Last Sunday was beautiful, here in Seattle. So I purchased a cheap kite at the local drugstore and went to a nearby field to fly it.

It was the first time I'd done so since childhood, and had forgotten the intensity and purity of emotions a $5 kite can evoke. Foremost amongst them: FRUSTRATION and RAGE.

Today I played racquetball on court #1; or, as I like to call it, the Challenge Court. You don't play by any special rules, or against especially difficult opponents, but, as with most racquetball courts, the back wall of court #1 is glass, and it--alone of all the courts at my gym--abuts the lobby. In other words: as you play, a continual stream of attractive and fit women (and men, if that's your thing) are constantly walking by. And as anyone who has worn sunglasses to the beach knows, there is something about having a piece of glass between your eyebones and a good looking member of the opposite (or same!) sex that suppresses your natural inhibitions about gawping.

The whole thing is akin to trying to play chess in the front row of a cinema showing Halloween. If the ball goes to the back of the court, it's safer to simply position yourself facing forward and wait for the it to re-enter your field of vision, rather than turn around and run the risk of catching the eye of some passing beauty just long enough for the ball to ricochet into your groin.

It was a death sentence, despite his billions.

When he received the diagnosis, he invested everything--time, money, energy--into finding a cure. Supposedly there was none, but wealth can uncover secrets kept from the masses.

Top doctors in the field proved useless. They provided him with articles from medical journals, bolstering their claim that the disease was necessarily terminal, and suggested he investigate hospice care.

He met with researchers, demanding whatever experimental therapies they were pursuing. Some obliged. He was given a series of shots that clinical trials had demonstrated to be 0% effective. He was radiated, first with waves on the low-end of the spectrum, then with waves on the high. Those that provided these treatments did so knowing that they would not be sued. The patient would soon be dead, of that they were certain.

As he grew frail, he looked to the fringes of science. A faith healer in India extracted handful of viscera from his abdomen and declared him cured; the following morning he was again coughing blood, and the Swami was nowhere to be found. A tailor in Japan wove him a suit made entirely from magnets and Spandex; he wore it every day for a month. He paid 1,000 people to pray for him, eight hours a day, seven days a week.

In his final days he gave up hope. No cure exists, thought he. Not yet.

Only then did he contact Cryonics Incorporated. Founded by the world's most accomplished cryopreservationalist, C.I. would freeze its clientèle until such time as their ailments could be cured. Law forbid C.I. from preserving a client before death, but the man offered them such sums of money that they had no choice but to comply.

A week before he was projected to expire, the man settled into a sleek, silver pod. The technicians busied themselves with various tasks; the man's lawyer stood nearby, finalizing the terms of estate. Without heir, the man was investing his fortune into an interest-earning trust, half of which would be given to whomever revived him in the future, half of which he would reclaim upon awakening.

The lawyer took his leave. The technicians finished their preparations. The glass lid of the pod slid over the man, sealing him in.

He felt a slight chill before the sedative kicked in. Then, nothing.

He was bitterly cold, but growing warmer by the moment.

When at last he mustered sufficient willpower to raise his eyelids, he wondered why he had bothered. All was dark, both the panels within his coffin and the room without. The pod insulated him from all external noise, though he would occasionally feel a tremor.

Isolated, he pondered his situation, eventually concluding that he had been thawed not by saviors, but by a power outage. He waited for his strength to return; he drifted off to sleep.

Several hours later, when the pod's glass lid exploded inward, his eyes sprang open and his body twitched in alarm--his full range of motion, given the circumstances. An intense light blinded him. After a moment, the beam left his face and traveled the length of his body. A flashlight, the man thought.

"Look at this," said a voice, garbled as though someone were speaking around a mouthful of water. The man, still dazzled from the light, could barely make out a silhouette, looming over his ruined pod.

Seconds passed. A second shape lurched into view. A wave of putrescence rolled into the pod like fog into a valley. The man instinctively held his breath; in the ensuing silence, it occurred to him that he heard no sounds of respiration at all.

As his eyes acclimated to the dim illumination provided by the flashlight, the appearance of his visitors slid into focus.

The Speaker was covered in grime and gore. What remained of its clothing hung in tatters, revealing a series of bullet holes across its chest. Its left hand held the flashlight; the right, a crowbar.

The Shambler lacked an arm and a third of its head; much of the rest of its body was in the throes of decomposition. The lower half of its torso had rotted away completely, with only the spinal column tethering chest to pelvis.

"Uht ah ey?" grunted the Shambler, lacking a jawbone to articulate.

The man heard the faint and distant sound of explosions, followed again by silence.

The Speaker returned the beam of the flashlight to the man's face and chuckled. "Frozen dinners," it said.

Squiggle and are in the grocery store. We enter the aisle containing laundry detergent, and are immediately assaulted by the cloying scent of lavender.

"Hoooo-wee" I say to Squiggle cheerfully. "Something stinks!"

A woman nearby shoots me a dirty look and hastily stalks away. Only after she's gone do I realize we'd been smelling her perfume.

Second day in the jury pool. So far I, and the some 200 other folks here, have done absolutely nothing. No juries have been empaneled, not a one. We've all just been sitting around, reading books, surfing the web, making small talk, drinking Cokes from the vending machines, dozing off.

A moment ago, the jury coordinator said we could take a 20 minute "break." The guy next to me, in all sincerity, pumped his fist in the air and said "YES!"

The Queen recently had a birthday. This is what I gave her.

As it seemed inconvenient to keep them in our bread drawer, I also built her a wormbin to keep them in.

I went with the OSCR Jr. model. The irritatingly cryptic plans are in this PDF, with useful supplemental information here.

Now, before I go on, let me assure you that this wasn't one of those situations where I gave someone a birthday gift that I secretly wanted for myself. My wife's hobby is gardening, mine is playing board games; thus, of the two of us, she is generally the one more enthusiastic about worm crap. My opinion of the whole enterprise was, essentially, "oh great--another 500 mouths to feed."

But I reckoned correctly that she'd appreciate he gift. And to get the ball rolling, I took the initiative in feeding them the few few days, gathering up our our banana peels and coffee grounds, taking them out to the bin that we had parked out in the garage, and burying the foodstuffs into the bedding.

Our book on vermiculture (Worms Eat My Garbage!) suggested we save scraps for a few days, and feed them only two or three times a week. Even so, I was out there giving them three squares a day, plus in-between-meal snacks. I don't know what got into me. My inner Jewish Grandmother rose to the occasion. I'd fix myself a huge bowl of fruit salad, take one bite, and say "Wow, I can't take another bite. But it would be such a waste to just throw this away ..." The Queen would be tossing eggshell into the garbage and I'd leap across the kitchen to intercept it. "No! No no no no, the worms!" I'd cry. "The worms can totally eat eggshells. It helps them multiple. Put it in the Tupperware container!" She'd sigh and oblige. And as soon as the Tupperware container was sealed, I'd seize it from her hands, rush to the garage, crack open the wormbin and holler "Soup's on, my lovelies!"

When there was no food I would just go out there, peel back the bedding, and gaze upon them in adoration. I can't say that the returned the affection. They were more, like, "Gah! Turn off that light, dumbass--we're photophobic!"

Anyway, long story short, after about a week the ratio of decomposing advocado rinds to Eisenia fotida was about 3:1. You'd think the wrigglers would be appreciative. But no--instead they stabbed me in the back. They started inviting undesirable types into the home I had lovely crafted for them, and these guests quickly turned the joint in a sex palace. The only thing my wormbin lacked was some red lights and a Barry White soundtrack.

I discovered when I went out to check on my worms one Friday morning. I opened the bin and a large, black, cloud of insects rose ponderously from it, like that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, except with less face-melting. As the wormbin was right outside the door to the garage, and I'd left that door open, they serenely drifted into our home like a raincloud over the savanna.

And so I spent the weekend conducting the following Google searches:

fruitflies

"fruit flies"

"fruit flies" kitchen eliminate

how "get rid of" "fruit flies"

(kill OR eradicate OR destroy) "fruit flies"

(massacre OR slaughter) "fruit flies"

"fruit flies" death "most painful" torture

"I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL MURDER YOU LITTLE FLYING FUCKERS" "fruit flies"

"anger management"

Oh, who am I kidding? I can't hate my wormies. (I mean The Queen's worms! They totally belong to her ! I'm just, you know, helping out with them.) And the fruit fly debacle was ultimately of my own making, as I gave them way more food than they could consume in a timely fashion.

Fortunately, there is a simple remedy: build yet more wormbins, until I have enough to process all our kitchen waste. Given that I am already in the thrall of vermimania, that might not be the rational thing to do in my situation. But when is love ever rational?

The other day I decide to make myself a nice, relaxing cup of tea. Crazy, I know. I'm spontaneous like that.

I filled a glass mug up with water, stuck it in the microwave for two minutes (my standard tea-making, water-hottening unit of time), and then busied myself with other tasks.

In response to the beeping sometime later, I walked over and opened the door to the over. I was surprised to see that the water was completely undisturbed, as if it had not been warmed at all. Thinking that perhaps I had accidentally set the microwave for "1:00" instead of "2:00," I reached out and tapped the side of the glass with my finger, to see how hot it was.

And then: FWOOOSH! The whole thing blew up.

Not the mug itself, just the contents. When jostled, the water went from looking like the placid surface of a calm lake to one filled with 4,000 piranhas and a cow. The water in the mug bubbled frenziedly for a fraction of a second, and then geysered upwards DIRECTLY INTO MY FACE OH GOD THE BURNING!!

Well, no. Actually, it mostly hit the ceiling of the microwave, though some slopped over onto my hand and a few drops assailed my cheekbones. Still, I did what any red-blooded American male would do in this situation: shrieked like a 11 year-old girl at a Fall Out Boy concert and flung myself backwards as if a rabid stoat had just attached itself to my windpipe.

As this took place, Squiggle was behind me, standing at his child-sized table and serenity coloring. I barreled backwards into him and we both crashed into the cupboards, our heads making cheerful coconut-clonking noises as they collided with wood, whereupon one or more of us burst into tears.

The Queen, meanwhile, was ten feet away, folding clothes on the kitchen table. She turned around when she heard me scream, missing the part where the scalding water flew directly into my eyebones and instead only seeing me do my impression of a bowling ball, with our toddler playing the role of Pin #6.

"Oh for Pete's sake," she said, surveying the aftermath. "What happened this time?"

Fortunately, I had an explanation at the ready. I knew exactly what had happened.

You see, a few years ago I took it upon myself to debunk every urban legend that I received via email, be it about Bill Gates and his plan to give $200 to every person who forwarded his message, the $250 Neiman-Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe, or the dying kid in Albuquerque wanted everyone to send him a postcard. As self-appointed killjoy, I would track down the appropriate page on Snopes, reply to all, and piss in the collective punch bowl ("Actually, signing this petition is a waste of your time. There is no such proposal to slash the funding of Sesame Street, as this URL makes clear ...")

But I was unable to refute one such email--about exploding, microwaved water--because, according to Snopes, it was true.

So while The Queen soothed Squiggle ("don't cry, it was just one of your father's ... 'episodes' ..."), I quickly pulled up the Snopes page on our laptop to justify my seemingly maniacal behavior. This is our Standard Crisis Operation Procedure, by the way: she looks after the well-being of our child, I frantically scramble to absolve myself of blame.

A few click-click-clicks from Snopes and I wound up on the University of Minnesota website, which had this to say about the phenomenon:

Overheating of water in a cup can result in superheated water (past its boiling temperature) without appearing to boil. Superheating occurs if water is heated in a container that does not assist the formation of bubbles, which is a visual sign of boiling. Glass containers are the most likely to superheat water because their surfaces have few or no defects. The presence of slight defects, dirt, or other impurities usually help the water boil because bubbles will form on these imperfections.

Water can "explode" ... However, it takes near perfect conditions to bring this about, and is not something the average hot beverage drinker who would otherwise now be eying his microwave with trepidation need fear. Odds are, you'll go through life without ever viewing this phenomenon first-hand.

Anyway, you'll be glad to hear that the only lasting effects of The Incident were a small burn on my right hand, a few slight red marks on my face, and a crippling fear of tea. Thankfully, the greyhound has graciously offered to become my new soothing drink of choice.

Today on the radio I heard an advertisement for "The 32nd Annual America's Cup." I misunderstood what they meant, though, and was, like, "Shit, man: I don't give a rat's ass about sailing, but I'll watch it if they've really figured out a way to condense the thing into 30 seconds."

I was in the grocery store check out line last night, trying to buy a six-pack of beer, and wound up stuck behind That Lady. You know, the one who, forty seconds after the total of her items is announced, fishes a crumpled up coupon out of her pocket, laboriously smooths it out on the check-writing stand, and presents it to the skeptical cashier, only to be told that it expired during Clinton's first term. My lady launched then into an extended defense of why she should be allowed to us the coupon nonetheless, despite the fact that it was essentially just a scrap of paper.

Out of sheer irritation I listened for a while, but then I got bored and kind of zoned out. The next thing I knew, the cashier, with an exasperated sigh, left her post and wandered off toward the back of the store, apparently in search of something, and That Lady shouted after her "It's not that I don't trust you, it's that I don't trust Safeway. As if she and the grocery store chain had been BFFs in middle-school, until the July when she totally caught Safeway making out with her boyfriend at Garrulous Pines Summer Camp.

And this was in the express lane, too. You know, the lane would be more "express" if they changed the sign to read "12 Eccentricities Or Less."

Guess who had a grrrrreat weekend!

No, seriously, take a guess. Go ahead.

Wha-? "Morgan Freeman"? No, I ... how the hell would I know what kind of weekend Morgan Freeman had? And why would I be writing about his weekend on my blog?

Look, I'm going to just tell you, because you don't appear to be very good at this game. The correct answer was "me." Next time, you know, think a little before answering.^*

Anyway, weekend. Let's recap, shall we?

Friday: Went to see Bitter:Sweet at the Triple Door. If you get a chance to see them in concert, do so. It's like having sex for an hour.

Saturday: The Queen and I went to Ye Olde Timey Rustic Bed 'N' Breakfast, located in North Bend (a.k.a. "Twin Peaks"), to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary. We stayed in a small cabin just off the Snoqualmie River, decorated in an aggressively bear-centric motif. Not recommended for Stephen Colbert, salmon, or anyone else with crippling ursaphobia.

While there, our status as The Last People On Earth Without Cell Phones was reaffirmed. The cabins themselves lacked telephones, but the information card said we were welcome to use the proprietor's phone. I hiked down to the main office and knocked on the door, which was answered by the elderly gentleman that runs the B&B:

Proprietor: Well hello, there! What can I do you for?

Me: I was wondering if I could make a phone call.

Proprietor: Sure, go right ahead.

{Proprietor stands in the doorway, smiling at me expectantly. A long moment passes. He is then startled by a sudden realization.}

Proprietor: Oh, you mean with our phone? Come on in.

Saturday: Hiked up Mount Rainier. Well, okay--actually it was Mount Si. ALL RIGHT IT WAS JUST "LITTLE SI" ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

And where was Squiggle during all of this excitement? Safely ensconced in the home of Ma and Pa Baldwin, where he was stuffed to the rafters with cookies and Maisy videos. We are currently putting him through detox, and have put him on a strict diet of parsnips and the films of Lars von Trier.

The following post was inspired by the third suggestion in No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog, which was randomly selected by Deron Staffen of Lectures on Everything.

The nicest present I gave anyone went to my little sister, in 1984. She wanted a copy "Like A Virgin," and I bought it for her. This may not seem too impressive, until you consider that (a) I was a shy, 13 years boy, and (b) the front of the record featured a reclining, bustier-clad Madonna, with bosoms heaving every-which-way. I was mortified by the thought of handing it to a cashier and telling her I wished to purchase it. And since I only had enough money for the record, I couldn't even employ the teenage-boy condom-buying ruse of piling an assortment of miscellaneous other items on top of it at the checkstand and then feigning surprise when the cashier uncovered it. ("What the-? How did that get there?! Well, you might as well ring it up ...").

Several Christmas earlier my sister had given me a package of pencils that she purchased with her allowance, because she'd heard me say I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. At the time I thought it was the lamest gift ever, paling in comparison to the Death Star playset I'd received from my folks; In retrospect I think that might be the most thoughtful present I've ever received.

The following post was inspired by the thirty-seventh suggestion in No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog, which was randomly selected by Virginia Culler of I Absolutely Hate The Word "Blog".

Once, as a child, a grown-up asked me what I would save if my house were burning down. I answered without hesitation: "My bike."

The adult seemed a little flustered by the speed of my response. "Your bike?" she asked, incredulous. "You could always buy a bike, you know. Isn't there something personal you'd want to save?"

She, like most adults, didn't understand. It wasn't important to have "a bike" after the fire; it was important to have my bike. Back then, certain possessions were practically an extension of my identity.

For a while there, around the time I was seven, my prized possession was a stick. It was a length of birch, maybe a yard in length and an inch in diameter, that I'd stripped of bark, and employed as a lightsaber in my backyard reenactment of pivotal Star Wars scenes. Plastic lightsabers were selling for a dime a dozen at the time, but I was happy with my stick -- after all, we'd shared so many adventures together.

One day we both broke -- it in half, I into tears -- and I knew it could never be replaced. Sticks like that don't grow on trees, you know.

So what would I save now, if my house were burning down and my family were already safe? Man, I don't know. Nothing leaps to mind.

In a way I'm proud of this -- attachment to stuff is such a drag, you know? But, still, I can't help but romanticize the days when my Dapper Dan or my Mickey Mouse wristwatch meant the world to me.

Maybe, if my house were burned down tomorrow, I'd use it as an opportunity to reclaim some of that lost innocence. I'd break into my garage, save my bike, and then ride up and down the block to share the news with my neighbors. "Come look," I'll cry excitedly, "A house is burning down! Oh boy: I bet the fire engines will be here any minute!"

Hi! Sorry about that. The fam'bly and I took a bit of a holiday vacation there, and I've been largely off the grid since mid December. Wait, what does "off the grid" mean, exactly? Does it mean "without access to the Internet?" Or does it mean "completely without electricity?" In retrospect, the latter sounds more likely. But, whatever: we bloggers are totally rewriting the rules for media, you know (it said so in Time!), so if I say "off the grid" means "without access to the Internet" then, by Jiminey Popsicles, that's what it means. OFF THE GRID! WEB 2.0! BUILD TO SPILL uh I mean FLIP OR WHATEVER!!!!!

Anyway, here's a photo of my son sitting in the lap of an old man who wears a furry costume and hangs out at the mall.

Awww yeah -- two years old and he's already mastered the White Man's Overbite. The kid's a prodigy, I tell ya.

Fortunately, The Squirrelly is still too young to entirely "get" Christmas, so we didn't have to decide whether to let him believe in The Big Guy yet. Personally, I'm torn. On the one hand, he is the central figure in Christmas, and I guess there's no harm in letting him think he's real for a few years. On the other, I just can't help but imagine how crestfallen he'll be when he discovers that he's just a make-believe character. Some kids at school will spill the beans, he'll come home crying and ask us if it's true, and we'll have to say, yes, we've been lying to you all these years: there is no Jesus.

For now, all The Squirrelly knows is that December 25 = a whole buncha swag. He made out pretty good this year, too. His Grandma bought him a tricycle. His great-uncle bought him a remote control car. His aunt went berserk and bought him a crapload of stuff, the least of which was a book called Hot Rod Harry which he inexplicably loves. (And what did Papa get? Papa got to read Hot Rod Harry a hundred and thirty times over a two week period. What fun. It's a helluva lot easier to get through than Moby Dick, though -- I'll give it that much.)

He also got a Memory / matching game, with people's faces as the pictures. But I didn't realize that at first. When he ripped off the wrapping paper and exposed the box's bottom, I thought it was, like, a Whitman's Sampler for cannibals.

Another thing we had fun doing over the holidays was making up words to those Christmas songs to which we did not know the correct lyrics, i.e., pretty much all of them, insofar as we are Godless Heathens (see above: yukking it up over nonexistence of Savior). But, having never heard these songs before in his two years of life, The Squirrelly accepted whatever we coughed up as the Authoritative Version. Which is why, two weeks after the yuletide, he is still ambling around the house singing this:

(To the tune of O Christmas Tree)

O Octagon, O Octagon,
You have eight sides u-pon you

O Octagon, O Octagon,
You also have eight angles too

One and two
And three and four,
Five, six, seven,
eight -- NO MORE!

O Octagon, O Octagon,
O Octagon, we love you

I mention this as a warning to others who might consider doing something so stupid. I brought into the house, put it in the corner, and prepared to watch the cats cavort with glee. Instead, Louie sauntered up to it and, as if he had scaled the thing a thousand times, nonchalantly climbed up to the top; moments later Eddie moseyed into the scene and, without so much as a sniff of curiosity, leapt onto the middle platform. Then they both settled down and watched birds out the window for half an hour. Subtext: we are too dumb to ever remember this not being here. YOU EFFING INGRATES I COULDA BOUGHT A WII FOR THAT! If anyone reading this has a kid who might like some pets for Christmas 2007, drop me a line in November and we'll work something out.

I was listening to the Adam Corolla show on my way to the gym this morning, and they were listing off the "Top Fantasies of Men" according to some meticulously unscientific poll or another. Number four, it turns out, is "to be totally dominated by a woman."

And, half an hour later, some 87 pound young lady handed me my ass in racquetball, 15-1. It's rare that the elapsed time between learning that I have a particular fantasy, and the fulfillment of said fantasy, is so brief.

I recently joined the racquetball ladder, and am currently dwelling on a rung about a third of the way up. Down here, you encounter three types of players: (a) people who have never played racquetball before and joined the ladder on a lark, (b) people who have been on the ladder for a while but aren't good enough to progress, and (c) people who are accomplished players but, like everyone else, had to start at the bottom and work their way to the top. On my initial serve this morning my opponent bungled her return, leaving me to instantly classify her as either (a) or (b). Swaggering with my near insurmountable 1-0 lead, I followed-up with a easy serve -- you know, the kind that even a girl could hit. And that was pretty much the end of that.

Here's how she scored one of her many points. She positioned herself in the center of the court and prepared to return the ball I had just hit off the front wall; I, meanwhile, stood about five feet directly behind her. She drew back her racquet to strike the approaching ball. Then, at the last moment, she apparently decided that she would rather field the ball off the back wall instead, and abruptly withdrew her racquet.

Fun fact: #9 on the list of Top Male fantasies was "To be hit in the groin by a high-velocity projectile in the presence of an attractive woman." YES! TODAY WAS A TWO-FER!!

It was 7:00 AM and I was at the the office, feeling peckish. I went to the next-door deli, but nothing on their breakfast menu appealed to me, so I asked if they could make a grilled cheese sandwich. Unfazed, the guy whipped up my order and handed it to me on a paper plate. I decided to eat it at my desk.

Now this was a few years ago, back when I worked at a call center. In order to return to my cubicle I had walk from the front door to the back of the building, passing dozens of my colleagues in the process. Many seemed agog at my breakfast selection.

"What is that?" asked one. When I told him, he seemed stunned. "A grilled cheese sandwich?" he said in disbelief. "At seven in the morning?!"

A few moments later, as I was still wending my way back to my work space, a second coworker asked me the same question. "Eating grilled cheese sandwiches for breakfast can not be healthy," she announced after I told her.

I wasn't safe from inquisition even after arriving at my desk. The guy in the cubicle next to me leaned over, saw what I was eating, and asked what it was.

I opened my mouth to say "grilled cheese sandwich," but abruptly decided to change tack. "It's breakfast cheese toast," I said instead.

"Breakfast cheese toast?" he exclaimed, with a note of wonder in his voice. "Where did you get it? That sounds delicious!"

When a friend of mine saw that they were selling tiny yetis at Burger King, she thoughtfully picked one up for me.

(Let me take a moment, here, to interject a rather shocking announcement: I don't give a rat's ass about yetis. Or abominable snowmen. Or bigfoot. Or even Sasquatch, native to our region though they may be. Honestly, I just picked this site's name out of the ether, not out of any love of or interest in cryptozoology. Don't get me wrong: I appreciate it when you send me links to yeti ornaments or yeti flash games or yeti bicycles or yeti, the knowbot or yeti@home, but only because it's nice to occasionally receive email that doesn't have a forged paypal.com return address. If you guys keep giving me yeti stuff I'm going to eventually wind up like The Lady At The License Renewal Place Whose Cubicle Is Filled With Tigger-Related Paraphernalia. And nobody wants that.)

Anyway, I did what I do with all unwanted gifts: coated it in catnip and threw it at my kitties. But at some point The Squirrelly's must have got a hold of it, because a few days later it resurfaced in his room.

If I'd known then what I know now, I never would have let this fall into the hands on an innocent child. Yesterday, while picking it up from the floor, I noticed for the first time that it had a tag on the back.

Star Wars?, thought I. There were no yetis in Star Wars. Only then did I realize the truth. This was no yeti, this was a Wampa Ice Creature, the creature that savagely attacked Luke Skywalker on the planet of Hoth, nearly killing the young Jedi and snuffing out the hopes of the fledgling rebellion.

My god, what are we teaching this generation of children? First we have the prequels, portraying Darth Vader as the kind of sensitive romantic more likely to join a boy band called "Ready 4 Cuddles" than the Sith, and now the Wampa Ice Creature is being recast as an adorable, pocket-size moppet? Where will it end? Grand Moff Tarkin getting named "#1 Grandpa?"

Why don't we just tell them that the terrorists are the good guys and be done with it?

I was walking down a long hall at the gym today, and a flusteringly attractive woman was walking toward me.

I never know what to do in these situations. Obviously, given my druthers, I would just stand there in slackjawed amazement and openly gawp, but apparently this is considered "uncouth" in some quarters. An alternative is to resolutely stare to one side of her, as if a friend I've not seen in decades stands at the end of the hall, or drop my gaze and focus on my feet as I pass, but this makes me look like a zombie or an introvert respectively, and that's not the impression I want to make.

So, instead, I took a keen interest in the walls, scrutinizing the fliers posted on the bulletin boards as I sauntered past them, and craning to peer around the corners of intersecting hallways. This, thought I, squared the circle rather neatly: it kept me from looking directly at her, and also gave the impression that I was the intelligent, sophisticated sort, always studying my surroundings with curiosity and inquisitiveness.

MEMO TO SELF: Members of the fairer sex will not think you intelligent or sophisticated if one of the "intersecting hallways" you peer down is, unbeknownst to you, not a hallway at all, but in fact an open doorway to the very women's locker room that the person you are trying to impress is destined.

There's a conference room at my place of business that is occupied, every morning from 9:00 - 10:00, with what must be the most attractive people at my company. Seriously, sometimes I peek through the window in the door and just marvel at the miles of whitened teeth. I can only assume that they are planning our Homecoming Dance or something. Man, I hope they pick "Dance the Night Away" by Van Halen as our class song -- that would effing RULE!!!!

Today, after having plugged a bunch of money into of break room's vending machine, I was agonizing over whether to get pretzels or a Coffee Crisp bar, when a large and imposing guy came and stood directly behind me. He was so close to my back that I glanced back nervously. He had dollar bill in hand, and was already holding it perpendicular to the bill acceptor, ready for insertion. It was also clear from the expression on his face that he knew exactly what he wanted, and going to step forward at any moment to make his purchase, regardless of whether or not I had vacated the space. I felt like I was trapped in the Star Wars trash compactor, moments before the walls started closing.

Anyway, long story short, I got a little panicky, and that's how I wound up with the "Garfield Cocobite." It was a selection made of desperation.

Great news! As many of you remember, I went to a Seattle audition for a reality program a few months back, but everything was very hush-hush and I couldn't talk about it much at the time. Well the show has just been announced, and I can finally spill the beans: I'll be appearing on the fifth episode of FOX's new cutting edge show Sexual Relations With The Stars!!

I'm kind of bummed that I got paired up with Tucker Carlson. But still: I'm going to be on TV! WOOHOOOO!!!!!

I went to an oral surgeon today. Yeah, don't ask. I will say that this wasn't the visit where they actually do the work, this was the one where they tell you how much the subsequent visit is going to cost. What a great racket, dentistry. At least kidnappers have to go through the trouble of cutting letters out of newspaper to make a ransom note; oral surgeons just tap your teeth with a miniature pick for thirty seconds and then demand a suitcase full of unmarked hundred dollar bills if you ever see your bicuspids again. As a kid I got 50¢ for each tooth that fell out; now I have to pony up a grand for each one I wanna keep.

Anyway, I also had to fill out a bunch of forms. One was a seemingly standard questionnaire, will all sorts of predictable queries like "How often do you brush?" and "Do hot or cold beverages cause you discomfort." But the penultimate question struck me as a bit odd. I read -- I kid you not -- "How would you feel about losing your teeth?"

Ummm, why do you ask? Is that likely? Is this so you can plan what "collection strategy" your goons will employ if I miss a payment? Or maybe, if someone answers "No biggie," they let Mycroft the intern handle that patient's bridgework.

Honestly, I had no idea what to write? "That would be a bummer" just didn't seem to do the question justice. Ultimately I left it blank, though not before considering "Relieved that I would no longer have to answer questions this stupid."

An aquaintance of mine recently sired a child.

"What did you name it?" I inquired when he told me the news.

"August," said he.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" I asked.

There was a pause. "A boy," he said. "August is a boy's name."

I shrugged. "I've never heard of anyone being named August, so how would I know?" I said. "Besides, almost all calendar names belong to girls. April. June. Summer. Arbor Day."

"August is a boy's name," he reiterated.

A few days later I was at my gym, walking down the hallway to the locker room. The walls of the hall are covered with pictures of the staff, and you have no choice but to ogle them because everyone is attractive and fit. Each photo has the name of the employee at the bottom; one, of a lovely young lady, said "AUGUST."

I've noticed that picture on every visit to the gym since, and each time I resolve to write my buddy and taunt him about his son's androgynous name. But as my attention span is three minutes and the drive back my office is five, it always slipped my mind before I again had access to Gmail .

Oh, well ... it's probably best that I never did. Today, glancing at the photo, I noticed for the first time that there were tiny words both above and below "AUGUST," reading, respectively, "Employee Of The Month For" and "Nicole."

I had $1.5 million burning a hole in my pocket, so I bought one of them floating beds.

It's pretty cool. Magnets embedded into the bottom of the bed and the floor keep the contraption hovering a few feet above the ground.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until I got home and set the whole thing up and climbed in that I discovered the drawback: the girlie magazines I keep hidden under the mattress were now just laying uncovered on the floor, where anyone could see them. And, worse, I couldn't reach them.

FADE IN

INT - OSI HEADQUARTERS - EVENING

EUGENE STICKLER, 42, slightly out-of-shape with a receding hairline, is slumped unconscious in an office CHAIR. Perched on the corner of a DESK opposite him sits OSCAR GOLDMAN. GOLDMAN is dressed in a three-piece SUIT and is wearing SUNGLASSES. He sits nonchalantly smoking a CIGARETTE and occasionally sipping from a TUMBLER OF SCOTCH he holds in his right hand.

Several moments pass. Eventually GOLDMAN plucks an ICE CUBE from the GLASS and flicks it at STICKLER. It strikes STICKLER on the LEFT TEMPLE and ricochets out of the frame. STICKLER grunts, startled, and jerks his head up.

STICKLER (groggily): Wha-?

GOLDMAN: Up and at'em, agent. Daylight's a-burnin'.

STICKLER slowly rouses. He looks around in bewilderment.

STICKLER: Where am I? Who are you?

STICKLER gingerly touches his cheek.

STICKLER (CONT.): Why is my mouth all numb?

GOLDMAN takes a long drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out on a nearby ashtray.

GOLDMAN: All right. I gotta lot of work to get through today, so I'm gonna make this quick.

I'm Oscar Goldman, Senior Deputy Director here at OSI, a top-secret intelligence agency within by the US government.

STICKLER: I've never heard of it.

GOLDMAN: Yes, well, apparently you missed the part where it was top-secret.

You were recently involved in a horrific accident ...

STICKLER gasps.

STICKLER: I remember! I was riding my bicycle down the street when I a hit a pothole and crashed. I don't remember anything after that.

GOLDMAN: Look, this is going to go a lot quicker if you leave the exposition to me.

Lucky for you one of our field operatives happened to be driving by at the time of the incident. He rushed you back here, where our top medic, Dr. Rudy Wells, went to work immediately. Rebuilding you. Improving you. You've been unconscious ever since the operation.

STICKLER: My god. How long was I out? What year is it?!

GOLDMAN: I don't quite know how to tell you this, but ... it's 1977.

STICKLER: Oh. That's the same year I went for the walk.

GOLDMAN: Yes, all this took place about 40 minutes ago.

Fortunately your injuries were relatively minor: the first bicuspid on your left side was knocked out when you hit the pavement, and you skinned your elbow. Rudy was able to replace the tooth with bionic implant, and cover your wound with some state-of-the-art synthetic flesh.

STICKLER: "Bionic?"

GOLDMAN quaffs his scotch and sets the tumbler on the desk.

GOLDMAN: You're more machine than man now, agent. That tooth gives you chewing abilities far beyond those of ordinary citizens.

That's why we want you to come work for us.

STICKLER: Uhm. Well, thanks, I guess. But I already have a pretty good job at the Betamax factory. And I'd have to discuss it with my wife before I accepted any offer, you understand.

Speaking of which, I should probably call Debra and let her know I'm okay. Can I use that phone?

GOLDMAN: I'm afraid not. You see, to your wife and the rest of the world, you're a dead man.

STICKLER: Come again?

GOLDMAN fishes a cigarette out of his breast pocket and lights it before responding.

GOLDMAN: I don't think you fully appreciate the enormity of the situation, agent. OSI is a shadowy organization that often has to work outside the law. Now that you work for us, it's crucial that we eradicate all traces of your former life. Already our disinformation specialists are spreading your cover story, that you were killed by a pack of civets.

STICKLER: Actually, I read in Nation Geographic that civets are solitary animals.

GOLDMAN: See? Disinformation. Those guys are real pros.

The point is, contacting with your wife would leave her open to reprisals from our many enemies.

STICKLER: What kind of enemies?

GOLDMAN shrugs.

GOLDMAN: Mostly other secret robot-making societies. And bigfoot.

STICKLER: Look, this is ridiculous. I don't want to work for OSI, I've never heard of bionics, and the "state-of-the-art prosthetic flesh" you put on my elbow is a Band-aid with pictures of the Fonz on it. I'd like to go home to my wife and kids now, if you don't mind.

GOLDMAN stands, revealing a MANILLA FOLDER that he has been sitting on. He picks it up.

GOLDMAN: Nobody wants to work for OSI, agent -- we're here because duty demands it. Your extraordinary bionic powers are a gift, but with them come great responsibility, a responsibility to serve this great nation and defend it from the malevolent forces that want to do us harm.

No one knows about the great work we do here. But that's okay. We don't do it for recognition, or fame, or money. We do it because no one else can.

GOLDMAN holds the FOLDER out to STICKLER.

GOLDMAN (CONT.): This is your first assignment, agent, should you choose to accept it. The United States needs your help. Will you answer the call? Or slink back to your ordinary, uneventful life?

There is a long pause while STICKLER deliberates. Slowly, his expression of indecision is replaced by one of steely determination. At last he reaches out and takes the FOLDER.

GOLDMAN: I knew we could count on you, agent.

STICKLER: So I'm actually an agent now?

GOLDMAN snorts.

GOLDMAN: No, of course not. I'm just calling you that because I haven't bothered to learn your name.

GOLDMAN gestures at the FOLDER.

GOLDMAN (CONT.): Those are Steve Austin's receipts from his last mission. I need you to go through and fill out the appropriate reimbursement forms. We'll need those in triplicate -- one copy to submit to the Senate and two for our files -- and we're plumb out of carbon paper, so you'll just have to fill each form out three times.

Also, you'll have to redact anything that looks classified -- which is pretty much everything, so just go nuts. And make absolutely certain you black-out the names of any massage parlors or escort services. Jesus Christ, that guy's so randy you'd think we'd given him a bionic johnson. I don't blame that Sommers broad for faking amnesia when she had the chance.

The crapper's down the hall on the left. That's the breakroom over there. If you drink any coffee, put a quarter in the can -- we ain't running a charity, here.

I think my work here is done.

GOLDMAN stands abruptly and exits. STICKLER glumly rifles through the RECEIPTS in the FOLDER. After a few minutes he rises and trudges into the BREAKROOM.

INT - OSI BREAKROOM

CANDICE HINES sits at a table, doing the DAILY JUMBLE. She looks up as STICKLER enters.

HINES: Hey.

STICKLER: Hey.

STICKLER walks over to a VENDING MACHINE. After some deliberation he purchases a ZAGNUT BAR. He sits opposite HINES and begins unwrapping the candy.

STICKLER: So what's your story.

HINES: I went to the doctor with appendicitis. After the operation I woke up here. Oscar said they had quote-unquote rescued me from the hospital and replaced my removed appendix with a bionic one.

Now I'm the receptionist. It's a pretty boring job, seeing as no one knows our agency exists.

STICKLER: Huh.

STICKLER bites into his ZAGNUT.

SOUND EFFECT: ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch!

Aw, jeeze. I went to the local co-op today and, at checkout, wound up behind a Coupon Hippie. You know the type: they pin all the worl'd ills on the preoccupation with money, but will stand there and argue over a 35 cent discount on Dr. Bronner's hemp-scented soap until the dusk of the Age of Aquarius.

After years of living as veritable savages, The Queen and I finally got high-speed Internet access. Yes, this is a stark break from my usual neoluddist tendencies, such as preferring board to computer games, my steadfast refusal to acquire a cell phone, and my frequent visits to ASCII porn sites. (Warning: Last link is NSFW if your monitor's resolution is set to 1680x12550 and your manager is standing exactly seven feet behind you.)

Frankly, I was quite happy with dial-up (except when I was actually using it, when I was typically ENRAGED). But if video killed the radio star, Web 2.0 killed the 56K modem. When Gmail launched I quickly adopted it as my primary email account, but since then they have larded the joint up with so much AJAX that I was urging friends to print hard copies of messages they had written me and send them via the postal service, as that would often reach me quicker. Ditto for Flickr. Nothing like having a repository of 100 photos that you can view at a rate of four per hour.

Anyhow, long story short, we got ourselves cable. We asked around and finally settled on Comcast as our Internet provider, which was akin to asking around about which gas we should use to respirate and then settling upon oxygen. Comcast, you see, holds a local monopoly on the Seattle high-speed Internet market. Oh sure, we could have opted for DSL, but, as near as I can tell, DSL compares to cable in being just as obscenely expensive and half as good. Perhaps is recognition of this, Qwest (the biggest local DSL provider) is trying to entice new customers by offering bundle deals. They have, for instance, teamed up with America Online to offer substandard broadband and AOL in one package. Maybe the two companies realized that they were both essentially targeting the same set of victims and decided to join forces, Legion Of Doom style.

Not that I'm Comcast's biggest fan either. I just cannot trust the business acumen of a company that uses a flash-intensive website to sell a service to folks on dial-up. Dude, I wouldn't need cable if it took less than a fortnight for your home page to load. It's like a billboard campaign for the blind.

I hate it when people talk about mundane, everyday matters on their blogs. What's why I long ago decided that defective yeti would only be used to record the truly extraordinary events of my life.

Today, for instance, I voluntarily ate a salad for lunch.

When I was but a wee lad, the coolest place in town was Farrell's Ice Cream Parlour, a deserteria that featured a number of obscenely gargantuan sundaes that they literally dared you to eat. I attended countless parties at Farrell's, and my folks would take my sister and I there on occasion. I remember the place as perpetually packed full of kids and families, with bells ringing and sirens wailing and gongs forever being stuck, all in recognition of some momentous event (a girl's sixth birthday) or another (someone ordering one of their famous "Zoo Sundaes").

All of the local Farrell's abruptly vanished in the late 90's. Apparently the founder left, the chain was sold, and the new owner's plan to turn the franchise into nondescript family restaurants (rightfully) ended in disaster. But I didn't care. By that time I was in High School, and Farrell's no longer held the appeal it once had. Still, I had fond memories of the place, and vividly recalled how exciting it had been to go there when I was younger.

Shortly after graduation my friend got a job at the local mall, in a store adjacent to where the local Farrell's had resided. Both his store and the new business that occupied Farrell's old building had entrances and windows facing the parking lot, so, as he worked, he could see people arrive in their cars, park, and walk toward the mall.

This was two, maybe two and a half years after Farrell's had gone under. But about once every other month, he told me, he would see a car park nearby, the doors fly open, and a gaggle of insanely happy children tumble out. They would race to where the Farrell's used to be, their smiling parents ambling behind. The kids would eventually leave my friend's field of vision, though he could still see the laggard parents chatting amicably as they moseyed toward the entrance. Then, inevitably, one of them would glance up -- perhaps in response to a shout from of the children -- and the smile on his or her face would falter and fade. Then they too would disappear from view.

A minute or two would pass. Then the family would reappear, the children slouching and crestfallen, the mother anxious and apologetic, the father perhaps carrying a sobbing youngest on his shoulder, as they solemnly trudged back to the car.

I lost a pair of pants about two weeks ago. One day I had them, the next they were gone. I looked for them everywhere, but they were nowhere to be found.

Today The Queen walked out into the living room holding them. "Are these yours?" she asked. "They were in my drawer. I must have put them in there by mistake."

Damn. I'd been holding out hope that a hazy memory about a Jägermeister-fueled bender would eventually surface and account for their absence.

Oh well, at least I got my pants back.

It's the first sunny day Seattle has seen in a season, and a man in the park is doing tai chi. He performs some maneuvers slowly, methodically, concentrating on his every move. Then he settles cross-legged onto the grass and closes his eyes. His muscles go limp, the emotion drains from his face. He recedes into himself, severing his ties to our world, ridding himself of his Earthly burdens.

He reopens his eyes just as a pretty girl walks by. He cranes his neck to watch her pass. Suddenly the material plane ain't lookin' half bad.

A man walks up to a cashier. He wants to purchase something embarrassing: porn, say, or hemorrhoid medication. He has a few other items, too, but it's unclear as to whether he really wants to buy them or if they are just a beard for the shameful merchandise. He has a plan: when the cashier picks up the copy of "Car & Driver" to reveal the three-pack of "mango flavored" condoms, he will feign surprise and say "whoa, how did those get there? Well, I don't feel like returning them, so go ahead and charge me -- I guess I'll buy them ..." But then, as the teller rings up the items, disaster strikes. For some reason the bar code on the product fails to scan correctly. The teller gets on the intercom system and says, "I'm going to need a price check for the jumbo pack of Tink'L Trapp'R brand adult undergarments ..."

This scene is such a staple of comic strips and lazy sit-coms that when I actually saw it happen last weekend my first reaction was not to laugh, but to think "Jesus: what hack wrote this scene ..."

I was in Walgreens with The Squirrelly, behind three other people at the checkout line. The guy in front looked to be about 35, maybe 37 -- stubbly beard, glasses, a little paunchy. Everything was going fine until multiple swipes of some item over the scanner failed to elicit a response.

"That's okay," the guy said hastily. "I don't really ..."

But the teen behind the counter had already commandeered the microphone, and his voice boomed through the store as he haltingly read off the information from the package. "Claire, can I get a price check for a Super ... Star Wars Clone ... Super Clone Trooper Star Wars Action Figure?"

The guy flushed, turned to the next people in line, and said "I didn't really need ..." before trailing off. He told the cashier to go ahead and help the next people in line, but, no, the kid behind the counter was committed to his course of inaction. Finally the guy resigned himself to his fate. He gave the rest of us a "what can I do?" shrug, jammed his hands into his pockets, and turned to look out the glass automatic doors.

I wanted to take him aside and say. "Look, dude: I think buying Star Wars action figures at your age is a little silly. But if you enjoy it, at least enjoy it proudly. If the rest of us were stuck here waiting for you to buy something that you were unabashedly enthusiastic about, we probably wouldn't care." But of course I didn't take him aside to soothe his tortured soul, because he was making me stay in a Walgreens for a few extra moments and so I wanted him to suffer.

A few moments went by. Suddenly the whole scene turned into a play by Jean Paul Sartre -- "No Exit From Walgreens" or something. With no discernable activity from the back of the store (Claire? Are you back there?) we abruptly transformed from a line at a drugstore register to A Bunch Of Strangers Standing Around In Close Proximity To Each Other For No Apparent Reason.

The Squirrelly got bored, started looking around, and saw a display of enormous Valentines Day teddy bears on a nearby shelf. "Teddy bear!" he cried. The two girls behind me, both maybe 14, squealed with delight and said, "awwwwww!" in unison. Taking this as his cue, The Squirrelly charged over to the shelf and grabbed one of the stuffed animals, which was almost as big as he. "Teddy bear!!" he shouted. "That is so cute!" one of the girls behind me said.

I took a few steps over to reclaim my son; as I did so I heard one of the girls say excitedly, "oh cool, he stepped out of line."

After separating my toddler from his ursine pal, I turned around to discover that the girls had rushed forward to fill my spot. The line at Walgreens abhors a vacuum.

"We were here," I said when we got back, and indicating the place in line in front of the girls. "I just had to grab my kid."

"But ... you got out of line," said one of the girls. Not defiantly. She seemed genuinely perplexed.

"Look," I replied. "The convention of queuing up at a cash register is not a federal law, and my leaving the line for a moment is not some loopholes you can exploit without fear of reprisal. Queuing is merely a custom that we as a society collectively adhere to, because, in doing so, we make life easier for everyone. There's no rule that states that, in momentarily leaving the queue, I have waived my right to return to my original spot, because no such rights exists. The line itself is nothing but a social construct. There's nothing preventing me from simply going to the front of the line and ignoring everyone else. We do these things -- queing up, allowing people who have momentarily left the line to return -- not out of obligation, but because we are a civilized people. So with that in mind I am going to ask you, citizen to citizen, to allow me to resume my place in line."

Hah hah! No, I'm just kidding. I'm 34 years old now and have a kid, which, by my reckoning, means I'm entitled to be an Asshole Grown-Up once in a while. So what I really said was: "You know what? I'm not going to argue about this." The two girls scowled and resentfully moved backwards about seven inches, allowing me to wedge myself and my son into the vacated space like half a bagel being crammed into a regular-sized toaster slot. Thereafter they made a point of standing as close to my back as they could without actually touching me, to best express their sense of injustice at my unlawful usurpation of their spot, I guess.

Claire finally materialized and completed the price check. Once Darth Obstructus was out the door, things picked up a bit, though there was some doubt as to whether the cashier had ever used a register before in his life. By the time we got to the front of the line, we'd spent about 15 minutes in Walgreens for what should have been a 30-second purchase.

"Do you want your receipt in the bag," the cashier asked when he had finally finished bagging my items, holding up the piece of paper as if it were a winning lottery ticket.

I figured that operation would take another half an hour, based on what I'd seen so far. I snatched the receipt from his hand, grabbed my bag, and made a break for the door.

On July 3, 1957, John Stephenson Singleton filed for a patent with the UK Patent Office. His invention was called "Improvements in and relating to perpetual calendar devices," and described a way by which two cubes could be used to display all the days in a month.

If you're thirty or older, you may remember these calendars from the bank. There was typically a barrier at the back of the check writing station, with three wells on the top of it and three windows on the side facing the patron. The first of the three wells was rectangular and the remaining wells were square. The bank employee could drop a wooden block into first slot and two wooden cubes into the second and third. The block bore the name of the month; each side of the cubes showed a digit; between the three of them, they could display the current date, e.g., [April][2][4].

Mr. Singleton received his patent on March 17, 1958. But I want you to consider something.

One of the criteria for a patent is that the invention be "non-obvious." On the face of it, Mr.Singleton "improvements in and relating to perpetual calendar devices" seems like a no-brainer: you have three blocks (each with the names of four months on their rectangular-sides, and their square-sides blank) and two cubes with the digits distributed amongst them in such a way that every possible day from 01 to 31 can be shown -- what's so innovative about that. In truth, that final bit -- the part about distributing the digits amongst a pair of cubes such that every possible day can be displayed using only the two of them -- is considerably more "non-obvious" than it seems. Can you figure out how to do it?

The patent can be seen here -- but viewing it (or the comments to this post) will ruin the fun of trying to solve the puzzle. Wait until you're stumped or, better yet, confident that you have sussed out the answer -- you'll be glad you did.

The family and I spent Christmas and a few days thereafter at Ma and Pa Baldwins. Here's the wrapup.

The parade consisted of four vehicles: a fire engine adorned with tinsel in the lead; two SUVs in the middle -- the first covered in Christmas lights, the second with paper snowflakes in the windows; and, as the caboose, a pickup truck with one of those motorized, wicker reindeer in its bed. They drove by at about 35 miles an hour. The only way I knew that I was watching the actual parade (as opposed to a bunch of vehicles en route to the parade) was because, every half block or so, the driver of the firetruck would ring its bell.

I was so filled with the holiday spirit that it's remarkable I didn't swell up like a tick on a basset hound.

Q:How do you know when an owl has to go to the bathroom?

A: He says: Poo! Poo!

When your sister was three we took her to go see Santa at the mall. When it was our turn we started to approach Santa, but she got a little scared, stopped walking, and let go of my hand. Suddenly -- and without asking me -- this elf swooped down out of nowhere, picked her up, and carried her up to Santa. She was silent for a moment, but then she let out the loudest, most bloodcurdling scream I have ever heard. It just echoed and echoed inside the mall. Shoppers rushed over to see what was going on; patrons at a nearby restaurant dropped their forks in alarm and swiveled their heads to watch the spectacle.

The elf was so startled by the shriek that she hurriedly plopped your sister into Santa's lap. And as soon as she landed she turned into a wildcat, hollering and kicking and flailing around everywhere. Santa had a handle on her for a few seconds, but then she got turned around and planted a knee right into his groin. We all watched in horror as she kneed Santa in the balls five or six more times, before squirmming loose and running back to me.

It was a horrible situation, but everyone -- except Santa and the elves -- was roaring with laughter. After a few seconds Santa half rose from his chair and hobbled off, sort of hunched over and moaning. An elf came out a minute later with a sign reading "Sorry, Santa is off feeding the reindeer!"

And they left us a Christmas gift as well. I don't want to go into too much detail, but if anyone had bought me the Cuidado: Vómito de Gato danger sign I'd asked for, it would have gotten some use today.

At 7:30 this morning, there was a knock at our front door. No one ever knocks on our door at 7:30 in the morning.

I opened it to find a scruffy looking young man, perhaps 18, clad in sweatshirt, a black stretch cap, and what was presumably going to be a mustache when it grew up. My first thought was: Jim Anchower.

"Hey do you guys have a gas can I can borrow or a lift to the gas station I could maybe give you a few bucks," he muttered without preamble.

I looked over his shoulder. We live on a narrow street with no shoulders, and an late-80s vehicle was stopped in the middle of it, completely blocking the far lane. Already traffic was backing up as drivers coming from either direction adopted a first-you-go-and-then-I'll-go stratagem for navigating what had abruptly become a single-lane road.

"Sure," I said. "I have a can full of gas for my lawnmower out in the garage -- you can have that. Why don't you come in and I'll go grab it."

Jim stepped inside. For the first time I noticed he was wearing slippers and pajama bottoms covered with candy canes.

I returned a moment later with the gas can. "All right," he said as he took it, and left. A few moments later he brought it back and, handing it to me, said "here ya go do you want me to maybe pay a few bucks?" I told him no, that was fine, and shut the door.

At 7:45 there was a second knock on our front door. "Hey do you think I could get a lift to the gas station?" Jim muttered when I opened it.

"What happened to the gas I just gave you?" I asked, craning my neck to see if the car was still there. It was.

"I put it in the car but is still won't start I guess it wasn't enough," he murmured with a shrug.

"There was, like, a gallon and a half in the can," said I. "If you're car's still not starting, you might have a bigger problem."

"The needle was way below E," explained Jim, as if he had run the vehicle beyond "empty" and actually managed to create a quantity of anti-gasoline in the tank, which my fuel had only served to negate.

"Well, I got this kid, so I can't really ..." I began. But, against all odds, I was starting to feel sorry for the dope. So I said, "all right, let's go."

I threw The Squirrelly in his car seat and the two of us piled in the car. As we started to pull out of the driveway a kid of about seven rode by, slowing down and looking at the stopped car in curiosity. Jim suddenly mumbled "Hang on I should lock my car that kid looks like a punk." I stopped. Jim clambered out and made a big show of opening and locking all his car doors, scowling at the kid on the bike all the while.

While he was doing that I realized the obvious. It was as if Jim was enveloped in a cloud of Dumb, and as soon as he was out of his presence I was able to think clearly again. I reparked the car in the driveway, got out, and told the returning Jim, "Look: why don't you put your cart in neutral and we'll push it into my driveway, get it out of the road. That way it won't be blocking traffic while we're at the gas station."

"Oh hey yeah," said Jim. "That's a good idea I'll go and ..."

There was a pause.

"Fuck," Jim added.

I knew even before he told me.

"I just locked my keys in my car," he said.

"You're screwed now," I announced. "Come on inside."

The three of us reentered the house. "Okay," I said. "Do you have a spare key?"

He looked confused and said "no," clearly thinking, "under what bizarre circumstances would I ever need a spare key to my car?"

"Well, then I think we should just call the cops," I said. "They'll probably hassle you a bit, but they are going to want to get this car out of the road as much as you do, and will probably pop the lock for free."

"Yeah .." Jim said, but I could tell that he wasn't really enthused about this plan. "Except the other thing is that I don't really have a you know drivers license."

"Of course you don't," I sighed. "So, you can call a tow truck company -- they'll come and get your car open."

"Is that going to cost like a lot of money?"

"In my experience, yes."

"Yeah ..." he said, noncommittally.

"But unless you know anyone else with a key to the car, it's pretty much your only option."

"Oh hey yeah I think my housemate Gary has a key to the car," Jim said with the closest thing to not-total-dejection I'd heard in his voice yet this morning.

"Well, why don't you call Gary, and see if he can come by with the key," I suggested.

He sagged. "I would but I left my cell phone at home," he said sadly, as if it were a million-to-one longshot that I might have a telephone inside my house.

I brought him our cordless phone. Incredibly, he remembered his own phone number and dialed it. "Yeah I ran out of gas and then my dumbass self locked the keys in the car could you bring me the spare?" he mumbled into the receiver. He handed the phone back to me when he was done and said, "all right."

He took up station next to the window, waiting for Gary. I went about my business. The soundtrack to "Piglet's Big Adventure" played in the background, which seemed appropiate. "He should be here any sec I live right around the corner," Jim said after about 10 minutes; I said fine, whatever.

At one point Jim got tired of looking out the window and looked at The Squirrelly doing a puzzle instead. "Is that your kid?" He asked. I averred that yes, the child in my living room playing with the Elmo Rockin' Guitar at eight o'clock in the morning was, in fact, mine. "How old is he?"

"Almost two," I replied.

Jim sized The Squirrelly up for a moment and then rendered his verdict. "He's tall," he said, and went back to looking out the window. Here endeth the chit-chat.

After another 10 minutes Gary showed up in a mammoth truck and parked it right behind Jim's car, thereby occluding even more of the road. Jim left without saying a word to me. Through the window I could see Gary giving Jim some grief, and then finally handing over a car key. Jim tried it on all the doors of his vehicle without success and handed it back to Gary, who scratched his head, climbed back into his Ford Kraken, and departed.

Jim stood forlornly by his car. I went out and asked him what had happened. "Wrong key," he told me.

"Well, feel free to come back inside," I said.

"Nah its okay I live right around the corner he'll be right back," Jim said. After having listened to me read "Go, Dog. Go!" to The Squirrelly in its entirely, I guess he'd decided that standing around in the 35-degree weather in his PJs wasn't so bad.

"Suit yourself," I said, and retreated indoors.

Everytime I looked out the window for the next 15 minutes I could see Jim glumly trying to open one of his doors, perhaps in the hope that he's just neglected to try this particular one the previous 400 times he had attempted to gain entry to his vehicle. Eventually Gary returned, but apparently there was no spare key, because after a brief discussion they both climbed into the monster truck -- still parked behind Jim's car, still blocking more than half the road -- closed the doors, and just started shooting the shit.

When it came time to take The Squirrelly to daycare half an hour later, they were still there. I walked up to the truck and Gary rolled down his window. I could feel warm air roll out of the vehicle and hear rock music blaring. "Everything under control?" I asked.

"Oh hey, totally, man," said Gary. "We got a lock popper on the way. Thanks, bro!"

When I got to work, I called up The Queen and related the whole, sordid tale. "So," I said in summary, "he ran out of gas, he didn't have a gas can, he forgot his cell phone, he locked his keys in his car, he didn't have a spare, he didn't know anyone with another key, he didn't have a driver's license, and he wasn't wearing any pants."

"Oh my God," gasped The Queen. "These knuckleheads live around the corner from us?!"

Dude, I've totally figured out a way to scam the local dump. I dunno why I never thought of it before.

Y'see, the way they figure out how much you owe is to weight your vehicle when you come in, weigh you again when you leave, and then charge you based on the difference. So you drop off 30 lbs of junk and you get charged for 30 lb.

So here's what I started doing. I let them weigh me in like usual, right? Then I go in and dump off all my garbage. Then (this is the trick) I load my truck up with a bunch of other stuff until it almost weighs as much as when I entered. (I always make it weight a little less -- don't want to seem too suspicious.)

"Oh sure," I bet you're thinking, "where are you going to find a bunch of stuff just laying around a dump?" Well, it turns out to be a lot easier than you might think. Plus, there are almost always other people there and they will usually give you whatever they have in their trucks if you ask them. The kindness of strangers and whatnot.

So when I leave the difference in weight is only, like, five pounds, and that's all I get charged for. Then on the way home I throw all the new stuff into a local ravine. It's the perfect crime.

Last Saturday I was a participant in a panel discussion, as part of the Richard Hugo House's Annual Inquiry. Oh shit -- you know, I totally meant to announce this last week, so my local readers could come see me. Well, the nice thing about having both a blog that allows backdated entires and a complete lack of scruples is that I can just go ahead and create that post now, and then pretend like it was always there. Done!

I was originally scheduled to be the token blogger on a panel called "Persona in Media." I was looking forward to it for two main reasons. First, the question to be explored by this panel was "Does writing about yourself automatically put you in a world of inauthentic, fabrication and fiction?," and, insofar as I make up like 80% if the stuff on this site, I thought that I could provide a fairly definitive answer ("Yes"). Second, another panelist was to be John Richards, morning DJ at KEXP, and I pretty much revere that guy.

But, for whatever reason, it was eventually decided that I was going to be on another panel instead, this one called "Persona in Culture." In retrospect, it's probably best that I did not wind up on the panel with John Richards, as I probably would have spent the whole time trying to impress him.

Q: Matthew, while I agree that all journalism is inherently subjective, wouldn't you agree that honest reporters can and should work to identify and isolate their biases so as to at least strive toward the goal of objectivity?

Me: I think Alvino Rey addressed that issue best in his song "My Buddy," found on the B-side of The Arcade Fire's limited-release 7-inch single "Neighborhood #1," which I own on vinyl. Wouldn't you agree, John?

John: Uh, I'm pretty sure that's song is an instrumental.

Me: Yes. Exactly.

I took my seat on the six person panel, next to moderator Brian Goedde, who was sitting on the end. As we began, Brian asked the panelists to introduce themselves, starting with the person farthest from him. The first was a professor at a local college; the next had two master's degrees and founded a Writers Institute; another was the 2005 Grand Slam Poetry Champion and author of several chapbooks. When they got to me I was all, like, "Hi, I write a blog where I tell fart jokes and mock people for giving money to charity!"

It was kind of liberating -- by this point I realized that I was so far out of my league that I just kind of settled into the role resident philistine.

As it turned out, having a boorish rube on the panel was a great boon to the moderator. He would ask some thought-provoking question and, while the rest of the people would furrow their brows and gaze into the middle distance while actual thoughts were provoked, I would rush to fill up the dead air by gamely offering up some profoundly uninformed opinion, thereby allowing someone else to follow up with "well, I think I would take exception to Matthew contention that contemporary fiction is quote-unquote 'totally gay' ..." or whatever boneheaded thing I said.

At one point Brian Goedde hesitated before answering a question and then justified his delay with, "I just don't want to blurt out something without thinking it through ahead of time" and then I said "As a blogger, blurting out things without thinking them through ahead of time is pretty much my medium" and then everyone laughed. Laughed with me, I'm sure.

Also adding to the fun was that fact that there was a whole side discussion going on about James Baldwin, so people from the audience would occasionally chime in with "I couldn't agree more with Baldwin when he talks about how themes of personal importance include the significance of community identification" and I'd be sitting there thinking, "whoa, I totally don't even remember saying that."

Anyway, a great time was had by all, and it's too bad that they'll never invite me back again.

Scorecard!

Word: Laconic
Context: "... a great writer, but fairly laconic."
What Matthew thought it meant: Terse
What it actually means: Using or marked by the use of a minimum of words; brief and pithy; brusque.
Verdict: He shoots, he scores!

Word: Polemic
Context: "... I think Americans respond better to political humor than to straight polemic."
What Matthew thought it meant: Overly didactic speech or writing.
What it actually means: A controversial argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine.
Verdict: Close enough!

Word: Artifice
Context: "... people want authenticity. They are tired of artifice."
What Matthew thought it meant: Fakery.
What it actually means: An artful or crafty expedient; a stratagem.
Verdict: Doesn't mean what I thought it meant, but it still kinda worked. Kinda.

Word: Obstification
Context: "... don't want your writing to get bogged down in obstification."
What Matthew thought it meant: Using so many big words in an effort to sound smart that no one knows what the hell you are talking about.
What it actually means: Nothing! I was searching for "obfuscation," which means "to make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand"
Verdict: I would refer to this as "ironic," but why compound one misuse of a word with another?

I stopped using my Palm Pilot about three years ago. It ran out of batteries, I was to lazy to replace them, that was the end of that.

While cleaning up my PC today, I noticed that I still had "Palm Desktop" installed. Out of curiosity I looked to see what I had on my to-do list in 2002, and was aghast to discover how many "Priority One" items I had listed that remain uncompleted to this very day.

A few years ago The Queen frequented a hairdresser named Caroline. Caroline was a real girlie girl, forever bemoaning the state of the Seattle dating scene, showing off photos of her overly-pampered dog, and providing exhaustive recaps of recent Sex and the City episodes. She couldn't have been more unlike The Queen, but she was very nice, gave good haircuts, and her salon was two blocks from our house. Plus she was a neverending fount of funny stories, which The Queen would relate to me when she got home.

In February of 2002 -- five months after the September 11 attack -- The Queen arrived for her regular appointment and found herself alone in the salon with Caroline. After she was seated and the two had engaged in some small talk, Caroline picked up the current issue of People Magazine off the counter.

"Have you seen this?" she asked, showing it to The Queen. On the cover was a group shot of 32 women holding infants. "All of those babies had fathers who died in the World Trade Center collapse," Caroline said somberly. "Can you even imagine? It's so sad. The whole thing is just so, so sad."

The Queen and Caroline stared at the photo without speaking for a while. Then The Queen noticed that Caroline was watching her out of the corner of her eye, as if she waiting for an appropriate amount time to pass.

Finally she could wait no longer. "Look at this one," Caroline said, breaking the mournful silence and excitedly calling The Queen's attention to a woman in the picture. "Can you believe that lip-liner she's wearing? And her hair -- my God, it's horrible!"

I'm spending the week at OSCON, a conference so geeky that they won't even let you in the door unless you have in your possession a Linux boot disk, the root password, a 20-sided die, or proof of virginity.

I whiled away the morning in a three-hour presentation given by perl überguru Damian Conway. Everyone in the audience was laden with all manner of newfangled contraption -- laptops, blackberries, iPods -- and the presentation was interrupted several time by the ring of cell phones. Each time a ringtone sounded Damian would stop talking and adopt an air of overly-taxed patience while the owner fumbled around for his phone and mumbled apologies; everyone else chipped in by swiveling around in their seats and glaring at the knucklehead du jour.

After the third time it seemed as if everyone had finally wised up and turned off their phones' ringers, because nearly an hour went by without further incidents. Then, just as Damian was entering the home stretch of his lecture, the phone on the guy sitting one seat over from me burst into song. It had one of the most obnoxious jingles I have ever heard, and waas set on a volume that ensured it would be heard even if the phone was accidentally dropped down a storm grate and whisked out to sea.

As Damian stopped in mid-sentence, incredulous, and all heads turned in the direction of the ring, my neighbor first sat there paralyzed with a stunned expression upon his face, and then frantically fished the phone from his pocket. "Sorry, sorry!" he cried, clearly chagrined.

And yet his shame didn't stop him for actually taking the call. He leaned way over -- almost to the point of putting his head under the desk -- held the phone to the side of his face, and, in a low voice, whispered, "Hello?!" After a moment of listening he angrily hissed, "Nice timing: you just totally pissed off Damian Conway."

Sorry for posting so late today but, oh man, I was totally hung over this morning. Me and some buddies were out all last night doing rhetoraoke. I hadn't done rhetoraoke in years, but my friend Randall is way into it and he suggested that we head over to The Oration Station, and since I'd already had a few beers I was, like, whatever, that sounds cool.

We got there around 9:20 and ordered a pitcher and started looking through the selection book, but of course Randall already knew what he want to perform and put his slip in right away. There must not have been very many requests in because he got called, like, 20 minutes later, and did Mahatma Gandhi's "Quit India" speech. He did a spot-on impersonation too, with the gestures and everything. I felt totally sorry for the girl who went after him and did just a so-so version of Elizabeth Glaser's address to the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

I didn't know many of the speeches in the book so I just did the old standard, Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address". I was pretty tipsy by then and screwed up the cadence in some parts, but I managed to get all the way to "we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground" before I had to start looking at the TelePropter, which was cool. It went so well that I put another request in and did "Tear Down This Wall" by Reagan because, you know, I'm into that 80's stuff.

Bruce was bummed that The Oration Station didn't have any lectures in the book, so after Martha did Queen Elizabeth I "Spanish Armada Speech" we headed over to another rhetoraoke place, Pints & Prelection down in Pioneer Square. Bruce was pretty shitfaced by then and he still tried to do Feynman's "Motion of Planets Around the Sun," and he, like, forgot half the words and totally fucked up the equations. It was pretty embarassing. After that he was kinda pissy and wanted to go home, but then Randall did a really good "The Ballot or the Bullet" by Macolm X and that got the crowd all fired up, so we decided to stay a little longer.

Then we started doing Tequila shooters and everything's pretty hazy after that. This morning Randall sent me an email and said that I was so drunk that I tried to do Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" address later that night. Fuck, I don't remember that at all. I hope I didn't make an ass of myself, but I probably did.

This may be the last post ever on defective yeti, as I started this blog with one main objective and that objective has now been fulfilled.

Yes, O envious Internet: I met Mighty Girl.

Long-time readers know that I have based my entire on-line literary career on Margaret Mason's model: Mighty Girl started a blog devoted to conversations overheard on public transportation, so I started a blog devoted to conversations overheard on public transportation; Mighty Girl became a contributing writer for The Morning News, so I became a contributing writer for The Morning News; Mighty Girl launched a profitable website called Mighty Goods and started writing for The New York Times, so I often daydream about launching a profitable website and writing for The New York Times while squandering my life away playing Kingdom of Loathing. Fortunately, I hold an edge on Mighty Girl in one key category: production of small people. So when Mr. and Mr. Girl rolled into town last Wednesday, they requested an audience with The Squirrelly. It took some wheedling, but eventually they said I could come along as well.

We agreed to meet for lunch. The Squirrelly, perhaps sensing the momentousness of the occasion, spent all morning preparing. First, he woke up an hour earlier than he usually does. I realize that the non-parents in the crowd don't recognize this as Ominous Foreshadowing, but when you're going to take a toddler out in public around his usual naptime, any change in regular sleep patterns is as foreboding as a shark filled with nitroglycerin. Worse, The Squirrelly has music class on Wednesday mornings, which is applesauce's only serious rival for the title of "Best Thing In The Universe" in his opinion. During music class the two teachers play guitar and sing while the babies and their parents sit quietly and listen enraptured -- all the babies, that is, except The Squirrelly, who spends the hour racing around the room like an balloon released before it's tied closed.

So by our prearranged meeting time The Squirrelly was both sleepy and tired. He had, in fact, fallen asleep in his carseat moments before we arrived at the hotel. Unfortunately I had arranged to meet them inside the lobby, so I had no choice but to wake him up and carry him in. So Margaret and Bryan's first look at my child was as he was curled up on my chest, blinking sleepily and completely docile. I should have been wearing a t-shirt reading "WARNING: TODDLERS ON SHOULDER ARE CRANKIER THAN THEY APPEAR."

We headed down to The Bell Street Diner, got a table, and strapped The Squirrelly into a high chair. He immediately set about demonstrating the suitability of his nickname, squirming about with such velocity that I was afraid he might pull a Flash and vibrate himself into another dimension. In an attempt to calm him down, I pulled out his bowl of food and set in front of him. He immediately began grabbing handfuls of avocado and cramming it into his maw. Remembering that I was sitting across from a woman who writes columns on etiquette, I said, "uh, we read that it's empowering to allow toddlers to feed themselves like that, using their hands," i.e., his complete lack of decorum is the result of a deliberate philosophy, and not because he is being raised by a race of subterranean lizardmen who live in our crawlspace.

Fortunately, I had an unexpected ally in Bryan. "Wow, lookit him go!" he cried with genuine enthusiasm. "He's just shovelling it on in there!"

I spent the rest of the meal dividing my attention between my guests and my son, the former of which was politely asking me questions about my life and family, the latter of which grabbed everything within reaching distance and dropped it on the floor like he had been deputized to enforce the law of gravity. As a result, I have pretty much no recollection of our conversation. I do remember, though, that at one point The Squirrelly got so fussy that Margaret scooped him up and carried him around the restaurant, pointing out things and speaking to him quietly. Act like a savage and you get cuddles from Mighty Girl: take note, people.

(If "Touched By An Angel" has a spin-off show called "Cuddled By A Mighty Girl" I would totally watch it.)

All-in-all a complete debacle, I'd say! So we tried again later that evening, this time removing The Squirrelly from the equation and replacing him with The Queen and copious amounts of alcohol. We met at Cyclops for cocktails, and then moved on to the Dahlia Lounge for after-cocktails cocktails and six dollar doughnuts.

And I'm happy to report that Mighty Girl is every bit as charming as you'd expect, one of those rare Internet personalities that turns out to be as engaging in real life as they are on their site. And whatta great guy, that Bryan. If airplanes ran on charisma these two could fly around the world.

Naturally I have no photographic evidence of any of this, because I am a very poor blogger. But it all happened, I swear.

P.S. Seattlites will be pleased to know that I did my level best to convince the duo to move to our fine city. I think we have a shot, too -- so long as they never do the math and realize that Seattle will one day be home to a teenaged Squirrelly, roaming the streets.

P.P.S. Those six dollar doughnuts at the Dahlia Lounge were freakin' awesome.

The Squirrelly is entering The Age Of The Tantrum, so The Queen and I went to a seminar on "positive discipline" at our local community college. When we entered the auditorium we passed a table in the back where some people were selling puppets. Apparently puppets all are the rage in child discipline these days. See, what you do is put one of these thick, soft puppets on your hand before spanking your child, and that way you won't hurt your hand.

Hah hah! No, I'm just kidding: I would never spank my child with one of those puppets. They cost, like, twenty-five bucks.

Anyway, I'll admit to being pretty skeptical about the whole enterprise when I saw the puppets, since I reflexively associate puppets with hippies and Fraggle Rock, neither of which I much care for. But the lecture was really pretty good. It was given by Jody McVittie, and based on the principles outlined in this book. A reoccurring theme was to give your child actual praise, instead of a bunch of meaningless rah-rah hyperbolic 'you're the bestest best kid EVAR!!!!1!!' bullshit (I'm paraphrasing), which I appreciated because that's how I've always intended to do it. So, in a sense, Dr. McVittie was telling me "you're the bestest best parent EVAR!!!!1!!," and I have no objection to meaningless rah-rah hyperbolic bullshit when it's directed at me.

My favorite part of the lecture was when she talked about the four different types of discipline styles, as determined by the parameters "order" and "kindness":

This really resonated with me. I like the idea that picking a parenting style is essentially the same as picking your character's alignment in Dungeon's and Dragon.

Man, it's too bad they didn't have class selection, too. I'd love to be known as "Paladin Dad."

Occasionally large, heavy objects fall on both my wife and our remote control, simultaneously turning on the TV and immobilizing The Queen, leaving her no choice but to watch some of the worst television programs ever aired. Or so she would have me believe when I wander into the living room and find her riveted to The Swan or American Idol. When she notices me she'll sort of start guiltily and exclaim "I was trying to find Nova! And I completely accidentally came across this! And then I ... I, uh ... uh ..." and then she trails off and her eyes drift back to Extreme Nanny Makeover Swap III.

I think the low point came when I caught her watching Colonial House, a reality show on PBS. Yes, you heard me right: PBS has reality shows. But they're public television, so they have to be all educational and dignified and shit, right? So instead challenging contestants to eat centipede feces or whatever, they do the sixth-grade play "The First Thanksgiving" writ large. In the case of Colonial House they stuck all a bunch of people in a remote community and made them pretend like they were living in 1628, which they did with remarkable verisimilitude except, possibly, when (1) one of the indentured servant announced that he was gay and the whole community pelted him with accolades for his bravery instead of cobble, and (2) one of the colonists walked a few miles to the nearest modern town for a cheeseburger and beer (really).

"It's a bunch of people dressed in itchy clothes and pretending like they live in ye olde olden tymes?" I asked, when The Queen explained the premise to me. "Good lord, you're watching a televised LARP!" I continued to mock her for several more seconds, until it dawned on me that, of the two people in the room, only one was geeky enough to know what "LARP" stands for. (And, let's me honest: when PBS holds Seattle auditions for Gamma World House, the guy at the front of the line in the mutated badger costume will be me.)

But there's one terrible, terrible reality show that The Queen doesn't even try to hide her addiction to. She enjoys it so much that she gets excited about it days in advance. On Sunday afternoon we'll be in the middle of a discussion about whether cauliflower should be refrigerated, and she'll suddenly gasp and say "My trashy show is on in three days!" "Trashy show" are her words, not mine. Although they are also mine now, since last Wednesday I was conscripted into watching the show with her.

Yes, dear readers: I watched America's Next Top Model.

The Queen has been trying to get me to watch it for ages, and I caved when she upped the ante by adding yet another "really" to her description; as in "You should watch it: it's really, really, really, really bad." (Curiously, this advertising technique always seems to work for me.)

I figured, what the hell: even if the show sucks, at least I'll get to look at hot girls for an hour, right? Bzzzzzzt, wrong. First, it looks they cast the show by going to a local high school and herding the drill team into a van. Second -- how do I put this diplomatically? -- I like curves, and these girls are about as curvy as a yardstick. Regardless of who wins, America's Next Top Model will have to visit the Old Country Buffet every day for a month before I'll ever steal furtive glances at her in the Old Navy catalog.

Thirdly -- and this is what makes the show entertaining, or so The Queen assures me -- you get the distinct impression that none of these ladies are exactly mathletes, if you catch my drift. One of the reoccurring features of the show is that the host, Tyra Banks, sends the contestants cryptic little notes hinting at the next event they'll be asked to participate in. They are like the puzzles that the Riddler is always sending, except, instead of solving the enigma and charging off to apprehend the villain, imagine Batman and Robin reading the riddle and then just sort of staring off into the middle-distance for a while, befuddled, before wandering off to touch-up their roots.

Yep, it was an atrocity, all right. Some of the more cringeworth moments:

• In one scene, a girl (I don't know which, I didn't bother trying to keep them straight. The skinny one.) complained "This competition is getting so competitive!"
• In another, one of the girls went to an event wearing this t-shirt:
  
• They did a photoshoot based on the seven deadly sins. Afterwards, while evaluating the photos, the judges bad-mouthed the girl who got stuck with "gluttony" because she looked fat.
• Also, not ten minutes after they had reminded us that "pride" is a sin, one of the judges gave a long and unironic speech to one of the contestant about how crucial it is that we all be filled with pride in ourselves.
• And in the big, final, "who is going to get kicked off the show" climax, one of the girls got criticized for not having "a good face for makeup." I DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND THAT WTF AMERICA??!!?

Q: See? Awful, huh?

M: Even worse than you promised.

Q: So now you're as addicted as I am.

M: And that's where you're wrong.

Q: Oh c'mon. How can you not watch it? It's like a train wreck.

M: Tell you what: if the next episode features those girls in an actual train wreck, I'll watch.

Q: Whatever. You'll make a big show of not watching next week, but as soon as it's over you'll be asking me who got kicked off.

The Squirrelly got a bunch of cool toys for his birthday, but his favorite is the Busy Ball Popper. It's this long, snaking tube, and when you put something into one end an invisible force accelerates it until it is ejected from the other end with explosive velocity.

Speaking of which: I have the flu.

It all started innocently enough on Friday evening, when The Squirrelly refused his dinner. Unfortunately, this refusal came 30 minutes after he had injected it. While sitting in my lap. Right at the best part of The Very Busy Spider, where I get to make the goat noises. He had been making this funny little coughing sound for about 10 minutes, and I interrupted my reading to say "Oh, stop: you're not fooling me with your fakey-cough sympathy ploy." And then, hoo boy, he showed me.

So I panicked and insisted we drive him directly directly to the emergency room because, my god, when has a baby ever thrown up before? The Queen pretended to play along, but basically stalled and waited for me to come to my senses. "I'll get ready to go," she said, and then went into the bathroom and slowly bushed her teeth. Meanwhile, I did a Google search for "baby +vomiting" and got around 40 quintillion hits, and every site said things like "You should take your child to the urgent care unit if (a) he is throwing up every five minutes (b) for 350 hours c