Don’t mind me, kids — I’m just clearing out a folder marked “Weird/Amusing/Interesting Stuff I’d Like to Blog About But Probably Won’t Get Around To.” Perhaps you’ll find something here that will strike enough of your fancy to warrant a click-through:

• Lego model of Han Solo in Carbonite (to go with the Lego Attack Cruiser I blogged about a while back)
• BBC story about the 11-year-old girl who gave the planet Pluto its name (she’s now 87)
• New York Times article about Japan’s hikikomori, young people who completely withdraw from society and spend years sequestered inside their childhood bedrooms (you may need to register to see this one — sorry)
• The latest on the future of LA’s landmark hot-dog stand, Tail o’ the Pup (currently in the path of a proposed gay-and-lesbian retirement center)
• Published editions of all of J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5 scripts now on sale (not a huge B5 fan myself, but these look like good reads, with lots of yummy behind-the-scenes dish…)
• Article entitled “Google Maps Catches WW II Ghost” (satellite photo of English countryside includes a vintage Avro Lancaster bomber in flight)
• Groovy ’60s-style Ball Chairs (just like Number Two’s in The Prisoner, or, for you younger kids, Dr. Evil’s) are still available (there’s a place that sells them in Vegas — road trip!)
• How Blockbuster Video shot itself in the foot by underestimating DVDs
• How to get a better cappucino at Starbucks (keep meaning to try this, but never remember when I’m there)
• F-14 Tomcats (Maverick and Goose’s plane in Top Gun) quietly retiring
• The U-2s are, too (retiring, that is… although I thought they were already gone… shows you what I know…)
• Shatner sells a kidney stone for charity (What a guy!)
• Swinging pads of the future as envisioned by Motorola in the mid-60s (how come the future as seen in the past was so much cooler than the future we actually got here in the present? For the record, I like the eighth one down, with all the windows… and the tenth one, also with the windows, and the vinyl records…)
• More retro advertising art (mostly cars and trucks, a lot of stuff on the Ford Edsel, some futuristicky houses and space scenes, all nicely done and worthy of hanging on the wall)
• Cool tradition of visiting Poe’s grave lives on, in spite of lame, disruptive rubberneckers

And finally, the piece de resistance::

• Cheesy mid-80s German music video of David Hasselhoff singing “Hooked on a Feeling” (a.k.a. The Oogga Chugga Song — thrill to dancing bears, bad blue-screen effects, surrealistic imagery, and facial expressions of laughably self-important intensity!)

And on that note, happy weekend, everyone…