This Blog Brought to You By the Letter H and the Number 10

It's been relatively quiet in Sabres land the last few days.  I was planning on blogging about Adam Mair being on waivers and then I didn't get around to it and then absolutely noting interesting came of it.  The Sabres waived him, no one claimed him, and 24 hours later he's exactly where he's been all season.  That's not very exciting at all and quite frankly, I'm a little let down at what a non-story it turned out to be.  Boooo, non-stories make for terrible blogging fodder!

This week I've been mostly distracted from hockey because of all the super awesome stories floating around about the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street.  I love, love, love Sesame Street.  I watched it as a kid and have been pretty fascinated by it as an adult.  We can have the "TV is bad for kids!" debate, but I've read numerous books about Sesame Street and the care and and research that went into the developing of the show is really interesting.  Everything from the sets to the animation to the music to the cast was carefully planned and thought out.  Even with all that, early Sesame Street in particular just had such an off-the-wall anarachy about it sometimes especially compared to the mostly very sanitized children's entertainment offered today.  I don't throw the word genius around a lot, but Jim Henson and some of his Sesame Street co-horts?  Genius.

So because the Sabres have been a snooze this week and because I'm having so much fun, I'm going to veer completely off-topic and just hit you with some of my favorite Sesame Street clips.  A little levity before the games start back up and we all start freaking out about the awesomeness/horribleness of the Sabres and what it all means for the season.

First up, "Me and My Llama."  Why does this girl have a pet llama in New York City?  Why is she taking him to the dentist unaccompanied by an adult?  Why is she taking him to the dentist period?  Who knows?  It's a pretty catchy little tune though, isn't it?



As someone who delights in the funny spontaneity of kids on a day-to-day basis, I have a real fondness for the unscripted little conversations between the Muppets and real kids.  Here are two of my favorites.  I love how much this little girl is enthralled by Kermit.  In the second one especially she can barely keep her eyes and hands off of him.  (One of my favorite stories in any of the books I've read was told by someone who was visiting the Sesame Street set.  She was fascinated by how the kids on set seemed completely unfazed by the muppeteers.  To her it was obvious the adults were manipulating the Muppet, but the kids didn't even seem to notice them.  Out of curiosity, she pointed to Jim Henson who was handling Kermit at the time and asked a child, "Do you know who that man is?"  And the child said, "Oh, yeah.  That's the man who holds up Kermit so he doesn't get tired.")

Anyway, you absolutely cannot go wrong doing a YouTube search for Sesame Street and John John, but I like this little girl a lot too.





And finally, a few of my favorite Muppet songs.  If I didn't already know Kate and I were born to be friends, I knew it when she attempted to cheer me up a few days ago with the first clip below.  Awesome.  The second is one of my all-time favorites.  I have it in my bookmarks and I have the song on my iPod.





All right, let's go Sabres!  And remember, if they suck out loud, Sesame Street on YouTube.  It's a sure thing pick-me-up.