And here, via Fimoculous is Michael Jackson, Prince, and James Brown on stage together. It's about as great as you think it should be.

The only way to think about the Liberian Girl video is that there's never been a star with more pull than Michael Jackson. Liberian Girl is a single that wasn't even released in the US and he was able to wrangle the group below to appear in the video. These are the kings and queens of the mid-eighties!

Paula Abdul, Rosanna Arquette, Dan Aykroyd, Mayim Bialik, Bubbles, Jackie Collins, David Copperfield, Emily Dreyfuss, Richard Dreyfuss, Corey Feldman, Lou Ferrigno, Debbie Gibson, Danny Glover, Steve Guttenberg, Jasmine Guy, Whoopi Goldberg, Sherman Hemsley, Olivia Hussey, Amy Irving, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Beverly Johnson, Quincy Jones, Don King, Virginia Madsen, Olivia Newton-John, Brigitte Nielsen, Lou Diamond Phillips, Ricky Schroder, Steven Spielberg, Suzanne Somers, John Travolta, Blair Underwood, Carl Weathers, Billy Dee Williams, "Weird Al" Yankovic

A simple idea (that I haven't seen on other newspaper websites), but it's neat that the Daily Mail website has a button on articles that will allow you to schedule the article to be emailed to you at a future time of your choosing.

Boston Magazine skewers Ben Mezrich's Facebook book, which is supposed to come out in a few weeks. The book, which was optioned as a movie that is being written by Aaron Sorkin, apparently makes a lot of things up, which makes it just like all of Mezrich's other books. (I still haven't figured out what the difference between Bustin Vegas and Bringing Down the House is.)

What I wish someone would write is a book about whether Mark Zuckerberg is the worst CEO ever using many of Facebook's shortsighted and herkyjerky decisions of the last 18 months as evidence. In 10 years, it will be surprising if people don't think about Facebook the way people think about AOL now.

Via Universal Hub, news about a Boston start up that is looking for financing in order to bring bike sharing to Boston.

Good. Bad.

You might look at this visualization of the branches of life and think 'Wow, the protostomes make up a big part of the pie," while I look at it and say, 'Wow, that's an alarmingly large slice of the pie for sharks."

Here's the video of the 70 year old Mayor of Toledo breaking up a fight and awesomely calling a kid a fatso.

I was never a Sunny Day Real Estate superfan, but if you are/were, Perfect Lines has been aces covering the latest news and rumors culminating in what looks like an announcement about a reunion tour this week.

Our cats have always been people cats, hanging around where we are and coming excitedly to greet us at the door when we get home. Unless, that is, they fell asleep in a box or on a pile of laundry. So last night when only James greeted us after we got back from dinner, it was strange, but not terribly concerning because sometimes it takes the cats a moment to wake up and stretch before checking in. It did get weird when we started calling for Charlie and he didn't come, I don't know if he knew his name, but he always came when called. And it was downright worrying when J shook the catnip container and still nothing.

We heard a noise in the bedroom a couple hours earlier, right before leaving for dinner, peeked in, but didn't see him and assumed he had scrambled under the bed. I think that noise was Charlie saying goodbye to us before we left. Last night, Charlie passed away under a chair in our bedroom. He was about to turn 5 and he was a part of our family for four years and eight months. I know there are much bigger things going on in the world right now, but Charlie and James were a giant part of MY world and I'm simply crushed. I know there will be greater heartaches in my future, though just now, I can look at every single spot in my house and there's something that reminds me of Charlie and breaks my heart fresh.

I called my brother because I had no idea what to do and he called Jon who called Angell Memorial Pet Hospital. They told us we could bring Charlie in and they'd take care of him, or 'we could do it ourselves'. Seth went home to get a shovel because it seemed fitting to bury this unique cat (without asking anyone) in the gravel parking area - the only yard area we could think of, without taking him to the park across the way. I picked a corner of the lot that was actually an unused garden square. I had unsuccessfully tried to grow catnip there last year, but it was too shady. I wasn't sure what was under the bed, but it became clear pretty quickly that the soil was too full of leveling rocks, bricks and concrete to dig a deep enough hole. And while I liked the idea of secreting him away in the back without the other condo owners knowing (it fits Charlie's personality), I was terrified I wouldn't be able to dig a deep enough hole. In order to have something of him to look out on, we buried a couple of saw dust mice and some catnip. We were going to also bury his favorite bell toy, but I needed to keep it with me for now. We decided to take him to Angell and Jon insisted on driving us over, which was good, because I can't get around Jamaica Plain without getting desperately lost.

As most pets do, Charlie had several names that we used interchangeably. Because of his pink nose, we called him Strawberry until we settled on Charlie, and his first veterinarian still refers to him as such. We had always known James was going to be named James, and I had got it into my head that our second cat would be named Notjames. This was vetoed, though Notjames was one of his names. As were Charles, Chuck, Chucho, Chuchi, Portulaca, Little Guy, Guy, Little Boy, Cat, Peapod, Chili, Silly, Buddy, and ever since watching Deadwood, any number of the foulest curse words you can string together. We settled upon Charlie after hearing the name on an episode of West Wing because the name Charlie perfectly matched his character.

Leaving one last humorous (though morbid) memory for us, Charlie's legs had stiffened while we were out and he couldn't fit in the boot box that had been his bed. We took Charlie to Angell, wrapped awkwardly because of his legs, in a fleece blanket he and James had claimed as a favorite every winter. When I brought him out to the car there was another light moment when Jon and I tried to decide whether he should ride in the backseat or the trunk. Charlie kind of hated riding in the car, but we didn't want his last ride to be in the trunk, so he rode up front with us. When we got to Angell, I carried Charlie in and they put us in Exam Room #4 so we could fill out the registration form. A general cremation at Angell costs $55 and if you've never been there, it's $11 extra for registration, which seems odd considering. After finishing the registration we said goodbye again, one last time. (Over the course of the evening I count 7 goodbyes that I thought would be final: before calling my brother, before my brother came over, after my brother left to get a shovel, before trying to dig a hole, after trying to dig a hole, before wrapping Charlie in the blanket, and just before getting out of the car at Angell.) We unwrapped Charlie and folded the blanket to take home with us. It is James' favorite, too, after all. We looked at the cats up for adoption, the cute black twins, the cat with the Hitler mustache, looked into Exam Room #4 to see Charlie seemingly asleep peacefully on the exam table, and left.

His last day was like any other. He got thrown out of the bedroom in the middle of the night for creating a ruckus, but then came back in the morning and visited us on the bed. He slept a little here and there. Charlie sat purring across J's arms while she was at the computer, and he stretched out for a nap with me, resting his head on my arm, his body snuggled parallel to mine, me rubbing his stomach. This was my absolute favorite thing to do with him. James and Charlie sprinted around the condo, chasing each other before wrestling and licking each other until they got bored. While I was getting ready to leave, he jumped up on the toilet while I was brushing my teeth and I scratched his head one last time. If he had been there when we got home to watch TV, he undoubtedly would have sat with his chest resting on the arm of the easy chair, his legs off to either side like he was riding a horse.

Charlie was unique and charming, handsome and eminently photogenic, sweet, and hilarious, endearing and smart. Everyday he did something or struck a pose, lounging in a way that made us laugh, and everyday he came over and spent some quality time with each of us. He was a big cat, but not fat, and he was a Hemingway, which means he had an extra toe on each front foot. He had long hair, softer than any other cat, and J will tell you he was the best smelling cat she ever knew.

I'm crushed. I'm in shock and disbelief that I'll never see him again and I'm angry that he passed away so young and so suddenly without any warning. I'm happy that he had a great last day, that I was part of it, and that we had almost 5 years together because he was wonderful. And I'm happy that he apparently didn't suffer. I was lucky to have a cat as friendly and affectionate as Charlie, and I have a physical pain in my chest from missing him.

This has gone long and gets longer, but I'm not sorry. If I couldn't use my blog to write an indulgent eulogy for Charlie, a document I'll use to remember him always and to tell the world how amazing he was, it would all be a waste of time. I acknowledge it's weird to write this much about a cat, but I couldn't sleep and wrote most of it in my head before getting out of bed after 4 hours (plus, Charlie was awesome). Honestly, I don't where all this emotion came from. I knew I loved the hell out of Charlie, and he knew I did, but I didn't know it was this much. Finally, I support any pet owner's right to grieve in this manner and should you put your memories on the internet, I will read them and likely get choked up. What follows is a long list of memories and quirks that stick out for me. I'd write down his entire life if I could. Feel free to skim.
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