You can has book, as the LOLcats say? You can!

A million things to do, and all of them half-done. That’s the worst. Usually every day is self-contained – I finish what I started and sleep the sleep of the just – but not today. Drives me nuts.

So I’ll be heading back to work in a bit here. I will note a few things:

It is cold as Mars’ Arse out there. I’m already tired of it. Not a good sign; it’s like a stitch in your side sixteen yards into a marathon. The fussy idiot wind doesn’t help any either, poking its nose into everything. The dog wants to go out; the dog goes out, rethinks the wisdom of the effort, then barks to be readmitted. A few minutes later he recalls why he wanted to go out, and he walks over to the door and paws the frame once. The door is opened, and a hand is put on his hindquarters to expedite his passage. Once outside, his nose hurts, and he announces a desire for the comforts of civilization. I wonder if there’s anything to be smelled at all when it’s this cold. I wonder if dogs lean into the wind, nostrils wide, and think: I’m blind.

I heard some of the YouTube presidential debate. It’s a brave new medium that empowers the citizens, you know. The first video-question was some guy singing a song, chosen no doubt for its keen piercing insight. I expect CNN will next use the June Taylor dancers to spell out complex foreign-policy questions that can only be seen from an overhead perspective. It’s a shame we didn’t have this level of citizen participation in the Carter years; people could have asked the candidates questions over CB radio. Analysts say there’s a 60 percent chance we will have, in the near future, a convoy. How would you keep the economy from driftin’ into the granny lane, and stay in the hammer lane without makin’ inflation do a 10-200 on us all? Come back.

The problem with the Annapolis conference? No one wants to be there except the host. It’s like a Mary Tyler Moore party, with Condi Rice as our hostess, Israel as Mr. Grant, and Veal Price Orlaff as the land that must be swapped for peace.

The analogy breaks down when you consider that Mr. Grant had no historical claim to the veal, but you get the idea.

LED lights may be more energy efficient and may last longer; I’ll probably buy some this year for the tree, but only because I’m tired of lights that die quietly in the bin in the middle of summer and cannot be revived when you need them. That said, I am already tired of LED lights assuming some sort of moral authority, and I am particularly tired of politicians who’d use them to frighten little kids into thinking Santa will drown when the North Pole melts. It’s another example of something that has come to occupy my thinking lately: it’s not what I believe that occupies my thoughts, it’s what I don’t believe. And the list of things in which I do not believe seems to grow longer by the day.

The likelihood of a candidate’s victory is inversely proportional to his followers’ resemblance to religious cultists. The last time I saw someone this blissed out he wanted to tell me about Landru:

The Entertainment Weekly review hasn’t run yet, if you’re curious. It got bumped by Norman Mailer up and dying, I guess. The book is now #24 in Amazon’s Food section, and HELL YES I’ll take that.

Back to work. If all goes well there will be a Diner tomorrow, if I get everything else done. In the meantime: four dank pages of Stagworld await. See you at buzz.mn! And if you didn’t go there today, well, you missed the Police blotter and the Christmas Lights Exchange Escapade. Thursday is Lance Lawson Day, too. Enjoy.