WASHINGTON -- Is this Maryland house on fire? No, those are the Christmas lights, programmed to go on and off in sync with Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe."
You can see the house in action in the video above from the Baltimore Sun.
The Bel Air man responsible for this display -- identified by WMAR-TV/ABC2 as a "software guy" named "Clark 'Sparky' Griswold" -- told the Baltimore station that his 10,000 lights were rigged to go on and off because "you've got to blink the lights if you're going to put it to music." (This is, of course, still 15,000 lights fewer than the Clark Griswold of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" used, causing his local electric utility to turn on its backup nuclear generator.)
As a sign on the front lawn instructs, visitors can listen to the music by setting their car radios to 107.1-FM. Or by playing a teenage girl's iPod. The Bel Air Griswold's daughter told ABC2 that he was "inspired" to set his lights to "Call Me Maybe" "because I listened to it so many times, and he liked it."
Sounding astonishingly patient, an across-the-street neighbor said on camera that "it's like living across the street from Times Square."
A Fark user, not living across the street from the display, said that even if the house isn't actually on fire, it still sears:
Just when you finally got the song out of your head, "Call Me Maybe" can now be permanently burned into your eyes, via a holiday light display in Bel Air, Md.
We're willing to run that risk. You, too? The "Call Me Maybe" house is located in the 1200 block of Bel Air's Corinthian Court. While you're in the area, check out the Masters family's elaborate Christmas light-and-music extravaganza less than two miles away, at 905 Hackberry Court.
The Masters have a website detailing things like when their lights are on, how they got into elaborate Christmas light displays and how much their electric bill goes up during the holiday season. It perhaps goes without saying that the person responsible for that display, Chuck Masters, also goes by the nickname Clark.