Rename next Wednesday “Wowsday” and really make a point of kicking out the jams.

Cars should be rubber.

Is there a way to use the word “branding” that will not bring the apocalypse closer? Investigate.

Something called a “beer slide” could be amazing.

Convincing well-intentioned college girls to have unprotected, no-strings sex because it would supposedly help end the war in Vietnam is such a fiendishly opportunistic boondoggle it sounds like it was dreamed up by the Rand Corporation.

Something with lasers.

If all creationists were exterminated, would nature evolve them back into the population? File under “thought experiment,” mark for further study.

Come up with reason to have press conference.

Resolve to hug 100 Muslims every July 4th.

Come up with next year’s “something is the new other thing,” apply for patent for the first thing.

Run for office. Run from office. Create yearly 5k fun run based on either idea (charity optional). (Side note to self: schedule regular exercise regimen.)

Experiment where I carry a guitar around my neck 24/7 like those burnouts on the beach, try it for a week, see if it results in better or worse songs.

Another cup of coffee would be a great idea. Rewards! Always a great motivator. (Good job, me.)

Something with injection molding? Possibly synergize with laser idea.*

Gentlemen’s club, but require patrons to dress like real late-19th century gentlemen. Monocle, cape or spats: must have at least one.

Take muffin flavors outside the box with new “art muffin” shop that features grass ‘n’ gravel muffins, double-chocolate nickel muffins (with real nickels). Flagship product could be Alarm Clock muffin with fully functioning alarm clock baked inside.

Brainstorm ways to popularize my phrase “They’re going to the zoo at two, and all their friends will go there too,” as a way to teach correct spelling of they’re/their/there and too/two/to. Incorporate some more commonly misspelled words, extend into a poem/song/musical about spelling.

There are people outside my house with guns who want to kill me.

*note: injection-molded laser-based security system

In a story that has electrified Christians worldwide, an image that appears to be the face of Jesus Christ has been discovered within another image of the face of Jesus Christ.

Believers and reporters alike have begun flocking to the Cathedral of St. Genesius in Colorado Springs, CO — specifically to the northeastern corner of the church, which features a small enclosed altar for private worship before an icon of Jesus. It is within the details of this icon’s face that another, smaller image of Jesus has been discovered.

“I’ve been coming here for years,” says Sabrina Thwaite, 78, who first recognized the image late Sunday afternoon. “After mass, I always go to brunch. Then after brunch, I come back to the church to say my rosary at the little altar.” Staring into the icon, she began to feel “possessed by the holy spirit” and started studying a detail she had never paid attention to in the shading just under the left eye. “And then it just sort of appeared to me, clear as day. I can’t believe I hadn’t seen it for all these years!”

“It is certainly a blessing we are proud to have in our church,” says Fr. James Bellamy, who has led mass at St. Genesius for 23 years. “That being said, it has caused certain, er… logistical difficulties, so to speak.”

The difficulties that Fr. Bellamy so delicately refers to are the non-stop stream of visitors and worshipers who now crowd the the northeastern corner of the church at all hours, making regular church business all but impossible. As of last week, regular services at St. Genesius have been indefinitely postponed, and the congregation now meets in the basement of the much smaller St. Alban’s, three blocks away.

Back at St. Genesius, the church has made changes to accommodate the crowds. Portable toilets have been placed in the opposite corner of the cathedral to accommodate worshipers who wait up to four hours in a long line that snakes around pillars and pews. Within the tiny dark enclosure, which holds up to four people, a special new kneeling bench has been placed so that one visitor at a time can sit just inches from the painting, whose newly discovered detail is featured by a narrow spotlight.

“It was amazing,” says Linda Carter of Birmingham, England after emerging from the tiny enclosure. “I’ve been a Christian all my life, but I suppose in a way I’ve been waiting for a confirmation of my beliefs. And this is it, undoubtedly. They say you find things where you least expect them, but that’s not always true. It’s as though he’s just popped out and said ‘It’s me!’”

In a rambling, hastily arranged press conference Monday, embattled American Apparel CEO Dov Charney addressed multiple charges of sexual harassment from his female employees by claiming his behavior was actually a misunderstood ironic commentary on ’70s and ’80s styles.

“But you know, clearly no one ‘got it’,” Charney said in a mocking tone, making air quotes with his fingers. “So y’know…” he chuckled, burying his hands in his pockets, his voice trailing off as he looked into the distance. “I guess, whatever.”

Waving away questions with a supercilious scowl as if he smelled something unpleasant in the room, Charney continued emphatically. “People don’t get it, see? When I’m, like, calling my female employees ‘sluts’ or ‘cunts’ or, like…  locking one of the girls in my apartment and forcing her to have sex with me, I don’t, actually like… mean it, really. It’s more like ‘unhh, look at me, I’m some creep from a ’70s porno’” he said, adopting a low, growly voice. “‘Ohh, look at my porno mustache, check out these weird ’80s glasses… they’re so cool, right?’ You know, like vintage old-school sex-predator shit.” He sneered, chuckling to himself, “It’s not like I’m actually forcing a girl to suck my dick, right? I’m like, ‘forcing‘ a girl to ‘suck my dick‘ or whatever. See?”

“It’s an artistic comment, man. That’s my thing, you know? Real in-your-face stuff that freaks out the latter-day Puritans in this country. Like, um… Artaud, hel-lo? Heard of him?” Charney let out an exaggerated sigh, shaking his head. “Y’know, it’s like no one has read any books or seen any movies or anything. Lars Von Trier does, like, edgy sexual stuff all the time and you don’t see girls getting on his case. It’s like… just fucking read some Foucault, man. Read some Derrida.”

It’s been a well-known fact among musicians since the early 20th century: you’ve got to pay your dues to play the blues. However, thanks to recent changes that price may soon not be so high.

“I just feel it’s a real disservice to erect a paywall between today’s young musicians and this vital American art form,” said 28-year-old Dylan Zimmer, recently named director of the Office of American Rural Arts, a little-known division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which for decades has been tasked with the collection of dues. “It’s high time we chucked out the old, exclusionary system and moved things toward more of an interactive, open-source model.”

Created in 1928 by the Hoover administration, the OARA was formed when the popularity of so-called “race records” was booming as a way for white America to profit from the primarily African-American music phenomenon. Initially a secretive shadow organization, it was staffed by the strange bedfellows of white Southern establishment officials and a number of prominent Jewish anthropologists from Manhattan’s West Village. In the early 1950s, the department was discovered and completely overhauled. It subsequently flourished under black leadership through the halcyon days of the blues revival.

“For years, the office was funded from the dues of guys like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Son House,” said Bob Johnson, Jr., who headed up OARA from 1958-1969. “We’re talking significant dues.” With the 1960s came a sudden flood of interest in the blues, and more money. “We saw an astronomical jump in revenue, just unbelievable. Hundreds of thousands of young middle-class white kids were crazy about the blues and equally motivated to pay their dues. They were all so curious — what exactly were the dues, could we take a personal check, how soon could they receive confirmation of having paid… we could barely keep up with the administrative work alone.”

In a familiar story, however, the excesses of the ’60s precipitated a downfall. Over the course of the following decade, OARA became a bloated behemoth, rife with corruption, lack of oversight and redundancy.

“You had these bands in the ’70s supposedly releasing blues records,” scoffs rock critic Jim Christie, “and my God, they were just awful. So you’d ask around, like… have these guys paid their dues, man? And miraculously they had… either with the drummer’s trust fund, or through someone’s uncle who was a mid-level flunky at OARA cutting them a deal. But it just wasn’t the same.”

A combination of scandal, financial mismanagement and deep budget cuts during the Reagan-Bush era left the office with a skeleton crew.

“We hardly had the budget to keep the lights on,” laughs Dick Springfield, who saw the office through some lean years. “So when someone like Robert Cray came along, frankly we were just happy to have some revenue to justify our existence. But though it kept us afloat temporarily… how shall I say… it did not exactly burnish our reputation. I swear, I spent most of the ’80s hiding in Port-a-Pottys at blues festivals so I wouldn’t have to answer questions from the press.”

These days, funding comes from many sources. Thanks to Zimmer’s changes, dues can now be paid online, or bundled with VIP memberships to any number of co-branding partners like SonicBids, CDBaby and MySpace. “Starbucks, for example, has been an absolutely invaluable partner,” says Zimmer. “Now with the purchase of ten grande Frappucinos, you’ve officially paid your dues and can play the blues! It’s quite a change from our parents’ and grandparents’ days when you had to, I dunno… hop freight trains or drink wood alcohol or something. Some really toxic, dysfunctional stuff.”

“You know, not exactly forgotten,” said Graeme Ryder, PhD making air-quotes with his fingers in a press conference Monday, “We’re just kinda saying that these days it seems like the original meaning has been, like… literally forgotten, you know?”

“Of course,” Ryder assured the audience with a chuckle, “we all still totally know what the word means.” However, when pressed by reporters on the actual meaning, Ryder appeared literally brain-dead. “It kinda means ‘really’…” he said, his voice modulating upward as if asking a question, “but just sort of… different, you know? Like, extra-really. Stronger somehow.” He assured reporters that his organization was looking into it, with books and things.

Monday’s announcement from the EWSI has literally set the academic world ablaze with real flames, like, literally licking up the sides of it. “I’m stunned. It’s like I literally have no idea what is happening,” said an incredulous Linda Snell, head of  the English Studies department at Harvard and literally the queen of these kinds of things, like with an actual crown and everything. “It’s like I’m hearing the words, but they’re literally going in one of my ears, out the other and boom, falling right onto the floor. I, no shit, literally want to die right now. Like lie down on the floor of my office and literally die.”

Outside of academia however, the announcement was met with a resounding whatever. “Yeah, I heard something about it on the news,” said Alice Aldridge, 23, of St. Cloud, MN. “I couldn’t believe how serious they sounded and stuff! It was literally like a bomb had dropped or something.” Asked if a bomb had dropped, Ms. Larkin’s eyes literally popped out of her skull and she proceed to literally laugh her head off, like plop, clean off of her body. “No you idiot, a bomb didn’t, like, drop on anyone!” she scoffed, giving this reporter a playful shove. “What are you, stupid?! I said it was literally like a bomb had dropped.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4uDQHAEASU

For more, please follow @meganamram on Twitter.

For John Briggs of Berkeley, California, the realization came a few months ago at a downtown nightclub. “I was out at a bar with some friends. The DJ dropped that Justin Timberlake track and boom — we were all immediately out on the dance floor.” The joy was quickly replaced with embarrassment though. “I turned around and suddenly I’m face-to-face with an old friend from the swing dancing scene. It was really awkward at first. I stopped going to those dances, gosh… five years ago or so. And that scene used to be like, my life. These days I don’t even own a decent zoot suit. Frankly, I don’t think I’d have the strength to throw a girl in the air.”

Briggs’ story is increasingly familiar nowadays, as 1990s hipsters who revived old styles from the dustbin of history are now giving them up in record numbers. The reversal of this trend is leaving the remaining stalwarts in the awkward position of being, well… forgotten.

“I thought it so cool that circuses were coming back,” says Emma Wheeler, on the phone from her cubicle in a Chicago call center. “Fire eaters, aerialists, all that stuff. It was so weird and old and totally ours.” These days her remaining friends in Cirque du Sinister, where she spent most of her 20s swallowing swords, are battling not only financial problems but popular irrelevance. “These days it all seems, I dunno… just weird and old.”

“I’m pretty sure our freakshow isn’t exploitative,” says Corneilius The Mystyrious, nee Justin Fox, whose Austin-based touring company Freaks! Unlimited has recently fallen on hard times. “But it’s getting harder to convince people with rare medical conditions they should quit their jobs, get in a van with us and go on tour. It’s damn near impossible these days to find a midget — ” Fox hesitated for a moment, “sorry: little person — who’s not gonna report us to some kinda advocacy group.” However, Fox does find his situation somewhat bittersweet. “It has put us in the position of being, y’know… legitimately obscure. Which is pretty ironic, come to think of it… which I guess makes it cool?” he says, looking uncertain. “Mostly though, it just sucks.”

@NASA vs. Neil

Wed Mar 2 02:27:36 2011
Mission Control woke up the crews at 5:24 am EST to begin Flight Day 7. “Speed of Sound” by Coldplay was played for shuttle Pilot Eric Boe.

Cats demanding breakfast with loud meows, scratching at door began 05:45 PST. Song in head is inexplicably Billy Ocean’s “Caribbean Queen”.

Wed Mar 2 03:29:20 2011
Spacewalk begins at 10:18a ET – preps underway now on NASA TV & http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

Rent past due. Post office closes at 17:30 PST, so early breakfast is a must. An unexpected Staples run for envelopes will make timing tight.

Wed Mar 2 04:34:53 2011
@antoinehl Spacewalkers breathe pure oxygen before they go outside to help purge nitrogen from their blood – prevents the bends.

@antoinehl Unclear why a daily visit to an expensive coffee shop brimming with L.A. douchebags is required — research is ongoing.

Wed Mar 2 05:40:18 2011
Crew members inside the station’s Quest airlock are troubleshooting a minor leak in Steve Bowen’s spacesuit. Bowen is in no danger.

Unscheduled stop at an intersection deciding whether to participate in the trending topic #teamsheen. Other motorists will get over it.

Wed Mar 2 06:02:47 2011
Astronauts are only 15 minutes behind schedule and the spacewalk still could begin on time at 10:18 am EST

“Caribbean Queen” earworm still persists. Attempting mindhack by freestyle rapping under breath, introducing other Billy Ocean singles.

Wed Mar 2 09:17:32 2011
Riding atop the station’s robotic arm, Steve Bowen retrieved a lightweight adapter plate assembly from outside the Columbus module.

Finally seated at desk at 13:17 PST, a comprehensive review of Facebook updates has begun. Commenting begins, is debated, curtailed.

Wed Mar 2 10:29:25 2011
Alvin Drew removed insulation from the avionics assembly on the ELC-4 and moved a sunshade away from the lens of a video camera near ELC-4.

Friend has called. 20 min chat re: True Grit, microphones, recent divorces. Phone call w/ parents considered, postponed. Scan boingboing.net

Wed Mar 2 13:48:28 2011
Spacewalkers are wrapping up today’s spacewalk — they’re back inside the hatch.

Severe onset of “4 o’clock shame” syndrome. Work furiously engaged in. Bolt into kitchen for snack break, run back. Cats confused.

Wed Mar 2 14:11:30 2011
This was the 155th spacewalk supporting station assembly & maintenance, totaling 973 hours, 53 minutes, equal to 40 full days of spacewalks.

GF returns from job. Dinner, beers. Larry Sanders SE1 discovered on Netflix. Awake again 03:41 PST, read @robdelaney tweets til 04:12 PST, sleep.