At this point, I assume you've all heard about Toyota's recalls of 4.8 million vehicles to fix mechanical problems in which the accelerator pedal can become stuck, either by itself or under a floor mat. I've been driving a car where that happened, and it's a bit alarming. I was coming up on my exit, I took my foot off of the accelerator to begin slowing down -- and suddenly the RPMs soared and the car began speeding up. I tried pulling the pedal up, jamming it down further, and wiggling it with my hand, but nothing stopped it. I started braking, even though I knew that couldn't possibly be good for the car; that's when I discovered that the accelerator is a stronger force than the brake, as the speed kept creeping up. I was running low on options when it abruptly let off for no discernible reason.

CNN, in an effort to add more paranoia to my daily life, would like me to know that Toyota is probably lying about having fixed the problem. According to a dude who's written a book but has not, as far as I can tell, actually examined a single Toyota vehicle subject to the recall, the issue is probably electronic, not mechanical. A number of other experts who also have not examined the vehicles have asserted that the tests being done, whatever they might be, are obviously inadequate as they're not finding results that match said experts' predetermined opinions.

You might note a hint of skepticism in my tone. That's because this is an incredibly poorly researched article; stripped to the bone, what it says is, "We contacted a bunch of people who are qualified to look at the problem, but have not actually done so, and asked them for their uninformed opinions." I'd really like to go with the people who are involved, and have done the tests; it seems a more reasonable choice.

However, with the newest recall to fix Prius's ABS systems, Toyota's not making it easy for me to believe them. Toyota's statements on the matter are somewhat disturbingly self-contradictory. There's no real problem, they say, just that the brakes feel a bit weird; they're working perfectly fine, so please bring your Prius in immediately to get it fixed. There is, as previously stated, really nothing wrong at all, certainly nothing to be concerned about. So, you know, whenever you have a chance please swing by your dealer as soon as possible before you die. Not that you would. Because the brakes are fine. They just don't feel that way. Really, the problem is that you're defective, but that can't be fixed by a recall. Buy our products!

Mood of the Moment: good
Auditory Hallucination: Danny Elfman -- Mike Teavee

I had a dream last night, and you were in it! I had a big test in one of my college classes, worth a third of my grade, but I hadn't read any of the material or even shown up to class. I got my copy of the test, looked over it to see if I could bluff my way through, and decided that I couldn't, so I took the teacher aside and asked her for an extension, which she granted me.

This is an extremely boring dream, but weirdly, Sarah Palin seems to have had an extremely similar one. In her case, she was showing up unprepared for a Q&A session at a convention, and instead of asking for an extension to bone up on the material, she decided that she would bluff her way through, with the help of some notes jotted on her hand. Also, hers was real.

Let me say, first of all, that I don't see anything wrong with using notes for a speech. It seems like a pretty good idea, frankly. These notes, however, were apparently for the question and answer session after the speech -- you know, to remind her of what she thinks. I suppose the only reason that she didn't write whether she was for or against each note was that she was in favor of all of them. Perhaps the ones she was against were on her right hand.

As absolutely everyone is gleefully reporting, Palin also chose that particular evening in front of the cameras to make a quick dig at President Obama for reading his speeches off of a teleprompter. Palin's speeches, of course, are all off the cuff, or as near to it as she can write.

Notes are good; it's handy to have a reference to make sure that you say everything you want to say. Needing to remind oneself to be in favor of lifting the American spirits, though, is a bit curious. What could Sarah Palin really be thinking, that she needed a note to make sure she said this instead?

Mood of the Moment: cheerful
Auditory Hallucination: The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets -- Operation Get the Hell Out of Here

It's snowing again! The last snow has not yet disappeared, which means that this snow is going to land on top of it, and accumulate. This is a fascinating concept; I've heard of it, of snow occurring often enough to pile up on top of snow deposited from previous storms, but I've never witnessed it. Winter around here usually goes: temperature in the 40s, temperature in the 40s, threat of snow and everyone panics, temperature in the 50s, temperature in the 30s, actual snow and everyone panics, temperature in the 40s and rain which washes away the snow.

I haven't been following the weather reports at all this year, due to a long-standing belief that they're almost entirely made up. However, I have been listening to people who have been following the weather reports, or at least people who've been talking to people who've been following the weather reports, which is just about as accurate and much more fun. I heard alarmed retellings of up to 20 inches of snow over the upcoming weekend, which would be very exciting and quite possibly a new record; the current record for Richmond in February is 21 inches for the entire month, or 13 inches in a single 24 hour period.

I've been intending to build a snowman, but my front yard is very steep and I am very lazy. Rolling snowballs up that hill seems like more work than I'm really interested in putting into a snowman; I could always roll them downhill, of course, but then they'd all end up the same size, and my snowman would have a giant mutant head. I'd be okay with that, actually, if it weren't for the fact that it's really hard to hoist a giant mutant head into position; it's back to that whole effort thing. I could just build a snowman in the backyard, of course, but then almost no one would see it, which is less fun.

Fortunately, I think I've come up with a solution. I can build a snowman on my back porch, peering in through the back window with one arm upraised, clawing at the door. It's a nice flat surface to build on, it'll clean off my porch, and everyone who comes over will see it staring soulfully inside. It'll melt quickly as the runoff from the roof drips onto it, but I think that'll just make it look more tormented.

Come to think of it, I know just where I can get a scarf for him, too! Everything comes together.

Mood of the Moment: good
Auditory Hallucination: Arrogant Worms -- Horizon

There's a fuzzy blue scarf frozen into the snow in my front yard. I've been assuming that it belongs to one of the neighbors, because I've never seen it before. However, as it's been there since the weekend, I may have to give up and take it inside. The option appears to be to leave it until spring, when the grass starts growing and I have to mow the lawn. I'm not sure what happens if you run over a scarf with a lawnmower, but I think it's a safe bet that at least one of them dies.

There's always the chance that it simply traveled here on its own, as so many articles of clothing seem to. Usually, they make it inside the house, and so I assume that they've been carried by one visitor or another. Thinking about it, though, I don't actually recall seeing people bring in most of these things. If I had, obviously, I'd know who to give them back to.

I had a windbreaker show up at my house one day, and I kept it on the hook for over a year. No one ever asked about it, and so one day when it was rainy, I gave it to one of my friends who needed a jacket. Currently, I've got a blue-and-black flannel shirt that I found after a party, a pair of sunglasses that showed up in my car, an umbrella, a pair of pants not even resembling my size that I found under my dresser in my closet, and some suspicious socks. I think that's it for unidentified belongings, although there are an awful lot of shoes by the front door; it's possible that some of those don't belong, either.

Now that I put it all together, I'm starting to see something of a clothing migration going on. I seem to be accumulating an entire outfit, piece by piece. Perhaps one day I'll find a naked person at my house, fresh from an epic quest to discover where all of their clothes have gone. This seems a fairly unlikely scenario, I admit.

Rather than waiting around for a claimant to arrive, I think I ought to just build one. I've got all of the dimensions -- waist size, inseam, neck and shoulders, even a range for the size of the feet and head. I've got enough bits of wood and interesting pieces of metal around my house to construct some sort of rough simulacrum; I've even got some spare Halloween masks to add to its horrible parody of life. If I build it to suit the clothes that have arrived, all I'll have to do is wait for the next lightning storm and hope for the best. And even if it somehow fails to come to life, it'll still be a great thing to prop up in the hallway to scare the heck out of myself when I'm walking around with the lights off in the middle of the night. That's pretty much a win-win scenario in my book.

Mood of the Moment: good
Auditory Hallucination: April Smith -- Wow and Flutter

Yesterday, I received a fat envelope in the mail from the IRS. I haven't filed my taxes yet this year, since my brokerage is refusing to release my 1099 until February 16th; no reason was given, so I assume this is solely to annoy me. Still, at least this meant that the IRS almost certainly wasn't auditing me yet, unless they're now working with the Department of Pre-Crime.

"Mr. Edwards? We've received a wooden sphere that says you're going to screw up on your taxes this year. If you could just add this corrected number and fine to whatever you come up with, we'd appreciate it."

Barring that, though, I really wasn't sure what the envelope might contain. Were they auditing me for last year's taxes? If so, while they were poking through all my stuff, would I be able to get them to do this year's taxes for me? As long as they're here anyway, it seems like the sort of thing that could save everyone a lot of trouble.

Once I tired of the suspense, I opened the envelope to find a full half-pound of paper, including four smaller envelopes, an 8.5" x 22" perforated sheet with lots of small boxes with dollar signs and the code "1040-V" written on it at regular intervals, and a novella of instructions. The pages were all cross-referenced, but after much puzzling, I concluded that what the IRS had mailed me was a pile of certificates to be used in case I owed them money, wanted to pay it quarterly, and decided to do it by check or money order.

This was baffling, as I almost never owe them money at tax season, and even if I did, I assuredly wouldn't waste my time and theirs with a check or a money order when there's a perfectly good electronic funds transfer system to be used. I particularly wouldn't do this four times a year. I'm pretty sure that you file taxes quarterly if you own a business, but I'm even more sure that I don't own a business. I feel certain that that's the sort of thing I would have spotted at some point.

I'm tempted to mail the envelopes back, one each quarter, with the form fully filled out in the amount of $0.00, a check for the same and a note reading, "Still don't owe you guys any extra. Just wanted to let you know!" There are two main reasons that I'm not going to do this: taunting the IRS seems like a really poor plan, but more importantly, the envelopes aren't postage paid. I'm not paying 44 cents a pop just to continue the cycle of waste that the IRS has tried to start with me.

I'm just terribly afraid that when next year's taxes roll around, this will suddenly, painfully, make all too much sense. I can't imagine why I'd need this; I just hope that I'm able to say the same thing in hindsight.

Mood of the Moment: confused
Auditory Hallucination: Les Miserables -- Little People

CNN had a number of vitally important headline stories for me today. America gives kids cancer, vaccines don't cause autism, and a phishing attack has hit Twitter. Let's see: people may die, people may die, and people may be sending spam to their friends. Yes, those are definitely all of headline importance, I feel.

I've never understood the threat of phishing attacks. If you're unfamiliar with the term, it's when someone sets up a fake site to attempt to trick users into entering their login names and passwords. It's the digital equivalent of the ATM scams where people slap a fake card reader over the front of the real one, and harvest people's information when they slide their card in. There is, however, one major difference: every web site is labeled with its unique URL, easily visible at the top of the page. So if you're expecting to see twitter.com/login, and instead you're looking at twitter.access-logins.com/login, maybe you should use your pattern-matching skills to spot the difference.

The article goes on to quite maliciously conflate legitimate programs that use your password to log into an account with phishing attacks. This is apparently part of a clever program to fight misinformation with misinformation; rather than educating people about how to look at the address bar, let's just make them scared of things! Don't touch the stove, not because it's hot, but because Aunt Ember, who lives inside the walls, can reach out and bite you there. All openings are suspect! Just stay in the center of the room and you'll be safe.

I'm going to start a new public service ad campaign called "Ask A Geek." I'll have posters of a slightly nerdy but still good-looking guy in front of a computer, explaining something to a momentarily-enlightened looking person. Along the bottom, it can say, "Not sure about something? Ask A Geek First," and then below that, in smaller font, "You have a computer-savvy friend or relative who knows the answer. Don't ask them later, after you've broken it or given away your password; ask them now."

I'd better check with some other geeks first, though. I know I'd prefer to educate and prevent rather than run damage control, but maybe I'm in the minority. I'll do some polling before I roll this thing out.

Mood of the Moment: stymied
Auditory Hallucination: Lady Gaga -- Bad Romance

I read a fair number of webcomics. Some of them are fantastic, some are good, and some I read mainly because I'm online, and they're online, so why not? I try to cut these last ones out of my routine when I realize that I'm not actually enjoying them, but often I've been reading them for so long that I feel that I'm abandoning them, just because they're not good right now. I try to harden my heart and move on, but it's not always easy.

The comics that are truly amazing are few and far between. Rice Boy was one; it's a visually compelling fantasy epic, and it has a feature rarely seen in the webcomic world, which is that it is complete. You can read the entire thing at your own pace, without having to stop when you've caught up to the story thus far, or worrying about the artist missing updates. Also, you know that it won't start to drag or suck in the middle -- assuming your tastes agree with mine, anyway.

Gunnerkrigg Court is another of my favorites; it tells an excellent ongoing story, while still working in clever things such as the minotaur's version of events in the labyrinth and a short rendition of a Native American tale of Coyote, the trickster god. It's funny, fast-paced and updates reliably.

The newest one to make me laugh out loud, which I just found today, is called Axe Cop. It's drawn by an artist in California, but it's created and written by his five year old brother. The comic is, in a word, hilarious. There's a video on the blog of the creation process, which essentially consists of the artist saying to his brother, "Okay, so then what happens next?" His brother, laughing, says, "So then Dinosaur Soldier eats an avocado, and he becomes Avocado Soldier!" And the artist says, "Great! And then what happens to them?"

It's an absolutely ridiculous story, and I love the way the artist draws it out of his brother. He doesn't tell him that things don't make sense; he doesn't say they're too absurd, or that it can't work like that, or that that's just too silly. He just laughs and draws it, and the end result is fantastic.

It doesn't hurt that the guy's an excellent artist, of course, but I'd read this story even if were just illustrated with a five year old's scribbles. It retains its internal consistency throughout, but there's something brilliantly unfettered about it. Simple and absurd though it is, I hope it continues; I can't wait to see the next one.

Mood of the Moment: amused
Auditory Hallucination: April Smith -- These Terrible Things

I used to know a lot about astronomy. I followed the space program avidly. I knew all of the American astronauts, and what they'd done. I could pick out all of the constellations, and name all the major stars in each. We used to have a board game that involved matching the stars to their constellations; I can't actually remember the mechanics of the game at all, so maybe it was just flashcards, but I always liked it.

These days, I can find Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades, and I can generally manage the Big Dipper, if I don't get led astray by some other box-shaped star grouping. I can find Rigel and Betelgeuse, although I can't necessarily remember which is which, and Polaris if I can decide where the Big Dipper is, but that's about it. I realized yesterday that a game I've been playing online for some time has named three of its characters after the stars in Orion's Belt -- Alnilam, Alnitak and Mintaka -- and I hadn't even felt a glimmer of recognition.

Even my mnemonics are out of date; the nine-planet "my very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas" doesn't work, now that Pluto's been demoted. I could just truncate it, of course, and make the N mean something else, but as I recall, there are two other demi-planets in Pluto's category now, too. I couldn't tell you what their names are, though, which makes it hard to update the mnemonic.

I still remember the order of the stars' temperatures, and at least that hasn't changed. The internet claims that the common mnemonic is "Oh, be a fine girl, kiss me," listing them from hottest to coolest. I, however, learned them from coolest to hottest with "Mickey killed Goofy for a bodily organ." That's the sort of sentence that sticks in your head, which is why I'm surprised that it returns no results whatsoever in Google. Perhaps Disney did not appreciate this particular memory aid.

It seems that I'm not the only one who's let my interest in cosmic affairs lapse; as I was browsing to find out what else I'd forgotten, I came across an article announcing that Obama's cutting the program to return people to the Moon, and instead telling NASA to focus on studying climate change.

I'd like to believe that this is a good thing, that encouraging private industry to fund travel to outer space will spur new development and new ideas. Perhaps it will! I am, as I've said, quite out of touch with what's going on with the space program these days. It feels like we're abandoning something, though, tossing it on the ground with a negligent hand wave to say, "Here, someone else pick this up."

In 2030, when the budget's balanced and we're all taking weekend trips to the Moon, I'll be happy to admit I was wrong. They're words that, for once, I hope very much to be able to say.

Mood of the Moment: disappointed
Auditory Hallucination: Les Miserables -- Stars

I had the gang over for another D&D session last night. Things are going really well in the game these days, I think. We've moved past the low-level stuff, where everyone's sort of figuring out their character, learning how to use their skills to best effect, and generally getting to know each other, and we're getting into the meat of the campaign now. Everyone's character has a job now, and they think they've got a handle on where things are going. They're wrong, of course, and I think I've given them just enough breathing room to let their guard down; next session is my chance to teach them never to trust the DM.

Tharrak's got his guy over in accounting, and the end of the pay period's coming up -- which means I should be able to bury him under work just as the office politics heat up, effectively separating him from the rest of the party. They'll have to try to figure out what their lack of raises means without his input, because his boss'll be breathing down his neck all day long.

What they don't know is that the CEO and the CFO are in a power struggle, like five management levels above them. Everything they're about to see makes perfect sense at that level, but I don't think they've even considered looking to the head office for motive factors. I mean, they know in theory that that's where the command decisions come from, but they're still too concerned with what their immediate supervisors want.

I'm thinking about making a relationship the reason behind the dispute between the CEO and the CFO -- which is to say, they both want the same woman, specifically the owner of the sub shop where Araya's character is working. I'm trying to decide if it's a bit too contrived, but I think it makes sense; if their characters go there for lunch, why not the big bosses? They're bound to run into the same circles of people, just at different social levels.

They're just going to be hanging on for dear life until one of them gets promoted. Then he'll be invited to the manager's meetings, and then might be able to get some inkling of what's really going on -- not the love triangle, but at least who's causing the reorganizations and team-building seminars.

That's all in the overarching campaign, though. More immediately, I can't wait to see their faces next time when they find out that their characters are all having their lunchtimes staggered. Except for Araya, obviously, since she's working somewhere else, but I'll figure out something to do with her character.

I heard that some of the giants are getting a LARP together this next Paxday, when all the clans are gathered. Maybe I'm being a bit hypocritical saying this -- I mean, obviously I'm the Dayshift Manager of a regular Dayjobs & Deskclerks game -- but there's something seriously dorky about the live-action roleplayers. These guys actually know how to tie ties. Like, more than one knot, too. We carve dice for a reason, you know? My character needs to know how to do that; I don't.

I actually heard some of the LARPers talking about how to shift gears on a car, and when to use the clutch. I just wanted to go shake them by the horns and go, "There's no such thing as a car! You don't need to worry about flooding the engine, because it doesn't exist!" Those sort of guys give the whole fantasy genre a bad name.

Tags: rabbit hole day
Mood of the Moment: dorky
Auditory Hallucination: Massiv in Mensch -- Dark Rave

By and large, I'm a fan of our court system. I think it does a lot of good, keeps people from being discriminated against and run roughshod over, metes out punishment where necessary, and generally serves a very useful purpose. However, it seems like it's very easy to abuse with useless lawsuits; even ones that blatantly have no merit whatsoever still have to be reviewed and dismissed by someone, presumably a judge.

I know there's some sort of rule about frivolous lawsuits, but whatever it is, it's not working. Take, for example, Jonathan Lee Riches, an inmate who as of last year had filed over 4,000 lawsuits, suing everything from Google to the Nordic gods. He's been banned from filing in several districts, which doesn't seem to have slowed him down at all; I suppose that if you're suing ancient gods, you can do it just as easily in any of the ninety-four districts.

People ought to be allowed to sue for anything, but there also ought to be some sort of punishment in place for being patently ridiculous. I'm thinking that maybe a scaling system would be useful, like they have for most other crimes. First offense perhaps only merits a warning. Second, a small fine. By the fifth, I think you should be looking at jail time.

Ideally, by the tenth, the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" clause would be invoked, which means that you wouldn't be able to file any more lawsuits, valid or not. Then people could just do whatever they wanted to you, and you'd have no legal recourse. It would still be illegal to mug your or rob your house or whatever, of course, and if someone were caught doing this they'd still be charged -- but if the dry cleaners screwed up your pants and refused to refund your money, or if your landlord is keeping the temperature 5 degrees lower than you'd like, you're out of luck. Should have thought of that before those ten wastrel suits.

---

Tomorrow is the anniversary of Lewis Carroll's birth, and you know what that means: it's Rabbit Hole Day! If you don't know what it means, here's a summary from crisper, originator of the holiday:

When you wake up on the 27th, instead of writing about your usual work and school and politics and friends and news and stuff, experience life down the Rabbit Hole and write about the work, the school, the politics, the friends, the news, the stuff that you find there instead. Travel through time. Turn into an animal. Flee from assassins. Talk to your goldfish. Conquer Greenland. Sprout some extra limbs. Learn how to walk on water. Marry an insect.

Take a break from the Every Day and write about your Rabbit Hole Day. Your normal life will be waiting for you when you get back.

My previous years' entries are here:(2005), (2006), (2007), (2008), (2009). Enjoy!

Mood of the Moment: irritated
Auditory Hallucination: Weird Al -- I'll Sue Ya

Sometimes, looking back on a situation, I'll realize that I missed some incredibly obvious hints that I was being given. Usually, I'm pretty good at that sort of thing, but I've had some monumental failures. Sometimes it's a social cue, like not understanding the connection between that shin kick from a friend and my monologue about my pay raise to someone who's just lost their job. Other times, it's that ominous creaking from the shelves as I started to climb on them. I rarely make the same mistake twice, but often, that's because the first one was a doozy.

I'm starting to wonder if I missed a hint from the universe this morning, regarding not being at work today. I woke up late, which is unusual, but not terribly problematic. I attributed that to having finally gotten back to playing Frisbee yesterday for the first time in a month, and just being tired.

Perhaps that's all it was, too. I didn't feel particularly sluggish when I left the house this morning, although as I was leaving my neighborhood I realized that I'd forgotten to put my Netflix movie in the mailbox. I considered turning around, but decided against it; after all, I was already late for work.

I didn't start to see a pattern until I was on the freeway, and the traffic suddenly came to a dead stop. The lanes merged into one and we crawled along for a while, moving slowly enough that I was able to get a good view of the reason for the lane closure -- a large pothole, surrounded by gravel and looking slightly fused at the edges, accompanied by a lingering burnt smell. I could be wrong, but it looked to me like a lightning strike.

Suddenly, these unconnected events started looking like signs reading "GO BACK HOME" in progressively larger fonts. Nothing else has happened since I arrived at work, which only supports my theory that it's already too late to stop whatever it is I was being warned about. I'm sort of afraid of what I'll find when I head home tonight. I'm assuming it will be a house fire, to serve as a counterpoint to the broken pipe I had last week. I'm further assuming that the scorch marks somewhere will spell out "TOLD YOU SO."

I'd be happy to be wrong, of course. On the first part, anyway; if there is a fire and I don't have a scorched message emblazoned somewhere on my destroyed property, I'll be very disappointed.

Mood of the Moment: concerned
Auditory Hallucination: Liz Phair -- Polyester Bride

Cindy McCain, wife of Senator John McCain, has just lent her image and support to the NoH8 Campaign, a photo project protesting a lack of equality in marital rights for gay couples. It's possible that I just haven't been paying much attention, but I was under the impression that the standard line for Republicans who weren't horrible people was, "Gay people don't need to get married; they should just have civil unions." While this is certainly an improvement over the Tea Party line of "God hates gay people!", it's still wildly unacceptable.

Cindy McCain is not a prominent political figure, but she is very visible, and closely associated with the man who, last year, the Republican party picked as their nominee for president of the United States. Her husband has not changed his mind; he's taken this opportunity to restate his belief that marriage is "defined as between one man and one woman," as it's shown in the Bible in such examples as Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob -- later known as Israel, father to the twelve tribes -- and Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah. Actually, that last example's maybe a little shaky, so let's just move on.

This presents an interesting concept: a party that's devoted to both individual's rights and smaller government. The Republican Party has been embarrassingly far from its watchwords of small government and fiscal responsibility in recent years, sidetracked by its lunatic fringe. With that fringe now spawning off into the seething Tea Party, it would be very interesting to see if the Republicans decided to take this opportunity to embrace a bit of social responsibility, as well.

I'm a big fan of not wasting money -- and I'm especially fond of not letting other people waste my money. I'd love to be able to support a party that was truly into fiscal reform, but even if the Republicans played as good a game as they talked, I'd never have been able to vote for one due to their horribly unacceptable social policies. If they could funnel all of the insanity off into the Tea Party, I'd be happy to see the Democratic-Republican Party re-form. Keep the patriots, and give the Liptons the jingoists; keep the ideal of small government, and give away the attempts to use that as an excuse to let prejudice reign unchecked. If they can shunt away the crazies and the hypocrites, there's room to meet in the middle here.

Mood of the Moment: intrigued
Auditory Hallucination: Dropkick Murphys -- Tessie

The other day, while cleaning up my library, I discovered a couple of eggs of Silly Putty that I'd forgotten I had. Not having anywhere in particular to put them, I tossed them into my coat, and brought them to work with me. I don't have anywhere specifically to keep Silly Putty at work, either, but I'm much more likely to be sitting in one place for a long period of time and fiddling with things, as evidenced by the small collection of creatures built out of RJ-45 plugs and protruding wires.

So far, I feel this has been an excellent decision. The Silly Putty has provided me with hours of -- not fun or distraction, precisely, because I'm not generally paying particular attention to it, but of not destroying objects on my desktop with my restless hands, or doodling all over my notepads while I'm helping someone on the phone. I don't mind my doodles; I think some of them are quite good. But I feel it looks unprofessional, when someone asks me to jot down some instructions, to first have to tear off and throw away a page covered in zombies chasing a bleeding man.

It's very difficult, I've found, to render zombies -- or indeed, any humanoid -- in Silly Putty. Their legs bend within seconds of standing them up, and they either collapse backwards into a spine-cracking backbend, or fall forward into a faceplant modification of Downward Dog. Watching them bow is admittedly entertaining, but too brief.

Things with three or more legs make for much more stable Silly Putty creations, though, which makes it an excellent medium for creating odd monsters. Its impermanence works for it here; instead of tipping over, the monsters slowly lie down, rest their heads against their legs, and go to sleep. They don't wake back up, of course, but that's monsters these days for you. No staying power. Used to be that they'd come back for six or seven sequels; now, what do we have? A tumor-riddled old man? And even he died by the third movie. It's a sad state of affairs.

I've gotten off-topic. I blame the Silly Putty; now that my mind's got a visual reminder of how nice it is to lie down and take a nap, it's threatening to strike. Perhaps I should go back to the doodles after all.

Mood of the Moment: good
Auditory Hallucination: SR-71 -- Right Now

Yesterday, I was at CostCo, a fine place for buying things if you feel you might need twelve hundred of them. I am fairly convinced that I need twelve hundred of everything, and so I shop there quite regularly.

I was in the produce section, and I saw that they had three pound bags of spinach. "What a good deal!" I thought. "That's quite a lot of spinach for so little money."

"A minor objection," I continued, as I reached for the bag. "I don't actually like spinach."

"Well!", I thought, putting the spinach in my cart. "Guess you'd better figure out a way you do like it, 'cause you're getting three pounds of it!"

I am a harsh taskmaster.

Anyway, so I found myself with three pounds of a vegetable that I have no particular liking for. I mean, spinach is fine, but I never seek it out as I might a cucumber, or a pepper. Those are some vegetables worth eating, there; spinach is just sort of uninteresting.

I have, however, had some fine spinach salads in restaurants, usually involving walnuts and bleu cheese. While I didn't have any bleu cheese, I did have some shelled walnuts; indeed, "some" might not be a strong enough term. Let's go with "a plethora." As I said, I'd been to CostCo.

In a move hitherto unseen in my life, I actually planned to wake up early in order to prepare my lunch today. Usually, I either make things the night before, or grab random bottles and rectangular packages from the fridge as I leave and hope for the best. I'm not saying that I've had a pickle and horseradish sandwich with lettuce in place of bread -- but I'm not saying I haven't, either. Early morning food preparation was a new and exciting technique.

So I spent this morning caramelizing onions, roasting red peppers, toasting walnuts and mushrooms, and making a mustard-vinegar dressing with cumin and cayenne. I piled all of the cooked ingredients into a tupperware container, along with some grape tomatoes, and shoved as much spinach as I could fit into another container. I carried them along to work, where I planned to store them in the fridge, but instead immediately got a bowl, mixed the ingredients and dug in. I immediately learned two things: spinach is fantastic in a salad like this, and salads are a much more delicious breakfast than a bowl of cereal.

I was particularly surprised by this second fact. Although I traditionally reject the concept of so-called breakfast foods, apparently I'd fallen victim to the belief that salads were not meant to be consumed before lunch. No more! I stand corrected, and will be writing Kellogg's a very nasty letter to tell them what I think of their campaign of disinformation.

Mood of the Moment: accomplished
Auditory Hallucination: Turisas -- Rasputin

I recently bought a couple of new pairs of jeans. My old jeans were become somewhat embarrassingly worn out; I planned to patch them, but was once again saved from making an error by my laziness. I wore one pair of jeans several times after I really should have patched them, during which time they began to fray along several of the seams and wear through in a number of new places along the legs. Had I actually patched them in the one noticeable hole, it would have been a near total waste of my time; fixing all of the newly developing holes would essentially require stitching an entirely new pair of jeans along the inside, at which point I could just skip a step and wear the new pair of jeans directly.

So, I bought some new jeans. I took off all of the obvious stickers, because there's nothing that screams "I shouldn't be allowed to dress myself!" quite like accidentally wearing your clothes with the sales tags still on. Midway through the first evening I was wearing them, though, I stuck my hand in the back pocket and discovered a number of small, round stickers. I pulled them all out and found that they were inspector stickers -- four of them, in fact. My back pocket had apparently been inspected by inspectors number 5, 9, 12 and 17.

I'm all for quality control, but this seemed fairly excessive for just one pocket. Admittedly, there were no inspection stickers anywhere else on the jeans, so perhaps it was just a convenient place for the inspectors to leave their signatures; however, it seems to me that even inspecting an entire pair of jeans shouldn't take four people. I'm not a pants inspector, of course, so I could be wrong. Maybe one guy checks the seams, one makes sure the zipper works, one buttons the button and the last one...I don't know, makes sure that they really used denim and not blue-dyed tissue paper.

I checked my other new pair of pants when I got home, and found not four, but five inspection stickers in the back pocket. Two of them, 2 and 14, were jammed together in a crumpled lump; I can only assume that two inspectors tried to inspect the jeans at the same time, and each wanted sole credit for the cuff inspection, or whichever part they were responsible for.

I'm still not convinced that anything but the back pockets of my new jeans has been inspected, though. They don't mind putting stickers all over the rest of the jeans, announcing the size, price and brand; why would these be relegated to the back pocket, if not because that's the only place that was actually inspected? The jeans seem well-made enough, but that could just be luck. All I know for sure is that I have some of the best made and best reviewed back pockets known to man.

Mood of the Moment: inspected
Auditory Hallucination: System of a Down -- Bounce

I like breaking rules. I'm not generally looking to do damage or inconvenience anyone, but I think that many rules don't really protect people from what they're meant to, and nearly all have exceptions that people don't bother to think about. I like to work in those gaps. Sometimes this is just as simple as ignoring the societal taboo against being weird in public; pretty much everyone benefits from impromptu street theater. I have to say "pretty much everyone," because I have met people who get angry when they see people being odd for reasons they don't understand; I think they feel that it's a joke at their expense, which is a pretty impressively self-focused view of the world. I don't think too much about these folks, though. They think about themselves enough for everyone.

This is not about street theater, though. I've come up with a new and ingenious plan; I'm going to become an identity thief. I can't imagine that this is a terribly difficult profession to get into. If I've learned only one thing from alarmist, fear-mongering commercials, it's that on any given day, at least half a dozen people are trying to steal my credit card information, and really the only thing stopping them is that they keep running into each other and trying not to make eye contact. And if I've learned two things from commercials, the other one is that roughly 75% of American adults are in debt at least up to their shoulders, rapidly rising towards their necks.

What this tells me is that there's a huge pool of people whose names and Social Security numbers I can steal to get credit cards, who probably aren't paying for credit trackers because they can't afford them, and don't think their credit can get much worse anyway. Once I get their information, I plan to open up low-limit credit cards and -- here's the beautiful part -- use them responsibly. I'll make small purchases each month and reliably pay them off. When I'm able to, I'll apply for increases in credit limit, then not use it, instead choosing to keep the balances in their names paid off. In this manner, I should be able to make a small, but still significant, step towards repairing their credit ratings.

Eventually, of course, these people will discover that someone has opened a credit card in their name. I'd love to be able to see the moment of discovery -- the indignant and angry "Someone's been using my credit?" changing to the bemused "...and improving it?"

People say that a good deed is its own reward, but I find that that's much more true of an odd one. You can't count on people to be grateful, but you can always depend on them to be confused.

Mood of the Moment: amused
Auditory Hallucination: Voltaire -- If I Only Were a Goth

Perhaps you have something you'd like to protest. Maybe you feel very strongly about this thing -- strongly enough that you'd be willing, even eager, to ravage your body in its name. However, a hunger strike just isn't your thing. Maybe you're afraid of being mistaken for one of the fashion industry's skeletal models; maybe you've got a lot of perishables in the pantry that you don't want to go to waste. Maybe you've got a Jewish mother who'd threaten to stick her head in the oven if she heard you weren't eating. Whatever the reason, thin just isn't in for you, so what can you do?

Fortunately, I have the answer, with my brand new idea: a gluttony strike. Until whatever it is you're upset about is addressed, you can resolve to continuously eat. This is no standard American overeating I'm talking about; I mean a serious, dedicated effort to be ingesting calories twenty-four hours a day. This means a sandwich on your bedside table when you wake up, a protein shake in your hand at all times, and a glucose IV drip when you go to sleep at night.

I'm not sure how many calories you'd be able to take in per day. I know that in previous study on weight gain, some participants were able to consume as much as 10,000 calories daily. With dedication, food chosen for maximum calories per volume and minimum fiber, and the aforementioned intravenous solution, I think you might be able to double that.

If you want media attention for your cause, this is the way to go. Hunger strikes barely cause people to blink an eye anymore; they certainly don't get the coveted headline spot on the nightly news. Watching someone kill themselves in a new and horrific -- yet fascinating -- way, though? That'll get the news anchors talking. About you, of course, but they'll have to mention why you're doing it, and will probably even interview you, giving you a chance to explain your reasoning before you're crushed by your own mass.

In today's world, everyone's got a cause. Simply being good, right or moral isn't enough; you've got to have showmanship. This could be precisely what you need to draw the world's attention to where you feel it needs to be focused. Have you got the stomach for it?

Mood of the Moment: good
Auditory Hallucination: Sgt. Pepper's Paradise City

I found an offer online for a new savings account that offers an interest rate of 1.55% APY, plus 10% bonus on the interest if your account balance stays above a certain minimum. After reviewing all of their terms and conditions, I concluded that this was a better deal than the account I already had -- which, obnoxiously, was through the same people. Seems like the sort of thing they might have notified a customer about, to my mind. On the other hand, I've always been an advocate of giving people no more than they think to ask for, so I can hardly complain when that's applied to me.

Their customer service folks hadn't gotten the memo, though, so when I called up to ask what the best way to change my account would be, the representative pointed out to me that, thanks to my CostCo membership, I qualified for an APY rate that was .05% higher. I thanked her, hung up, and went to sign up through CostCo's site.

Although the title of the first page of the application said that it was for the savings account, by the second page, it was trying to sign me up for a money market account instead. I managed to add on the savings account, then remove the money market, and get back to where I wanted to be -- but when I got to the end, it was only offering me 1.55% APY.

Years of experience have taught me that it's far easier to get these things fixed before they start, rather than signing up and trying to get it changed later, so I got another representative on their chat interface, and badgered her until she got me the right link. It was a bit of hassle, but the end result was that I was able to get the higher rate -- which, if I put in the minimum deposit, will earn me almost two extra dollars over the next year! With compound interest, if I left that money in the account for the next 20 years, and the APY somehow never changed, those few minutes of arguing would translate to almost seventy dollars.

Sometimes, I'm glad to know exactly what my time is worth. Other times, I think I was happier before I did the precise math. I think that this occasion falls squarely into the latter category.

Mood of the Moment: accomplished
Auditory Hallucination: Les Miserables -- At the End of the Day

Have you ever been so sick that you feel like you've lost all sense of taste and smell? That if it weren't for careful reading of labels, you could accidentally eat a container of sour cream for breakfast instead of yogurt, and never notice? I never have, but one of my co-workers is suffering through that right now. I was fixing his computer earlier, and as he blew his nose, he remarked, "I don't know why I'm even bothering to eat anything today; I can't taste anything at all."

This gave me a brilliant idea, which I immediately put into action: I went straightaway to wash my hands, so I didn't catch whatever he had. While I was doing that, I had a second brilliant idea, based around the concept that misery is a great driving force in capitalism. Specifically, I plan to launch a new line of Recovery Food prepackaged meals, which will be fortified with all sorts of vitamins and nutrients and other things that get your four humors back into balance. What they will not have is any sort of added sugar, flavoring or worthwhile taste at all.

I think this will be a big success, for several reasons. Most people are still inherently distrustful of medicines and remedies that don't taste bad or hurt. When it leaves a residue in your mouth, or stings your nostrils enough to make your eyes water, then you know it's working. No one with a working sense of taste would want to eat the bland, glutinous Recovery Foods, which is a strong selling point. Once you realize you're disgusted with it, you're on the road to recovery! It's time to graduate to foods with flavor again.

Since I won't be spending any money on additives to make the food palatable, or on research to find out if people want to eat it, I should be able to save money in areas where my competitors can't afford to skimp, and thus undercut their price. When you already feel like death warmed over, having to shovel down food that you'd ordinarily enjoy, that you paid good money for, is just adding insult to injury. With Recovery Foods, you can be secure in the knowledge that not only is this fortifying your body, and not only would you never eat it if you could taste the difference between pretzel sticks and twigs, but it was also dirt cheap! That's the sort of realization to bring a sickly half-smile to your pale, drawn face.

Recovery Foods! Don't miss out!

Mood of the Moment: chipper
Auditory Hallucination: World's Most Talented Man

Humanity, in its ongoing quest to irritate me, has struck another blow. CNN reports today that some people, after seeing the film Avatar, are so depressed with the way things actually are that they're losing all interest in life.

CNN is, of course, blowing this out of proportion. Given that the movie has made over $1.4 billion, a thousand posts on a message board -- not all from distinct users, mind you -- is hardly the wide-scale epidemic they hint at. On the other hand, I find it absurd that anyone at all is having this sort of a reaction, for several reasons. First of all, beautiful though Avatar is, I'm astounded that it outdoes anyone's imagination. I can dream better worlds than Pandora. I can't manifest them half so well as the movie does, but they exist in full 3-D inside my head -- no glasses required.

More importantly, though, these people are offensively quick to surrender. They see something they want, and immediately say, "I'll never have that," then roll over and play dead. I should feel sorry for them, I suppose, but that sort of behavior is so frustrating. Yes, you'll never live on Pandora -- but if you're worried about living on a dying planet, do something about it. Learn about anthropogenic climate change, and what can be done to curb it, then educate others. Write to your representatives and argue for what you want done. Go volunteer with an organization you care about. Just do something! In the worst case scenario, you were right, and nothing could be changed -- and then what have you lost by trying?

That sort of passivity riles me up. You've got no right to say that nothing can be done if you're not doing anything. And for it to be the default reaction is just disgusting. I understand hopelessness; I understand giving up. We've all been there. But at least try first!

I had a friend who, as a joke, would respond to any story about things going wrong with, "The moral of the story is: Never try." As a jest, that's very funny. These people seem to have adopted it as their life's motto, though, which is just plain sad.

Mood of the Moment: annoyed
Auditory Hallucination: Gogol Bordello -- Voi-La Intruder