There's an item on BoingBoing about a recent AP report that at certain cemeteries, hymns have been almost entirely replaced by secular songs as funeral music. And not secular like "Happy Birthday," but like "Stairway to Heaven" and "Highway to Hell." Among the top picks: "My Way" and "Wonderful World."

We've noticed this trend. We were at a wake once and the mix included - no joke - "Don't Get Around Much Anymore." Personally, we'd go for a little "Farther Along," or "Amazing Grace," but to each his or her own.

Anyone have any song requests, or any crazy funeral music anecdotes to share?

We thought that Happy Meal toy looked familiar . . .

BoingBoing has an item about the "New Wave Nigel" toy Mcdonald's is distributing as part of its American Idol promotion. The doll seems like a clear reference to Devo's signature look, down to the red tiered "energy dome" hat.

The likeness did not escape the band, who are now suing McDonald's for, we estimate, several gazillion dollars. Crack that whip!

Buzzfeed has a wacky story up (taglines: "crazy craigslist ads, milfs") about a woman named Deven Trabosh who is selling her Florida home for $344,000 and offering to stick around as a companion for an extra $500,000.

A single mother, she decided she was tired of dating sites and figured she'd just go the old-fashioned route and sell herself to the highest bidder.

Babble.com has up a list of the 26 most disturbing kid movies ever. Wow, did it bring back some terrifying memories. There are a few Disney movies on there, but one notable omission: The Fox and the Hound.

For my money, this is the hands-down most horrible children's film of all time. Themes: the death of parents and the inevitability that your best friend will one day try to kill you.

The Berlin Zoo is in trouble yet again. Spiegel Online reports that the zoo director, Bernhard Blaszkiewitz, had a goat from the petting zoo killed and fed to the zoo's wolves - in front of families visiting the zoo.

Or, as Der Spiegel rather dramatically put it: At the Berlin Zoo, it's a short distance between the petting zoo and the wolves' habitat. But it can apparently also be the distance between being lovingly caressed by children and being dismembered by bloodthirsty predators.

Did anyone else see Friday's 20/20 segment on the Indian girl born with eight limbs? If not, you should check out the National Geographic special scheduled for Sunday the 22nd.

The girl was born with an incredibly rare birth defect: a parasitic twin was attached to her by the pelvis, making her resemble the multi-armed goddess Lakshmi.

The family sought medical help for her, and doctors performed a very long surgery that succeeded in removing the extra limbs.

The million-dollar trial of two alleged drug conspirators was aborted when the judge realized almost half of the jurors were playing Sudoku while testimony was being given. What gave them away? "Taking notes" vertically.

We've been on long stretches of jury duty, so we sympathize with these jurors, who had been serving for 65 days already. But this was a serious breach of ethics. How were they going to make an informed decision about these mens' fate if they had tuned out half of the evidence? And now the $1 million the government spent on the trial is down the drain.

Author Rebecca Walker, daughter of Alice Walker (The Color Purple), has recently been quoted saying lots of awful things about her mother in an interview in The Daily Mail.

In what she's since called a tabloid-ization of her comments, she chronicled her mother's many failings and concluded that the fault for her childhood's dysfunction lay with anti-family feminism:

Yes, feminism has undoubtedly given women opportunities. It's helped open the doors for us at schools, universities and in the workplace. But what about the problems it's caused for my contemporaries?

Specifically, the piece suggests, Boomers' high divorce rate, their stress on career over family and their narcissism has led Generation Xers to be neurotic, and to wait too long to have babies.

You'd think that Bottle Rockets song about people substituting gasoline for kerosene in heaters would have educated the public about gas safety, but that band never got as famous as they should have.

So, here's a less melodic PSA: don't keep gas in your home!

According to SouthCoastToday.com, a Massachusetts couple trying to avoid paying $4/gallon kept 45 gallons of gasoline in jugs at their apartment. But their thriftiness had a high cost: the fumes caused a fire that could have burned down their whole apartment complex if it hadn't been for the quick work of the fire department.

http://view.break.com/513310 - Watch more free videos
BoingBoing posted this security video of a worker freaking out and throwing computers and office equipment around. (There's a second video with sound and color here.) Many of us who have worked in corporate settings can relate to his nervous breakdown.

Lauren Hutton, bless her crazy, crazy heart, is on another morning-show rampage. Three years ago, she went on the Early Show and blindsided the anchor with a bisexual confession. Here's our transcript of that exchange:

Hutton: "Governments everywhere are men, and it is ancient and insane and shameful."
Syler: "But let me-"
Hutton: "We've got to have half and half. That's how God made us, otherwise there's only one of us and probably us. But God knows we wouldn't have come up with bridges or airplanes or lots of stuff. You know, boys have great vision and they're fun in bed. But, so there's certain, fine things for them. It's true. I've been both places. I prefer men."

Now she goes on the Today Show and complains to Kathie Lee that men are all sluts (wha?) and that slutty gay men wrote Sex and the City (which is not exactly true . . . ) thereby encouraging women to be sluts too (um . . .). Here's the money quote:

Every time we channel surf past Larry King, he's asking someone something like, "So, string beans really cause cancer, huh?" And then not challenging their crackpot theory at all, except by inviting someone equally daffy to half-heartedly beg to differ. The only person we've seen King really press is Denise Richards, whom he scolded for cursing on her TV show. But this interview with a man claiming to have recorded an alien out his window five years ago lacks even more journalistic integrity than most.

Well, looks like Port St. Lucie kindergarten teacher Wendy Portillo won't be named Teacher of the Year. According to the Treasure Coast Palm, she handled a difficult child, five-year-old Alex Barton (pictured at right), in what she probably thought was a creative manner:

She encouraged the other children in the class to tell him why they didn't like him (e.g.: he's "disgusting" and "annoying") and then to vote on whether or not he should stay in class (they voted to kick him out, 14-2). And so he was forced to leave!

Why in the world would a teacher hand over control to a classroom of five-year-olds? If she thought he needed to leave the room, why didn't she just take the authority upon herself to send him to the principal rather than handing the decision over to an army of PlayDoh-eaters?

A German couple put their baby up for sale on eBay - and not one of those scary Reborn babies you usually see on the auction site, but a real seven-month-old boy. The starting price: one Euro (less than $2).

The ad read: "Offering my nearly new baby for sale, as it has gotten too loud. It is a male baby, nearly 28 inches (70 cm) long and can be used either in a baby carrier or a stroller."

This is a clip from a 2006 British documentary called Extraordinary Breastfeeding that we just spotted on Jezebel. Watch and be amazed: a woman decided to let her children wean when they were ready and they . . . just . . . never . . . . did. Or rather, they didn't until well into elementary school. And the nine-year-old says she misses it!

Here's marathon breastfeeder Veronika's defense of what she calls "full-term breastfeeding." An excerpt: