People love Peeps! The marshmallow chicks and bunnys (and other characters for other holidays) are made by Just Born to fill Easter baskets. But Peeps are not just for eating. You can make them dance or fight, experiment with them, take them on trips, and use them for decoration or pranks. Recreating miniature scenes from life, pop culture, literature, and movies is the area where Peeps really shine!

Am I horrible for laughing at this one? The Day The Marshmallow Died: a plane crash kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Peeper. It’s from Great Scenes in Rock and Roll History, as re-enacted by marshmallow peeps.

Lord of the Peeps takes us through many chapters of the Rings Trilogy, portrayed by Peeps.

Peeps in Movies has some wonderful peep scenes from a 2005 competition, including Monty Peepon. There are also links to previous year’s contest entries.

More Peeps on parade, after the jump.

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Oh, boy. Do we really need more interaction while in freeway transit? Isn’t it enough when passengers hang out windows & pull vigorously whenever a semi passes? Isn’t “the wave” as you scoot into the jammed lane enough? Or how about “Report My Driving”? The people at SameLane want to play yenta while we’re wasting our fertile years perusing AM radio. See a Spider-driver you like? You’ll have to dial the SL headquarters, then punch in the plate numbers, and presto: you get the phone number of your uber-available hottie with that irresistible Detroit lean. Driving while texting and ogling–what could be better? Sigh.

In part 12 of our continuing photo/video essay on abandonment (no, we don’t have issues), we wanted to share some of the most haunting photos on Flickr from inside the wreckage of Detroit buildings. (There are, by the way, thousands; both wrecked buildings and photographs of them on Flickr.) Also, we’ve heard rumors of a small forest growing inside one of these buildings, but have been thus far unable to obtain proof positive or photos; anyone ever seen this?

Inside the Broderick Tower, a piano in need of tuning.

A door made William Eggleston green by time and vandals.

More after the jump.
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Real Simple is my wife’s second-favorite magazine. Each month she makes me a little smarter. This month, her passing of wisdom coincided with my blogging time. So let me channel her, and share some knowledge about the kitchen.

• “Did you know we should only be cooking with cold water?”
Hot water, you see, can leach lead out of pipes. Especially in older houses. Fusing pipes with lead was only made illegal in 1991. I have a sense my wife had an ulterior motive in telling me this. Our cold water faucet is leaking, and my solution had been to shut it off and exclusively use the hot. Anyone know a good plumber in North Jersey?

• “Hey, we can use the wooden cutting board for meat.”
I’ve always thought the grooves would get all meaty and gross and possibly toxic. But according to Real Simple, as long as I clean it with soap and really hot water, we’ll live to tell about it.

• “Let’s throw out all those plastic Chinese food containers.”
On occasion, I will transport leftovers using plastic containers we acquired through the purchase of Chinese food. At work, I will heat said leftovers in said containers. This is not a great idea. Certain additives used to make plastic more flexible can dissolve in food. Unless the plastic is FDA-labeled “microwave safe,” heat your food in other vessels.

The Dilemma: You find yourself at a Chinese restaurant craving cylindrical food. But of which variety?

Who You Can Impress: All the folks down at Hunan Garden. No longer do you need to hang your head in shame!

The Quick Trick: If it’s got a shell like a deep fried tortilla, it’s probably an egg roll. And if you’re thinking that deep frying tortillas is awfully American for Chinese food, you’re onto something.

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Continuing in my recent string of podcast tips, here’s another classic: Little Gray Books. Although it’s not currently being updated, the podcast features recordings from the Little Gray Books lecture series in New York. The lectures have been staged periodically since 2001, covering a wide variety of interesting and bizarre topics:

• Lecture #2: Hints on Public Singing
• Lecture #4: How Can We Possibly Go On
• Lecture #12: Great Rivalries in American Spelling
• Lecture #14: How to Speak With Strangers

Unfortunately the podcast only has a smattering of the total lecture series, but boy are they good. You can download the episodes individually (I recommend How to Generate a Winning Character as a good starting place). Also useful: iTunes podcast subscription link.

A note for fans — Little Gray Books is presented by John Hodgman, best known as the PC in the new Apple ads (he actually uses a Mac), and as the Resident Expert on The Daily Show.

This is a micro-short documentary I made a while back, which I thought I’d finally share here. This is how the AFI Silverdocs Film Festival blurbed it: “Super-8 films found in a shoebox give glimpses of a young man; all that remain of the father the filmmaker never knew.” Song by haunting blues songstress Geechie Wiley, recorded in the 1930s.

“Skinny Leg Blues”

Did you know that April Fool’s Day was widely popularized in this country by an unlikely source – President William McKinley? On April 1, 1897, McKinley convinced his staff that he was serious about nominating bitter rival William Jennings Bryan to the Supreme Court. The story appeared in several newspapers the following day, and McKinley had to release a statement saying he was only joking. He signed this statement, “April Fools, Bill McKinley.”

OK, that’s not true at all.
But April Fool’s Day is a free pass to lie and laugh about it, and it’s less than a week away.  The Museum of Hoaxes put together the definitive list of April Fool’s Day pranks. Here are a few:

#4. On April 1, 1996, Taco Bell ran this ad in The New York Times:

“In an effort to help the national debt, Taco Bell is pleased to announce that we have agreed to purchase the Liberty Bell, one of our country’s most historic treasures. It will now be called the ‘Taco Liberty Bell and will still be accessible to the American public for viewing. While some may find this controversial, we hope our move will prompt other corporations to take similar action to do their part to reduce the country’s debt.”

#6. On April 1, 1992, NPR’s Talk of the Nation with John Hockenberry played clips of Richard Nixon once again declaring his candidacy for President. His new slogan: “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I won’t do it again.” I have a hard time believing people really bought into this, but the Museum of Hoaxes says angry callers expressed their rage until Hockenberry revealed Rich Little was doing his famous Nixon impression.

#10. On April 1, 1976, British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur. Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth’s own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

#16. On April 1, 1933, in an effort to raise Depression Era spirits, The Madison-Capital Times announced that the Wisconsin state capitol building had been destroyed by a series of mysterious explosions. The explosions were attributed to “large quantities of gas, generated through many weeks of verbose debate in the Senate and Assembly chambers.” Accompanying the article was this picture.

See the rest of the Top 100 here.

First the refrigerator magnet, now this kitsch: a house about a mile away from the new one my wife and I are buying. I know what you’re thinking, some Photoshop trick. If only…! It’s the eyesore of the neighborhood, for certain.

And while on the subject of David—the real one sculpted between 1500 and 1505—anyone ever stop to wonder why old Michelangelo’s version wasn’t circumcised?

It’s Friday, and I’m regressing…My capacity to absorb information has undergone a bypass–I’m craving any kind of juvenilia; hence, the stats page of whitehousekids.gov!

We know Dubya loves his Mexican food, and the current administration’s kitchen recently survived the scrutiny of Tim Zagat & co., but here, in no particular order, is a look at what might have been going on in previous presidential incarnations:

THE FAVES:
Hoover: Sweet Potatoes w/ Toasted Marshmallows
Taft: Turtle Soup
Buchanan: Cabbage
Lincoln: Fruit Salad, Cheese, Crackers
Reagan: Jelly Beans
Jackson: Pancakes
Washington: Ice Cream & Fish
Jefferson: Ice Cream, Pancakes, Spoon Breads, Vegetables
(A) Johnson: Fish & Jam
Coolidge: Pancakes
Eisenhower: Vegetable Soup & Steak
(LB) Johnson: Ice Cream, Pancakes, Seafood, Spinach Soufflé, Sweet Potatoes w/Toasted Marshmallows