Maybe the internet is too romantic about the whole biphasic first sleep/second sleep thing... Strong Songs (run by the tastefully named Kirk Hamilton) is a great podcast that does semi-deep dives into individual tunes (often he tries to reconstruct high fidelity covers by playing parts himself)

This episode is muppet songs and leading off with Sesame Street, a song my main band JP Honk covers... never noticed the tie-in with Mercy Mercy Mercy, another song we do.

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I am really bummed about the "chewing gum is a wonderland of microplastics" news.

Take away from four days at Disney:

1. EPCOT is kinda lagging. In general the rides don't have the Magic Kingdom nostalgia and have proportionately less of the new hotness, plus it's a feels like more walking with less shade than the other parks. (Disney Hollywood was my favorite of the parks - the Role Play-lite of Star Wars, especially on The Rise of the Resistance ride (which is a mindblower) was great.)

2. Lightning passes are totally worth it. If you're investing the time and biggish bucks to travel far anyway, Lightning isn't that much more on top, and 2-5 minutes instead of like 30-60 is a HUGE quality of life boost.

3. Similarly feel free to ask for the front of a ride if you want. It doesn't take that much chutzpah, no one seems annoyed, and often the view is that much better. (Some rides can't really accommodate, but if they can they just have you stand aside, skip one, and get the front of the next.)

4. If a ride has a glitch of any kind, feel free to complain to the Guest Experience people, they'll usually comp you a make good lightning pass.

5. "DisneyBounding" is that thing where Disney fans (who aren't allowed to really cosplay, I guess to prevent confusion) use colors and stuff to represent their favorite characters as they visit the park. Disney is leaning into this by making a big variety of character-theme Mickey Ear headbands. (This trend doesn't help alleviate the kind of cult like vibe Disney can carry, between the veneration of its founder and how it has churned out so many mythologies.)

6. There's a pretty good but somewhat clunky app for navigating the parks (and juggling lightning passes) - I was annoyed that when it's giving you walking directions, you can't pan or zoom to see the path ahead of your immediate next few turns.

7. There's also a "Play" app that gives you games to do, some location specific. I shied away them because I got confused by their multiplayer aspect; but now I'm guessing it's not people head down on their own phones, it's more like pass a single phone around and be social, which would be a much better vibe.

8. Lynette made sandwiches most days and we brought some other snacks, and it took me a minute to realize that it's not just frugality, it's also just nice to have a little something whenever you want, and things more normally nutritious than the other fair-food stuff we were still enjoying.

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So like with the Hegseth being called on his blatant security protocol violations and being worried about "leakers" - this administration wants to do lots of vile stuff, but not let anyone hear about it...

Final Disney Park day, Animal Kingdom...

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UPDATE: "Vladimir STAHHHHHP" is another winner Frankly EPCOT is the weakest of the 4 parks; showing its age, but without all the nostalgia and attention the Magic Kingdom gets Disney Hollywood Studios were pretty onpoint, and the "pretend you're there" Star Wars was really cool. I enjoyed making "The Most Magical ____ on Earth" jokes.

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RIP Pope Francis. One of the good ones.