As I have noted way too often, I was born the same day teen icon James Dean died, which I suspect resulted in my lifelong lack of a Cause (although I never got the hang of being a Rebel). So when I heard the news that Jimmy Dean had died, I checked my vital signs 37 times over the next 36 hours.

Once semi-reassured I was surviving (as well as I ever do), I noticed that nobody had posted an obit for him at MetaFilter (known for its frequent ‘Obitfilters’ and the practice of comments consisting of a single period “.” to represent a moment of silence) so I did it myself.

Jimmy was best known to Mefites for his brand of sausage, although he sold the company in the ’80s, and was dropped as its spokesman in 2003; its current owner is Sara Lee*. But his musical legacy is sealed by his ‘country rap**’ classic "Big Bad John" (performed live in 2008), often imitated, but never parodied better than with the stereotypical gay hairdresser saga "Big Bruce"*** (info). But to me, he was the guy with the variety show where he spent several minutes every week bantering with the muppet Rowlf****. Here’s Jimmy in Esquire Magazine’s "What I’ve Learned". His final resting place is music-themed, NOT sausage themed. "Here lies one hell of a man."

* Sara Lee’s original namesake is LONG gone but the company recently had a female CEO who is currently on medical leave.
** other MeFites pointed out the formal name for that style of song was “recitation”, but any category of song that includes “Big Bad John”, “A Boy Named Sue” and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” deserves a cooler name.
*** the Steve Greenberg who did that novelty record was not the same guy who was behind Lipps, Inc. and “Funkytown”, it was oddly appropriate that they had the same name. Another classic Big Bad John parody pointed out by others was “The Ballad of Irving”, but it was more a general satire of folk legend songs.
**** performed by Jim Henson, with Frank Oz giving a hand (literally). The first muppet character to have a regular role in a TV series, ‘Old Brown Ears’ was pivotal in building the brand.

A perfectly cromulent new word: Collapsitarianism. Apparently coined by social critic James Howard Kunstler when he declared "I’ve never been a complete collapsitarian,*" comparing himself to Dmitri Orlov, who uses the term Collapse in his writings – a lot. It failed to be popularized by blogger Kevin Kelly in early 2009 (during the fifteen minutes after Obama’s inauguration when optimism came back; bad timing), who defined it as an umbrella term for a diverse collection of dystopian groups, but specifically the ones looking forward to whatever Collapse they expect. Analyzed by Mother Jones (and semi-rebutted by Dmitri Orlov hmself), the term has even been used by such semi-forward-looking entities as The Tomorrow Museum. The word appears to be due for a comeback (if it has anything to come back to) as the New York Times used it in an article about Peak Oil. Finally, premillenialism for the non-religious!

* not unlike the phenomenon where a phrase is not considered Oxymoronic until someone has written an article loudly declaring that it "is NOT an Oxymoron".

As seen on MetaFilter.

The very short and fairly descriptive domain name e.co is being auctioned off. 90 minutes into the 3 day auction, $16,000USD has been bid, and it can be expected to go much higher. Of course, anyone can bid, and it’d be a great asset for the BP PR department at any price, right?

As seen at MonkeyFilter