For those of you on campus for Thanksgiving--

--hello from Somerset, Mass. If you are bored enough to be reading Dem Apples right now, I assume it's because you're trapped in Cambridge over the holiday weekend, you poor thing. But don't worry. I spent Thanksgiving of my freshman year at Harvard, and I have two pieces of helpful advice for you:

1. Go to the HUDS thanksgiving dinner, which is happening RIGHT NOW (until 6:00, I think) in Adams House dining hall. I know you're skeptical about HUDS, but this meal is fantastic (at least, it was in 2005) and better than the Felipe's and Easy Mac you'll be poisoning yourself with for the rest of the week.
2. Don't do any schoolwork. You'll just make yourself sad. Instead, I advise playing Super Obama World, or perhaps Fancy Pants Adventure 2, both of which are just as much fun as they sound. (WARNING: these games may take over your life for a couple days.)

Take care of yourselves and we'll see you on Monday.

Sunday Screening

Are you ready to have your world rocked? Yes? Then watch this weirdly sleazy performance by Billy Joe Royal, who you might remember as the genius behind "Down in the Boondocks:"

That's "Cherryhill Park," a 1969 single which for some reason none of my friends have ever heard, even though it is clearly an oldies-radio staple (and if you knew this song before hearing it today, PLEASE comment so I don't feel like a crazy person). It's part of that weird, self-contained little subgenre of overdramatic horn-driven pop music that grew during the late 1960s -- the best example of which, to my mind, is the execrable 1968 hit "Young Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.

(Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, unquestionably, made the world worse for everyone who inhabited it. If "Young Girl" didn't persuade you, consider -- and I link this with hesitation, because it's probably a crime in some states -- "This Girl Is A Woman Now." There is some music which just deserves to be called "evil." ...I am digressing.)

Anyway, I want you to turn that song over in your mind a little bit; strip away Billy Joe's dirt-stache and awesome proto-disco moves, and concentrate on the tune. Specifically, sing to yourself: MAR-Y-HILL! SURE WAS FUN down in Cherryhill Paa-ark!, preferably so loudly that your roommates can hear you. Have you done it? No? Slackers. But let the tune sink into your mind for a bit anyway -- MAR-y-hill! -- and see if it doesn't turn into this:

Perhaps not. (It might only work if, like me, you sing horribly out of tune.) But I maintain that "Cherryhill Park" shares those three key notes with the opening notes of the immortal Theme from Super Mario Bros., by Koji Kondo. DOOP doop doop! Music is a wonderfully small world sometimes.

I'm going to leave it there, because I just can't resist the allure of my beckoning schoolwork -- but if you're in a Mario mood, you should enjoy both the famous Mario Frustration video (warning: very profane) and the lesser-known Hardest Mario Game Ever. (Just give them a chance. They grow on you, like weeds.) Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend, and this is an open thread.

This election just got so much more procrastinator-friendly

JOHN MCCAIN'S WEBSITE HAS A VIDEO GAME. LITTLE ELSE CAN BE SAID.

Actually, now that I've saved the American taxpayer over $7.7 billion in wasteful Congressional spending, I think I can afford (heh heh!) to be a little more verbose. Basically, some genius who had a bad, bad flashback to the 1980s created a "Space Invaders" knockoff called "Pork Invaders," in the hopes that cool kids would latch on to John McCain's embrace of tightwad status as a matter of principle. (In fact, I'm a lot less pro-earmarks than that particular bit of flippancy would probably suggest - but that's a discussion for later; I don't want to contaminate this sweet, sweet video game with... um... opinions.) The gameplay is simple, and predictable: instead of aliens, you are defending an unseen homeland, protected only by rather flimsy forts, against flying pigs. Not with wings, of course - they just jerk back and forth in tight formation. All the while, they are launching their assault on fiscal responsibility by - sorry, Mom, I don't think there's another word for this - crapping on you. Crapping little white arrows. Fortunately, if you can dodge the bombardment of pig dung, you can fire back with your veto power. Thank goodness for the floating McCain sign!

Of course, these days no game is complete without a lame educational message. In the case of "Pork Invaders," every time you finish a level (an election? a session of Congress? I must be thinking this through too thoroughly), a factoid pops up about how Barack Obama is a tax-and-spend liberal, and John McCain is the paragon of frugality. (Actually, judging by the innovative cost-cutting measures he's employed on his own campaign, he might well cut the budget as President - as long as you're cool with circumventing some laws and stuff.) By the time I got to the fourth level, I was inexplicably presented with a factoid about Obama's radical proposition that we engage in diplomacy by talking, rather than by national tantrum - I'm guessing that either they ran out of information, or they didn't expect the typical McCain voter to be very good at Space Invaders. In any case, the factoids started repeating after that, which is good, because the very next level, pigs crapped right through my shoddy defenses and onto my valiant Straight Talk Spaceship Express. Too bad - but go give it a play, you might be able to veto some more wasteful spending.

Hat tip to Tapped. Incidentally, Tapped occasionally features Dylan Matthews, a fellow intern from back when Obama had a snowball's chance in hell of winning the Democratic nomination, who will be arriving all young and idealistic-like on Harvard's campus this September. Hooray!