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood with me. Sometimes he'd pretend he was King Friday. And I believe he enjoyed Lady Elaine Fairchild as much as he enjoyed Jonathan Winters and Peter Sellers.