CALL ME SNAKE

It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not talking about Christmas, Hannukah, or Kwanzaa. I’m talking about the Great First Annual Pre-Yuletide No-Holds-Barred Down-and-Dirty Bumper Sticker Sweepstakes. There are no ground rules for this competition, save for one: Given the holiday spirits that have taken over our nation like a magical balm, I request that you make your bumper stickers positive and uplifting, trying to keep your negativity and cynicism to a minimum. That said, here is the first (winning) entry:

LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF TORTURE — All Hail the Bush Legacy!

Rest assured that I will give each and every one of your entries as much scrutiny as I did my own entry before announcing it the winner. Good luck, play ball, and remember: Keep it clean!

Today we’re doing one of the things we do best here at Call Me Snake, announcing a new feature–this time a sneak preview of an actual TV pilot written by yours truly. I wear many hats in the course of a day but many of you don’t know that one of the things I do–and do best–is write pilots for the small screen, what we used to call “teleplays” in the old days. Here’s the pilot for my latest series: “I GOT EARS (The True Adventures of Jimmie the Blind Cop).”

Jimmie walks to his desk and trips over a chair suspiciously left in the middle of the aisle. He curses: “Christ, who’s been f__’ing with the furniture around here?”

Snickers can be heard from two other detectives, Marino and Bonez. “The guy takes a shot in the face and now it’s like he’s mad at the world,” Marino whispers. Bonez nods: “So he loses an eye. Get over it!”

The captain, Joe Murtaugh, a burly black man comes into the squad room to check out the disturbance. “Will you ladies quit your squabbling? How many times I gotta tell ya’, we’re like a family, y’hear? We don’t have to like each other. We don’t have to love each other. But let’s not kill each other — unless, of course, it’s absolutely necessary. Say in one of those ‘fratricide-type’ situations. Unnerstand?”

”OK boss,” grunts Marino. “I hear ya,” says Bonez.

Murtaugh turns to Jimmie: “What about you Conlon? Can we get past this? Or is something still eating you?

“Well, cap,” Jimmie begins, “something about this case that’s still not right. I was over at the crime scene the other day and I heard something…”

“Here we go again,” says Marino, rolling his eyes.

“He hears dead people,” Bonez adds.

“Knock it off,” says Murtaugh. Again turning to Jimmie: “So tell us Conlon, what’d you hear this time?”

”You’re not going to like this cuz it means recanvassing the whole area. But the super says he heard the shots and then saw the skell bust out the front door. But I was eating a chili dog right outside the building, and I’m sure I heard the door open before the shots.”

”What’re you sayin’?” asks Murtaugh.

”I’m saying we’ve got a bad guy in lockup. But he’s the wrong guy. I’m gonna talk to the super this morning. Go over his story.”

”What’s a matter, Conlon?” interjects Bonez. “Can’t stand to see someone else close a case?”

”I got no problem with that, Bonez. But when you close a case, close it right…”

Jimmie walks down the hall, calling for his dog: “Scooter, scooter…? Hey, which one of you clowns took my dog?” (Snickers can be heard from the vicinity of Marino’s and Bonez’s desks.) Jimmie stumbles again: “It’s not funny…”

[End of Prologue--OPENING CREDITS ROLL...]

I’ve been spammed in what I’d have to call the worst possible way. Yesterday I got a comment on an old entry that was not a comment at all: It was ostensibly a list of links to lesbo porn sites. I don’t want that kind of thing on my blog. I’d prefer that the content remains wholesome family fair–the kind of thing I’d be comfortable having my kids read, not that I’d let them anywhere near this place. But the list of items posted on my blog were pretty darn obscene–in some cases referring to things I haven’t even heard about, though I confess to being curious–and I don’t know how to get rid of them. Worse yet, they are not even real lesbo porn links, despite provocative titles that suggest otherwise. The links take you to some news site written in what I believe is Polish–at least I think it’s news, and I think it’s Polish, but not reading Polish places me at a disadvantage on both those fronts.

Don’t worry, I’m doing my best to get rid of the offensive passages as we speak. Blog.com Technical Support is on the case and it should only be a matter of minutes. Yes sir, the problem is under control. Hullo, uh, Technical Support, are you out there? Is anyone home? Hullo, hullo…?

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I live, you never know what’s going to happen next. The most mundane activity imaginable, like food shopping, can become an unpredictable, and sometimes intellectually stimulating, event. Last week, for example, I biked over to Whole Foods just before the 10 p.m. closing time to get some last-minute supplies for the kid’s school lunches. (I usually launch into an invective at this point about how expensive–i.e., overpriced–the store is, but I’ll refrain this time.) I was near the dairy counter when a neighbor and long-time Cambridge resident asked me: “Is soy milk vegan? A vegan is coming to stay with us and I don’t know if they drink soy milk.” I hemmed and hawed for a bit, not sure how to answer her, when a man in a black suit who looked like he knew what he was talking about came to my rescue. Soy milk, he maintained, was kind of “risky.” To play it safe, he suggested, “you’re better off with rice milk.” I’m not sure what kind of reasoning he used, but at the time the argument seemed persuasive.

A few minutes later, I ran into a well-known civil liberties lawyer and a well-known “lefty” (I’m not talking about his batting stance) at the checkout counter and asked him whether he still thought John Roberts was a reasonable pick, as he had argued so convincingly in the local “underground” paper. He told me he still felt “pretty comfortable” about Roberts. As for the embattled Miers, he did not know much at the time (nor did anyone else, it seems, save for her penpal W.), but thought she was probably less scary than some of the certifiable nut jobs whose names had been bandied about–’people who would lock folks like you and me up in a second.”

After making my daily contribution to my credit card debt, I got back on the bike, griping about the exorbitant prices, but glad–at least on this night–that I lived in Cambridge.

Following up on yesterday’s exclusive on burnt muffins, I’ve decided to take up another burning-hot issue–an idea inspired by (stolen from?) “Things I Wonder About” (see link on right). “What’s up with people who wear shorts outside their sweatpants?” asked the author of that blog, Old Roses. It’s a question I’ve often asked myself, and frankly I don’t have any answers. From a fashion point of view, the shorts-outside-the-sweatpants look is an atrocious statement. Practically speaking, it makes no sense either. Allow me to illustrate: Suppose you’re doing a sport, or some other activity, and get warm. You’d like to take the sweatpants off but then you’ve got the shorts on the outside and the underwear underneath (or worse yet, underwear underneath). Nowhere to go, in other words. If you ask me, the whole thing makes no sense whatsoever. I’d go so far as to say it verges on the nonsensical.

Here’s another “News Short”: Yesterday was a sad day in my household. I retired a pair of shorts (as in actually throwing them in the trash)–a pair I’d had at least since high school, and before they were shorts, they’d been one of my favorite pairs of pants. My mother did the alteration herself–a job that has long since stood the test of time. We’re talking at least 35 years here. But they split right down the back and another hole was starting to form on the side, so it was time to say goodbye–another end to a long short life.

Ironically, I had just come back from picking my daughter up from her grammar school. I’d been debating with the school administration over a new policy that forced parents to pick up their children in the schoolyard rather than in the classroom, as had been the custom. But with holes in my pants, I looked like the kind of guy who should be hanging around grammar school lots.

I’ve been wasting a lot of time of late (which should come as no surprise to readers of this blog who don’t know me when I’m not wasting time), filing claims for an $18 million writer’s class action lawsuit. This has involved tearing apart my office, looking up contracts I’ve signed over the past decade or two with various publishers. One I stumbled across in my research even had the audacity to seek the entire copyright “THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE (emphasis added), in any and all media and forms of publication.” I guess you’d have to call those terms rather expansive. Being farsighted, the publishers realized that limiting the contract to “throughout the galaxy” wouldn’t have done it, as tens of billions of years from now, the Milky Way is destined to merge with other members of the so-called “Local Group,” rendering that language (“throughout the galaxy”) ambiguous.

Sorry if I’m feeling put upon these days, but my homework schedule has become intense of late, on top of all the other things I’m supposed to do and still try to fit in a couple of minutes of sleep each day (doctor’s orders!). I shouldn’t say “my” homework schedule since, technically speaking, it’s the homework of my 6-year-old daughter who started 1st grade three weeks ago. The first week was great but then the homework kicked in–every single day of the week, plus an extra load on Friday, just to make sure you don’t have a moment’s relaxation over the weekend. I never had homework in 1st grade. Why is my daughter, a public school student, getting it every single day?

When I was a kid during that whimsical era dominated by the Cold War, we were in lockstep competition with the Soviets. But there aren’t any Soviets around these days, in case you haven’t noticed. Next there was the “made in Japan” scare. Our kids had to work extra hard in school so that at least one thing was still made in the USA, even if that meant it was actually manufactured in Thailand. But the Japanese have their own problems too, from what I’ve heard.

So that leaves the usual culprit, our “Education President” and his so-called “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) policy. Informed educators (as opposed to the unformed ones) uniformly consider NCLB to be a joke. The only thing it does accomplish is to waste most of our educational effort on largely worthless standardized tests. Which is why my 6-year-old has homework every night. Which is why I don’t have any time to watch television anymore, assuming I was the sort to watch television, which I emphatically am not. But when you throw in the homework time on top of all the other obligations a working parent has to meet, there really isn’t any time to sleep, my pledges to my doctor notwithstanding. So I’d like to register my own small protest against No Child Left Behind (though I won’t be setting up a tent in Crawford), while suggesting a name change that describes the program more accurately: No Parent Left Asleep.

Last year, Julianne Moore starred in a movie called “The Forgotten.” It’s about a woman and man who are told after the disappearance of their children that those children never existed in the first place. “Flightplan,” the new Jodie Foster vehicle I hope not to see, is evidently similar: Foster’s son disappears during a commercial flight (should have gone first class) but no one other than her will admit the boy was ever on the flight. Call me old-fashioned but doesn’t it seem weird that two movies would have such similar plots, especially when the plots themselves are beyond-the-pale ludicrous? How can you tell a mother that her son doesn’t exist and expect her to believe it? Especially when she’s traveling with a bag full of Lego blocks, along with other subtle hints such as all the frequent flier miles her son is racking up for the trip, even while he’s safely tucked away in an overhead storage bin.

The same goes for the Moore story. You may forget your kid momentarily, and pull the occasional “Home Alone”–as in going to Europe and remembering him a few days later when you’re thinking of who to send a postcard to–but you’re not going to actually FORGET your kid, as in permanently blotting out his or her existence. That just won’t wash. Which is why I forgot to see “The Forgotten” and will do my best to avoid “flightplan” as well. And if I do have a lapse and remember, please remind me to forget.

Last year, President Bush had a vision: to put a man on the moon. A few days ago, NASA confirmed this vision with a plan for doing just that, putting a man on the moon by 2018. But the moon is, well, doggone far and getting a man (or woman) up there (on there?) is going to be pretty doggone hard, isn’t it? But wait a minute? Wasn’t some fellow named Armstrong messing around up there (on there?) back in 1969, almost 50 YEARS before NASA’s current target? Well, if we could do it once–or actually several times–we should be able to do it again, right? Maybe not. Back in the 1960s, NASA’s space program attracted some of the best minds in the country. The agency has come down more than a few pegs since then. But maybe, just maybe, we’ll be able to do what we did 50 years before. The key, the experts at NASA say, will be to use old-fashioned technology. In the meantime, “visionary” projects like this will drain money from scientific space missions that everyone knows yield far greater payoff.

But then again nobody cares about my visions. I say maybe we can get an airplane to fly again at Kitty Hawk. We missed the 100-year anniversary (which would have been 2003) but we can always shoot for 2053. Or at least we can dream…

I DON’T WATCH TV BUT… the Larry David show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, is pretty darn funny. Jeff Garlin, who plays the manager, is note perfect. David, himself, is always amusing and the one guy in Hollywood I have to worry about as my wife likes him too much. (All that money ain’t bad either, she admits.)

I DON’T WATCH TV BUT… the first season of Lost, which I’m now watching in reruns (since I never saw the original as I don’t watch TV), is not half bad. I never would have checked it out were it not for the recommendation of a friend who never watches TV.

I DON’T WATCH TV BUT… James Spader and William Shatner can, at times, be brilliant together in Boston Legal. Who knew that the ertswhile Kirk was a virtual comic genius?

I DON’T WATCH TV BUT… Steve Carrell is hilarious and, on his own, almost makes The Office worth watching. I never saw the original British version, which is supposed to be even better, because (you guessed it) I don’t watch TV.

I DON’T WATCH TV BUT… Puppets Who Kill is supposed to be an offbeat, original comedy. I have this on the highest authority from another friend who never watches TV. But I have yet to see the show for two reasons: One, the name kind of spooks me. (I used to have nightmares about puppets who kill when I was a kid.) Two, I don’t watch TV.

I DON’T WATCH TV BUT… justice was indeed blind when network officials at ABC decided to can the short-lived series, “Blind Justice.” What will become of the German shepherd who showed such promise in his role as Hank? Blind Justice was the only police show I liked last year, as well as the only police show I ever watched, because (as you know) I don’t watch TV.

George Bush is busy packing because he’ll be flying later today from our nation’s capitol, in Crawford, Texas, to his vacation home on Pennsylvania Avenue. Fortunately, he’s got many able-bodied Secret Service agents to pack GORP (a “W” favorite, right up there with s’mores) and other heathful snacks, since you never know what you’ll get with airline food, even if you’re flying Air Force One. And don’t worry, they’ll be sure to bring the mountain bike.

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: I’m going to announce the winners in our latest, hotly-contested, BLOGGING BUMPER STICKER SWEEPSTAKES. This one was a real cliffhanger, with Gatemouth waiting until the last possible second to send in his (as usual) brilliant entries. So let the drums roll. Ladies and gentlmen, do I have your attention? Vanna, the envelope please… And the winner is …. ME!!!!!!! Sorry, I can’t resist doing that, especially since I am a winner, among many other winners, I should add.

Winner in the “HANDS-DOWN, FLAT-OUT BEST” category is me for my off-the-cuff entry: START BLOGGING AND STOP LIVING! Gatemouth captured the “Incoherence” prize for: BLOGGING — THE LAST REFUGE OF THE INCOHERENT. OldRoses wins the “Most Prolific” award for her many entries. OldRoses also took the “Funny Humor Writing” prize for: WILL BLOG FOR FOOD. Turd Blossom wins the “Most Creative Name” award, plus the “Spiritual” prize for: GOD IS MY CO-POSTER. And, finally, the winner in the “Most Likely to Spawn Sequels” category is (big surprise) ME!!! for the incoherent (the runner-up in that category as well): I WENT ONLINE TO BUY A T-SHIRT. ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY BLOG.

I want to thank all the participants. It’s fair to say this was, by far, the most successful competition yet. I, for one, will treasure my prizes always. I hope the other winner will value theirs as well. As for the losers, I can only offer the standard palliative: There’s always next week.

My last post was devoted to people who read this blog, or at least have done so on occasion. This is a tribute to people who, for whatever reason, do not read “Call Me Snake.”

People who do not read this blog constitute:

• an internationally-diverse group… (I have good friends in England, France, Switzerland, China, Thailand, and Africa [I'd like to be more specific but the exact country escapes me at the moment] and, to their credit, none of them read “Call Me Snake.” Not a one.)

• world leaders and opinion shapers. To the best of my knowledge, none of the people who read “Call Me Snake” quailify in that category.

That’s all I can think of for now. Which must mean everyone else is reading “Call Me Snake.” Sign on now! Avoid the rush!

Some reporters have claimed that President Bush is singing a different tune now that his trusted aid, Karl Rove, has his proverbial tit caught in the wringer. They say Bush initially vowed to fire anyone in the administration responsible for blowing the cover of once-secret agent Valerie Plame (who’s now better known than Britney Spears. Today, Bush says he will fire anyone in the administration IF AND WHEN it is proven they have broken the law. Bush, the malcontents claim, is not sticking to his word.

But they weren’t listening carefully enough. What Bush actually said was this: He would fire anyone working for him responsible for this act (which, in point of law, is a felony). Herein lies the catch: Karl Rove does not work for Bush; Bush works for Karl Rove and willfully, eagerly, does everything Rove says. When Rove pulls the string, Bush follows the lead like Ginger Rogers. He even jumps through hoops. So Bush was not inconsistent. And it appears that no one working for him has done anything wrong. The defense rests.

Entries to the Great Bumper Sticker Sweepstakes have been pouring in for days and our team of judges has finally read through them all and made its selections. And the winner is … ME! Well, actually, the winners are Gatemouth and me. Allow me to break it down by category:

In the “honk if” category, there’s a two-way tie for first place between “Honk if you believe in atheism!” (me) and “Honk if you hate honking” (Gatemouth). The runners-up prize goes to Gatemouth for: “Honk if you want to see some REAL road rage.” Honorable mention goes to Gatemouth for: “Honk if your meds are wearing off.”

In the “politically incorrect” category, first prize goes to Gatemouth for “Stop the war–draft Jenna and Barbara Bush!”

Finally, in the hotly-contested “politically correct” category, the winners are ME for “Every man for his or herself” and ME for “I’m not drunk. I’m just tired.”

I’d like to thank all the contestants for their boundless energy and enthusiasm. If we could find a way of bottling that up, somebody, somewhere might eventually find a use for it. I’d also like to thank the judges for taking the time to sift through the entries and, in the end, making fair and incontrovertible decisions that no one in his (or her!) right mind could reasonably challenge.

Now we know what Tom Cruise’s public seduction of Katie Holmes is all about: Cruise is taking her to church with him. Cruise has pursued this romance in a high-profile manner. He might even want to marry the girl, as he told Entertainment Weekly he intends to propose. But no matter how long that relationship lasts, his church has a new member. And his church keeps its members.

I’ve been inundated with responses since we started the Great Blogging Bumper Sticker Sweepstakes a few days ago, but we finally sorted through the entries and narrowed the field. I’d now like to announce the winner: The winner is ….. ME! No actually, and this has never happened before, the 1st prize will be shared by me and Gatemouth for: “How’s my blogging? Call 1-800-WHO-CARES.” This was a collaboration in the truest sense of the word. I wrote the brilliant first sentence. Gatemouth followed up with the equally brilliant rejoinder. Amazingly, the two sentences fit together perfectly. Which makes me think, maybe Shakespeare was two people after all: Shake & Speare? Just a thought.

But back to the Sweepstakes. The 2nd prize goes to, you guessed it, ME AGAIN, for: “Stop me before I blog again.” This prize, too, is shared by Gatemouth, for his ominous-sounding: “First thing we do, let’s kill all the bloggers.”

I’d like to thank all the people who took time from their busy lives to send in their ideas. Keep it up, as you just may win the next Sweepstakes. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the prize: A free, lifetime subscription to Call Me Snake. Use it wisely.

Bush is outraged. Rummy is shocked and Cheney offended. Why? Because Amnesty International had the gall to use the word “gulag” when describing the detention center in Guantanamo Bay. Their simple ploy seems to have diverted attention from the prisoner abuses routinely going on at U.S. hands–holding people without charge, detaining them indefinitely, and even torturing them, if and when we see fit. For once, I’m going to have to take issue with Bush and his cronies. I’m more offended by the U.S. conduct in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib than I am by Amnesty International’s word choice.

This is, I realize, supposed to be a humorous blog–a place where everyone knows your name, a place where you might even find “funny humor.” So this is the time I’m supposed to crack a joke to ease the tension and make everything feel all right. But I don’t think I can do that right now, because–to borrow a phrase from Burt, one of Call Me Snake’s most persistent (and persnickety) critics–”I’m not laughing.”

I don’t claim to understand it and never did. But today I found out that my memberships in the Humor WebRing and Funny Humor Writing WebRing were magically reinstated–perhaps a result of all the complaining I’ve been doing of late. In any case, I’m back to being humorous and funny again–important traits for any aspiring comedian. So I guess I’d better keep on doing what I’ve been doing. In other words, expect more of the same. As my pappy always said: “If it ain’t fixed, break it!”

Tomorrow we’re celebrating my youngest daughter’s third birthday. That should be a joyous occasion, right? You go out and buy a bunch of presents, wrap them up, and then what happens? You give them to all the other freeloading, moocher kids who come to the party, leaving with far more than they brought. That’s the “goodie bag” concept that has turned every birthday party into a nightmare for parents. When I was a kid, admittedly a few years back, you were lucky to get a piece of cake at a party–that is if you didn’t misbehave. You never left with a bag full of presents. And these days, one present will not do for those greedy kids. No you need a well-rounded assortment of crap to keep them from screaming bloody murder.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Parents everywhere can heed my call and unite: Let’s put an end to this foolish practice and restore some sanity to birthday celebrations. It may be too late to restore sanity to this particular parent–what with the event less than 24 hours away and the pressure mounting beyond belief–but I’m thinking of all the other parents out there, and future parents down the road, who might be spared this most inhumane form of punishment.

Jim O’Brien has my dream job. Yesterday, the Philadelphia 76ers organization fired O’Brien, who had been the team’s head coach, and he’ll now get $12 million over the next three years for doing absolutely nothing. Now that’s a job I’m perfectly qualified for. And it’s something I could do at least as well as O’Brien and probably better on account of my experience. So how come he’s sitting pretty there in Philly, doing what we professionals call “bubkis,” while I’m over here scrounging for a living? Hardly seems fair when put in those terms. The situation, moreover, raises an obvious question: How come I don’t get jobs like that?

Maybe you wouldn’t call it earth-shattering, but a question I asked “Miss Conduct” (the witty and urbane etiquette columnist for the Boston Globe Magazine) was addressed in last week’s issue. I got a very polite note back from her letting me know it was a “good f_ _ _ ing question,” though I knew that already. (I was pretty darn proud of it, realizing I finally had something worthwhile to ask Miss Conduct after having read her column for weeks, straining to come up with a decent query). I was assured that my question would be answered in a column she had already prepared on a similar topic–namely whether to ask people who you’re pretty sure don’t have jobs what they do for work when they ask you the same. (Boy, do I hate that question!) She said to “ask the f _ _ _ away,” so long as you do it in a thoughtful and respectful manner–a caveat that could be applied to most etiquette-related matters when you get right down to it, save for those special occasions when you’re obliged to be boorish and inappropriate. Interestingly, the last time I was in a social situation (three or four years ago), I followed the letter of her instructions–”asking the f _ _ _ away,” so to speak–so it’s good to know that my instincts, as always, are right on the mark.

It happened again. Another friend, who was back in the States after spending nearly two years in China, got wind of my blog and was so disheartened by that unexpected development that he flew back to China on the first plane he could catch–traveling an even greater distance than that traveled by the friend I drove to Africa last week. Which is all encouraging news to me. The more I keep writing, the more my friends are going to keep dispersing all over the world. In the end, that’s got to be good both for them (the old “travel can be so broadening” principle) and for the world at large. Call it a “win-win”–another unexpected byproduct of “CALL ME SNAKE.” And just remember, you heard it here first.

Many of you have heard how my membership in the “Funny Humor Writing WebRing” was recently suspended. (See, for example, “SUSPENDED!”, which was posted on May 3, 2005.) I know I promised to explain what a “WebRing” was, but I still can’t tell you other than to say it’s related to something called the “world wide web” (www), which is a word I’m sure you’ll hear more about in coming years.

Yesterday, I received good news: My membership in the “Funny Humor Writing WebRing” has been activated again. I’m no longer considered just “Moderately Amusing” (the name of another webring to which I belong) but actually “funny.” So if you’re not laughing, this time you can’t blame the writer.

Today, we start a new feature here at CALL ME SNAKE–the “Featured Blog Posting of the Week.” This week’s award goes to “The First Two Rules of the Fight Club,” which can be found in “THAT ONE BLOG” (see link on right). In this satiric tour-de-farce, the author (DrMax) deftly skewers the macho bravado of the Fight Club code to great comic effect. It is must reading for every Fight Club member and to those of you thinking of joining Fight Clubs in your homes, schools, churches, and temples. Check it out. And remember: You heard it here first.

A name is more than just an arbitrary label. It shapes your life and, to a large extent, your occupation. If you don’t believe me, just see the latest issue of the Annals of Improbable Research where you’ll find a fascinating article on the “Name Number” for geology and other professions written by an award-winning journalist. (I can already anticipate the question: No, I did not write this fascinating article. It was written by Kevin Krajick, who has won several journalism awards, including one that he won twice, which still counts as two awards, even though it’s the same one.) In this article, Krajick refers to “Nominative Determinism”–the fact that many people’s names are “spookily related” to their profession. This, of course, is the very same phenomenon I just described a few sentences ago. (The similarity is “spooky,” if not uncanny.) Here are some examples that Krajick cited: Forrest Hall and Robert Forrest in the field of forestry; Vernon Byrd and John Wingfield in ornithology; Kathleen Weathers and John Weatherly in meteorology; and Ken Drinkwater and Andrew Fountain in oceanography/hydrology. To this list, I’d like to add some additional names: Albert Einstein, genius, and Eugene Shoemaker, geologist.

It’s amazing what will turn up in your email–things that can change your life. Today, for example, I found out about an incredible opportunity (once in a lifetime would be an understatement!) to write and edit a training manual for hot tub technicians–300 to 400 pages worth. It’s fair to say that by the end of that process, you’d have a better-than-average grasp of the mildew and fungal challenges facing the spa, hot tub, and recreational water industry. The requirements for a job like this, needless to say, are exacting. Among other chores, the writer/editor will need to “correct information, inconsistencies, etc.” I think I’d be up for the first two items on that list, but I am worried about the “etc.,” which could become a veritable Pandora’s box. You also need to be able to receive email on a 24/7 basis. On that front, I’m already ahead of the game, having long ago shifted to the 25/8 schedule. So if things get quiet from this end for awhile, you’ll know where to find me — sitting in a hot tub, laptop in hand, correcting inconsistencies, etc.

There’s an old saying around these parts: It ain’t over ’til it’s over. It ain’t over until the slightly overweight lady–whose best efforts to follow the South Beach diet have somehow gone North–sings. Well, I got news for you folks: She’s singing now, belting out a frightful round of blues, and as for that other matter, how can I break it to you: IT’S OVER. Our once high-flying Celts are now disgraced, after having shamed themselves in game 7 at home. The season is finished, and Antoine Walker (who received entirely too much attention in these pages) was the best Celtic player on the court last night in what may have been his last game in the Green.

Although the outcome is sad in one sense, the good news (always looking for the bright side!) is that I now have my life back and am aggressively seeking new ways of wasting time. I’m already frittering away about as many hours as possible blogging and am looking to supplement that with entirely new forms of nonproductive activities. If you have any hobbies that are prodigious time-wasters with no apparent redeeming value or “upside” (as it’s now called), by all means get in touch. I’m at my wit’s end at the moment, trying to fill the void in a life that is lacking at least one substantial void to round out an otherwise full portfolio. I have no interest in philately, but am open to philanthropy (particularly at the receiving end!), philomathy (driven to learn useless things!), phillumeny (matchbox labels are sexy!), and philogyny (love to hear more!).

My career as a blogger, which looked so promising just a day ago, received a terrible blow this morning. My site on the “Funny Humor Writing WebRing” was suspended. The “ringmaster” cited various technical reasons for this decision — have to bring my SSNB code up to a “full pass rating” and make sure my site code is “in a good placement within the HTML code of your joining website page”–but I suspect the true reason is that it just wasn’t funny enough. Perhaps I shot too high. Perhaps I overreached. I should have applied to the plain old “Humor Writing WebRing,” but instead I had to go for the “Funny Humor Writing WebRing.” What a setback. What a slap in the face. And it had all looked so promising just a day ago…

I went to Albuquerque in my mind–where do you go to get away?–and found the “trip” refreshing, even better than my private Idaho. Now I’m back and ready to serve you with the relaunched, bigger and better blog my readership has demanded. (They are getting rather pushy.) As a proud member of half a dozen or more web rings (I’ll explain what those are later when I get the hang of it), my responsibilities have grown exponentially. While I had been working on a 24/7 basis to keep pace with demand, that will no longer get the job down. I have therefore shifted to a 25 hours a day, 8 days a week schedule. I hope the good old 25/8 will suffice, but with the way things are going, I suspect we’ll be seeing a 26/9 shift before too long.

Taking a cue from Jennifer Carol Wilbanks–the runaway bride from Duluth, Georgia, who took a cue from Julia Roberts (or at least one of her famous screen impersonations)–I’m off to Albuquerque, which is where I go when pressure from this blog gets too intense. Don’t waste money on a search party (and the catering that entails), because I’m going to disappear for awhile, and will not pay for all that fuss and bother when I resurface for my next posting. Y’all take care, y’hear?

Sorry, I slacked off during game three, when the Pacers embarrassed us. I was distracted (sorting socks, etc.) and listless (after a grueling day of channel surfing) and totally lacking in emotion, which never gets the job done in the playoffs. The result was sobering, and a veritable kick in the pants. The playoffs are a time to step it up a notch (or preferably three), and I brought some of that vaunted “playoff intensity” to the couch for game four, when we blew them out of Conseco Fieldhouse. They’re coming to our house for game five, and you can be sure that, this time, we’ll be ready and waiting. I’ll provide the dip.