It seems that it's easy to mishear a lyric in almost any song out there. But some songs, and some singers, show up much more than others. Here are some of the songs that just come out as one big mumble. Call them songs in the key of slur, or maybe nominees for the misheard lyrics hall of fame.

"In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," Iron Butterfly.
Yes, it's 17 minutes long. And yes, the lyrics are really pretty simple once you know it's either "In the Garden of Eden" or "In the Garden of Venus," according to whichever story you buy into. And how awesome was "The Simpsons" episode where Bart has the elderly church organist play it (till she passes out!) under the guise of it being a hymn called "In the Garden of Eden" by "I. Ron Butterfly"?

"Louie, Louie," the Kingsmen.
Oh, the endless naughty lyrics that were associated with this so-simple tune. Snopes.com has both the real lyrics and a version of the dirty ones (warning, don't click if you don't want to read the fake sexual lyrics). And yes, the FBI actually wasted years investigating the lyrics, because apparently there weren't enough real crimes to keep their attention back in the 1960s.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nirvana.
Kurt Cobain could be difficult to understand on his best days. But "Teen Spirit" is probably the song that most people get wrong. The title was sparked when Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill wrote "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit" on a wall, referring to Teen Spirit deodorant. And as for the lyrics, well, I don't think I understood them until I heard the Tori Amos cover.

On the misheard-lyrics site AmIRight.com, "Teen Spirit" has the second-largest number of misheard lyrics submitted, behind only "Blinded by the Light." And I'd say it might have some of the funniest ones ever. Here we are now, in containers! A mosquito, ate my Cheetos! Amaretto, in a needle! I'm with Kato, in a Beetle!

Weird Al Yankovic smartly skewered how slurry the song is with his parody, "Smells Like Nirvana." Two classic moments include "It's hard to bargle nawdle zouss / With all these marbles in my mouth," and "The lyric sheet's so hard to find / What are the words? Oh, never mind." Truly a misheard-lyric classic.

Other songs are confusing because the lyrics come out rapid-fire and are often pretty random. On that list, I'd include:

"We Didn't Start the Fire," Billy Joel.
Like all list songs, "Fire" trips listeners up with its sheer torrent of names and phrases, especially when the age groups singing it aren't familiar with topics such as Dien Bien Phu and children of Thalidomide. A few choice mishearings include: "Chocolate in the sewers" ("Trouble in the Suez"), "Gretchen's in Afghanistan" ("Russians in Afghanistan"), and "British beat Romania" ("British Beatlemania").

"It's the End of the World as We Know it," REM.
Sometimes it's the listy part of the song that trips people up ("Lenny Bruce in birthday pants," instead of "Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs"), sometimes it's just the chorus ("It's the end of the world, Eskimo it!").

"Born to Run," Bruce Springsteen.
Truly a classic, but it's got some awesomely misunderstood lines. "Wrap your hands 'round my INCHES?" "The highway's jammed with broken GYROS?" "CHUMPS like us, baby we were born to run?"

Plenty of other songs are just made for tripping us up. "I Am the Walrus," and "Stairway to Heaven" come to mind right away. You can still share any misheard lyrics in the comments, but especially note any songs that seem to be written in the key of slur.

Taking another break from the song-lyric insanity to offer up a Multi-link Monday. Have a cool link to suggest? Post it in the comments.

• Remember when we were trying to find band names in that Virgin Atlantic poster? In a similar vein: Can you find all the "Seinfeld" references in this image? Answers are here. (Via the wonderful PopCandy.)

• Those of us who care about punctuation will either love or hate this site: The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks highlights all those signs that were created by someone who obviously slept through English 101. "Why" do certain people feel the "need" to put "quotation marks" around "everything"? The "world" may never "know."  This cake not only has extra quote marks, but completely unncessary parentheses. (Thanks to Kurt for the link!) And I couldn't leave this topic without also pointing out a classic link, the Gallery of "Misused" Quotation Marks.

• Have a song in your head that you just can't identify? If you can upload a sample of yourself humming or singing it to WatZatSong, the site's readers will try and help you figure out what it is.

• I'm terrible at this online game, but it's fun and addictive: See how far you can fling a paper airplane.

• The Warholizer  lets you upload your own digital photos, and it turns them into the kind of multi-image, multi-color portrait that Andy Warhol made so famous. Very cool.

The misheard lyrics comments have been hilarious. Two songs especially have started debates -- Keith Urban's "You'll Think of Me" and Toto's "Africa." In Urban's song, he does indeed sing, "Take your CAT and leave my sweater," but a reader comment saying that he hears "take your CAP" has started a bunch of readers buzzing, thinking they've been hearing it wrong all this time. Now I'm no Keith Urban expert, but the "CAT' version is indeed given on his Web site as the correct lyrics for the song. Meow!

RISES LIKE A ... WHAT?
The Toto song is even more fun. I confessed that, in Toto's "Africa," I always heard a certain lyric wrong. The actual line, according to Toto's own Web site, is "Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti." I always heard it as "Sure as Kilimanjaro rises up like Memphis above the Serengeti" (or even the nonsensical, "rises like a membrus," whatever a "membrus" is...it sounds kinda sexual to me).

Happily, I was not the only confused listener. From your comments:
• "Whoa, all this time I thought it was 'rises like an empress....'  Hmmm."    --Kristen
• "Oh my God. Kilimanjaro rises 'like Olympus'? I always thought it rose 'like a leopard!' What a disappointment."    --Lori
• "I always thought it was 'like a leopress'... isn't that a female leopard, and doesn't that make more sense?"    --Rick
• And from a different part of the song, Sue confesses "Growing up my sister and I always sang Toto's "Africa" as 'I left my brains down in Africa,' rather than 'I bless the rains down in Africa.' "

PAY THE RENT, COLETTE
Another song that came up often: Prince's "Little Red Corvette." Now for this one, I thought the title alone would give it away, but here are some of the versions you heard:
• "My sister used to sing 'Pay the rent, Colette' instead of 'Little Red Corvette' whenever the Prince song came on the radio.  She's grown now, with daughters of her own, and they think that is the funniest thing in the world!"    --Jen
• "My brother swore it was 'pay the rent collect' which even he admitted didn't make sense."  --Rob
• My mom, when she was young, used to think 'Little Red Corvette" was 'pay the rent or else.' "    --Des
• When I was a kid, I always thought Prince's 'Little Red Corvette' was 'Live in Corvette.' "  --Julie
• "When Prince would sing 'Little Red Corvette,' I always thought it was 'Livin' in Quebec.' I think I was around 19 when I realized I was wrong."    --Tiffany

REVEREND BLUE JEANS?
It's funny when we can't even get the song's title correct. Neil Diamond has a famous song that half the country sings one way, half the other.

It's actually called "Forever in Blue Jeans," but that hasn't stopped several million of us from hearing it as "Reverend Blue Jeans." Keith is just one reader who admits to being confused, saying "I'm surprised no one mentioned 'Reverend Blue Jeans'  -- I'm still not sure what that one really is."

According to AmIRight.com, there's another misheard version of this: At least one person reports hearing it as "a farmer in blue jeans."

One thing we can all agree on: Blue jeans are somehow involved.

Keep sharing your misheard lyrics in the comments.

We've been discussing made-up and just plain bad lyrics, death songs, and more, but one topic that keeps cropping up is the lair of the misheard lyric (as in "wrapped up like a douche," discussed here). From the numerous versions of popular songs that exist only in our heads, you'd think we were all half-deaf.

The most popular ones are chronicled so well on great Web sites such as KissThisGuy.com, named for the famous misheard Hendrix lyric, which is really "kiss the sky." The site asks lyric submitters fun questions, such as how old they were when they found out they were wrong ("I'm WRONG?") and whether they think their lyric is better than the original ("Damn straight!") I also love AmIRight.com, a similar site.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll, one of my favorite columnists writing today, refers to misheard lyrics as "Mondegreens." It comes from an old Scottish lyric, "they have slain the Earl of Murray, and laid him on the green," which was misheard as "they have slain the Earl of Murray, and Lady Mondegreen."

Carroll believes the most misheard lyric is "Gladly, the cross-eyed bear," as opposed to the real lyric, "Gladly, the cross I'd bear." Hmm. Funny, but that hymn's not in too many of our daily radio rotations.

But he admits that "There's a bathroom on the right," as misheard for CCR's "There's a bad moon on the rise," is a close second. Numerous readers have submitted "bathroom on the right" in our comments, despite admitting with embarrassment that, well, the song's title should perhaps have tipped them off.

Here are just a few of those other most-misheard lyrics, as compiled most unscientifically by me, poking around those sites:
• "The girl with colitis goes by." (Real lyric: "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes," Beatles)
• "Olive, the other reindeer." (Real lyric: "All of the other reindeer.")
• "The ants are my friends, they're blowing in the wind." (Real lyric: "The answer is blowing in the wind," Bob Dylan.)
• "There's a wino down the road." (Real lyric: "And as we wind on down the road," Led Zeppelin.)
• "In a glob of Velveeta, honey." (Real lyric: "In-A-Gadda Da Vida," a.k.a., "In the garden of Eden," Iron Butterfly.)

Here are some of the misheard lyrics that I confess I've gotten wrong all by myself:
• "How's about a date?" (Real lyric: Billy Idol's "Eyes without a face.")
• "It means so much to me, like a birthday, or a preview." (Real lyric: Duran Duran's "A birthday, or a pretty view," from "Rio.")
• "Hello, hello! I'm in a place called Oregon!" (Real lyric: U2's "Hello, hello! I'm at a place called Vertigo.")
• "Even Dallas games, people play." (Real lyric: "In the jealous games people play," Go-Gos "Our Lips Are Sealed.")
• "Sure as Kilimanjaro rises up like Memphis, above the Serengeti." (Real lyric: "Rises like Olympus," from Toto's "Africa.")
• "Go hippie, go hippie, go." (Real lyric: "Go ahead, be gone with it," from Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack.")

Here are some of the misheard lyrics that are so out there it's hard to believe anyone thought they were true. (Some of these gained fame from being used in commercials or TV shows.)
• "The sheep don't like it, rockin' the cat box." (Real lyric: "Shareef don't like it, rock the Casbah," The Clash.)
• "Pour some shook-up Ramen." (Real lyric: "Pour some sugar on me," Def Leppard.)
• "Hold me close, young Tony Danza." (Real lyric: "Hold me closer, tiny dancer," Elton John.)
• "Round John Virgin." (Real lyric: "Round yon virgin," from "Silent Night.")
• "Bald headed woman." ("More than a woman," Bee Gees.)

And here are five misheard lyrics from those sites that just made me crack up. Many of these are ones I've never heard before, but you can bet I'm singing the songs that way from now on.
• "Here we are now, in containers." (Real lyric: "Here we are now, entertain us," Nirvana.)
• "Lucy's in a fight, with Linus." (Real lyric: "Lucy in the sky with diamonds," Beatles.)
• "Who you gonna call? Those bastards!" (Real lyric: "Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!")
• "Desperado, you've been outright offensive, for so long now" (Real lyric: "You've been out riding fences," The Eagles.)
• "If you change your mind (Jackie Chan), I'm the first in line (Jackie Chan)." (Real lyric: "If you change your mind (take a chance)," from Abba.)

We can't possibly compete with KissThisGuy, AmIRight, and Jon Carroll, but bring out your best misheard lyrics and share them in the comments.

Time for another time-wasting Multi-link Monday. Remember, you can suggest sites for inclusion -- just post them in the comments and I'll check them out.

• Did you grow up spending days poring over holiday catalogs from Sears, Penneys and the like, admiring the pages filled with toys and wishing for that Barbie Dream House/Evel Knievel Chopper Cycle/whatever? Now you can relive those days, because someone with an incredible amount of patience has scanned entire catalogs from our past online. Get prepared to spend hours at Wishbook Web, and share your favorite finds in the comments.

• I didn't discover this until after the Sept. 11 tributes last week, but there is a large, clear Webcam focused on the construction work at New York City's Ground Zero, the former World Trade Center site. One of the sharpest Webcams I've seen in a while.

• If roses took LSD, or hung out with the Grateful Dead and decided to tie-dye themselves, they might look a little something like these Rainbow Roses. Perfect for the bride who can't decide on just one or two wedding colors -- you gotta see them to believe them. (Link via my pal Ann in the UK.)

• I confess, I have a soft spot for Jelly Belly jellybeans and all their goofy flavors, from Buttered Popcorn to Chocolate Pudding. I actually entered their "recipe" contest, in which consumers suggest a number of flavors that, when eaten together, create a fun taste. Mine (Bahama Mama, like the tropical drink) didn't make the cut, but some other interesting ones did. You can read the recipes and vote for your favorite here. Caramel Pear Torte sounds darn good to me.

• Reader-submitted link: Writes Stephanie: "You've probably already linked this before, but I've never seen it and it's pretty cool: The World Clock." We haven't linked it, Stephanie, and it is indeed pretty cool. It tracks way more than time -- temperature, the world population, traffic accidents, diseases, the U.S. prison population, the number of cars made, and more.

While we're on the topic of wacky lyrics, let's talk about death. Specifically, the spate of teen death songs that had a real heyday in the 1950s. I wasn't around then, but I remember in the 1980s I bought a great Rhino Records compilation of them -- yes, on vinyl. It was called "Teen Tragedy" and the best part about it was that it had a built-in Kleenex box right in the record jacket, so if "Patches" or "Tell Laura I Love Her" made you start bawling on the spot, hey, at least facial tissue was easily at hand.

The standard teen tragedy song detailed how half of a love match met his or her end. Railroad tracks were often involved. Speeding cars and motorcycles were big elements. "Tell Laura I Love Her" is a classic example. (Best line: "No one knows what happened that day / Or how his car overturned in flames..." Well, does it really matter HOW?) "Teen Angel" wins for the stupidest and most avoidable death -- if your car stalls on a railroad track, and you get out safe but run back for your boyfriend's class ring, well, any sympathy you're going to get is limited.

Sometimes the song had a supernatural element. Dickey Lee's "Laurie" tells of meeting a girl at a dance and later finding out she was dead the whole time -- the sweater he loaned her turns up neatly folded on her grave. (Very similar to the Vanishing Hitchhiker urban legend.)

Not all creepy death songs involved teens. One song that was frequently mentioned in your comments was Bobby Goldsboro's "Honey," where a man reminisces about his dead wife. Not really a teen death song, but a death song nonetheless. The song has been named to numerous "worst song" lists, and once you look at the lyrics, you can see why. In an earlier post, Deb E. says "My vote for worst lyric ever goes to this "gem" from the sappiest song ever written: 'She wrecked the car and she was sad / So afraid that I'd be mad /  But what the heck.' " Others cite the opening lines, "See the tree, how big it's grown, but friend, it hasn't been too long it wasn't big." We get what you're going for, there, but there's no way to say that in a more elegant way?

Maybe the most famous death song of all time is Terry Jacks' "Seasons in the Sun."  (Best/worst line: "But the stars we could reach, were just starfish on the beach.") According to the song's Wikipedia entry, the song was done numerous times by other artists, including the Kingston Trio and the Beach Boys. Apparently Jacks' version meant to leave the cause of death -- be it suicide or natural causes -- vague. In the original version, by Jacque Brel, the singer is not only dying, his wife cheated on him. What a bummer.

Here's a great site about Teen Tragedy songs. Check out their lengthy list! Who knew there were this many? My Rhino compilation only had about eight or 10. Some of these are parodies ("All I Have Left is My Johnny's Hubcap") and some should be ("The Water is Red," about a shark attack).

This site sorts them by theme ("motorcycles," "trains," "flying things") and has a great sense of humor about it. It also goes beyond the old days and pulls in songs from more recent eras, including songs from Nirvana (does "All Apologies" really qualify?) and The Replacements. Seems that teenagers dying is a topic that never grows old.

And this site doesn't have the quantity of songs listed as the others, but it makes up for it by offering links that go into detail about the songs that are listed.

It's easy to make fun of these songs, but I have to say, some really hit bone. The hairs on the back of my neck always stand up when I hear Jan & Dean's chilling "Dead Man's Curve." According to urban-legend site Snopes.com, while that song did turn out to be pretty prophetic, Jan's near-fatal car accident was NOT on the very same corner the song was written about, but it wasn't really that far away. Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve...

And don't forget perhaps the looniest of the death songs...and what has to be one of the only songs out there about cannibalism. You know it: "Timothy." about three guys trapped in a mine who end up munching down on poor Tim. It was written by Rupert Holmes of "Pina Colada Song" fame.  Songfacts has a funny bit where he details how his record label became upset when they realized the content, and tried to spread a rumor that Timothy was a mule. The site quotes Holmes as saying "Someone called me and said, 'Was Timothy a mule? You wrote it.' And I said 'No, what can I tell you, they ATE him.' "

Share your favorite (and least favorite) teen tragedy and other death songs in the comments. Have joy, have fun, have seasons in the sun.

Steve Miller's line about "the pompatus of love" is far from the only lyric to confuse readers. One of the songs that comes up over and over is "Blinded by the Light," written by Bruce Springsteen, but famously performed by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. You know the confusion: Wrapped up like a douche? Little Early Pearly with his anus curly wurly? A Nutter Butter in the night? Just what the heck was going on in that song, anyway?

Here are the lyrics as Springsteen originally wrote them. Here are the ones Manfred Mann sings. Start with the infamous "douche" line, which, of course, doesn't really mention a feminine-hygiene product at all. The Boss sang, "yeah he was blinded by the light, cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night..." By "deuce" he meant a hot rod, a little deuce coupe, like the Beach Boys sang about.

When Manfred Mann sang the song, they came out with "revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night." Manfred Mann  repeats the lyric many more times than Bruce did, and changes other lyrics too, but most of all, the lyric comes out kinda slurry, hence the "douche/deuce" misunderstanding. The Wikipedia entry on the song notes that some have blamed singer Chris Thompson's New Zealand accent for the misunderstanding, but they're not buying it.

The confusion even extended to the much-simpler "another runner in the night" line. Don't miss the misheard-lyric versions on KissThisGuy.com, which include:
• "Dressed up like a dude, another roller in the night."
• "Wrapped up like a douche, I knew their owner every night."
• "Racked up like a douche, another lover in the night."
• "Wake up like a douche, or a rubber in the night."
• "Torn up like a douche, another stoner in the night."
• "Wrap up the old deuce, a Nutter Butter in the night."
• "Wrapped up like a douche, another rumor in the night."

The rest of the lyrics, a delightful jumble of stream-of-consciousness, don't exactly clear things up. SongFacts.com hosts some entertaining and heated debate on the issue, too.

Claims one person on SongFacts: " 'Go-Kart Mozart was checkin' out the weather charts, etc.' is somewhat cryptic but translates thus. "checkin' out the weather charts' refers to the song 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.' Go-Kart Mozart is the writer of the song, who raced go-karts at that time. The lyric refers to Gordon Lightfoot." Um. OK? So...since Springsteen wrote the song, HE is Go-Kart Mozart, but somehow there's a Lightfoot reference. I'm not following.

Another infamous line is "And little Early-Pearly came by in his curly-wurly and asked me if I needed a ride." The consensus online, as much as anyone can agree online, is that "curly-wurly" means a helicopter, but many people hear that line as "little Early Pearly with his anus curly-wurly," which is just a thought I don't really need to explore, thank you. And some claim "curly-wurly" means a curly hairdo, not a chopper. (Also, in Springsteen's official lyrics, "Early Pearly" is a she, but Manfred Mann changes it to "he," not that it matters.)

The meaning of the song is about as fiercely debated as the lyrics. Wikipedia claims it's about characters Springsteen met while playing small bars on the Jersey Shore. Some say it's really Springsteen's epic diss of the music industry. Other theories include that it's about a kid running away, underage sex, Saint Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus, or hard drugs.

Whatever the meaning, it's darn catchy, and is bound to live forever on the list of "songs we all sing differently." The calliope crashed to the ground, indeed.

Want more on strange lyrics? Don't miss these other entries:

• "My lovely lady lumps": Worst song lyrics ever?
• Teen death songs will never die, plus cannibalism in music
• Pompatus of love? Prophetess of love? Properties of love? What the--?

The post on awful song lyrics garnered so much discussion while I was off for Labor Day that I'm not quite ready to leave the topic yet. Certain songs came up over and over again in your comments, one of which featured readers arguing about whether or not Steve Miller made up a word. Let's dig into the mystery of "the pompatus of love," and in the meantime, you can call me Maurice. Some people do.

You know the song: In Miller's "The Joker," he sings "Some people call me the space cowboy, some people call me the gangster of love. Some people call me Maurice, because I sing of the pompatus of love."

I thought the debate would center around what the heck "pompatus" was supposed to mean, but many of you disagreed that he was saying "pompatus" at all.

PROPERTIES?
Folks who thought the phrase was "properties of love" got pretty indignant about it. Tim insisted that Miller was not saying "pompatus at all," commenting "Pretty funny that you made up one yourself there sport.  Its 'properties of love'.  Congrats for outing your intellegence (sic) on the internet."

Someone who calls themselves Ableme agreed with Tim, saying "The lyrics are, "... and I speak of the PROPERTIES of love."  Pompitice?  Quit smoking whatever you're smoking and try google before you post such a dumb question." (Hmm, I tried Google, and it listed "properties of love" as a commonly misheard version, and it's all about the "pompatus.")

PROPHETESS?
Here's a new one. Says Jim: "It's "prophetess of love" ... Don't diss Stevie."

COMPETENCE?
Steve from California doesn't hear the "p" at the beginning of the word. He writes: "You were asking about a lyric in "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band. The lyric you mentioned was " ...and I speak, of the pompitice(sic) of love." I believe the actual lyric is "...and I speak of the 'competence' of love"

POM POM...
I'm not sure if Laura is putting us on here, but here's her comment: "Years ago, I heard an interview with Steve Miller on a local Atlanta, GA rock station.  He said in WWII, they called the bombs 'pom poms.'  They also applied this same description to women's breasts.  The lyric should have been "because I speak of the pom pom t*ts of love" but because it wouldn't get airplay, it was changed to 'pompitice of love.'  For what it's worth... "

POMPOUSNESS?
For me, I was always pretty sure that he says "pompatus," but I assumed he meant "pompousness."  Mae agreed with me, saying "I think he actually means 'pompousness' in that line.  Though why he would think love was pompous, I don't know."

HE MADE IT UP
Other readers claimed Miller himself admitted to making up the word. Says E: "I recall vaguely reading an interview with Steve Miller where he admits that he does indeed say "I speak of the pompitous of love", but also that he made up the word pompitous because it sounded cool." 

HE BORROWED IT
The most well-researched and documented information on the phrase, as many  readers pointed out, was done by Cecil Adams' great "The Straight Dope" column.

Adams' column mentioned that actor Jon Cryer even wrote and stars in a movie, "The Pompatus of Love," in which four guys sit around and try to decipher the lyric. Turns out in the course of making the film, Cryer discovered that R&B group The Medallions had a song called "The Letter" that included a similar lyric -- mentioning the "puppetutes" of love.

Miller's publicist doesn't exactly admit that he took that word and reformed it, but goes on to say that Miller borrowed another famous line ("really love your peaches, want to shake your tree") from a different R&B hit. 

The mystery might linger on, as long as there are people out there hearing a half-dozen different words when they listen to the song.  But as long as Miller's not spelling it out for us, the Straight Dope's version is probably as close to a good answer as we're going to get there.

I was gone for much of Labor Day week, but now I'm back. Let's get back to our time-wasting Multi-link Mondays.

• Have I linked to this Intelligence Test before? It offers up an abbreviated phrase, such as "24 H in a D," and you have to figure out that it is short for "24 hours in a day." Warning: I wouldn't consider this a fair "intelligence" test -- some of the phrases are really out there -- but it's fun anyway.

• There are plenty of sites out there that will tell you what events happened on the day you were born, but Kakorama added a twist I hadn't seen before. Select your birthdate and the site will show you what the moon looked like that day. (On mine, it was a waxing gibbous moon.) The site also tells you your astrology sign in Celtic, Aztec, Egyptian and Chinese astrology, how old you are on Mars, and other fun tidbits. (Via Tech Space.)

• Think it must be hard to explain Einstein's theory of relativity? Now try explaining it in words of four letters or less.  (Via Metafilter.)

• I love randomly discovered notes -- I sent a note in to Found Magazine once, and they included it on their site. There's now a site that gets even more specific, sharing only passive-aggressive notes. Dirty dishes in shared apartments bring out a good number of the notes, but I also love this roommate fight over some placemats featuring jolly chefs.

• Reader-submitted link o' the week: Cinbad sends Despair, Inc., that fun site parodying the so-called motivational posters that are found in too many offices these days. Cinbad writes: "There are really great. The sad thing is, I had to give serious thought to which of my friends would really 'get' the posters. I hope you enjoy them!" I think this one, Ambition, is my favorite.