I can't recall a public performance more divisive than Aretha Franklin's cover of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" on the Sept. 29 episode of The Late Show with David Letterman. The conversations I had about it fell into two distinct camps: those who loved and those who hated it. Both were adamant. One person on the latter side suggested that anyone who posted praise of it was just traffic-whoring. One person on the former side jokingly called for a ban on opinions, specifically of those who suggested that Franklin's vocals on the studio version of "Deep" had been sweetened with Auto-tune .

John St-Onge started playing with Lego many years ago as a way to bond with his then-young children.

Today, the ‘90s new jill swing trio SWV (Sisters with Voices) released their first non-holiday album since 1997's Release Some Tension. This fourth full-length is full of songs that find the fortysomething women singing about various states of love and longing, but the subtext is so blatant that it's practically just text. The album is called I Missed Us, named after a song that reminisces about past love, but named for the nostalgia that fuels this comeback and its contents.

To be a successful barista in today's competitive market, you must be twentysomething and very sexy. Shirley Stagner and Tina Holcombe are in their 40s, which automatically makes them very unsexy—and, therefore, completely unqualified to bariste at Hot Java Hunnies, the sexiest coffee depot in Kent, Washington.

Ex-Senator Alan Simpson is a co-chair of Barack Obama's deficit-reduction commission, and many liberals fear that he'll take a wrecking ball to Social Security. And now that a grumpy, comical email rant of Simpson's has leaked, liberals are downright livid.

There's a scene in the first episode of Mad Men when the ad agency pulls its only Jewish employee out of the mailroom and has him sit in on a meeting in order to impress a Jewish client. This is called "casting," and it happens in real life too! Today Jews are more adequately represented (we assume), but the ad industry is currently seeking another group for a starring role in central casting: the young. Because young people "get it" in this changing digital age, haha, supposedly! Veterans say this is stupid—mostly because they're scared of getting fired. But they're also right! The ad industry is in a downturn right now, just like the media. That means higher-salaried employees are the ones that agencies would most like to let go. Also, every client wants something "digital," and having taken their cues from Mountain Dew commercials, they're convinced that only young slacker types can truly deliver the audience they need buying their widgets. So, no matter how smart people are, you can't put any old folks in front of clients seeking young buyers, regardless of who actually comes up with the good ideas. And ruminate upon this quote:

"We have a preference for those who like to work and play hard," the search giant candidly informs potential candidates for openings for a compliance manager, senior internal auditor, financial project analyst, senior internal controls auditor, management accountant, internal audit treasury manager, accounting manager, internal audit manager, and technology risk analyst. Doesn't exactly conjure up the image of a white-haired 58-year-old Type II diabetic, does it?

Now that Valleywag's Straighty McStraights are out of the closet, it's time to stand up for another oppressed demographic: The Valley's middle-agers. No, not the professionally groomed gray-haired executives who hop between million-dollar gigs. I mean the kid-raising, house-owning, middle-managing people without whom none of the snotnose Web 2.0 brats would still have a job. I've been full-time at Valleywag three days, and the elder abuse is already insufferable. So: Send me your age-discrimination stories, your defamatory tales of underage "founders," your news items of interest to techies over 40. As for you Youngs, someone needs to tell you: Your code sucks, and we only keep John C. Dvorak around because he drives you insane.

Millennials! Who are they and what do they want from us? They Facebook their MySpaces all day and Twitter their iPhones all night, and they have terrible manners! Have they come to take us to a Home? Morley Safer investigated on last Sunday's 60 Minutes. [In a repeat, apparently!] The video of the segment is below the jump. It will terrify you! These kids have tattoos and still expect to hold jobs and there are 80 million of them.

Mike Wallace, the crazily well-preserved 89-year-old 60 Minutes correspondent had triple bypass surgery over the weekend and is recovering nicely, the NYPost says. Good to hear! Despite the relatively decent health possessed by the rest of 60 Minutes crew, their Achilles heel remains their collective ancientness. Being a television news reporter isn't exactly easy on the ticker-PBS talk show host Charlie Rose practically died last year, but he's got a new gig-as a '60 Minutes' correspondent. Just what they needed, another faultily-wired senior citizen!

Oh ho, Mayor Bloomberg's in trouble.... It seems last week's EEOC sexual discrimination lawsuit against his company, Bloomberg LP, was just the tip of the iceberg. Bloomberg's been kind of douchey for years, though he says the outfit is a Disneyland of family values.