The New York Times is trying to convince me to eat fewer-than-normal calories. They put up pictures of rhesus monkeys to prove the point. Frankly, the one that's supposed to be healthier (on the left) looks a little gaunt and a lot like famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith. He calls himself Canto and has a "nice coat, elastic skin, a smooth gait, upright posture and an energetic demeanor." Hate it when your skin gets all un-elastic-y. You know you're over the hill when...

In other news, L train service is "janky" because they're frequently testing a robot train. Can't wait for robot train. Puts us one step closer to Skynet and the triumph of machines. Let the rebellion begin.

Kim Jong Il...Republican strategist?









North Korea detonated a nuke and obliterated the Foley scandal from the headlines. Senior White House officials report seeing Rove preparing a gift basket of James Bond movies and hair gel. Intended recipient? Your guess is as good as mine.

For those that didn't know and weren't a part of it, this weekend was the weekend of Josh Smith. He came, he saw, he conked out in my full-size bed with me next to him. Here is what I had written to him before his arrival:

"so, if you have a sleeping pad or anything like that, you should bring it. alternatively, we can share my bed. it will be cute, and later we can tell our wives about it, and speak with mock derision, careful to hide our true feelings. later still, annie proulx will write a gripping short story about it, transplanting the storyline to the appalachians (for dramatic effect), and ang lee will see the cinematic potential at its heart."

Yes, I just quoted myself. Self-aware literature and meta-commentary are the hallmarks of postmodernism, and if I'm not postmodern, blow me.

Anyway, this weekend was one of those weekends where, Sunday morning around the brunch table, you relate for all your friends (of both the genuine and the Nicole Richie variety) a shot-by-shot recount of the previous night. "Oh, jeez man, I drank so much...Jager at Bar Nine, whiskey sours at Bar None..." This would normally be the beginning of an arduous, poorly-written and alcohol-imbued story, but I have pretensions to a higher calling, and cling delicately to my image of self-imposed maturity. Plus, Josh and I didn't wake up until noon, so frankly there's no breakfast-table bull session to transcribe.

We also took the ferry to Staten Island, which always elicits the question:

"Why?"

Why, indeed.

I finished The Night in Question, Tobias Wolff's book of short tales, and it flat-out floored me like a mustachioed circus strongman dropkicking a chihuahua.

Goodies from Amazon.com today. TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain and two Cormac McCarthy books. He uses fun words like "quirt" and "crozzle" and swims in a sea of testosterone. What a man.

I was deeply depressed by the following article in the L.A. Times.

"Idiocracy" begins as your standard suspended-animation plot, with its stars thawing out in 2505 ... America 2505 is populated not by the fittest but by the fattest and the dumbest — the overbreeding, oversexed spawn of the cast of "Jackass." Their Barcaloungers are fitted out with toilets so they don't have to miss a moment of the top-rated show, "Ow, My Balls!" The nation's hit movie is "Ass": 90 wordless minutes of bare butt, winner of Oscars for best picture and best screenplay.

My brother and his friends shot this in our backyard in Yorba Linda and posted it to YouTube under the tags "child," "bomb," and "death". You'll understand why after you view it.

The "child," by the way, is 19-year-old Sam Cauley. Don't worry, he's just small for his age.