It’s time once again for Six Degrees of Wikipedia! I do declare, Barbers and Barberettes, we have got one sweet waste of time in store for you.

Today’s installment of Six Degrees of Wikipedia will take us — via streetcar (*elaborate wink*) — from The Letter People of your youth to an explosive mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate! I know you’re eager to get started, so I’ll begin wasting your time immediately.

If you went to public school or watched PBS or had a soul in the 1980s, you know the Letter People. Specifically, you know Mr. M. and his trademark Munching Mouth. Yes you do. You know the song. But did you know the Letter People got their big break in St. Louis, Missouri?

Yes, picturesque St. Louis. Long before it got the best of Tom Waits, the city broadcast the Letter People television series on local PBS station KETC. Unfortunately, the Letter People are basically the only good things ever to come out of St. Louis (my great auntie M. and uncle H. emphatically excluded, of course). Nobody cares about the Gateway Arch, and even fewer people care about the subject of our next page: St. Louis native Tennessee Williams.

Tennessee is best known for writing excruciating plays. I wish I could say the connection to our fourth stop on today’s route (lobotomy) was a rogue editor’s suggestion for how best to enjoy Tennessee Williams plays, but the real connection is not nearly as satisfying. Apparently Tennessee’s sister Rose had an ill-advised lobotomy to treat her schizophrenia and it did not go well.

In fact, I bet Rose would happily have traded lives with psych-111 susperstar Phineas Gage, who was linked from the lobotomy page for obvious reasons. He’s the guy who lived for many years with a three-foot tamping iron stuck right the fuck through the front of his head. It’s just a hop, skip, and a click from there to our last bangin’ stop, without which Gage’s tragic accident would never have been possible.

That’s right: gunpowder. As I’m sure you know, the chemical equation for the combustion of gunpowder is 10 KNO₃ + 3 S + 8 C → 2 K₂CO₃ + 3 K₂SO₄ + 6 CO₂ + 5 N₂.

Thanks for riding, kid Barbers. Watch your step.

Thanks to the lovely and understanding people at Apple, I got a new iPod free of charge today. This is number three. The first was known as jesusPod, because he died one day then rose from the dead two days later. Someone stole jesusPod when he was in his prime, and hopefully that person is burning in hell right now. Next came judasPod, who unceremoniously committed suicide yesterday. So, now I’ll put it to you: What do I call the new one?

No clever comment from the BC repertoire could make this better than it already is:

Thanks to IT Master Gordo for the link.

9:06 - Bush is at the podium, ready to speak.

9:08 - This is stupid.

9:09 - Sweet. “Karate Kid” is on.

Maybe it’s that they played a song they originally released almost seven years ago. Or maybe it’s that Whoopi Goldberg-Adam Green are the most awkward interviewer-interviewee ever. Or maybe it’s that they replaced the line “shook a little turd out of the bottom of your pants” with “blew a little load out of the bottom of your pants.” Or maybe it’s just that the Moldy Peaches were on The View.

Your mayor may be dishonest and corrupt, and you may be suffering the irreversible consequences of having an undiversified economy, but at least the Pistons’ losing streak is over!

You’ve probably never met the supercomputer that powers Barber College HQ, but it knows you. More importantly, if you came to BC from a search engine it knows what you were looking for. Here are some of the highlights from this month.

Key phrases used on search engines

fetal alcohol syndrome hotties
somebody gonna get pregnant
fuckaduck
desperate myspace hotties
sucking actress hand
barber porn
crisis management tutorial
zap kidney stone
pushing dead guy in computer chair
megadik (multiple hits)
xenuism
barber fest
hitbooster (A. your diabolical plan brought in 2 hits so far this month!)

Today’s contestant: Unnamed AP Writer

Entry: “Manning shook off conditions that would make a Siberian husky shiver. He repeatedly put the Giants in position to win in the third-coldest championship game ever - and certainly the most frigid of his young career.”

Analysis: There’s so much wrong with this…

Fine. It was cold. State the temperature or some shit and move on. Don’t get cute. If I ever find myself saying “third-coldest” in any context other than making fun of someone who just said “third-coldest,” I will be so ashamed that I will spontaneously freeze into the third-coldest corpse ever. And there have been some PRETTY COLD CORPSES. Am I right? Huh?

Next, I own a Siberian husky. His name is Chauncey. He’s illiterate, and he only understands maybe six words of English, but when I read that excerpt aloud to him, he scoffed. It’s not just because it’s factually inaccurate (He said that if he had been at the game, he would’ve run around in circles and stuffed his head in snow banks, because the temperature would’ve been just right for him), but also because he has a strong distaste for bad metaphors.

Chauncey’s suggestion: “If there were similar conditions at the Playboy Mansion, even James Bond’s dick would still be limp.”

Chess master and world-class asshole Bobby Fischer is dead. He may have been the best chess player of all time, but saying that 9/11 was “wonderful news” and that someone should execute “hundreds of thousands of American Jewish leaders” earns him the people suck tag. Barry Bonds, this is what you have to look forward to.