John McCain turns 72 today. Michael Jackson turns 50. Which would you rather trust with your kids? Which would you rather trust with your country? While you ponder those questions, let’s do the friday5.org Friday Five. 1. What was the last song that stuck in your brain and wouldn’t go away?While I was getting lunch around today, Madonna’s "Oh Father" got in my head and wouldn’t leave for some reason. I’m horrible about songs getting stuck in my head, seemingly out of nowhere; I think…

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She’s 45 today. Not much more to say other than let’s go to the friday5.org Friday Five. 1. What’s something really, really stupid you’ve done that could easily have resulted in your own death?You want me to name just one? I think the most recent one was when I tried to pass a car on a two-lane highway in rural Michigan during a pounding rainstorm. The car was going slower than necessary, but the rain was so hard I couldn’t see the lights of the…

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Today she would have been 96. Happy birthday, Julia Child, and thank you, however indirectly, for inspiring my love for cooking. (Julia was still on the air when I started watching Saturday afternoon cooking shows, but Jeff Smith and Mary Ann Esposito were my main influences there. Funnily enough I’m watching Simply Ming on PBS as I type this up.) Time for the friday5.org Friday Five. 1. What did you last replace batteries for?Yesterday I changed the batteries in a hair trimmer of mine, whose…

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I guess these same-number-date things stretch back further than I thought. It was on the date above that at Wrigley Field, for the first time, electric lights illuminated the field, for a game between the hometown Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies. The game was rained out after about three and a half innings, proving once and for all that there are, indeed, baseball gods. I don’t like the Friday Five this week, so I’ll substitute a meme ganked from Poppy Z. Brite’s LiveJournal instead.…

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I can’t pick the bigger contrast for today: Today is the anniversary of both the launch of MTV and the national launch of The Rush Limbaugh Show. It is also the birthday of both pioneering rapper Chuck D. and rapper-we’d-all-like-to-forget Coolio. Pick which one of the two you think is the funnier, then let’s play the friday5.org Friday Five. 1. Of television programs that aired before you were born, what’s your favorite?If I were born a couple of years later then I might have to…

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