Today BlogTO publishes a picture (the original is difficult to find because they do not link to the original, violating Flickr's terms of service) of people wearing sneakers with the caption "Sneakers are for sneaking!". This is likely a direct reference to the episode in which Abe Simpson catches the Springfield Cat Burgler and tells his family how he caught the culprit:

Abe: He was right under my nose the whole time. He lives in my retirement home. His name is Malloy.
Lisa: Wow! How'd you track him down, Grampa?
Abe: Good question! On one of my frequent trips to the ground, I noticed Malloy wore sneakers...for sneaking. My next clue came yesterday at the museum. We felt slighted by your age-bashing, and started home. Malloy said, "I'll catch up with you."
[Malloy shoots a rope over the building]
I couldn't quite put my finger on it. There was something strange about the way he walked -- much more vertical than usual. And finally, Malloy, unlike most retired people, has the world's largest cubic zirconia on his coffee table.

Hat tip to Karen.

Darren Barefoot posted to Jaiku and Twitter a line from the John Keats poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn". Just yesterday I learned about TruthBeauty, an exhibition of Pictorialist photography at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Both reminded me of when the Simpsons family got a tour of the military school Bart was to attend, and they passed by a classroom.

Cadet: Truth is beauty, beauty truth, sir!
Lisa: They're discussing poetry! Oh, they never do that at my school.
Teacher: But the truth can be harsh and disturbing! How can that be considered beautiful?
Marge: Well, they sure sucked the fun out of that poem.

Yesterday over at Magpie & Cake, we get a pointer to a photo of someone in an egg costume in a New York City Parade. This reminded me of the Stonecutter episode where Homer just discovers the secretive group and asks Lenny how he can become a member.

Homer: Stonecutters, eh? How do I join?
Lenny: There are only two ways to gain membership: be the son of a Stonecutter --
Homer: Next?
Lenny: -- or, save the life of a Stonecutter. [starts to eat a sandwich]
Homer: Hey! [grabs it, stomps on it] I saved your life! That egg sandwich could have killed you by cholesterol.
Lenny: Pfft, forget it, Homer. While it has been established that eggs contain cholesterol, it has not yet been proven conclusively that they actually raise the level of serum cholesterol in the human blood stream.
Homer: So one of those Egg Council creeps got to you too, huh?
Lenny: Aw, you've got it all wrong, Homer. It's not like that.
[a man in an egg costume creeps, then runs, away]
Homer: You'd better run, egg!

In a Flickr thread about the Creative Commons, one commenter laments what she thinks is something that prevents her from making money. I have to admit, I don't understand the resentment that people who charge feel towards people who give it away (it's been happening since people started charging for stuff), but it reminded me of the episode where Krusty held a comeback show, but not before finding himself penniless.

[Bart sees Krusty standing in the street holding a sign that says "will drop pants for food".]
Bart: Huh! Oh no! Krusty are you making any money?
Krusty: Nah, That guy's giving it away for free! [points]
Crazy old man: Old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be...

And later:

[Krusty turns on TV and finds the Crazy Old Man in his underwear dancing.]
Crazy old man: Old gray mare she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be...
TV announcer: And now the Crazy Old Man Singers.
Crazy Old Men: Old gray mare she ain't what she used to be, ain't what she used to be...

(I found the quote at a Yahoo! Answers post, not at the snpp.com episode guide, where I expected to find it. Also, I changed it to the American spelling, despite, as a good Canadian, my preferring the British spelling.)

Derek reminds us that 18 years ago, the Chinese government cracked down on protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. In one of the better recent episodes of The Simpsons, the family visited China, and we the viewers are shown this "monument" at the place were several people were killed and injured at the hands of the military:

Screenshot from the episode of The Simpsons titled "Goo Goo Gai Pan" with a crude correction of the pinyin (in the episode it was "Tien An Men", originally found at TaiwanIndependence. More quotes from the episode at Watching China.

At GungHaggisFatChoy, Todd Wong announces an event titled "Too Asian to be American, too American to be Asian". That sentiment was already made fun of by The Simpsons. In one of the many Treehouse of Horror episodes, after separating Siamese twins—no wait, conjoined twins!—Bart and Hugo with a paper cutter, Dr. Hibbert reflects:

Hibbert: But what to do with poor Hugo? Too crazy for Boys Town, too much of a boy for Crazy Town. The child was an outcast. So, we did the only humane thing.
Homer: We chained Hugo up in the attic like an animal and fed him a bucket of fish heads once a week.

Joey "Accordion Guy" deVilla links to and thinks about Mary Ann Sieghart comparing past British Prime Ministers, who judged Tony Blair coming in around the middle of the pack (I'm guessing upper second third, like many Presidential scholars think about Bill Clinton). Of course, the final word on the debate as to the best Prime Minister comes from Wade Boggs and Barney Gumble, who argued heatedly about the subject (Wade Boggs was a ringer for Mr. Burns' softball team).

Barney: And I say England's greatest Prime Minister was Lord Palmerston!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!!
Barney: Lord Palmerston!!!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!!!! [pokes Barney]
Barney: Okay, you asked for it, bud! [punches him out]
Moe: Yeah, that's showing him, Barney! [scoffing] Pitt the Elder...
Barney: Lord Palmerston!!!! [punches Moe]

From John Gruber, we get a discussion on using Greasemonkey to uncensor the Internet. This reminded me of the offense that a prison officer took to Sideshow Bob's characterization of the jail in his parole hearing:

Lawyer: Robert, if released, would you pose any threat to one Bart Simpson?
Sideshow Bob: [barely in control] Bart Simpson? Ha! The spirited little scamp who twice foiled my evil schemes and [maliciously] sent me to this dank, urine-soaked hellhole?
Officer: Uh, we object to the term "urine-soaked hellhole" when you could have said, "peepee-soaked heckhole".
Sideshow Bob: Cheerfully withdrawn.

Adam's brother is going to German camp this weekend, and add to that the fact that I work with at least 3 German-speakers, and that I'm trying to learn German via podcast, reminds me of the episode in which Mr. Burns' nuclear power plant is purchased by Germans. My favourite two bits of that episode are when Mr. Smithers is trying to learn German using a very suspicious phrase tape (English: "You look sharp today, sir." German: "You looken sharpen todayen, mein Herr.") and near the very end when the Germans threaten Mr. Burns after the former sell the plant back to the latter:

Horst: [threatingly] We Germans aren't all smiles und sunshine.
Burns: [recoils in mock horror] Oooh, the Germans are mad at me. I'm so scared! Oooh, the Germans!
[hiding behind Smithers]
Uh oh, the Germans are going to get me!
Horst: Stop it!
Man 2: Stop, sir.
Burns: Don't let the Germans come after me. Oh no, the Germans are coming after me.
Man 2: Please stop the `pretending you are scared' game, please.
Horst: Stop it! Stop it!
Burns: [brief pause, then resumes]
No! They're so big and strong!
Man 2: Stop it.
Horst: Stop it, Mr. Burns.
Man 2: Please stop pretending you are scared of us, please, now.
Burns: Oh, protect me from the Germans! The Germans...
Horst: Burns, STOP IT!

Last month "Accordion Guy" Joey deVilla posted a photo of the MacGyver Multitool, aka a paperclip, and links to some pretty funny videos of Saturday Night Live's parody, MacGruber (the guy's a frigging genius!), in which the final piece of the puzzle to stop the explosion is something nobody wants to pick up.

Of course, there are many references to MacGyver on The Simpsons (too many, possibly, for one blog post!). There's:

• the lock of MacGyver's hair
• "Best MacGyver ever"
• the one where Jay Sherman tells the Bouvier sisters that MacGyver's gay, and suffers the consequences

Last but not least, the episode in which MacGyver plays an important role in the plot. We even get to listen in on an episode of MacGyver, watched by the sisters and Sideshow Bob.

Man: Thank you, Senor MacGyver. You've saved our village.
MacGyver: Don't thank me. Thank the moon's gravitational pull.
Selma: That MacGyver's a genius.
Sideshow Bob: First of all, he's not a genius. He's an actor. And second, he's not much of an actor.
Selma: [refusing to believe] You're lying! You're lying!
Sideshow Bob: No, Selma. is lying.
[puts on an absurd smile]
That was a well-plotted piece of nonclaptrap that never made me want to retch.

Later, when Selma came crying to the house of the Simpson family, and Marge was trying to get them to make up, this exchange:

Sideshow Bob: Selma, I don't know what to say...
Selma: Just tell me you like MacGyver.
Sideshow Bob: Very well, I... I... [breaks down]
I can't do it! Even that car chase seemed tacked-on!