A M[icr]o[wa]veable Feast

Ah, Christmas Day. And while all you suckers are either celebrating the birth of Our Lord (gentiles) or plotting our downfall (you don't think we know what the rest of you do on this day?), us lapsed Protestants are bunkered away doing all of nothing.

In preparation for the closing of everything good and decent (ironically enough, on the day that I'm supposed to be most consumerist, I find nothing open), I stocked up: microwave dinners galore, diet coke to feed the 3rd Marines for a month or me for a weekend, and books. So many books. Yet to touch, I have Gravity's Rainbow, Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons (winner of a British award for worst sex scene of the year), Orson Scott Card's Enchantment, Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten (the most recent in the Harry-Potter-for-English-Majors Thursday Next series) and Godel, Escher, Bach.

Also in the basket was "Nothing Feels Good", a history of Emo. I couldn't pass up reading a chapter entitled "The Curious Case of Weezer." Turns out, odd guys. And I'm halfway through Angels in America (thank you, Jill Wurzburg, for recommending it.) And I finished Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle (again, for suggesting, you get a shout out Justine FuckIForgetYourLastName). And then this morning, I saw Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

I realize now that the reason I've not truly enjoyed Vonnegut and Wes Anderson in the past is that, well, I feel like there's so much of it I'm not getting. I feel like everyone else who likes them listens to me say what I like, then laughs at me when I leave. Why is it so jumping? When I read Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, I feel like I get about 95% of what they put on the page.

But, you know, maybe I'm supposed to feel lost reading Vonnegut. Maybe Mr. Anderson's movie are supposed to seem odd, but laughily so.

Or maybe you're all just laughing at me.

Merry Saturday.

Legal Defenses TDQMIAWIFCMD

We all know about patient-doctor confidentiality. And husband-wife confidentiality. And owner-dog confidentiality (though not if your dog is a parrot).

Wouldn't it be great if alongside this recognized reason to shut up, and the fifth amendment, and "it depends on what your definition of includes includes", you were *allowed* to swear an oath, be on the witness stand, and say with a straight face "What Happens in Vegas Stays In Vegas"?

I.O.U

I hereby owe you, the reader, one (1) pithy, intelligent and reference-laden response on Blockbuster and Iraq. Since you are few in number this time of year, I hope the damage will be contained. You see, Christmas is both the most wonderful time and the least timely wonder of the year.

-D.R. Kringle.