My local ATM has become aggressively informal. At first it was just small things, like saying "Sure" and "No, thanks" instead of "yes" and "no" when asking if I want a receipt. But now it's completely out of control. Now it's all, "Howdie-ho, neighbor! Hot enough for ya? Well golly gee willikers, what can I do you for?"

Obviously some bank honcho thinks that patrons will respond favorably to this folksy, conversational style, but I find it repellant. I don't even like it when actual-human colleagues call me "Matt," so I don't really need a freakin' machine chumming up to me like we've just spent the evening polishing off a half-rack of Coors.

And it seems to be worse every time I go there. At this point, pretty much every question and menu option has been meticulously phrased to be as laid-back as possible, and they've even revised some of the older, breezy responses to make them more casual. God knows where it will end.

According to an article in today's New York Times "behavior detection officers" at airports are now keeping an eye out for persons wearing the following expressions:

In other words, in addition to having to forgo your iPod and hair gel you will now be required to check in your teen prior to boarding.

I understand they've carved out a little space for the youngsters down in the cargo hold, where they will be serving Hi-C and showing The Apple Dumpling Gang. Oh, that sounds delightful!

Best Ann Coulter interview ever.

I've recently started listening to the Adam Corolla show in the morning. I couldn't stand The Man Show or Loveline, but Corolla is well suited to freeform, topic-less rambling and raving. He seems like he might be jerk, but he's a highly-intelligent jerk with a trigger-quick wit and a wizard with the ad-lib analogy. He is flanked by Affable Goofball Dave Damesheck and Remarkably Good Sport Teresa Strasser. Here is a snippet of typical banter .

Much of the show is sexist, racist, mean-spirited, and just plain boorish, and I occasionally have to switch to NPR reassure myself that I am still an liberal elitist. But my commute is only 10 minutes long, and that's usually the perfect dose of these guys. (Though I will then sometimes listen to them on my walkman again later in the morning, as I use the ecliptic trainer at the gym. It was there that I heard the above Coulter interview, and could not stop guffawing.)

Speaking of Corolla, this morning he spoke with Chris Paine, writer and director of the film Who Killed The Electric Car?. They talked a bit about the various conspiracy theories surrounding the auto industry, pointing out that GM introduced an electric car in 1990, only to later recall and destroy nearly all of the vehicles the moment the law requiring 10% of California cars to be electric was repealed.

That's a pretty good conspiracy theory, as these things go. But I think mine is better. I don't think cars run on gasoline at all. I think that, after the crisis of the 70's, car manufactures figured out how to make their products run on air, but when the oil companies objected they agreed to hornswoggle consumers into believing that gas was still necessary: A fuel hole that goes nowhere, a device in the useless tailpipe that produces smoke, and a mechanism that shuts down the car if the gas needle ever reaches "E."

Think about it: you never actually see any of the purported "fuel" you put into your Chevy: you put a nozzle into your gas tank hole, you wait a few minutes, you take it out, and then you gotta pay thirty bucks. (60's era comedian, with a scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other: "Sounds a lot like my love life.")

Penalty kicks are such a stupid way of deciding a soccer game. Over 120 minutes of a team sport with final score determined by a series of mano a mano face-offs.

Penalty kicks are so dissimilar to regular soccer that it's almost a different game entirely, like the outcome of a tied Cavaliers v. Timberwolves basketball game settled by LeBron James and Kevin Garnett playing Twister at mid-court. Come to think of it though, that, unlike penalty kicks, might be interesting to watch.

When Coca-cola debuted it was sold in 6 oz. bottles. Six ounces! Today the thought of drinking a mere 6 oz. of Coke seems unfathomably quaint, like riding around in a carriage or steadfastly refusing to believe it's not butter.

I remember buying the 8 oz. "half cans" of Coke at the local market when I was a kid, but the 12 oz. can reigned supreme for the last few decades. No longer, though. Now the standard unit of Coke (here in the Northwest, at least) is 20 oz. -- you can no longer find the smaller-sized cans of soda at gas stations or convenience stores, and even vending machines now dispense plastic bottles.

When Coke sold in 6 oz. bottles it was billed as the "pause" that refreshes. Now it's a motherlovin' sabbatical.

You'd think that there would be a logical upper-limit to the amount of cola soft drink companies could pawn off as the "standard." You'd think that, but apparently you'd be wrong. Wendy's, for instance, is currently renaming its drink sizes, and what was once a "Biggie" Mountain Dew is now a "medium." In other words, their "standard" size contains 32 oz. So does the 7-11 "Big Gulp" -- and it's the smallest of the Gulp family, which includes the Super Big Gulp (44 oz.), the X-Treme Big Gulp (52 oz.), and the Brobdingnagian Gulp (a Coca-cola syrup canister with a straw stuck into it). We can't raise the minimum wage in this country, but the minimum serving size of Sprite just goes up and up and up.

"Sure," you might argue, "but those are fountain drinks, which are 50% ice anyhow. But the standard size of soft drinks sold in stores can't possibly get any bigger than 20 oz." Au contraire, Mon Pèpper! Here's the side of a vending machine I saw today, photographic evidence that the cola companies are already laying the psychological groundwork for future increases:

I think the cola companies have one simple goal: to only have to make their product in a single size -- perferably a size they already produce so they won't have to modify their existing facilities. And they're well on their way. All they have to do is increment the "standard" a few more times over the next few years and, by 2010, drinking a two-liter bottle of Coke with your lunchtime Reuben will be considered the norm. We're gonna need some bigger cupholders.

My favorite aspect of the World Cup is the theatrics. You know, like the way that any two players that pass within 70 ft. of one another will immediately drop to the ground, clutch their right knee, and writhe around in unbearable agony -- and then, five seconds later, and completely irrespective of whether the official calls a foul or not, leap back to their feet and charge back into the action. There is more dramatics in a 90 minute soccer game than an entire season of your local repertoire theater. In the off season I bet these guys supplement their income by going to the local Piggly-Wiggly, pretending to slip on a wet spot on the floor, and doing their "Sweet Jesus I've torn every ligament in my thigh!" routine until the liability lawyers come a-running.

I also love the way how, after the ball goes out-of-bounds or there is foul, each player involved will stop, stare directly at the referee, and act out the call he wants the official to make. And then the ref goes ahead and makes whatever ruling he was going to issue anyway. It's as if every team were made up of the galaxy's most ineffectual Jedis.

Over dinner Saturday night a four year-old told me this joke:

Him: Knock knock.

Me: Who's there?

Me: Undies.

Me: Undies who?

Him: Undies pants!

Speaking of jokes, I saw an ad for The Simpsons on TV the other day, which featured this snippet of comedy gold:

Home: You're sure spending a lot of time with Moe.

Bart: Yeah, he's like the father I never had.

{Beat}

Homer: Wait a minute: I'm your father!

To put this in context, I'll need to give you a quick primer in the history of the joke.

Jokes originated in ancient Egypt, though the earliest consisted of only the straightline.

Sphinx: What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?

Ramses II: I don't know.

Sphinx: No one does.

{Awkward silence}

Ramses II: I really think you should get that thing on your nose looked at.

Then, in 1882, George Washington Carter revolutionized comedy with his invention of the punchline.

George Washington Carver: What do you call four nuns and a bicycle with no seat?

Nick Fury, who has been sent back in time to assassinate the grandfather of Benito Mussolini: I don't know, what?

George Washington Carver: Peanuts!

But did we Americans rest on our laurels? NO! In the late 20th century we pioneered Joke 3.0, which added a third line -- the explainline aftermirth -- to the equation. Pioneered by such ground-breaking shows as Home Improvement and the comic styling of Gallagher, the explainline aftermirth finally made humor accessible to everyone, even mooncalves like you and I.

Oh I get it: Homer is his father! It's funny because it's true!

So next time you tell your favorite joke, don't forget the explainline aftermirth:

Why are fish so smart?

Because they live in schools.

The word "school" could refer to either a group of fish or a place where children are educated!

---

Did you hear about the psychic in San Francisco who specialized in predicting bad breath?

Her sign read "Super California mystic, expert: halitosis."

The people in California are so dumb they elected Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor -- you can't help but laugh!

---

Supreme Court Justice One: Who's there?

Supreme Court Justice Two: Undies.

Supreme Court Justice One: Undies who?

Supreme Court Justice Two: Undies pants!

Supreme Court Justice One: I'm afraid I'm still not entirely clear on who you are.

Supreme Court Justice Two: "Underpants" is the world's funniest word.

Supreme Court Justice One: Hahahaha!

That's sarcasm. In truth the United States is not highly regarded in the International community!

You know who the most boring people in the world are? People who describe television commercials to those who haven't seen them.

And yet ...

So there’s this television commercial running here in Seattle for a radio station called "Jack FM." (Note: I only saw the ads once, so everything that follows is a Dramatic Recreation, and could be 100% misremembered / wrong.) It features a guy throwing his Nirvana and Pearl Jam CDs into a dustbin, while a voiceover says: "Tired of hearing to the same old music, Seattle? Jack FM is liberating listeners from the same-old same-old." And, to illustrate the point, Joan Jett’s "I Love Rock And Roll" kicks in at that moment.

Omigod, "I Love Rock And Roll" by Joan Jett! Boy, that sure takes me back. All the way back to the last time I heard that song, which, at any given point in my adult life, has never been longer than 72 hours.

I actually listened to Jack 96.5 once. I was tooling around the FM dial one afternoon and stumbled across this bizarro station that featured "the best of the 80’s, 90’s and today" and no DJs whatsoever. They played a series of hits so familiar that you could belt out any one of them at karaoke even after imbibing several gallons of sake, and occasionally, between songs, a prerecorded voice would come on and bellow some nonsensical phrase, usually a cliché with one random word replaced with "Jack" (e.g., "A fool and his Jack are soon parted!" or "A Jack and his money are soon parted!" or "A fool and his money Jack soon parted!")

In other words, Jack FM is just about the farthest thing from The Same-Old Same-Old Liberation Front imaginable. I’d speculate that the music was programmed in a nondescript building somewhere in the Midwest if I thought it was programmed at all; instead I’m guessing there’s an 500-song iPod somewhere hooked up to a radio antenna and set on perpetual shuffle-play. And yet here's this ad, promoting Jack FM as the Really Real For-Real Alternative Radio Station, bold enough to play those songs that have been heard at every single wedding reception since 1979. You could pretty much hear the same playlist (with none of the commercials) by locking yourself in the bathroom of your local grocery store.

If George Orwell were like George Lucas (and less dead), constantly going back and inserting new material into his masterpiece, he'd probably add "CONFORMITY IS REBELLION" to the list of Oceania's Party slogans. YES IM SO INCENSED I HAVE NO RECOURSE BUT TO MAKE A 1984 REFERENCE!!

(After writing the above I checked out the Wikiepedia entry on Jack FM, which reads "The stations are officially classified as the Variety Hits or Adult Hits format ... but listeners sometimes refer to the stations as random radio or an 'iPod shuffle.'" WTF -- I though I came up with that "iPod shuffle" line. Apparently you can't even talk about Jack FM without becoming banal. And here's an article from Business Week on the Jack FM business model, in case you're interested.)

As long as I'm in Cranky Old Man mode, here, have you heard "Lonely Day," this new song by System Of A Down? I'm not one of those people who reflexively badmouths Top 40 music -- I own both a Blink 182 and a Third Eye Blind CD, for crissakes, and have even defended Creed in my day -- but Great Grandmother of Cher is this song ever bad.

The music itself is forgettable, but the lyrics would probably sweep the Bulwer-Lytton contest. Here's how it starts:

Such a lonely day
And its mine
The most loneliest day of my life

Such a lonely day
Should be banned
This day that I can't stand

The most loneliest day of my life
The most loneliest day of my life ...

I'm willing to overlook the fact that he begins by rhyming "mine" with "life" since it's well nigh impossible to find any words that rhymes with either. And I assume that the misuse of the word "its" in the second line above is the fault of whomever transcribed the song's lyrics onto the website I stole them from. But, honestly, this song is so awful I can almost hear the apostrophes's absence when it comes on the radio.

It's no "Brass Monkey" by the Beastie Boys, but it's a bad one for the ages, that's for certain. If you haven't heard it yet, don't you worry. I'm sure it will be in heavy rotation on Jack FM by 2015 or so.

Every day during my morning commute I pass a store called "Westernco Donut" and marvel that it is still open.

Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep and the world laughs at you.

I think the secret to happiness is to care a lot about people who care about you, and to not care too much about anything else.

The Queen and I subscribed to Cooking Light magazine last year. Great recipes, as long as you're aware of the algorithm they use to encrypt them and can translate them back into Actual Cuisine. For those not in the know, here's the secret: before you begin, run your finger down the list of ingredients and quintuple the amount of any foodstuff that you look forward to ingesting:

I stumbled across the secret one evening while making a recipe that called for "1/8 cup cheddar cheese," a quantity as wildly improbable as "17 ounces of black pepper." "One cup" is the fundamental, atomic unit of shredded cheese -- did the editors of Cooking Light think we would not know this?

Another thing you need to increase by an order of magnitude is the recipies' cooking time for anything that involves meat. Maybe the guys who write Cooking Light are all vegans and have to guestimate on matters of carnivory or something, but the directions are always, like

Add ginger, minced lemongrass, garlic to pan and saute until browned. Add soy sauce mixture, cook for 3 minutes on medium-high heat. Add raw chicken, cook for an additional 30 seconds stirring frequently, serve over rice.

I will say that I have lost a considerable amount of weight using Cooking Light's recipes. Eating undercooked pork three days a week will do that to a guy.

I'm in DC this week. I flew in yesterday. As the plane left the ground the stewardess came on the intercom and told us that this would be the captain's last flight, and he would be retiring tomorrow. Not comforting. I've seen enough cop movies to know what will happens to the the grizzled old veteran (and presumably everyone on the grizzled old veteran's plane) when someone mentions, in the first act, that it's his last day on the job before retirement.

I had a window seat above the wing. On the engine I could see a red circle, with a pictogram of a man inside it and a line crossing him out. I wasn't sure if this was to warn people from getting too close, or if the captain was an ex-WWII ace and was keeping a record of his kills.

Also: I must be getting old, because I now firmly of the opinion that members of a flight crew should not refer to one another as "bro."

The fact that an "Everything But The Girl" song is being used to hawk Hummers makes me want to go Amish.

Funny Joke: what's the difference between breast milk and steamed milk?

A: You can sell steamed milk for 10¢ an ounce!

The full text of the billboard -- which can only be read by standing directly below it -- is "Babies are made to be breastfed." The URL below the slogan -- really, the entire point of the PSA -- is completely blocked by the building.

And lest you think that the sign is only obscured at this angle, here is the view from the street.

I notice that that Guinness Book of World Records has an entry entitled Most accurate value of pi:

As continuation of a long-running project, Yasumasa Kanada of the University of Tokyo has calculated the number pi to 1,241,100,000,000 decimal places.

Also: Most Popular DJ-Simulation Video Game? Most Latex Feet Made For a Movie? Farthest Spaghetti Nasal Ejection?! Come on. By that standard I probably set the record for "Most Ounces Of Poached Egg And Corn Beef Hash Enjoyed By a Matthew Scott Baldwin On January 18, 2006" just this morning.

I start most mornings by jotting a quick Todo List on a piece of paper. The other day, while shuffling papers around on my desk, I found a hidden cache of older lists. Reviewing them, I realized that a typical list consists of about ten items that involve starting projects and about three items that involve completing projects begun on a prior date.

I had this epiphany the other day: the word "please" is just shorthand for "pleas." So instead of going through the bother of making actual pleas when you want something you just say "please" instead, and I guess that's supposed to be sufficient. It's like walking into a car dealership, saying "Toyota Corolla, negotiate," and expecting them to immediately knock $800 off the sticker price.

Well, screw that. The next time I'm in Arby's and the teen behind the counter say "can I take your order, please?" I'm going to be all, like, "Pffft -- you'll get my order when I hear some actual pleading, slacker."

Apparently a Las Vegas bodybuilder and his wife killed their personal trainer, put the body in the trunk of a Jaguar, and set the vehicle ablaze before fleeing to Boston. I heard the story on the last night's news.

I knew that whole "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" slogan was a bunch of crap.

Of all the dinosaurs I think Troödon is my favorite. I don't know what it looked like or anything about it, but it must have been totally awesome to get named under heavy metal band nomenclature.

I saw two neohippies with dreadlocks strolling down the sidewalk and holding hands. If they live together I bet they are very compatible housemates. No chance of getting hair-care products mixed up, at any rate.

One of my vices is a predilection for shitty cereal. Most mornings I start the day with a bowl Cheerios or whatnot, but every other month I splurge on a box of some sugary abomination and then proceed to demolish it over the next three days or so. I feel like I owe it to my ten year-old self, who promised he would do exactly this when he became an adult.

I am not a connoisseur, however, so I always buy the store-brand knockoff cereal instead of the original. Froot Hoops. Honey Snacks. Earl Chocola. Fortunate Tchotchkes.

This week I picked up a Cap'n Crunch clone called "Berry Crackles," complete with the obligatory cartoon animal mascot.

Except the longer I looked at Crackles the Squirrel, the more I became convinced that he was actually a Surgeon General mandated warning, illustrating what will happen to your children if they eat this stuff.

The only thing missing was some accompanying text.

Warning: Berry Crackles contains more sugar than the island of Cuba, and should not be taken internal by persons under 14 or above 10 years of age. Consumption may result in clenched teeth, asymmetrically bulging eyes, dialted pupils, double vision, accelerated fur- and tail-growth, and sucrose-fueled hyperactivity. In case of accidental ingestion, induce vomiting and place child in front of "Antiques Roadshow" until sedated.

In front a field near my house there is a sign reading "Strawberries / Blackberries / Blueberries: U-Pick."

Oh man, that's the greatest racket in the world. "My dirt made this -- pay me." I'm going to buy a wooded tract of land and post a sign reading "Chairs / canoes / homes: U-Bild."

Also near our house is a handwritten sign reading "Will wash windows, $1*" and then, at the bottom, in a tiny scrawl, "* per side" Ha! The Queen thought it was a waste of money to get those fancy Möbius windows installed, but I knew they would eventually pay for themselves.

Saw this sign in the liquor store today. (Well, the top half of this sign, anyhow.) Kids who were born in 1984 are legally drinking Yam Daiquiri these days? That's just ridiculous.

This whole "21 years" law is a crock. Drinking should be illegal for anyone who (a) has never worn a Member's Only Jacket, (b) has never used the word "rad" in a non-ironic manner, or (3) was unaware that David Hasselhoff starred in a TV series prior to Baywatch.

1. No woman, in the history of courtship, has ever uttered the phrase "he's a really great guy" and not followed it with the word "but."

2. Getting involved with a girl who has stuffed animals in the back window of her car is rarely a good idea.

3. Unless otherwise specified, the correct time to microwave something is three minutes.

Update: Some readers are asserting that the final one is not, technically speaking, a "dating" truism. And, okay: I'll grudgingly cede the point.

In its place, though, here are some other dating truisms from the comments:

• Alkelda: It's a terrible lapse in judgement to kiss a guy who thinks making Donald Duck sound effects is cool.
• theinsider: If a guy introduces you to a girl and says, "We were just good friends," they weren't. Watch out, they probably still aren't.
• Joy: Never date anyone who's 'getting his band together.'
• Stephanie: Never date outside of your political party in an election year.
• Erin: Don't ever be the "other people" in "We're seeing other people."

One of the sponsors of the geek-a-thon I'm attending is, inexplicably, Gibson Guitars. While all the other vendors were handing out software and flash drives at their booths, Gibson gave out picks.

I dunno -- this doesn't seem like the target demographic for Gibson. If we were guitar players we would have had girlfriends in high school, instead seeking solace in our Commodore 64s.

Every day on my morning commute, as I pass by an sign reading "Only Jesus Saves" posted on a telephone pole in front of a bank, I think "Well, at least someone will have money for retirement..."

I think it's ridiculous that "attempted murder" carries a lesser penalty than "murder." We should be encouraging people to excel in their professions, not rewarding them for failure.

If you are a jogger and currently over your desired target weight, avoid running down steep inclines. Your additional mass will put undue strain on your knee joints and ligaments, greatly increasing the chance of injury. Also, you will feel every ounce of your surplus fat shake as you jounce down the hill, and that's a huge fucking drag.

You kids today have it so easy. Back when I was in the dating pool, if you were speaking to someone you'd just met at a bar or a party and wanted to assertain their availabilitiy, you had to wait until they looked away and then surreptitiously glance at thier left hand to see if they were wearing a wedding band.

Now, of course, you can determine someone's marital status immediately, and without ever looking away from their face. You just ask yourself, "did this person have his or her teeth whitened in the last 12 months?"

I've been reading a lot of Winnie The Pooh books to The Squirrelly, and, I gotta tell you, Kanga is looking pretty fine. Got some junk in the trunk, if you know what I'm sayin'. And makes blueberry muffins at the drop of the hat.

There doesn't appear to be a Mr. Roo in the equation. Gets a guy to wondering ...

Update: Contrary to the baseless assertions of a few emailers, I am not a quote-unquote "furry." I'm just a guy who wants to have sex with an anthropomorphized marsupial, okay? Apples and oranges, people.

If they do it's going to be a major victory for advocates of gay-marriage and polygamy.

I was thumbing through the yellow pages this morning and I saw an ad for "Universal Refrigeration." Man, those guys must be awesome. Keeping the whole ball of wax at zero degrees kelvin can't be easy.

It would be fun to get a space heater and turn it up to "high," just to fuck with them.

• Show you the money
• Wake up and smell the coffee
• Want a piece of you
• Sit on it
• Keep it real
• Wang Chung tonight
• Get all up in your grill
• Think outside the box
• Be there (and/or be square)
• Talk to the hand
• Take it up a notch
• Kiss your grits
• Get jiggy with it
• Catch you on the flipside
• Open up a can of whoop-ass
• Gag you with a spoon
• Keep on truckin'
• Get with the program
• Eat your shorts
• Take it easy
• Give mad props
• Bring it on
• Touch base
• Quiero Taco Bell
• Not go there

Hey, are we no longer calling them "Freedom Fries?" Because recently, when I order them that way at the Burger Barn, all I get is a blank stare.

In case you missed it:

Robby Gordon accused Danica Patrick of having an unfair advantage in the Indianapolis 500 and said Saturday he will not compete in the race again unless the field is equalized.

Gordon ... contends that Patrick is at an advantage over the rest of the competitors because she only weighs 100 pounds. Because all the cars weigh the same, Patrick's is lighter on the race track.

"The lighter the car, the faster it goes," Gordon said. "Do the math. Put her in the car at her weight, then put me or Tony Stewart in the car at 200 pounds and our car is at least 100 pounds heavier. I won't race against her until the IRL does something to take that advantage away."

Actually, I'm not sure his complaint has any merit. I mean, okay, she weights 100 lbs. But she must be wearing at least 45 lbs. of advertising.

And besides, it's not as if males don't have physical advantages over females in some sports. When the Amazons decided to compete against men in archery they lopped off a breast; it seems like the least Gordon could do is forego a Kristy Kreme once in a blue moon.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice ... well hell, I've already endured two of the miserable fuckers, I guess I better go see Revenge of the Sith.

In the lunchroom at my work there's a quarter-full bottle of Diet 7-Up that's been sitting on the counter for two days. On it is a post-it note reading "Free Soda! Help yourself!"

Why communism doesn't work, in a nutshell.

I took the Squirrelly to the pediatric dentist yesterday. The receptionist was a girl in her mid 20's wearing a push-up bra and an unconscionably low-cut top. She remained seated as she reviewed the papers I had to fill out so I had to look down at her, except when she would briefly stand, lean way over the counter, and point out some clause on the medical waiver form.

Dear Women on Earth: please knock this off. Maybe you think you're doing us men a favor, that anything that increases the net sum of cleavage in the world is A-OK in our book. And I'm sure that's true for some. But for those of us who were raised to believe that openly gawping at the breasts of a woman two feet in front of you is rude, your heaving bosoms -- while no doubt a real treat under other circumstances -- are an undue burden upon us. You have no idea how exhausting it is to concentrate on whatever you're saying about my son's dental coverage while 85% of my mental resources have been diverted to my eyeballs to prevent them from drifting southward; you have no idea what a drag it is that, in order to go from looking from your face to looking at the paper in front of me, I have to detour all the way around your chest -- feigning a glance at a wall clock en route -- or move my head so quickly that I risk whiplash.

Don't get me wrong: I loves me some cleavage. In a bar, at a party, on the beach. But at the pediatric dentist? Come on. That's practically entrapment. I mean, who's your target audience here? Rule of thumb: if you're in a profession where you routinely interact with married men toting one year-olds, we'll take your mammalian credentials as an article of faith -- no need to flash 'em.

New pope intervened against Kerry in US 2004 election campaign:

German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican theologian who was elected Pope Benedict XVI, intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate John Kerry. In a June 2004 letter to US bishops enunciating principles of worthiness for communion recipients, Ratzinger specified that strong and open supporters of abortion should be denied the Catholic sacrament, for being guilty of a "grave sin" ...

• Karl Rove "went on vacation to Italy" three weeks ago.
• Shortly thereafter a new group called Noah's Ark Veterans For Truth springs out of nowhere, and begins airing commercials questioning the character of nearly all of the cardinals except Ratzinger.
• Likewise, Ratzinger is the only cardinal not mentioned by name in the book, released one week after John Paul II's death, entitled Unfit For The Popemobile.
• Ratzinger has never explained the mysterious bulge that was seen in the back of his frock while he delivered his homily last Friday, nor why he shouted "now let me finish!" in the middle of it.
• Ratzinger frequently mentioned the crucifixion of Christ in speeches and even went so far as to wear a cross around his neck in a cynical attempt to capitalize on the tragedy for theological gain.
• Also notice that Satan was almost never mentioned by Ratzinger, despite the fact that he remains at large and is unlikely to be captured any time soon.

Of course Rove may have helped just to stay in practice for 2006.

When you call my doctor's office, you are greeted by a recorded message that begins:

Thank you for calling. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, or if you have splashed poison in your eye, please press 9 to speak with a nurse.

Speaking of birthdays, today is mine. But I've been feeling old for a week.

Last Tuesday I travelled to the KUOW office to record my bit for The Works. The studio is located in the University District, and I have always enjoyed going up there because The Ave is invariably teeming with pretty college girls, always a delight to behold. Especially on a warm and sunny false Spring day.

Alas, something appears to have changed over the last year. Maybe it's becoming a parent, or maybe it because most co-eds now fall outside the half-your-age-plus-seven formula for me. But for whatever reason, they all looked too young for me to appreciate. Kids, really.

They are still pretty, to be sure. But it's similar to when I go to an art museum and look at the Van Goghs: I can recognize that I'm looking at a fine piece of work, but it doesn't really do anything for me.

Stupid aging. I feel like a gourmand who has been striken with ageusia.

I bought one of those tiny USB flash drives to shuttle files between by laptop and desktop PCs. It's incredibly handy, but have to make sure I don't leave it laying around the house so The Squirrelly can't get ahold of it.

I honestly never thought I'd see the day when a hard drive could constitute a choking hazard.

I was in Washington DC for a few days last week, and noticed that the McDonald's there are under CVS.

I think that's a pretty good idea. That way they can quickly rollback to an earlier version of the menu a few weeks after introducing some abomination like the McRibs.

Our son's current favorite toy is the Laugh & Learn Learning Home*, essentially a big, plastic, electronic facade. Dear Fisher-Price: please fire your entire marketing department and hire some guys who can at least think up a product name that doesn't use the same word twice in a row.

Every part of this toy makes noise. When you open the door there's a creaking sound, and a voice cries out "hello!" a tone so impossibly cheerful that it makes me want to go goth. When you open the shutters it sings "How Much For That Doggie In The Window?" And the Squirrelly enjoys nothing more than to press the doorbell thirty thousand times in a row ("ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong! ding-dong!"), until mama and papa are so irritated that they find themselves in a screaming match over whether "meatloaf" is one word or two.

Also, when the mailbox is opened it says "you've got ... letters!" I'm probably imagining the slight hesitation between "got" and "letters," but in that illusory pause it almost seems as if I can hear the Fisher-Price voicework woman thinking "oh man: if I say 'mail' AOL is going to sue me so hard that even my tattoos will be repossessed ..."

Wow, two anti-Microsoft posts in the last week -- what's up with that? I'm usually not a MS hayta -- I'm a linux and firefox guy myself, but I like Word and Publisher just fine. But driving home from work yesterday I heard a story on the local NPR station about how Microsoft was announcing yet another "critical" safety flaw in Internet Explorer, and I remember thinking, "Jesus, haven't I heard this exact same story, like, twice a month for the last four years?"

That's one bummer about living in Seattle: everytime there's a new vulnerability found in Windows we hear about it on the local news. At this point, the NPR affiliate probably just has a standard 30-second "Internet Explorer" piece that they use whenever they need to pad out their show a bit.

Today I went to the pet store and saw that they were selling kitty litter for dogs.

The world is changing in ways that I find frankly terrifying.

I understand that hyperbole plays a central role in any corporation's ad campaign, but claiming to have invented the most abundant element in the universe is a bit much.

Today for lunch I had a microwave pizza. To cook it I had to pull a strip on one side of the box and then carefully lift the lid making sure that the sides of the box came apart on the perforated lines and then remove the pizza from the box and then turn the box upside down and fold the lid all the way back so that the a square of metallic-color paper affixed to the inside of the top of the box was now resting on the outside of the bottom of the box and then remove the pizza from it's plastic wrapping and then set the cooking-platform-née-pizza-box in the microwave and then set the pizza on the square of metal paper and then slightly lift the lid to read the cooking times that were now hidden below it and then cook the pizza.

Attention microwave pizza makers! If I'd been born with the intelligence and perseverance necessary to perform complicated tasks like this, I would have gone to medical or law school and would now have a job that paid so well that the mere thought of eating frozen microwave pizza would make me grimace.

Please re-evaluate your target demographic and revise this design immediately.

Events featuring
"Veggie Party Platters" are
Not, in fact, parties.

Language is a funny thing. Take the words "crone" and "cone," for example. It’s only the absence of an "r" that prevents us from eating ice cream off withered old women.

I found this on the ground in a parking lot:

Two stories on the morning's wire: Clinton Absence Spells Either Boost or Bust for Kerry and Cheney May Help or Hinder Bush's Chances.

Wow, that's some hardhitting investigative journalism, right there. Who's writing this stuff, Two-Face? Typically to find this kind of detailed analysis about how Thing X could possibly affect Thing Y in one of two ways, you'd have to get stuck making chit-chat with a coworker in the elevator. I don't know why they don't just run one big Bush Or Kerry May Win Presidency article and wrap up their election reporting a few weeks early.

Confidential to the guy in sunglasses and muscle shirt who was driving around downtown Seattle this afternoon in a tricked-out, bright red convertible with the top down: your Herculean efforts to look cool are being largely negated by the fact that you are blasting Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years" at volume 11.

Waiting for a bus in downtown Seattle, I see a disheveled and possibly deranged man with an enormous duffle bag sidling down the sidewalk, stopping to bellow "Are you going to the library?!" at each and every person in turn. Most ignore him until he moves on, but some -- out of compulsive politeness, or because they have somehow mistaken this raving for a sincere query -- begin to reply "No, I'm waiting for my --" at which point the man cuts them short with an impassioned and spittle-intensive "GO TO THE LIBRARY!!!"

I dunno. Call me cynical, but I just don't think Seattle's literacy program is all that effective.

I think it would be fun to be a waiter because whenever you gave a customer his food you could poke him in the chest with your finger and shout "You got served!" That joke would never get old.

Now that I've regained my masculinity, I guess I can start making sweeping sexist generalizations again.

What is it about women that make them constitutionally incapable of walking Indian-Native American file, even for the briefest of moments? I have a number of running partners, many of whom are female -- The Queen, her friends, some coworkers here at the office -- and one thing that's always struck me is that while men will quickly assemble into a line when the trail narrows, women will often steadfastly refuse to deviate from their side-by-side formation, even if it means slowing to a crawl, hunching their shoulders forward, and moving within picometers of their companions to navigate a bottleneck.

And it's not just on the run: in the mall, on the sidewalk, on the escalator... Is it because women are so egalitarian that no one wishes to assume the lead? Or are they so independent that they refuse to literally "fall in line"? For whatever reason, the behavior seems endemic to the whole sex. I've noticed this phenomenon so often that I've started to wonder if it is, in fact, the origin of the phrase "walking abreast."

I saw a bumper sticker today that said "I Love My Wife!" It's a noble sentiment, I guess, but it got me wondering about the circumstances under which this guy would buy such a thing. Apparently legally binding himself to another person till death-do-they-part in front of his friends and family wasn't enough, he had to notify public transportation commuters of his commitment as well.

Maybe the driver bought this in lieu of a second honeymoon: "I wanted to take you to Hawaii for our thirtieth anniversary but finances are kinda tight, so how about I put this on our SUV instead?" Or maybe it's the opposite: the guy is having an affair and is trying to craftily throw his wife off the scent. "I know I've gotten home late from work three times this week, Hon, but if you go out in the driveway and look at the back of the Trailblazer, I think you'll be in for a pleasant surprise!"

If you see the glass half-full, you're an optimist. If you see it half-empty, you're a pessimist.

When I first saw the New Scientist headline Big Bang glow hints at funnel-shaped Universe, I though it said the universe is "funeral shaped". I'm not sure what that makes me.

My barista is jittery and high-strung. I find this comforting, like a barber with well-coifed hair.

At the grocery store today I had a bagboy named "Perfecto." And yeah, okay: he was pretty good. He put the heaviest stuff at the bottom of the bags and everything. But I still felt like there was some room for improvement.

I'd give him an 8, but I suppose the name "Ocho" doesn't have the same ring.

A friend of mine was an officer with the Seattle Police Department, and one thing that always amazed me was that he and his coworkers voluntarily hung out in donut shops while on duty, despite the widespread stereotype that police officers hang out in donut shops while on duty.

I was reminded of this a moment ago when I saw a firetruck go by and noticed that each and every fireman inside had the stereotypical "fireman mustache."

I think reading this paragraph (from a New Republic article about the Democratic primaries) provides a pretty definitive geek test:

As a result, the only way Edwards catches on is a) if Kerry makes a huge mistake; b) if Edwards manages to stick around long enough for the press to savage Kerry; c) if Dean draws blood against Kerry with all those $100 donations he's planning to turn into rhetorical RPG attacks.

Guys like me, on the other hand, first summon a mental image of Dean sitting at a table, acting out a fiery denunciation of Kerry, and then rolling a 20-sided die against his CHR attribute.

P.S.: By my reckoning, the stats work out to be about:

Howard Dean STR: 11 INT: 13 WIS: 9 DEX: 10 CON: 12 CHR: 13	Wesley Clark STR: 14 INT: 12 WIS: 11 DEX: 12 (-4 when trying to dodge questions about his platform) CON: 14 CHR: 10
John Edwards STR: 10 INT: 13 WIS: 10 DEX: 12 CON: 10 (+2 for Forehead of Perpetual Youth) CHR: 13	John Kerry STR: 10 INT: 13 WIS: 13 DEX: 9 CON: 10 CHR: 9

I rarely care enough to send the very best, but I recently saw this card at Hallmark and considered picking up a few:

Wow, talk about useful! I mean, that's got to be one of the subtlest death threats I've ever seen.

Have you seen that program Texas Justice? I just started watching it and, man, it's great. I usually don't like these daytime judge shows, but it's always fun to see a defendant in a squabble over garbage cans get the death penalty.

I don't think I would ever do art for art's sake. Well, maybe for a martial art, if it wanted me too -- but only out of fear. I wouldn't want to piss off kung fu.

I was at the gym today, running on the treadmill, and the TV directly in front of me was showing a new televised atrocity called "First Date" or "Date Time" or somesuch. Judging from what I saw they might as well call it "Single For A Reason"

It was showing on TLC, which I thought was supposed to be "the woman's network," but you'd never know it from the guy they had on the show today. He was to women what bovine spongiform encephalopathy is to cows. When he first met his date -- and I mean, like, the moment he met his date -- he pulls two of those whattayacallums, those plastic stick things that have the two balls attached to them, that you can kinda twirl to make the balls bounce off of each other? You know what I'm talkin' about? They're called "clackers" or something? Anyway, he pulls two of those out of his pocket and thrusts one at the woman and says "Here, take this and start clicking it!" with alarming alacrity, and then he starts twirling his own and the balls start clacking and he's urging her to do it too, "Come on, start clicking!," and after a few moments she remembers that the producers of "Date-aster!" (or whatever it's called) aren't paying her to stand around and look ossified, so she starts twirling her clacker and the balls start colliding, and after about twenty seconds of this the guy says "Great! Now we can say that we clicked at the very start of our date!"

The woman made a face like she had just swallowed a herring smoothie.

I, meanwhile, watching this train-wreck of an opening gambit while running in a crowded gym, could not prevent myself from loudly exclaiming "Oh my crap!" in horror.

Everyone turned to look at me, and, embarrassed that I had gotten caught watching "Dates Of Wrath" (or whatever it's called), I quickly adverted my eyes from the screen to the wall mirror. Which, in retrospect, was probably a mistake, since it made it look as though I was shouting vulgarities at my own reflection.

So, anyway, yeah, I looked like an ass. But, y'know, you gotta put these things in perspective. Everyone at the gym thinks I'm a lunatic now, true. But it could be worse; I could be on a televised date with The Clicker. Thank god for small mercies, that's what I always say.

Update: Apparently it's called A Dating Story. Do not watch in public.

Since first professing my love of The Lockjaws (see: Finally, A Place Where People With Lockjaw Can Meet Online!), people from all the world have been sending me updates to let me know how they've been doing. For example, I recently received word that The Lockjaws were purchasing a home and pursuing the America Dream together.

Well the great news continues to roll in. Today Mike Wolfe wrote to tell me the latest event in the life of The Lockjaws: their children are graduating from college!

America is truly the land of opportunity. Kids, never let anyone tell you that an infection of the bacillus Clostridium tetani can stand between you and your dreams.

Hey, remember The Lockjaws? (If not: "Finally, a place where people with lockjaw can meet online!")

Well I just heard some fantastic news! According to an email that's currently circulating, they are now purchasing a home together!!!

What a great country, where a couple of people afflicted with tetanus can meet online, fall in love, and pursue the American Dream.

Close Captioning for MTV's "Cribs" is provided by the US Department of Education