Thanks for nothing, Mr. Roboto.

After listening to my K-Tel comp yesterday, "Mr. Roboto" is now stuck in my head. Well, that was good thinking, wasn't it?

If you translated the lyrics to Mr. Roboto into Japanese, would "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto" be "Domo arigato Roboto-san," which messes up the "clever" rhyme?

It's really hard to pick the one thing about the song that really annoys me. I mean, there's the song itself. But then there's the constant use of "modren," as in "I am the modren man."

Plus, it's part of a rock opera.

And like I always (since about a minute ago) say, you can't spell rock opera without c, r, a and p.

Lines of obsessive strangeness converge at one point

The great thing about having roughly a krillion things going through your head at any given time is that you often get to test the laws of probability as a result of obsessing over some morsel from yesteryear.

Lately, I've been wanting to listen to some of the music from my youth. The classic 80s stuff and the early 90s grunge are well-spoken for in my music collection, but there's a gap of a few years -- when I graduated from middle school and started high school.

I tended to buy my music on 45s; I didn't have a CD player (nor did most everyone I knew at that point; they were still new and expensive), and I didn't know enough about the rest of the songs on the albums to justify forking out the dough. So the albums I listened to were from my parents.

So now I'm tracking down records that I ordinarily wouldn't go looking for on my own. One of them was Kenny Loggins' "Back to Avalon." Found that one OK; I asked my parents if they had it on CD and they did. Score!

This leads me to Mr. Mister. You can barely pick up some 80s compilation without getting "Kyrie" or "Broken Wings," but because I like doing things the hard way, I was looking for the album after that -- "...Go On."

I think one of the songs, "Something Real," got some airplay on MTV, but very briefly. Still, I have fond memories of being on a weekend trip in the car, reading a recent week's comic books and listening to that tape on the car stereo.

It seems that the only way to exorcise the song demons from my head is to acquire the songs in question.

But iTunes didn't even have the album. I envisioned having to scour used CD racks to no avail. And then I got smart. Remembering how I got the Kenny Loggins album, I phoned my mom, who had indeed procured the Mr. Mister CD -- via the used CD racks.

I went out to pick up the CD today and meet my mom for lunch so she could see Brody. I arrived a bit early, so I decided to kill time by hitting a thrift store. I like that I can pick up entire albums for a dollar or less. I scored another K-Tel compilation, "Hot Tracks," which features the unforgettable "Mr. Roboto" from Styx.

I pored over the cassette tapes in the same bin and picked up one that was put in backwards so I could see what it was.

Mr. Mister "...Go On."

And this, only days after I found Cherry Pez when I wasn't even looking for it and about a week after I finally found the apple chips I was looking for. Do you think I bought enough?

These are the things I need to remember when it feels like the whole world is out to get me.

Happy Valentine's Day

More fun here and here.

If I could only have one food for the rest of my life? That's easy.

Holy cow!

While at Target today, we strolled down the candy aisle, and I happened to glance at a 10-roll refill pack of Pez. My eyes hit the bottom of the package, where there were two rolls of CHERRY?!?

Clearly I was hallucinating.

But no, there it was, as red as a monkey's behind and, as it turns out, significantly tastier. Cherry Pez. Formerly discontinued. In my hand.

I remembered a pact I had with a friend -- whoever found Cherry Pez first would send some to the other. Before posting this, I checked my e-mail, and as it turns out, we both found it on the same day.

A cool Pez coincidence, don't you think?

That's great, Sparkman, you're probably thinking, but how does it taste?

I don't have a memory of Cherry Pez to compare this to, but what I got today reminds me of two things: Robitussen and scratch-and-sniff stickers.

That sounds kinda bad, but they're good. Underneath the strong cherry flavor, there's that base Pez flavor that you really notice when you eat a whole roll at once.

So there's another thing to check off on my "Man, I wish they'd bring back this cool stuff" list. Still on the list are Nacho Cheese Cheetos and Hostess Pudding Pies. But hope springs eternal...

WonderCon bound

Well, it's off to WonderCon shortly. Expect tales of amazing sights and sounds or bitter observations on pop-culture events.

But how bad can it be when Chewbacca will be there?

I've got a doodle in my noodle

Neat-o!

I found Sketch Swap via Boing Boing the other day and decided to try it out. Here's how it works:

You sketch something with your mouse and submit it. In return, you get a sketch from someone else. It's pretty simple and only takes as long as it takes you to draw something that doesn't suck too much.

In the interest of time, I didn't worry so much about the suck factor. As it is, drawing with a mouse is tricky, especially since I don't have a left-handed mouse.

But here's what I submitted. A jaunty little dinosaur wearing Chuck Taylors.


And in return I got this neat sketch of a cowboy, which I think is pretty cool, especially in light of the "crap!" scrawled next to it.



Instant gratification. W00t!

Worlds of wonder

Wow. Looks like there might be an official tenth planet in our solar system soon. I read that German astrophysicists have said that the melliflously named 2003 UB313 is bigger than our ninth planet, Goofy Pluto.

It's been nicknamed Xena, and its moon has been nicknamed Gabrielle, after characters from "Xena: Warrior Princess."

If it gets the official okey-dokey, it will be given a new name.

In the spirit of giving, here are my top three suggestions:

1. Planet X

This would be a cool nod to history. I remember reading about the hypothetical Planet X in those dusty old science books I used to read over and over in elementary school. But as a name, it doesn't have much panache.

2. Krypton

Xena is cool and all, but if you're going with sci-fi/fantasy, you have to give Krypton its due. Plus it could drum up interest from the general public.

3. Mianus

Uh, maybe not. Never mind. Move along.

I asked my friend Ken for his top three name ideas. Ken's a smart guy, so I figured he'd come up with some good suggestions. Sez Ken: "I'm surprised that they haven't sold the naming rights to the highest bidder like they do for stadiums -- or at least put it on eBay." I asked him if that would make it a "for-biddin' planet." He said he remembered why I was dateless through high school.

1. Fred

Because "I thought it would be cool to have a planet named Fred."

2. Gilligan

Because "they already named an island after him." Plus, there was that cartoon spinoff, "Gilligan's Planet."

3. D'oh!

"...as long as they include the '!' as the official spelling." Of course, if they wanted to be real nerds about it, the official name would be "Annoyed Grunt."

I'm in charge of the stars and I'm here to say

A recent offering over at Tape Findings caught my eye. It's a birthday greeting from Captain Zoom. This particular greeting is personalized for someone named Alex.

My brother got a Captain Zoom record for his birthday when he was little, and for some reason, he was terrified that Captain Zoom was addressing him by name. What we thought would be a fun family experience went something like this:

We put the needle on the record.

"This is Space Command to Zoom. All systems are go for your message to Joshua.

Hey, Joshua, it's your birthday. I'm in charge of the stars, and I'm here to say ---"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" Cue hysterical crying from my brother. In his defense, he was quite young and a gigantic wuss.

After its inaugural playing, the record didn't get many more spins on the turntable -- unless my parents were in another room and I wanted to make my brother cry.

Captain Zoom is still working, apparently. And now they'll customize it for any name -- even if it's not on their list. I think you'd have to try pretty hard. It appears that children aren't the only recipients of these greetings.

On the list:

Awsumb
Bucko
Dummy, Stupid, etc.
Donut
Loser, etc.
Schmoepy
Stupid/Stoner/Drunkard/Loser

And my personal favorite:

Chod

Not the spelling I'd use, but still.

I'm not including a link in case my brother reads this. I don't want to make him cry again.

Not till his birthday, anyway.

When number 2 is number 1

The number one movie over the weekend was the remake of "When a Stranger Calls," which I'm assuming is the result of some large-scale triple-dog dare.

To be fair, I didn't see it yet. I didn't think I needed to, seeing as how the ads reveal what traditionally is the biggest plot twist in that familiar story.

For criminy's sake, "Scream" did a riff on the babysitter urban legend before the opening credits. Are there really people who don't know what's going to happen?

I always figure that if you're going to take a familiar story, you dress it up with things that people haven't seen, maybe change it up a little.

Wouldn't it have been neat if the killer was that "Can you hear me now?" guy from Verizon? At least then the audience would be rooting for someone to dispatch him in an interesting way.

While I will entertain the notion that it's not a bad movie, I've read some of the reviews, and they're not pretty. Over at rottentomatoes.com, it's hovering at 13%, which isn't much better than the 7% garnered by "Big Momma's House 2."

When this drops on DVD, I think I'll check it out to see if it's just as bad as everyone says.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a direct-to-video sequel to this thing in which another urban legend that really shouldn't be an entire movie by itself is stretched out to feature length. And if we're real unlucky, we'll be getting a whole series of direct-to-video crapfests thrillers:

Don't Go Near the Microwave

Jill has sworn off babysitting for good; from now on, she's strictly a dog watcher. The Derf family entrusts their expensive purebred poodle into Jill's care. The dog is a maniac; it runs all over the place. She rescues Fido from the koi pond, and while she kept the dog from drowning, she needs to dry him before the family gets home, which will be at any minute. Suddenly, the microwave catches her eye, and she gets an idea. All hell breaks loose.

If You Can't Join 'Em, Lick 'Em

After the Fido fiasco, Jill has been getting death threats from the Derfs. To make her feel more secure at night, she gets a guard dog, Duke, to protect her. Whenever she hears a noise or gets scared at night, she just dangles her arm over the side of her bed, and Duke lets her know he's on the job by licking her hand.

One night she hears a lot of strange noises. Luckily, she's got Duke. After he licks her hand, she's able to sleep the rest of the night. When she wakes up, she finds her dog dead in the bathroom, and there's something written in blood on the mirror: People can lick, too. All hell breaks loose.

Pop Goes the Evil

Jill is on the run from the crazed members of the Derf family, who are still mad at what she did to Fido. To evade them, she holes up in a small convenience store in the middle of nowhere.

She gets the munchies, so she grabs a soda and looks for some candy. She finds some Pop Rocks, which, the clerk informs her, are dangerous. She's heard this one before. She rips open the packet and pours the Pop Rocks in her mouth. When she cracks open her soda and takes a swig, a vengeful demon that had been trapped in the candy is released and takes possession of Jill's body.

All hell breaks loose.

Dumb things I've done (5 in an occasional series)

Freshman year German class...

It was time for a gingerbread house competition, and my friend Ken and I decided to enter. Neither of us (as far as I remember) had any experience building a gingerbread house, but it didn't look that hard.

In fact, it looked too easy. I mean, jeez, anyone could build a gingerbread house. We had to come up with something different.

Before I tell you what we picked to make a gingerbread replica of, I should point out that both of us are married.

Not to each other.

In the infinite wisdom that only dorky 14-year-olds can muster, we decided that the way to win the competition was not to build a house, but a replica of everyone's favorite starship, the USS Enterprise.

Well, it had the virtue of never having been tried before.

We employed our mad engineering skillz and figured out the dimensions of all the pieces we needed and mixed up our sugary mortar.

But despite our forethought (at least 3 or 4 minutes), it wasn't until we were well into the assembly phase that we found our problem.

Here's our model. Pay special attention to the warp nacelles (those funky tube things in the back).


Okay, well, in space, that works great. Or if you are working with a substance that is strong enough to support its own weight.

Unlike, say, gingerbread.

Our nacelles -- made of giants candy cane sticks -- refused to stay put no matter how much glue we used. They'd just flop over like wilting flowers.

Well, that just wouldn't work.

After a few minutes, we went from "What would Scotty do?" to "What would Willy Wonka do?" to "Oh, crap, it's due tomorrow."

We propped up the nacelles with smaller candy cane pillars. A little inelegant, yes, but those things stayed up.

Did I mention we had to frost the whole thing, too?

We put the hull registry (NCC-1701-A) on the saucer section with little licorice bits.

Once it was done, it looked pretty sweet.

So to speak.

Project Babe Magnet was finally finished and ready to be gawked at by our impressed classmates.

Alas, we didn't get first prize. That went to someone who had -- unoriginally -- made an actual gingerbread house.

Feh.

We got third place, which was still cool. We each got a Toblerone for our troubles, so it wasn't a total loss.

Hey, free Toblerone, right?

Of course, mine had nuts in it (I hate nuts).

Our edible Enterprise also made it into the yearbook. Ken scanned this in for me. That's ours on the left. The thing cropped out so you can get a better view of the regular gingerbread house.


Oh well. At least the girls thought we were cool after that.

Oh, wait...

A genealogy question

I was sad to read of Al "Grandpa" Lewis' passing the other day. But then I noticed that in some articles, he's referred to as Grandpa Munster.

I haven't seen an episode of the Munsters in a long time, but wasn't Grandpa supposed to be Dracula? Lily Munster's maiden name was Dracula, and I assumed that Grandpa was her dad (or even grandfather, I suppose).

So why would he be Grandpa Munster? He's not related to Herman.

Just the other day I was watching one of his videos, "Grandpa's Sci-Fi Hits," which was a collection of sci-fi movie trailers punctuated with shtick from Grandpa. As always, Lewis is fun to watch, despite the painfully low budget.

Rest in peace, Grandpa.

'The best Burtless movie ever made'

Curiosity has not only killed the cat, but a number of my brain cells.

Seriously, some things sound so bizarre and/or awful that I can't just trust the observations of others -- I have to see it for myself.

That's why my movie library includes things like "Blood Freak," "Microwave Massacre" and "Pieces."

Today my curiosity is piqued by "Smokey and the Bandit 3."

I have no distinct memory of the movie, though I know I've seen it. Burt Reynolds shows up in a cameo at the end.

But what's really got me is that the movie was supposed to be "Smokey is the Bandit," with Jackie Gleason playing both roles.

Huh?

From what I've learned, it tested poorly -- people were confused about the dual role. I'm sure it was confusing to watch, but can't you glean the basic premise from the title? Smokey IS the Bandit. Not a lot of guesswork, is there? I bet these were the people who talk to the characters on the screen.

Not having seen the original cut, I'm just curious about the explanation for it. Why is Smokey the Bandit?

Aside from "Well, the first two made lots of money, so let's make a third," I mean.

Thus far, SitB remains unreleased, though there has been some interest from fans for it to be included as a DVD extra in a future release. But given that you can pick up all three on one dual-sided DVD for $14, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Nonetheless, it's on my list of must-see oddities. I'm actually surprised they haven't tried to relaunch the franchise recently.

But who would play the Bandit?



Or if they decide to try "Smokey is the Bandit" again, there's always this guy...

How do you like them apples?

Sometimes the simple things end up the most complicated. Case in point: Many moons ago on a trip to Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton, Jen and I stopped at a store that among other things, sold packages of dried apples.

Unlike the apple chips you tend to get in the produce sections in grocery stores, these were irregular chunks of dried apple. On a whim, I bought them, and they were really good.

Most people who know me are surprised when I say that fruit is my favorite snack food, but it's true. I went through the sizable bag by the end of that afternoon.

We didn't have a chance to get back out there for a while, and when we did, the store -- and my coveted apples -- was gone.

Thus began my quest.

In the ensuing years, I think I tried just about every variety of dried apples I could find -- apple chips (too thin and kinda burned), soft dried apples (good, but they look eerily like dried ears) and little shards of dried apple I'd get in cereal.

But not until the other day did I find a suitable replacement. And for only 69 cents.

Score!

They're apple chips made by Mariani, the company that also makes really good soft dried apples (even though they look like ears). The key, according to the back of the bag, is that they are air-dried rather than fried.

I polished off the bag (minus a small amount I saved for today's lunch) in one sitting. Now I have to hit the store to stock up, just in case they find out I like them and stop making them.

EDIT: I went back to the store two days later, and they were gone! Clearly a conspiracy is afoot!

Dumb things I've done (4 in an occasional series)

By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I'd been shaving regularly for a while. But one day, just as my ride approached school grounds, I happened to notice that in my haste to get out of the house on time, I had neglected to shave half of my mustache.

Everything else, no problem. But I had to hang out all day with one half-peach-fuzzed lip and hope no one noticed.

That lasted until all of first period.

73 seconds

I thought she was kidding. I really did.

Our teacher's aide came in around second period looking flushed. I assumed it was because it was still cold outside, but then she told us.

"The Space Shuttle just blew up!"

There were a few nervous laughs from the class. That kind of thing didn't happen, right? She had to be kidding.

We were one of the few classes that had a TV of its own; there was a fleet of older sets on wheel carts that most other classes had to share. My teacher turned on the TV, and we saw the replay for the first of many times.

I was 11 years old.

The image of the split plume is etched in my memory, and consequently, I don't need to add the picture to this entry. If you were there, you probably remember it, too.

There was a lot of buzz surrounding the launch in schools across the country because for the first time, a teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was part of the shuttle crew.

I had an interest in the space program. Not very strong, since I was unlikely to meet the vision requirements (The E at the top of the chart is a blur without my glasses), but just the concept of being in space appealed to me. In space, no one can flick your ear or try to trip you. Plus, you know, lots of Tang on hand. Clearly a lot of pluses here.

When I was a kid, civilian space travel was practically a given. We heard almost from the first day about how when we were grown-ups, we could be flying to work -- on the moon. It was always looming over the next hill, just somewhere down the road. Not after that.

My memory of that day -- 19 years and a day after the Apollo 1 disaster -- pretty much consists of that initial viewing, as if the rest of the day stopped at that point. I've only felt shock like that a few times since then, and both times, I heard about the event from someone else.

On Sept. 11, it was the pilot of our plane (we were heading home to SFO from our layover in Milwaukee) telling us what had happened.

And on Feb. 1, 2003, it was my co-worker at the paper I worked at, calling to see if I could come in early because Space Shuttle Columbia had just disintegrated over Texas. All of a sudden, I was 11 again.

---

Challenger Center for Space Science Education

NASA - Challenger STS 51-L Accident

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster entry at Wikipedia

Snopes.com on Challenger transcript rumor

Yahoo links

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster entry at Wikipedia

NASA - Columbia memorial

Apollo 1 entry at Wikipedia

I'm your vehicle, baby...

My wife and I were watching "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." In one scene, we see the title character's place, and it is stocked to the gills with pop culture ephemera, most notably, action figures.

"Is that the Six Million Dollar Man?" Andy's friend asked, indicating a toy. I squinted and saw that no, it was his boss, Oscar Goldman. I told this to my wife just seconds before it was mentioned in the movie.

"Do you realize that if you hadn't met me, that would be you?" Jen asked. She was kidding.

I think.

But then I realized that she might not be that far off. I have toys that are sealed in their boxes. Not nearly as many as Andy Stitzer, the 40-year-old virgin, but a couple. And given that I had to buy them myself, they're not really worth all that much anyway.

So I decided to liberate these toys from their cardboard prisons and let them breathe the fine air of California's San Joaquin Valley.

The two test subjects were just a tad over 20 years old; one each from Kenner's Super Powers Collection and Mattel's Marvel Secret Wars Collection. A staunch DC reader in my youth, I didn't have that many toys from the latter line; I tended to get a Secret Wars figure only if there were no additions I could make to my own Super Powers Collection.

Here they are: the Doom Roller and the Darkseid Destroyer. I don't know if you can tell or not, but I'm trying really hard to contain myself.

Test Subject 1: Darkseid Destroyer

Part of the second series in the Super Powers Collection, this vehicle was designed for the villainous Darkseid, the evil rule of the planet Apokolips. This isn't the original I had from my youth. I picked this up a few years ago when my brother and I trekked down to San Diego for Comic-Con. I saw this and the Supermobile at one of the first places we went to in the dealers room. And like and idiot, I bought them, not realizing that I'd be schlepping them around the convention floor for the rest of the day. Not that it's heavy, mind you; it's just cumbersome to carry a giant box like that in a room filled with roughly 9 billion people.

---

To ease myself into this, I started with the Darkseid Destroyer, as the box was already opened. I'd just never taken the stuff out. Upon opening the box, I noticed that there were a buttload of stickers for this thing. Check it out.


Just in case the stickers didn't work, I scanned them into my computer. Yeah, I'm a nerd. If you didn't know that already, I don't know what to tell you.


Hmm. Instructions. It's got to be easier than putting together furniture from IKEA.


Wow, check out the plastic. I guess the streaks are from being 20-year-old plastic stored in a loser's house.

Time to put on the stickers, I guess. Twenty years later and I still suck at this part. At least I did better than the guy who did the one for the picture on the box. According to the instructions, he screwed up.


Brody offered to keep an eye on the "spaceship" for me during the stickering process.


A-ha! Done. Finally. Check it out, yo. All the ladies in the audience, try not to swoon, okay?


Look, it even lights up.

Well, that wasn't so bad. Now for the next victim.

Test Subject 2: Doom Roller

A vehicle for the villainous Dr. Doom. The little pod fits on a loop of track and rolls around, hence the name. I picked this up on eBay years ago when I had disposable income. I didn't have this as a kid, but it looked kinda cool. I tried selling it a couple of times, but no one bid on it, so I gave up.

See, it's still sealed.

This should be a snap; there are hardly any stickers to put on, and there's very little assembly. A few guns here, a laser turret there...

Hmm. The pod doesn't want to jump on the track quite right. I managed to get it on there finally, and then I flicked the on switch, waiting for it to roll right off the table.

Nothing.

Well, crap.

I was mildly pleased to see that this vehicle came with one of the cool lenticular shield things that came with the figures. And then I noticed it was Kang, not Dr. Doom. You'd think with it being called the Doom Roller, you'd get Doc Doom. But no.

It's still kinda cool, though. Look:

Kang in the city.

Kang in space.

I thought of maybe cracking open the pod to see if I could fix it, but I think that might be trying too hard. Maybe I should just let it rest, you know.

That's it for this installment of Pimp My Super-Ride. If this isn't a one-way ticket to Thrillsville, I don't know what is.

If ever a Wiz there was

My brain seems specially designed to absorb useless facts and information. Consequently, I liked trivia games and trivia books.

Very rarely is this information actually pressed into service, but hey, you never know.

While going through some old crap I had in boxes, I found the mighty Coleco Quiz Wiz.

These days, Quiz Wiz sounds like a spin-off show from "Fear Factor": Get loaded up on coffee and Mountain Dew and then see how many questions you can answer before you pee your pants.

But no, this was a handheld electronic one-player trivia game. They eventually came out with the Quiz Wiz Challenger, which accommodated up to four players, but take it from me, you never get four people to play after you win too many times. They'd rather be out socializing and things like that.

The Quiz Wiz came bundled with 1,001 general trivia questions, but you could buy other modules that contained themed questions: sports, movies and (my personal favorite, naturally) Super Heroes.

Here's how it worked.

You punch in the number of the question on the keypad. You look at the question in the book and pick what you think the answer is, then you press the corresponding key (A, B, C or D). Then hit the "Answer" key. If it's right, you get a green light and a relatively pleasant tone. If you get it wrong, it's the red light and a buzz.

I thought I'd test my memory so see how much of this I still had locked up in the old noggin.

I've still got it. And let me tell you, knowing comic book trivia from 25 years ago -- much of which is now obsolete -- really impresses the ladies.

The questions -- all about DC Comics characters -- were complied by Bob Rozakis, who among other numerous comic credits, was DC's famed "Answer Man."

I distinctly remember that one of the questions in the book is wrong; I imagine it just got coded wrong in the assembly process. Alas, I don't really have time to go through all the questions.

I did, though, like the answers to choose from in this question:

57. In order to attend Legion meetings, Superboy must:

A. travel through time to the 30th century
B. travel through a space warp to the 12th century
C. use a cosmic treadmill
D. take the "A" train to Harlem

The answer is A. Or it used to be when this came out originally. If you have a year or so, I can try to explain how it's different, but I'd bet you probably don't really want to know.

I know my wife doesn't.

No, not that movie with John Lithgow...

I caught the first half of an interesting documentary called "Raising Cain: Boys in Focus". It's about emotional development in boys these days and the problems they have in school.

The first part dealt mostly with pre-high-school, and seeing some of the kids, it reminded me how amazingly alien they are. And I totally don't mean this in a disparaging way; it's fascinating. The way they interpret and synthesize the information they get surprises me.

It's like 1 + 1 = CANTALOUPE!!!

Brody's going to be 3 in May, and I wonder what he's going to be like as he gets older. Right now, he's unusually well-mannered. He says "please" and "thank you" most of the time without any prompting, and when he refuses food (90% of the time), he says "No, thank you."

This, despite the fact that he spends his days with his old man.

He's very affectionate; he loves hugs and kisses. He asks for "threekiss," which is when Jen and I both kiss him on his cheek. And when you get a hug, he says, "Squeeze hard!"

So watching the documentary gave me a whole new set of things to worry about, not the least of which is hoping he doesn't end up like me.

When Michael Thompson, who wrote the book on which the documentary is based, asks a 13-year-old outcast some of the names his peers call him, I called them all out before he did. You never forget, I guess.

Like riding a bicycle.

One that calls you names.

I see in Brody different parts of Jen and me. He's blindingly smart; he makes connections between things that neither of us expect. He gets that from her, I think. He's also as cute as the dickens, which he also gets from Mom. But he seems to have pretty good retention for details, which is my blessing and my curse. Hopefully he won't be burdened with lyrics to 25-year-old gum commercials locked in his head.

If he does, he can always get his skis shined up, grab a stick of Juicy Fruit -- the taste is gonna move him.

I just hope he's not as introverted as I am. As I mentioned the other day, I'm still quite shy. Shyness, I've found, is a malady on par with "a case of the vapors" in terms of people taking it seriously. One of the few things more aggravating than being shy and seemingly unable to change it is being told to "just stop being shy," which seems like telling an anorexic to "just eat a sandwich."

I'm keen to see the rest of the documentary, even though I'm sure it will give me still more things to worry about.

If I'm lucky, it'll crowd out the Juicy Fruit song.

Me, myself and I

If I had any Photoshop skills at all (or patience), this would look cooler. I was just struck by the fact that at three separate trips to the so-called "Happiest Place on Earth," I look less than my happiest.

I also appear to have shrunk.

And I look more like the Pillsbury Doughboy than either of my younger incarnations.

Time to hit that gym.

This happens way too often

I'll be minding my own business, and it doesn't matter what I'm thinking about. All of a sudden, this starts running through my head:

Chaka Khan, let me rock you
Let me rock you, Chaka Khan
Let me rock you, that's all I wanna do
Chaka Khan, let me rock you
Let me rock you, Chaka Khan
Let me rock you, 'cause I feel for you
Chaka Khan, won't you tell me what you wanna do
Do you feel for me the way I feel for you
Chaka Khan, let me tell you what I wanna do
I wanna love you, wanna hug you, wanna squeeze you too
Let me take you in my arms
Let me fill you with my charms, Chaka
Cuz you know that I'm the one to keep you warm, Chaka
I'll make it more than just a physical dream
I wanna rock you, Chaka baby, cuz you make me wanna scream
Let me rock you -- rock you

And I've never even met Chaka Khan.

Is that weird?