Here's an interesting fact. A Styx album is the #3 most ordered CD in the fun-loving Georgia community of Norcross. They must be Gowan fans down there.

The Supreme Court of the United States has been busy.

So thinking about this pretzel thing...

I read somewhere that the fact that the President of the United States could choke and pass out while watching a football game indicates that he is, at very least, firmly in touch with the tastes and style of his electorate. And I have to concur.

Not a lot of people talked about how this was a fine Bushly Presidential tradition, passing out while eating. George Sr. threw a flourish of vomit, when he nodded off during diner with the Japanese PM during his term in office, but the spirit remains the same: you're the president, you eat, you pass out, people panic and then they feel somehow closer to you for your vulnerability. There hasn't been much talk about the pretzel incident since it happened, but I imagine it helped his approval ratings.

Anna can never really understand why I like those hard, crunchy Snyders of Hannover pretzels, which -- I admit -- are basically a way of salting and selling stale bread, but there is something to their indigestibility. They remind me of harsher times, when men were really men. I imagine that Shackleton's crew probably would have welcomed them aboard the Endurance. You crunch in -- sometimes with that panicky stutter-swallow you get when a tooth is in jeopardy -- and get a kind of rush. You sense it. This is a hard food. This food will not go gently into your dark gullet.

It is immensely satisfying to conquer such a simple salty snack. I wonder if these were GW's thoughts as he passed out the other day. I wonder if the simple semi-painful conquest of a pretzel was enough to put the troubles of Osama and his Enron connections and his painful inability to be a great man out of his mind for just a second.

I wonder if he swooned at the freedom.

Speaking of Osama. Where the fuck is he, and why is nobody talking about this?

OK, I'm back from my December sabbatical and here's my first message of 2002. Chew your food!!!