Lynn and I watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin last night, which was funny and at times charming, and worth watching, but was remarkable for its tedium, length, and poor editing. The movie had at least four different movies in it: a teenage sex romp rewritten with actors supposed to be from mid-20s to 40; a small film about a guy growing up; a movie about a woman who has made many errors in her life and finally is getting her act together; and a 70s movie.

The movie veered from a relatively reasonable portrayal of a guy who, due to funny problems with girlfriends and dates, had turned his sexual interest into obsessive hobbies (playing a brass instrument, painting tiny figurines, collecting action figures, and so on). Great line: "Is that Steve Austin's boss?" "Oscar Goldman, yes."

I'm unclear why so many people liked the movie since it felt more like

Listen to this remarkable report yesterday from All Things Considered, in which Paul Weyrich, a social conservative, states that homosexuals think about sex all the time, and that's why they are troublesome to society. I knew about the recruiting (get a toaster oven if you convert someone), and the agenda of secular humanism. But I missed the flyer on this one!

I had one of those Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman moments this morning. Lynn and I were rushing to get ready to go to the birthday party of another two-year-old--just a few weeks younger than Ben--and a tiny can of Coke balanced on a shelf fell to the floor and exploded without any of us hearing it in our temporary pantry. We just had our basement seismically retrofit (retrofittedly seismicized?) and thus we have weird stuff in a corner of the kitchen.

I come into the kitchen while Lynn is playing with Ben and say, Oh, no, whatever has happened? I piece the narrative together--the can slipped off, hit the floor, exploded, covering the floor and adjacent objects with Coke spittle--and then grab our amazing new Hoover FloorMate SpinScrub 800 Floor Cleaner! (Go, Hoover. Go, Hoover. Go, Hoover.)

We just bought this thing a few days ago because our house is

From: Board of Directors, Sodor Railroad Ltd.
To: Sir Topham Hatt, Esq., managing director
Re: On the advisability of the use of sentient trains

Sir Hatt,

The board of directors would first like to commend you on the overall excellence of the Sodor Railroad's operations. Under your leadership, new branch lines have been opened, unsafe lines repaired, and freight shipments have increased 20 percent year over year for the past five years. Bravo, Sir.

It is unfortunate, therefore, that we must once again question your decision to employ sentient railway engines and cars in lieu of the more typical non-sentient trains found on most railroads. These self-aware trains, especially the engines, have produced continued disruptions only outweighed by your hands-on management style, and forceful manner in dealing with them.

Reports and accompanying videos cross the boardroom nearly every work day, from 8 am to 8.30 am, in which these

Introduce a cat into your comic strip and its popularity increases.

But the cat also can take over the strip.

Back when I was writing a lot of articles about cartoons and the Internet, I heard this from a number of artists. People love cats in cartoons. Perhaps 97% of comic strip readers are elderly ladies? I dunno. But it's just how it works. It's why Garfield has remained ridiculously popular. (Although I started reading the strip again recently, and it seems strangely fresh and amusing. How did that happen?)

In Arlo & Janis, there's Ludwig, a late addition to the strip that often gets entire days to himself. In 9 Chickweed Lane--a strip that has largely relocated its characters to Manhattan--you'll find Solange, who turned her behavior into a book.

I was talking to a fellow in Australia for an article I'm writing for The Economist, and he started talking about a Heath Robertson machine. I had to stop and think--who is Heath Robertson? Do I know a Mr. Robertson? Did he invent some part I should know about? The fellow stopped and said, "Oh, do you call it that in America? We call something that has many parts--like the game Mousetrap." I said, "We call that a Rube Goldberg machine in America."

I just turned to Lynn and said, "For some reason, I can suddenly read Greek." She said, "Write that down somewhere," noting that it's one of the silliest things I've ever said.

I've always been able to perform what geeks would call background processes. My brain will chew on stuff without my involvement, and I'll suddenly wake up with a new intellectual ability. It's one reason why I can learn language so quickly; there's some part of my brain that appears to function somewhat autonomously from the rest of my consciousness.

Anyway, I was reading The Professor and the Madman the other day, which is about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary and an unlikely friendship between two oddly similar men (one in an asylum, a murderer, and the other the head of the OED effort), and I was able to read the Greek phonetically without having to sound

Great Daily Show bit with superior dry wit John Hodgman ("I'm a PC") about net neutrality. Scarily, his description is basically accurate until he veers into outright parody at the end!

I used to make fun of people who used The Club to protect their car from being stolen--or rather to "deter" thieves--because I knew, like most car thieves know, that the Club doesn't prevent a determined thief. If it deters, it probably deters to another car on your street. Of course, that was before two things happened. First, most new cars sold into urban and upscale markets have electronic ignitions that are disabled without the appropriate key fob thingee. Second, my car was stolen.

True, it was stolen for just ten feet, but the ignition was destroyed and it cost $1,000 to have it fixed, with 3/4 paid by insurance. My wife and I realized that The Club, in this case, would have prevented the rank amateurs from trying to break into our car. If we were lucky, they might have drooled their meth-addled way by foot over

Pearls of wisdom!

The blogger's philosophy goes something like this: Everything that I think about is more fascinating than the crap in your head.

See Dilbert Blog.

The very funny folks at the Annals of Improbable Research (an outgrowth, if I recall correctly, of the Journal of Irreproducible Results) remind us that FEMA's failings are well researched pointing to Murphy's Law and the Cornell Incompetence Study.

The key words "SHALT", "SHALT NOT", "SMITE", and "PILLAR OF SALT" in this document are to be interpreted as expected....   It may be the case that the authors of Internet-Drafts have no or few morals.  This does not relieve them of their duty to understand the   consequences of their actions.--RFC 4041