Funnyman George Carlin loved to talk about “stuff:” “That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is, a place to keep your stuff.” In memory of Carlin, who died June 22 of heart disease at age 71, here’s some “stuff” by which to remember him.  Do-it-yourself site CafePress.com features a wide selection of Carlin goods.  (Keep the kids away from this Web page, though, because Carlin’s famous “7 dirty words” make an appearance on some T-shirts). Among the standout items:  A “Will I ever stop asking rhetorical questions?” bumper sticker ($5) and a “George: You made us laugh. You made us think. We’ll miss you” fitted T-shirt ($25).  Some say Carlin, unlike many stand-up comics, transitioned easily from stage to written word. His book Brain Droppings spent 40 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List and includes such funny bits as “People Who Should be Phased Out,” and “Seven Things I’m Tired Of” ($7). Also available from the Carlin library:  Napalm and Silly Putty , which features bits like “The Ten Most Embarrassing Songs of All Time,” and “The 20th Century Hostility Scorecard” ($11).  In When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? Carlin waxes poetic  (or vulgar, depending on how you look at it) about topics like the battle of the sexes, war and politics ($19). There’s no question that Carlin was most famous for his stand-up comedy.  In fact, Carlin hosted the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 11, 1975. Pick up the first season of the hit show here and  see him perform an opening monologue comparing football and baseball. The ultimate purchase for a diehard Carlin fan?  The George Carlin: All My Stuff DVD set, which features a 14-disc career retrospective, including all 12 of Carlin’s HBO specials ($180).

Each summer for six years and counting, carelessly groomed, long-haired overweight men in frumpy bathrobes and well-coiffed women dressed as spear-carrying She-Visigoths gather in Louisville, Ky. to bowl and sip White Russians – and what-have-you – in celebration of the prolifically inventive Coen brothers’ (Fargo, Raising Arizona) movie The The Big Lebowski. The film, which came out in 1998, was the first cult film of the internet age, according to the author of I’m a Lebowski, You’re a Lebowski: Life, The Big Lebowski and What-Have-You ($13.72) and this article which will fill you in on all-things-Dude and why repeating the repetitive phrases in the film is part of the fun. If you haven’t met him already: The Dude. If you can’t make it to any of the Big Lebowski festivals this summer – voted one of the Best Summer Road Trips for 2008 by FHM and Maxim – get in the spirit by creating your own celebration. First, get the movie ($20), a recipe for White Russians and a rug that really ties the room together – I like the prices of these in the Andy Warhol series. You must have a Dude Abides T-shirt ($15) and take a look at these posters. Meet other Dudists at dudeism.com, which promotes self-help materials: All I Really Need to Know I Learned Watching The Big Lebowski and The Five People You Bowl With in Heaven. To find the best bowling ball for you, read over these reviews. Grab a ball Walter would love, the Purple Pearl, which one reviewer described as “not over aggressive,” or the Ultimate Inferno ($105) , described as the “most forgiving ball I ever owned.” When you are ready to roll, grab this Smiley Faces bowling bag (on sale $17) and be sure to have snake oil ($5 for 4 oz.) on hand. Of course, if you are a true Dude, you will do none of this – am I wrong?

Remember back when the compact disc was new? It was such a novelty, in fact, that you were as likely to have to go to an electronics dealer or a maverick toy store to get one, rather than your favorite record shop. Back then, a huge percentage of the CDs I saw for sale were classical music. Why? Because classical fans are serious about quality, and many will invest cash and risk new tech in the pursuit of high fidelity. So it’s a little surprising that it’s taken this long for operas to make an appearance on Blu-ray. Regardless, the Opus Arte imprint is now officially ahead of the curve, with a line of operas in high-def now being distributed through Naxos. Among their earliest releases are Mozart’s crowd pleaser The Magic Flute, under the direction of Sir Colin Davis, and Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. Highbrow videophiles who don’t do opera are finding titles to suit them as well, with the occasional ballet like Swan Lake hitting the Blu-ray format, while historical costume dramas such as The Other Boleyn Girl and performance-heavy imports like Saawariya (an Indian musical take on a Dostoyevsky tale) trickle out slowly. Fans of experimental composition, sadly, may have to wait a bit: as with a new documentary chronicling Karlheinz Stockhausen’s elaborate Helicopter String Quartet, those works are still relegated to standard DVD.

Though the Fourth of July brings to mind fireworks, barbecue and a day off for many of us, it’s also a time to contemplate the spirit of American freedom and independence as it is expressed in so many mediums. Think of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA , James Brown’s Living in America, Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream (read lyrics here), Janice Joplin singing Me and Bobby McGee, Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present, and David McCullough ’s narrating the audio version of his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1776 (pictured). At the National Archives, review the the history of July Fourth and download, high resolution, printer-friendly copies of the original Declaration of Independence. Browse excerpts from books on the American Revolution at Questia. At PBS, check out Liberty! The American Revolution (three-DVD set $50), hosted by news anchor Forrest Sawyer and featuring reenactments about the birth of the American Republic and the struggle of 13 loosely connected states to become a nation. More recently, the acclaimed HBO series John Adams is now out on DVD ($39). Also consider Thomas Jefferson (on sale for $17.76) starring Sam Waterston and directed by Ken Burns. Take a look at The American Film Institute’s list of the 100 most inspiring American Films (scroll down). Fourth of July sales offer an excellent opportunity to exercise your patriotic right to shop. Check out the Independence Day sale and discount coupons at HerCoupon.

One of the biggest disappointments faced by many new owners of handheld video devices is that you can’t easily transfer your favorite DVDs to them for on-the-go enjoyment. If you’ve already bought every season of Lost on DVD, why should you have to fork over two bucks an episode at the iTunes store just so you can watch it on your iPod instead of your TV? Enter the Pinnacle Video Transfer, a $130 gadget designed to address this very problem. The little black box plugs into a video source on one end, into a media player (or hard drive) on the other, and transfers any analog video signal with no computer required. You can transfer old home movies from VHS, save DVDs in iPod-friendly format, or — hard as it is to believe, I know people do this — record yourself playing your favorite video game so you can replay all the shoot-’em-up action for friends. All by pressing a single button when the program you want starts playing on your TV. As with many gadgets, this one may play better with PCs: My iPod is formatted to communicate with my Mac, and as a result I couldn’t record anything to it, even after following Pinnacle’s support instructions and reformatting the iPod’s hard drive (and losing tons of data as a result). The company says few users have this problem, but it has released a $100 device aimed solely at Mac users — the main difference being that the latter needs to be hooked up to your computer while you do transfers.

Perhaps you’ve heard about some big-deal movie currently in theaters that stars fashion-obsessed women who enjoy a cocktail every now and then. Well, long before Carrie & Co., the British had the uproarious Absolutely Fabulous, starring Jennifer Saunders as Edina (left) and Joanna Lumley as Patsy (right). AbFab has just been released on disc in a box set, packaged in a silvery quilted album that’s just like a high-end purse Edina might covet ($103). Previous DVD collections have borne names like “Complete DVD Collection,” but this new release is the only one to really have it all: nine discs containing all five seasons of the series, the multiple stand-alone specials, and enough bonus features to give you a hangover. For a remedy, AbFabaholics might consider spending time with their polar opposites, the Two Fat Ladies who traveled the English countryside in search of adventure and food in a late-’90s cooking show that was made for the BBC but eventually found fans stateside on the Food Network. The ladies’ own “complete series” box set isn’t due until late July, which gives you plenty of time to marvel at the AbFab high jinks of Edina and Patsy. Interested in smaller doses of Anglophilia? The New Release shelf has plenty, ranging from the nonfiction (Incredible Britain, hosted by Harry Potter’s Robbie Coltrane) to the strictly fictional (Woody Allen’s murder plot Cassandra’s Dream; the enjoyable period-piece heist film Flawless) to features based on fact, like the grim but involving biopic Control, about the lead singer of the cult band Joy Division, also the subject of a new documentary.