Am I overthinking this?

I hate to discard pants that are still good enough for painting. I also hate painting, so I don't need a lot of painting clothes. Still, I just can't see throwing these pants away when they've got some life in them. Also, they're clean, so there's the soap, water, and energy investment to consider. If I'm going to throw them away, I should wear them once more and throw them away dirty. That's less wasteful. They're too good to toss, too worn out to give to the thrift store. As a matter of fact, they came from the thrift store.

Warning: Graphite Content

Longtime readers will be aware of my abiding interest in pencils of abnormal dimensions. It started with my groundbreaking expose of the now discredited Big Pencil of Wytheville, Virginia, which turned out to be merely a replica in sheet metal rather than an actual Very Large Pencil (VLP). I also have great affection for unusually small pencils, such as those in dainty leather loops in tiny ladies' datebooks. (Tiny datebooks- not ladies.) This all comes to mind because today is Sharpening Day. You may see me wandering around later with a dreamy smile, in a tangy cloud of cedar fumes.

Where's George Carlin when you need him?

Now we got this invasive arthropod in the Gulf of Mexico called the Asian Tiger Prawn, a giant foot-long shrimp. They eat smaller shrimp, and officials are concerned that this might damage the fragile Gulf ecosystem upon which coastal shrimpers depend for their livelihoods. But probably it just requires new tactics to harvest a shrimp that weighs a pound and a half, like punching it in the face or simply hollering, “Get in the boat! Now!” as loud as you can. And on the plus side, maybe they'll learn to eat nutria.

Memo. Random.

When you get a three-day weekend and it's spring and the weather is pleasant, there's a natural tendency to throw Grandma and the kids in the backseat of the Plymouth and head out to the beach for hot dogs and potato salad and Frisbee without reflecting that you don't much like any of those things, including Grandma and the kids. But that's not what this holiday is about. It's about the people who have sacrificed so much so that we may enjoy our treasured way of life. For instance, the people who wake up early to write short funny prose.

That's the way (uhuh uhuh) I like it.

First Donna Summer, and now Robin Gibb. It's like some terrible Disco Holocaust. For me, this is a chance to contemplate the fun side of mortality. Because no matter what we may accomplish, no matter what our personal triumphs and failures, no matter how many lives we touch in our brief stay here on Earth, we are all heading inexorably toward the absolute finality of eternal oblivion. Yet it is at times like these we can all take comfort in knowing that right now, up in Heaven, the angels are hearing some of the worst music you can possibly imagine.

To my millions of readers:

The head guy at Yahoo is being shown the door for lying on his resume. Here's the thing: He lied about a Bachelor's degree. Seriously, why did he bother? They say he's being forced out for the lie, but the real offense is the lack of vision, the small cheeseparing meanness of his aspirations, his pathetic poverty of chutzpah. Claiming a PhD from a tech school in Kazakhstan would have shown some imagination. Listing “Supreme Commander, Allied Forces” under previous experience would have shown some cubes. Instead, he emitted his sad little lie – no better, really, than the truth.

Seriously. Waterskis?

If somebody asked me, “Do you like chocolate cake?” I would respond in all honesty, “Yes I do. I do like chocolate cake.” And if they said, “Then wouldn't you like to eat chocolate cake while having sex with Rita Hayworth? On waterskis?” Well, I would have to say, “No, actually. All that at once seems a bit much.” That's why I eschew music Fests. I like to listen to music. I like snacks and conversation. I like watching strangers drink so much beer they're oblivious to the melanoma visibly sprouting from their sunburnt flesh. Just not all at once.