COLUMN: Pampered Chef

Finally.

After years of being banished away in a corner of the Arts and Living section, forced to write fluffy little humor columns, this hard-nosed journalist FINALLY has a scoop. For all of you who wanted some little drively happy-smiley-time piece about cats or my girlfriend, you're about to be sorely disappointed, for I am on the verge of some serious Class A investigative journalism here. Look out, Chris Hanson of Dateline NBC... watch your nose, Geraldo... there's a new guy in town, and I've got a story that just might benefit mankind for years to come. And I mean MANkind. You girls can stop reading - this one's for the fellas.

Gentlemen, I have done it. I have breached the dark and mysterious wall that separates us from the world of women. As I type this, I am at present deeply embedded along the front lines of danger. You may know this place as "my basement." As I sit sequestered in my subterranean den of safety, a secret gathering is occurring merely one flight of stairs above my head. I have reached the promised land. I have gone where no man has gone before.

I am... at a Pampered Chef party.

Well, technically I'm below one. But it's well within earshot, and it's happening in MY house. This is simply one of those events that guys aren't seen at. Heck, we don't even know what HAPPENS at one of them. While we guys are out doing guy things, girls of the world unite under someone's roof to buy and sell candles, baskets, makeup, "surprise" parties, and more. When my girlfriend asked if she could hold a Pampered Chef party at my house, I bristled at first. Then it was explained to me that I would actually be allowed inside at the same time as the party, and my curious journalistic nature perked up. And once I heard that mango salsa was on the demonstrator's menu, that pretty much sealed the deal.

This is a world not often witnessed by those of us holding X and Y chromosomes, but this much I can tell you: Pampered Chef is a company that makes high-end cooking utensils and kitchenware. Some of their products are truly awesome (a device that removes corn from the cob? Sign me up.) Others are just plain weird, but I'll get to that later. The point is, I've yet to see a product in the Pampered Chef line that would make a BAD addition to one's kitchen.

If only one could buy their wares in stores. But ya can't. There's only one way to buy Pampered Chef, and that's by going to a Pampered Chef party at somebody's house. Or, in other words, you have to be a woman. That's not to say that Pampered Chef specifically excludes the estrogen-challenged, but let's look at the evidence. For fifteen years, I have sat at my cubicle at the newspaper. In all those days, I can't tell you the number of Pampered Chef invites, e-vites, catalogs, and party talk that have whisked their way around me. Yet not once did one of those invites end up on MY desk. Noooooo, say the girls of the world. Why would we give an invitation to Shane? He's a smelly no-good boy, and we don't want smelly no-good boys at our parties... leaving me to sigh and head home, resigned to spend yet another evening trying to remove corn from the cob with a standard table knife.

The way I see it, the folks at Pampered Chef are missing out on a fairly sizable demographic of clients: dudes. Just because we man-folk like to hunt and fish and watch cars drive in endless circles every Sunday does NOT mean that we don't appreciate a fine piece of hand-crafted stoneware when we see it. It just might take a slightly different marketing plan to get us involved.

First off, let's call it what it is, and what it ISN'T is a party. I understand the definition of "party," for I am a learn-ed college graduate. Specifically, I learn-ed how to party at my fraternity house.

If there's one thing guys have down pat, it's your standard party elements: People. Music. (LOUD music, preferably being played by me.) Camaraderie with close (and, heck, occasionally distant) friends. Maybe some burgers on the grill. Throw some video games into the mix. You might even end up with a soothing bonfire (and, if MY frat house serves as an example, if the party was an exceptional rager, your bonfire might just end up involving one of more pieces of your living room furniture by night's end. If you wake up to a smoldering sofa, rest assured that you've just had one GOOD party.)

Girls, on the other hand, are clearly born lacking the party gene. When girls get together en masse (the scientific term is "a gaggle of girls,") they live it up with such reckless party hedonism as... brunch. Or tea. Or a book club. Or anything involving color-coordinated and seasonally-themed party decor... OR, in this case, inviting a near-stranger into your house to tell you about the wonders of a garlic press.

Wait. I just heard a squeal. I need to investigate. Be right back.

Okay, whew. I'm back. It appears that the squeal has erupted because the mangos have been properly, umm, mango-ed. Okay, so I don't know the process by which mangos go from being delightful pieces of fruit to delightful salsa, but I now know that Pampered Chef sells a product that does just that -- and only that. It is built and sold for the express purpose of processing mangos. Let's say you wanted to do the same thing to a kumquat? Sorry, no. This tool is ONLY suitable for mangos. And the girl gaggle just went "oooh" over it. I'm pretty sure I've consumed mango maybe twice in my entire life. I don't even know what a mango looks like, but I can now own and wield a tool capable of destroying one (which is good to have on-hand, just in case the Great Mango Revolution goes down.)

This isn't a party. It's a sales pitch disguised as a get-together. And as much as I actually do like their products, why would anyone want to go out of their way to get pressured into buying them?

It was about that time when Amy came down and got me -- and I in turn got my answer. At the end of the product pitch, we had a table full of mango salsa, chicken fajitas, brownies, and a behemoth fruit trifle. Everybody loves food, and the girl gaggle made quick time decimating the goodies -- but not before inviting me into their yummy world. By the time it was done, not only did I have a full stomach but a dent in my wallet -- that de-corn-erator thing will make a nice addition to my kitchen, methinks. Somewhere along the way, I may have turned on Rock Band and caused an impromptu Bee Gees sing-along. It almost felt like... a party.

COLUMN: Audition

Whenever people talk about common recurring nightmares, there's usually one stereotypical dream that always gets mentioned, right? You're back in school, there's a horrible exam, and you havent studied. I don't think I've ever suffered one of those dreams... but this past week, I pretty much lived it.

Regular readers probably know that I moonlight on the weekends as a DJ. Recent readers might even know that I've been without a gig for the past few months. That's what led me to an online job listing a few weeks ago that made me raise an eyebrow.

"CLUB AWESOME, the ultimate 70s and 80s dance club, is opening soon in AWESOMETOWN. Calling all: Dancers, DJs, MCs, Hula Hoopers, Roller Skaters, Models, Celebrity Impersonators, etc."

It's not actually called Club Awesome and it's not in Awesometown, but since I'm still waiting to hear if I got the job AND since they didn't bother advertising in OUR paper, I'm leaving the locale a mystery for now. But I can tell you that it's a new club opening up in a casino that's well over an hour's drive from here.

I blew the ad off at first. No gig is worth that drive -- or is it? A club devoted exclusively to the 70's & 80's? With hula hoops and roller skates? Sure, it's a ridiculously long commute for a gig, but my basement is chock full of musty disco records just waiting for a second lease on life.

So I applied. It wouldn't be something I could commit to doing every weekend, but if they were looking to hire a rotating staff of DJ's, I'd be happy to join the mix. Last Monday, I got the call.

"Mr. Brown? This is so-and-so from Human Resources at Club Awesome. We'd like to schedule your audition. Are you available tomorrow?"

I've never had to "audition" for a DJ gig in my life. I wouldn't even know how, and that's not me trying to sound cocky. DJ's are normally judged by how they work the dancefloor over the course of an entire night. What could I prove in an afternoon? What would the "audition" consist of? What equipment did I need to bring? What should I plan for?

"No worries," said the HR rep. "I'll e-mail you the information."

Here is, verbatim, the contents of that e-mail:

"The club will be 70’s and 80’s based, so if you can perform to the era, it would be best. We’re looking for candidates that are upbeat and really get into the character of the 70’s and 80’s. Your audition is your time to show us all your talents and enthusiasm and ability to get the crowd “pumped up”, and time to prove yourself as a Club Awesome member."

This answered NOTHING and was the same stock response they were likely giving prospective hula hoopers. Did they want a talented DJ with knowledge and mixing ability? Or did they want Fonzie to come out and go "Aaaayyyyyyyy?" Since they reworked their audition time to match my schedule, I guess I was gonna find out.

Last Thursday, I got off work and made a bee line straight for Awesometown. My instructions were to go to the employee entrance, which, after circling the casino, did not appear to exist -- so I sauntered through the main door.

Here's a handy tip: When one enters the main door of a casino, it's best NOT to bring along two suspicious duffel bags of DJ equipment. The security guards at the gate all but went Terror Alert Red on me.

"Hi! I'm here to audition for the--"
"SIR-YOU-NEED-TO-EXIT-THE-AREA-NOW!"
"I'm hoping you can help me find the em--"
"PLEASE-LEAVE-SIR!"

Finally, I learned that the employee entrance was hiding on the west end of the building. By the time I hiked around the perimeter of the building carrying umpteen pounds of DJ gear, I arrived at the correct door a slimy, sweaty muckpile.

"We're expecting you," said the kid who met me. "Right through here," he motioned.

I walked into a large and mostly empty space. In front of me stood a card table. In front of THAT, a large black curtain. It quickly dawned on me that I was on a stage. A BIG stage.

Two guys came out and helped me set up my gear in record time. "Are you ready?" one said to me.

"Well, yeah, but I don't really know what I'm..."

"GO!" he yelled. Before I could even laugh, the curtains pulled back, revealing an empty theatre except for the front row, where sat a line of Simon Cowell wannabes with crossed arms and stern faces.

That's when one of them said, and I quote: "Wow us."

You had GOT to be kidding. I had no clue what I was supposed to do, how long I was supposed to do it for, or who any of these people staring at me were. I assessed the situation and did the only thing I knew how:

I pressed play.

Suddenly music was booming and I was in my element. One of the guys jumped onstage. Was he going to yell at me? Would I get pulled offstage with a giant hook? I looked up and realized the guy was filming me. Between the nerves, the lights, and the dude with the camera, there was no stopping me from being the sweatiest, ugliest guy alive.

As I slid into the second song - a nifty remix of "Afternoon Delight" I'd picked up somewhere - Camera Guy starts yelling, "Yeah! That's the stuff!" I had at least one fan. I kept going, bouncing in and out of songs as fast as I could, sweating so bad I was afraid of shorting out the equipment. After 20 minutes, Video Guy taps me. "We've seen enough."

I packed up my gear not knowing if I'd just been hired or fired or what. Afterwards, they invited me down for a chat. They said they liked my stuff and the energy that I brought, but they had questions. "Fire away," I said.

"Why do you want this job?"
"What's your background?"
"What's your going rate?"
"Do you have chest hair?"

My response was less a word than a mixture of nervous laughter and fear. I'm guessing it sounded like "S'Whaahahahaha?"

"Serious question. Do you have chest hair?"

"Is this an essential job function of your DJ position?" I asked.

"Well, we'd like you to dress in costume. Do you have a problem with that?"

I'm a chubby guy. I've got man-cleavage. Heck YES I have a problem with that.

After much more nervous laughter and some handshakes, I got out of there and laughed almost all the way home. I'm hoping if they DO hire me, I could opt for more of an 80's keep-your-chest-hair-to-yourself costume. Stick a Devo hat on my head and a "Frankie Say Relax" t-shirt and let some other hairy dude rock the open-shirted disco look. As of press time, I have no clue if I got the gig or not. I'm frankly not even sure if I want it. One thing's for certain, though: Once this place opens, a road trip to Club Awesome will be mandatory.

COLUMN: Titanic

Indeed, sometimes there are perks to being a beloved, semi-successful humor columnist of moderate fame in the #142 market of the country. You just have to learn to know when to take advantage of them.

I first started writing this weekly column in a distant time known as "2004." That was when I received my first letter from Rick. Inside the manila envelope were some photocopied pages and a note that basically said, "Hi Shane. I'm a fan of your column and thought you might find the attached information about the Titanic interesting."

"Ummm," I thought, "ooookay." I hadn't ever written about the Titanic, nor was it a topic of much interest to me at the time. But whatever, I checked out the pages and they WERE intriguing and detailed the links of local residents and families to the famed disaster. Did you know there was a survivor of the Titanic who was en route to Galesburg at the time? Rick sure did.

From that point on, about every six months, I would get another envelope from Rick, usually containing more documents and news clippings related to the Titanic. Eventually, thanks to some back-and-forth correspondence and a mutual friend, I met Rick. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but as it turns out, he's just a normal, nice retiree who just happens to have a lifelong obsession with all things Titanic. And I'm cool with obsessions -- I've been told on more than one occasion that my passion for British music runs the gamut from "hobby" to "obsessive" to "a little bit sad and pathetic." To each their own, I say.

As soon as I read about Davenport's Putnam Museum landing a touring exhibit of Titanic artifacts and a return engagement of Jim Cameron's "Ghosts of the Abyss" documentary, I knew one Quad Citizen who had to be veeeery happy. And when my girlfriend's little sister expressed interest in going, I knew just the tour guide to call. It took a while for everybody's schedules to match up, but finally, on the last weekend of the exhibit, the three of us walked into the Putnam to meet up with Titanic Rick.

It was a good call. There were times I was convinced that Rick knew more about the exhibit than the folks who had curated it. Between his insight and the awesome collection of artifacts retrieved from the ocean floor, it was a fascinating day out and one heck of a learning experience. Kudos beyond words to my friend Rick and to everyone at the Putnam for securing such a great and rare treat. To say it got me thinking about things is an understatement, but here's a few impressions:

* If I had been onboard, would I have perished? Been a hero? A plucky survivor? I'd like to think that I'd have some kind of heroic end, but I also know myself. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have gone down in history as the guy who got shot while trying to cut through the line of women and children to get to the lifeboats, but that's only because I probably would've dropped dead of a heart attack the moment someone yelled "ICEBERG!" I'd like to think, though, that perhaps some skinny person could've used my heroic corpse as a flotation device.

* Even facing certain death, the band played on and some of the first class passengers took the time to change into formalwear for their pending doom. In a way, these notions seem elegant and courageous and indicative of a time long gone from our culture. But then I got to thinking. Most of Titanic's better-known passengers were wealthy aristocrats and socialites. INCREDIBLY wealthy, since the cost of a first-class suite was equivalent to around $85,000. I can't help but envision a boat full of braindead Paris Hiltons, Kardashians, and Real Housewives of Orange County. Perhaps the socialites only knew how to be socialites and couldn't bear to imagine a trip to the Pearly Gates without a personal attendant and imported silk at the ready.

* Staring at a pile of plain white au gratin dishes sounds like the most boring activity in the world. But staring at a pile of plain white au gratin dishes recovered from 12,600 feet under the ocean is inexplicably fascinating.

* Among the most well-preserved artifacts recovered from the ocean floor were the personal affects of one Howard Irwin. But young Mr. Irwin didn't perish in the Titanic disaster. In fact, he wasn't even onboard. While en route to the ship, Irwin was kidnapped and shanghied onto a China-bound freighter, where he was forced into servitude for weeks before escaping. A horrible experience for sure, but quite likely a better fate than had he made it onto the world's most luxurious deathtrap. His friend Henry Sutehall, who boarded the Titanic with Howard's luggage, was among the 1,517 lost at sea.

* I realized during the showing of "Ghosts of the Abyss" that I kind of hate James Cameron. Sure, he's responsible for the two highest-grossing movies of all time (Titanic & Avatar.) But does he have to be so self-important about it? "Ghosts of the Abyss" documents the efforts of Cameron (and, oddly, actor/narrator Bill Paxton, who will forever be Chet from "Weird Science") as they take 3D cameras two miles down to the Titanic wreck. But somewhere in there, it starts to feel like the star of the show switches from the Titanic herself to Cameron and his (quite literally) tons of gadgets. I'd love to remind him that he may have brought us "Avatar," but he also directed "Pirahna II: The Spawning," so he's not the essence of cool.

* If I were to die in some kind of monumental horrific tragedy, I'm not sure how I'd feel about a museum one day honoring my life -- especially if it involved thousands of people staring at my underwear through a temperature controlled glass case while a self-guided audio tour pointed out my pant size.

* Some of the most amazing artifacts on display were letters and postcards that had managed to survive the brutality of the ocean floor thanks to leather satchels. Again, though, this makes me highly concerned that one day the contents of my leather wallet could be on display for future generations to see -- and frankly, I don't want future generations to know that I'm one punch away from a free lunch buffet at Happy Joe's. I would want my horrifying tragic death to instill a sense of mystery and wonder -- which is why I just wrote a note and put it in my wallet that says: "THE DIAMONDS ARE BURIED 40 YARDS FROM JIMMY HOFFA" next to GPS coordinates of the Dispatch/Argus office basement. That'll give 'em something to write about.

All told, it was an amazing exhibit and I hope you guys all had the chance to go soak it in. I hope the Putnam Museum continues to give every one of us something to obsess over. To that effect, I'll be glad to help out in the design and curation of any future exhibits on British Alternative Rock 1970-present. I promise you the Echo & the Bunnymen kiosk alone will be worth your trip.

COLUMN: Fireworks

Part of the fun of having a regular newspaper column is that, for a few fleeting moments each week, I get to feel like a bonafide influential member of the counter-culture. If the pen can indeed be mightier than the sword, then so shall I wield it as a sounding board for America, having a laugh at The Man whilst righting the wrongs of societal oppression.

But Hunter S. Thompson I am not. I'm not a sounding board for the counter-culture. I'm just a pudgy 40-year-old guy who likes to write about laundry and cats. Truth is, I don't really have a rebellious bone in my body. I've never been in real trouble with Johnny Law and I've never stuck it to The Man.

In fact, my entire criminal record (other than a speeding ticket or two) can be summed up on two fingers:

(1) Galesburg, 1987. Me and my friend Will were cruising the strip in my car on a Saturday night when we spotted a friend of ours pass us in the other direction. We decided to turn around to catch up, so I hooked a right into the nearest driveway. That driveway just happened to be Galesburg's largest downtown cemetery. The little paved drive was too narrow for a quick turnaround, so as I struggled to find a route out, I didn't even notice the three police cruisers that quickly peeled up to block our exit. It turned out the cemetery gate we turned into was supposed to be closed at night, so the police were rather concerned to find it open, let alone us toodling about inside. Unbeknownst to us, the cemetery had recently been hit with a plague of vandalism, so the cops naturally assumed we were up to no good. Thankfully, my friend Will set them straight:

Cop: What are you boys doing in here?
Friend Will: Umm... looking for a friend.
Cop: And is your friend dead?

Eventually, we got out of there with a warning, but if any graves were discovered vandalized come morning, they'd be paying us a visit. When I told my dad what had happened, we had to restrain him from jumping into the car and keeping armed watch over the broken cemetery gate for the rest of the night. Luckily, everything must have been A-OK, because we never heard back.

(2) In college, I was in a fraternity. A part of me would like to think this was because I was a fun and hedonistic party animal. Truth be told, I'm pretty sure I only got in because I was THE only skilled DJ on campus and they needed free labor. While my buddies would do what you'd expect them to do at frat parties, I'd be the sober dude in the kitchen, playing records on a ramshackle sound system hooked up to the real party happening two rooms away. It was a glamorous job.

Well, flash forward a few years after graduation, and I got an urgent call from the then-president of my frat. They had a party scheduled that night and their DJ had just called in sick. Even though I was an alumni, they knew I still lived in town and convinced me to come lend a hand. As I walked into the house, a couple kids were walking out. They told me they were from out-of-town visiting friends on campus and asked me how to get to Taco Bell. Despite balancing a couple crates of records and nearly throwing my back out, I stood there and gave them directions.

It turns out they weren't from out of town. They were undercover police. Ten minutes after I started playing music, the house was full-on raided by a dozen or so uniformed officers. Worse yet, old alumni Shane turned out to be the only one of legal drinking age in the whole house. It was NOT my best moment. Happily, a VERY lenient judge threw out most of the charges and to this day, the only real blight on my record is a $50 fine paid for "Frequenting An Unlicensed Liquor Establishment." Moral of the story: When a house full of drunken college kids asks you to DJ? Don't.

So that's it. Those are my only times running afoul of authority. Not exactly the kind of savory rap sheet that one wants from one's underground folk hero. I suppose I could play it off like those were the only times I've been CAUGHT, but truth be told, I'm a relatively boring, law-abiding citizen. But come every 4th of July, I can't help but think about one instance when I operated a tad bit outside the rules.

I speak, of course, about the hypothetical time a decade or so ago that me and hypothetical Friend Jason might have hypothetically purchased some hypothetical fireworks in Wisconsin and brought them back across the border. In the grand pantheon of criminal masterplans, this was NOT a genius move.

For starters, when one makes the conscious decision to brazenly break the law, one should probably pick a law that doesn't involve launching illuminated signal flares into the night sky. You can't exactly shoot off fireworks stealthily. It's pretty much a homing beacon that says, "Attention law enforcement! We are doing something naughty. For your ease in arresting us, we provide a convenient trail of light and smoke."

For another, we hadn't exactly thought the plan through. At that point in our lives, both of us lived in apartments. How, exactly, would we find a locale suitable for sending explosives into the night sky?

Which is why, on that hypothetical night, we ended up on an isolated gravel road some ten miles south of town in an area so pitch-black you could barely see the fuses to light them. In the event that we DID end up blowing off a finger, we had NO CLUE where the nearest hospital was, let alone the nearest town.

And we darn near ended up needing one. Amongst our hypothetical contraband was a small disc with a fuse. Like I said, it was way too dark to see any instructions, so like the nimrods that we were, we just set it down and lit the fuse to see what would happen. Answer: the disc shot up about five feet in the air like a bounding mine, hovered, and then began violently shooting out wicked projectiles in all compass directions while we dove for our lives. Why would anyone invent such a nightmare and why did I buy it? Either (a) we set it up wrong, or (b) there's a Chinese plot afoot to kill and/or maim as many Westerners as possible.

Clearly, we were hypothetical IDIOTS, and had we not run from that death contraption like ninnies, we'd be missing eyes to this day. Don't follow in our footsteps. We could have hurt ourselves, or worse yet, set some poor farmer's fields ablaze. There are people out there kooky enough to become licensed at handling fireworks, so let them run the risk of losing a finger or two. Of course, I offer this warning several days AFTER your 4th of July celebrations, so it's probably too late. But that's just the kind of rebel I am, I guess.

COLUMN: Flood (albeit a tiny one)

(Not my basement, thank God.)

"I need to show you something in the basement," said my girlfriend. Uh oh.

My mind raced. What possible scenarios could be afoot? I've seen my share of horror movies and I know when someone wants to show you something in the basement, it's seldom a good thing. It's usually more like, "Let me show you... THIS CLEAVER," and that's when the music starts going "WEET! WEET! WEET!" and someone says "redrum" and it all goes higgeldy-piggeldy.

But hey, when a cute girl says she needs to show you something in the basement, I suppose it's worth the risk of running into a hockey mask-wearing psychopath. Maybe "I need to show you something" is code for some subterranean PG-13 SMOOCHY SMOOCHY TIME, and I, for one, do not rescind invites to smoochy-smoochy time.

But her voice didn't sound smoochy-smoochy. It sounded serious, if not scolding. It was the kind of "let me show you something" that one would say to one's dog before going, "Look what you did! BAAAAAD Shane! BAAAAAAAAAD Shane!"

I started to panic. The night before, I had been down there doing laundry. My girlfriend doesn't have a washer or dryer at her place, so I let her use mine (and if all of MY laundry gets done in the process? Bonus.) But the night before, I had needed to wash some stuff, so I threw a load in -- and I bet I screwed something up.

Once upon a time, laundry was a simple task. My old apartment complex had a washer/dryer that I'm pretty sure pre-dated the invention of fabric. It had 3 settings: hot, warm, and cold -- and warm was broken. But that was okay, because I'm a boy, and Boy Laundry is simple, logical stuff. If it's white? Hot. If it's not? Cold. Easy peasy. But now that I've got my own house with its own washer and dryer, there's like 28 different settings and none make sense. As God is my witness, I'm now 40 years old and haven't the slightest clue what "permanent press" is.

And that's me handling Boy Laundry. On those very few times that I've been tasked with Girl Laundry, it's a mind-melting free-for-all. Half of her clothes pile is unidentifiable (hat? legwarmer? timing belt?), and the other half I have no clue if you're supposed to wash it in cold, hot, or warm. Maybe all her clothes call for the little setting that's simply indicated with an asterisk that I presume must mean "magic." Plus, ALL of her clothes feel so dainty that you half expect the fabric to crumble in your hands. How can I expect it to survive a wash cycle?

Ergo, I usually just leave her laundry in a pile and do mine instead. It's not that I don't want to help out, I just don't want to hit the wrong button and cause half my girlfriend's wardrobe to shrink or fall apart. As I walked down the basement stairs, I was envisioning her about to show me a dryer full of pink tidy whities or a wardrobe newly resized for Barbie's Dream House.

Instead, we got downstairs and she pointed straight down. Uh oh.

If you're a regular reader of this column, you'll know that I've spent the better part of this past year finishing my basement. And by "I," I mean my dad, whose vision of retirement might NOT have included indentured servitude to his incredibly grateful son. What was once a concrete slab floor is now a paradise of waterproofing, foam, pads, and carpeting. The only spot in the basement left untouched is the small area housing the furnace, hot water heater, and drain... and as I looked down at that tiny concrete oasis, I saw a small pool of water on the floor. Uh oh, indeed.

Above it run most of the pipes for the house, so I started feeling around to find the leak. That's when I noticed with some horror that the small pool of water didn't seem to be coming from above, but rather cascading out from underneath the carpet. BIG uh-oh.

I looked across the basement and there was my culprit. Against the back wall, the washing machine may have looked innocent, but even from far away, I could see it's catchpan brimming over with water. The leak was rapidly turning half of my basement into the Tide With Bleach Alternative Sea.

I raced over and shut off the water flow to the washer. The carpeting underneath was soaked to the bone and water was running under the carpet to the drain across the basement -- directly under the 30 or so cardboard boxes of unimportant junk I had yet to unpack from the move.

"Nooooooooooooooo!" I said as I started grabbing boxes and running to high ground. Happily, we noticed just in time to save such prized possessions as my Sega Dreamcast and Casio keyboard (whew.)

As a Congrats-For-Buying-Your-First-House gift, my dad had handed down a space-age wet/dry vac that had, until now, been sitting in the corner looking like R2D2's meaner cousin. I pulled it down, plugged it in, and set forth trying to suck the standing water out of the washer's catchpan. Just one problem: I was uninformed that this particular wet-dry vac had TWO places to attach the hose: one to suck and one to blow.

Sure enough, I stuck the hose in the catchpan, turned the vac on, and blew out an epic tidal wave that all at once showered dirty sudsy water all over the ceiling, walls, boxes, and anything else declaring residency in my basement, up to and including one of my cats who might need lifelong therapy from the double shock of the vacuum noise AND instant shower. Home improvement is NOT my thing, people.

Eventually I got the hose sorted out and sucked up as much water as I could. Then my dad drove up and had a meeting of the minds with my girlfriend's dad, who just happens to be an appliance repairman. I can't say how it went, since I was at work, but between my dad's inquisitive nature and her dad's knack for detail, my girlfriend reports that she now knows more about the internal workings of a washing machine than anyone EVER needs to and that I "owe her bigtime."

For now, it seems fixed, and the fate of my carpet now lies in a cat-eating industrial fan and a dehumidifer that's getting a serious workout. At least, thanks to Tide with Febreze, this is the nicest-smelling flood one can imagine. I'm lucky because I know basement flooding is a way of life for many Quad Citians, and my drama was pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Still, the next time my girlfriend says she needs to show me something in the basement, I might just run from the house screaming, even at the risk of smoochy-smoochy time.

COLUMN: Bike

They say that once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget.

Dear "They,"
Bollocks.
Love, Shane.

When I was a kid, I loved to ride my bike. Well, okay: when I was a kid, I loved sitting in air conditioning watching HBO and playing Ultima IV on my Apple II. But every once in a while, my parents would mandate that I unplug myself from the information superhighway and go (gasp) play outdoors.

As far as I was concerned, the outdoors was little more than a hot and humid sanctuary for snakes, bugs, bees, things that suck your blood, and things that just plain suck. Quickly, I discovered my favorite outdoor pasttime was riding on my bike -- that way, if any of that pesky nature decided to come a-callin', I could get on my bike and just pedal away to safety. As a result, I pretty much lived on that bike whenever I went outside.

But I also had an over-protective mother who assumed that since her son was now in possession of wheeled transport, he would immediately ride it into traffic kamikaze-style. Let's not, at this point, forget that I grew up on a 50-acre lot off a tiny paved road in rural Galesburgian nowheresville, and the nearest thing that could even be loosely defined as "traffic" was about 1.5 miles away from the house. Still, my mom felt it best that I not be allowed to ride my bike on the "hard road" without parental supervision. This meant I had to stick to the gravel driveways, yards, and hills of Brown Manor.

The upside of this dilemma was that I actually kinda got pretty good at off-road biking. I would set up mock courses and hold time trials. I could take downhill corners at wicked speeds and live to tell the tale. On our farm, I could ride circles around my friends. For a while there, I actually had leg muscles.

Then I turned 16, got my driver's license, and that was the very last time I ever climbed aboard my bike... until now.

To put it mildly, I'm sick of my ever-expanding belly. I've now reached the age where I can no longer sit on my couch, watch TV all day, and expect to maintain my socially acceptable slightly chunky figure. Over the past five years, I've gone from out-of-shape to clinically obese to Fatty McButterPants. My official wake-up call was when I had to recently go buy pants at a Fat-Dude store, and that's not cool.

(And, FYI, if you own a Fat-Dude store, why would you employ a sales clerk who looks like he just stepped out of an ad for Men's Fitness? I had to talk to this guy and be like, "Hey, can I have the key to the fitting room to try on these pants?" but what I FELT like I was saying was: "ME LIKE COOKIES! FATTY NEED KEY SO HE CAN TRY ON SMALL TENT WITH LEGHOLES! CAN YOU HELP FATTY FIT THROUGH DOOR?")

Obviously, me and exercise are not the best of buddies, but something needs to be done before the news of my death includes the phrase "the body had to be extricated from the house with a crane." That's when it hit me: Once upon a time, I'm pretty sure I actually enjoyed bike riding. Let's give it another shot.

I had mentioned to my mom a few times that I'd like to get my bike up here, and every time she'd say, "I'm not sure if it'll fit in the car, I'll have to talk to your father" before swiftly changing the subject. I recently figured out that it was her same over-protective streak flaring up, and her belief that the entire Quad Cities is one big "hard road" for me to get killed upon. So the other day, I circumvented Mom and went straight to Dad.

"Sure, I know right where it is! Let me tune her up and I'll bring it with next time we visit!"

Two weeks later, my Schwinn Sidewinder, looking good for her age, was sitting in my garage.

Eagerly, I jumped aboard... and almost fell headfirst onto the pavement. This did NOT feel right. For one, it was SO FAR OFF THE GROUND. HOW did I ride this thing as a kid without the constant fear of death? The bike was tall, the pedals were tiny, the tires incomprehensibly narrow... this wasn't an exercise tool, it was a deathtrap. That's when I looked up and saw a kid whistling to himself as he pedaled past me with no hands and not a care in the world. I CAN DO THIS.

I took the bike to the grassiest section of my lawn. "No," my girlfriend chided me, "get out here in the alley."

"Nope," I said. "I need a better cushion than concrete right now."

Bravely, I pushed off, made one full rotation of the pedals, weebled, wobbled, and ALMOST fell down. I turned around and did it again. And then again. And again. After a few minutes, I was marginally convinced that I could keep the bike upright, so I took it onto pavement. It's a good thing there's seldom traffic in our alley, because I weaved from one side to the other, but somehow I kept the bike afloat. The only drawback is that, in tuning up the bike, my dad must've gotten grease on the brake pads, because every time I hit the brakes, it makes a noise like a Canadian goose being horribly, horribly violated. But I stayed upright.

After a couple days of back-and-forthing in the alley, I finally got brave enough to go on my first bike ride with my girlfriend. We just rode around the neighborhood, I'd say a total of maybe ten blocks. By the time I got home, I was covered in sweat from head to toe and my hands were numb from gripping the handlebars as tight as humanly possible. Worse yet, I climbed off the bike and... how do I put this in a family paper... let's just say it felt like I'd just been on the losing end of a fight with a rabid feral proctologist, and my particular losing end needed an extra couch cushion for the next 48 hours.

I walked up the back steps to the house. Well, no, I guess I didn't. I got TO the back steps, I know that. And my brain definitely issued the command to my legs to step UP the back steps. But my legs just kind of plodded forward in a non-vertical manner and I almost fell face-first onto said back steps. Eventually I made it to air conditioning and recovered.

And then I did it again. And again. And again. And when I get done writing this column, I'm gonna go do it yet again. I'm up to about 20 blocks now before I think I'm about to die, so we're making progress (although I really DO need to look into getting a padded seat - how on EARTH did I not spend my childhood walking funny?) Once I get a little less wobbly, I'll try the bike path down by the river. Heck, maybe I'll even bike to work one of these days.

So maybe the adage is right and you DO never forget how to ride a bike... there's just a slight learning curve for the coordinationally-challenged. Wish me luck... and please, if you're driving and see a sweaty mound of fat cycling in front of you, give me a wide berth. I'd hate to prove my mom right.

COLUMN: Bieber

Is it just me, or does this photo scream, "I have to poop!" ??

I woke up today with one clear thought in my brain:

Justin Bieber has a lot in common with the Beatles.

My girlfriend earns extra cash frequently babysitting two of the cutest girls (ages 6 & 7) ever to walk the earth. I, having never been around kids since I was one myself, greet our time together with a mix of fascination and fear. Most of the time, I sit around in an awkward display of helplessness while they run around like they've been out mainlining caffeine with John Belushi. They bounce, hop, skip, sing, run, yell, shriek, cry, jump, pounce, and cause irreparable emotional damage to my cats -- while I just sit and concentrate on NOT having a stroke.

Still, there's a part of me that desperately wants them to accept and trust me and know that I've got their back. My girlfriend loves spending time with kids, so I want to, too. That's why I'll say yes when they ask me to play house, even though they always demand that I take on the role of the family dog. And that's why I'll sit there acting like it's the most interesting in the world when they show me their new Justin Bieber magazines and tell me what his favorite color and food are. (Purple and spaghetti.)

We were out shopping the other day, and when my girlfriend wasn't looking, I slipped a DVD copy of the Bieber concert movie into our cart. Not only do I come across as Mr. Awesome for getting the girls the movie, but it gives them something to do other than bounce, hop, skip, sing, etc. Win-win, right?

That's what I thought. Until this morning, when I woke up humming the most irritating earworm of all time:

"It's like bay-bee, bay-bee, bay-bee, ohhh, like bay-bee, bay-bee, bay-bee, nooo!"

I hadn't thought of the repercussions of devoting a small percentage of my life's soundtrack to Justin Bieber, and now his evil little song is stuck on autopilot in my brain. I can appreciate catchy yet blindingly stupid music -- that's why God made The Ramones, after all -- but have their ever been lyrics more insipid than Justin Bieber's "Baby"? That's when it dawned on me, and the answer is YES, I HAVE heard lyrics just as bad:

"Love, love me do, you know I love you, I'll always be true, so ple-e-e-ease, love me do."

Think about it: A debut album full of silly, catchy, G-rated love songs. Young girls shrieking in a near-riot pandemonium. A really bad haircut. Who am I describing? Justin Bieber or 1964 Beatles? They're one in the same. Okay, maybe the Fab Four worked their way to fame playing to seedy clubs in Hamburg and Liverpool. Well, Justin Bieber worked HIS way to fame playing to preteens and pedophiles on Youtube. Was there one single music critic on the face of the Earth in 1964 who would have dreamed that four teenagers singing a song called "I Want To Hold Your Hand" would end up revolutionizing pop music for the rest of time? Maybe before we cast Justin Bieber into the abyss of worthless teenage annoyances, realize that there's a chance he could be a longer haircut, an Indian guru, and a Yoko Ono away from real artistic greatness.

But another thought just crossed my mind: Justin Bieber also has a lot in common with Shaun Cassidy. In 1977, Cassidy launched from a Hardy Boy into a million-selling cover of "Da Doo Ron Ron" and the front page of every other issue of TigerBeat. Heck, even prepubescent Shane had a Shaun Cassidy poster in my room. Any dude who could solve mysteries AND rock out was cool in my 6-year-old world.

One of my friends is a Quad City-based musician who recently, on a trip out west, finagled his way into tickets to some posh L.A. event. And the way he tells the story, he was queueing in line when he realized that directly in front of him stood an aging yet still recognizable Shaun Cassidy.

After some debate, he tapped him on the shoulder and explained that his sister was a HUGE fan back in the day. That was Shaun Cassidy's cue to turn from Normal-Guy-In-Line to Complete Lunatic. "Who the (expletive) do you think you are? Do you know who the (expletive) I am? Don't (expletive) speak to me!" Etc., etc. My friend really thought that he was about to be decked by Shaun Cassidy, so apparantly one shouldn't da-doo-dredge up the past in front of Mr. Formerly Famous.

So who knows where insta-fame and Bieber Fever will take our pal Justin? I'm not convinced that he's destined to become a musical icon, but he's got as much of a chance as the next guy. After one particular incident that happened to me a few years back, I'll never take ANYTHING for granted.

We were in Chicago to see one of my favorite bands, a criminally under-appreciated Scottish group called The Trashcan Sinatras. They were the opener for a multi-band show at the Cabaret Metro. We pushed our way to the front row and had a fantastic time. Afterwards, we weighed whether or not to stay up front for the headline act. None of us were fans, but they had a silly song called "Creep" that was getting some MTV play, so we thought we'd give them a chance. The lights came up, and this ridiculous little blonde frontman strutted on stage looking like he'd seen "Sid & Nancy" a few too many times, grabbed the mic, and sneered "'Ello! We're Radiohead!" before spending the next song strutting around stage like a peacock to some wholly unmemorable tune. After ten minutes, my friends and I walked out, proudly announcing, "Wow. They suck."

Two years later, Radiohead would release the ground-breaking album "The Bends." Two years after THAT would come "OK Computer," which Time Magazine would later declare to be one of the 100 greatest albums of all time. Radiohead are now one of the most critically-revered bands on the planet. A few years ago, I was happy to be in about the 215th row when they played an open-air concert in downtown Chicago to 75,000 people.

So don't look a gift Bieber in the mouth, I guess -- which is no problem for me, since I can't get my eyes off his magical hair. And who knows, fellow Bieber haters, maybe we're witnessing the dawn of a new American -- err, Canadian -- hero. Or maybe he'll be the flash-in-the-pan that we're all expecting. All I care about is that I made two little girls super happy by buying a DVD. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to something -- ANYTHING -- that doesn't involve the word "baby."

COLUMN: Mechanic

Over the years, I've compiled a lengthy list of occupations that you couldn't pay me enough to do. After this past week, there's a new career atop that list: Auto Mechanic.

For starters, I know absolutely nothing about the inner workings of cars. I know where the gas goes. I'm pretty sure I know where the oil goes. I know that Brian Vickers is my favorite NASCAR driver and he's way overdue for another win. Beyond that, cars move by magic as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, yes, I know: the ignition ignites and causes the rotors to rotate and the pistons to, umm, pistate. But then the radio comes on and I forget about caring how the car works because I'm too busy singing along to "Baby Got Back." From there, it's all in the hands of the magical pixies that presumably live under the hood and make the car move until a little light comes on my dashboard telling me to "check engine" -- or rather telling me to tell my mechanic to "check engine" because MY version of checking the engine would be to open the hood and go, "Yep, that's an engine, alrighty."

I'm kind of okay with being clueless about cars. I mean, to each their own, right? I'm sure some of you can't beat match dance music or write a newspaper column (or, in one of my better moments, do both at the same time.) But in being an eternal noob at all things mechanical, it's pretty easy for me to get snowed over by mechanics.

I'll guarantee it's happened before. When I was in college, I had a beater car (it might rhyme with "Tord Fescort") that was in the garage more than it wasn't. And every time the car would demand service, I'd hear something like, "Well, you brought the car in for a blown headlight. Well, we replaced the headlight, but while we were down there, we just happened to notice that your flux capacitor's leakin' accelerator fluid all over the cam drive piston defibrillator. See the wear on this carburetor belt here? That means your timing chain's faulty and as a result, you're gonna need a whole new gasket bearing shaft. We can get you back up and running for, oh, $850 or so."

And invariably, I'd have to get my dad on the phone and listen to the two of them talk Martian for a while before settling on some weird automotive compromise wherein they replace only HALF the faulty stuff that they've probably just made up, and then the car would run fine until the OTHER headlight would blow out a month later and they'd find another $850 of imaginary problems.

Finally, though, I found a mechanic that, freakishly, I trust. It takes a lot of patience to work on a Beetle given that the entire engine's crammed under the dashboard, but my current mechanic's never complained once. In the five years that I've been going to him regularly, I've gotten nothing but great service, fair prices, and the patience required to deal with an automoron like myself. If I go there with a problem and he thinks I can get a better rate elsewhere, he refers me. If he thinks I can get a cheaper part on my own, he tells me how to order it. It's the kind of service that almost mandates I tell all my friends and refer anyone and everyone I can.

This brings me to last week. I thought I'd swing by the garage for a quick oil change. In addition, I'd just blown the fuse to my accessory plugs, and a roadtrip sans iPod is a roadtrip sans Shane. So there I was, waiting in the lobby, when in walked, shall we say, a less-than-pleased customer.

I'm not normally an eavesdropper -- oh, who am I kidding? Yes I am. But this guy was almost yelling, so it wasn't really a chore to get roped in. Here's what I quickly gathered:

This guy was the ex-husband. He and the ex-wife had recently bought a car from an out-of-towner for their daughter. The car had some problems right away, so they spent $250 at an out-of-town garage that was unable to diagnose the problem. Ex-hubby had to leave town for work, so the ex-wife brings the car back to the QC and to my local garage. They find the problem easily and give her the estimate. But they ALSO find an internal oil leak that was rapidly destroying other parts of the engine. They explained to the wife that the other problems wouldn't stop the car from running, but if they weren't addressed, all sorts of higgeldy-piggeldy would be on the horizon. The ex-wife gave permission to do the whole fix for a four-digit figure of some kind, and now ex-hubby was marching in livid to accuse them of doing the same kind of snow job on the wife that I'm pretty sure other garages had pulled on me in the past.

So while my mechanic was trying to talk this guy down from the ceiling, it made me think a lot about trust, and what a precious commodity it really is these days. Should I NOT be trusting my mechanic after all? If I was in this guy's situation, would I be just as livid? Should I go through life with an eyebrow raised at everyone and their motives?

After sitting there for a bit, I decided my answer would be a resounding NO. A world where you can't trust your fellow man is a world worth avoiding. Sure, you may end up getting burned once or twice by a scumbag or two, but I'd like to think that human nature isn't consistently evil, shallow, and self-serving. All I know is that in five years, I've never gotten service from this garage that was remotely suspect.

After a few minutes of almost-yelling, the guy had to pause while my mechanic took a call. That's when he spun on ME.

"I hope to hell you're not letting them work on YOUR car, buddy!" the guy said.

"Actually," I replied, "I let them work on my car anytime it breaks down. This is the first garage I've ever been to in town that treats me and my car with respect. I trust them, plain and simple. They're good guys and they do a good job."

The guy shut up (a small miracle in and of itself.) And after giving my mechanic a little more static, he left. Afterwards, I found out that the rest of the family had been in earlier and had to be forcibly removed from the premises. We both agreed that if they had to be hot, why not be hot at the out-of-town garage that charged $250 to find nothing? At least their hefty repair bill fixed the problem.

As for MY oil change and fuse replacement? My total bill was a whopping $18 -- yet more evidence that I've picked a great garage. Sometimes it just feels good to trust someone else. Here's where I'd make a passioned plea for everyone to put a little more trust in your fellow man -- but I keep losing my train of thought. I'm too busy singing along to "Baby Got Back."

COLUMN: Grill

When it comes to shopping, I demand immediate gratification.

We live in the age of internet commerce, and you'd think someone as lazy as me would love it. The prospect of walking five steps from my couch to my computer sounds a heck of a lot better than an afternoon spent tromping through the mall. Too bad, then, that I just can't buy something without immediately possessing it.

Some people like to comparison shop for the best deals. Not me. If I take that much time, the yucky voice in my brain -- you know, the smart, mature, and thrifty one -- starts invading my inner monologue with such awful thoughts as "you don't really need this" and "you really can't afford this." I've found it's MUCH better to surprise your Inner Responsibility with a well-timed strategy of impulse shopping and credit cards. At the end of the day, you might end up broke -- but at least you'll have a brand new Blu-Ray player to pass the time until the repo man comes.

The same goes for e-shopping. If I needed new underwear, I could quite easily hop on my computer, go to Undies.com, and have bountiful amounts of skivvies delivered to my door in 7-10 days. But you know what happens when I get up from that computer? I'll still be wearing ratty undies for 7-10 days. E-commerce sucks the fun out of the quintessential shopping experience: Want -> Buy -> Have. It should NEVER be Want -> Buy -> 7-10 days of yearning mixed with a healthy dose of fiscal regret. Every time you click that "buy" button, it's like being a kid on December 15th and knowing there's an interminable 10-day wait until Christmas.

My girlfriend Amy is one of those annoying smart shopper types. She researches her purchases, clips coupons, makes lists and checks them twice. She'll walk in with bulging bags of new purchases under each arm and I'll be tempted to give her grief for over-spending when she'll proudly announce that she spent less than $20 on the whole pile. She claims I'm the one who needs the occasional lecture on over-spending, which might have filaments of truth were it not so darn fun. Take last weekend for instance.

It was Friday night, and we had just pulled into my garage. As I opened the door, I caught the most magical scent in the world wafting our way. Neighbor Russ was grilling out, and it couldn't have smelled better. I was making excuses to linger in the back yard, mouth watering -- and did I mention that we'd JUST returned with full bellies from dinner ourselves?

So when Amy asked me what we should do with our weekend, I didn't even have to breathe. "LETSGOBUYAGRILLANDGRILLOUTANDEATGRILLEDFOODANDITWILLBEGOOD!"

Neighbor Russ didn't give up any of his chicken wings, but he DID tell me that he saw a great deal on grills at a local grocery store, so that's where I pulled Amy.

"Let's take a look at the features," Amy said.

I already had: (a) It was silver, (b) it was shiny, and (c) it looked awesome.

"We should go home and do some research and see if this is the best grill for the money," said Amy. At least that's what I assumed she said. I was already on my way to the checkout line.

Five minutes later, I was proudly marching outside with my new grill. Well, okay, more like proudly sweating and grunting and almost killing an innocent family while precariously balancing a giant box on a less-than-giant dolly. That's when I got to my car and realized the first bump in the road of this impulse buy. Some thirteen years ago, I decided a Volkswagen Beetle would be a neat impulse buy. I love my car, but of the many things it's known for, space isn't one of them. One look at the box, then one look at the car, and then one ache to the head because this grill wasn't coming home in the Wonderbug.

Ever want to confuse a grocery store clerk? Buy a huge grill, then ask for a dolly to get it to your car, lug it all the way outside, then lug it BACK and tell them to keep an eye on it while you go get a bigger car. Amy's car was a tight fit, but we eventually got it loaded.

"We should go to your house and see what we need to assemble this thing," Amy said. Or maybe she didn't. I dunno. I was too busy calling up all of my friends.

"DUUUDE! GRILL PARRRRTY!! BRING YO SELF!! FOOD'S ON ME!!"

Ever want to REALLY confuse a grocery store clerk? Buy a grill, leave with it, come back with it, leave with it again, then come back WITHOUT it. Next thing I knew, I was running down aisles grabbing anything grillable. Hamburgers, veggie burgers, brats, corn on the cob -- a smorgasbord of flavor just waiting to be charred and carcinogized.

Then I opened the box. Rather, once all my hungry friends were pulling up, I opened the box. It turns out that grills do not simply pop out of the box pre-assembled. It also turns out that it was a bad move to NOT have ever impulse-bought a course in Mandarin Chinese. With boxes inside boxes handily marked in hand-written Chinese, this thing was the Rubik's Cube of grills. While Friend Jason and I were on hands and knees staring at an incomprehensible array of tiny grill parts, Amy called her dad.

Within ten minutes, he was over, toolbox in hand. Within twenty minutes, parts weren't fitting right. Within thirty minutes, he was asking if Amy was out of earshot so he could appropriately curse. Within forty minutes, we had given up for the night. And within thirty minutes or less after that, dinner was served -- thanks to Domino's.

So maybe it's possible to be a TAD bit too impulsive sometimes. But this story doesn't end with pizza. Amy's dad was back over at the crack of dawn, and by the time I was even awake, my dream of a shiny new fancy grill was a reality. My friends might not have come back the next night, but it was okay -- more food for me. And when Amy's little sister told me that she was eating "the best corn of her life," I swear I almost started crying.

So, unless you're immune to the heavenly smell of cinged meat, you might want to give my house a wide berth this week. I'm going non-stop until I run out of propane or stomach room, whichever happens first.

COLUMN: End of the World

Sooo... this is what the afterlife feels like, eh? And to think, all I wanted was a Thickburger.

There I was, in the drive-thru at the Rock Island Hardee's, innocently living my carefree life, when I glanced to the right and spotted the billboard:

"BLOW THE TRUMPET... WARN THE PEOPLE -Ezekiel 33:3. Judgement Day is May 21, 2011." Or perhaps it said "judgment day." Frankly, I'm always a bit leery of words that can be acceptably spelled in more than one way. That's why I always knew Gaddafi (or Khadafi or Qaddafi or Gadhafi or Khadafy) was bad news.

The point is, I KNEW I'd forgotten something on my to-do list for this week. Buy deodorant? Check. Make mortgage payment? Check. Write newspaper column? Check. Prep for judgement day? Oh, shoot.

Now, I'm no expert on Christianity or anything, but the last time I checked, I'm pretty sure the Book of Mark tells us about Judgement Day that "of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Well, the Father and, apparantly, a guy in California named Harold Camping.

I've written about Harold before. He runs an organization called Family Radio Worldwide, and it's Harold's opinion that we'll NEVER know who wins "American Idol" this season. No, we'll all be far too busy dealing with the end of days. Employing some creative math and an odd quasi-literal interpretation of the Bible (something about the Noadic flood and "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,") Camping has taken to the internet and the airwaves with the revelation that Judgement Day comes on May 21st, 2011. I even wrote it on my desk calendar a few months back: "May 21st - End of World." Its right there between Rhubarb Appreciation Day and National Old Time Player Piano Day (the latter of which may be postponing celebrations indefinitely.)

There's just one problem. May 21st was (gulp) yesterday. This column, which I'm sitting down to write on the Monday prior, won't publish until May 22nd. Which means it may not publish at all. In fact, if you ARE reading this now, I'd imagine that one of two scenarios must be at play:

(1) Camping was wrong. Surely this can't be. I mean, he already got it wrong once before when he proclaimed twenty years ago that the Rapture would occur on September 6, 1994. Instead, this turned out to be the date that Michael Jackson and Lisa-Marie Presley made out onstage at the MTV Music Awards, so I can kinda see his confusion. Camping later blamed this on a math error. Surely he can't have made TWO errors, right? I mean, what are the odds?

(2) The Rapture has occurred, and you, unfortunately, were left behind. Bummer. Of course, this would also mean that a majority of the layout, printing, post-press, and distribution departments of our paper suffered the same fate, since your Sunday issue was apparantly still delivered on-time. Frankly, I'd prefer a happier ending for my co-workers. Also interesting: it's nice to know that, even if the world DID end in a hailstorm of fire and brimstone and trumpets aplenty, we still saw fit to include an Arts & Living section in your Sunday edition for you to peruse in your apocalypse down time.

Clearly, I think Camping's claims are bogus. More so, it's tragic that his followers have basically quit their jobs and emptied their bank accounts to travel the world and spread the news. Unless, of course, he's right, in which case I'll plead a hearty "D'oh!" to whomever (or maybe Whomever) I can. But frankly I hope that every one of us gets to live a colorful and spiritual life until a ripe old age. That said, something DID happen the other day that scares me a bit. Something that might just be a clear-cut sign that the end of the world COULD, in fact, be nigh:

I MADE DINNER FOR MYSELF. SEVERAL TIMES. IN A ROW.

Those who read my column on a regular basis (thanks!) know that I'm rather pre-disposed to eating out. In fact, I could usually count on one hand the number of home-cooked meals that I consume in a year (and that includes those cooked by my mom during major holidays.) That is, until I miraculously landed my super awesome girlfriend. Over the past two years, Amy has taught me that the kitchen is NOT, as I was previously unaware, for display purposes only. She's helped me stock the fridge, cooked many a meal, and even done most of the clean-up afterwards. For a hapless and helpless man-boy such as myself, it's been a dream come true.

But last month, Amy was gone. First on a business trip, then on a vacation to visit an old friend. For almost fourteen days, I was once again responsible for feeding myself. Instinctively, my thoughts turned to my old pal Taco Bell, until I realized that a whole lot of food in the fridge would be going to waste if I didn't figure out how to get it in my mouth. Take these eggs, for example.

Eggs are fun. They're goofy shaped, you get to crack them, and you can make them in a kajillion different ways. I just didn't know how - 40 years old and eggs remained a mystery to me. But I'm a smart guy with access to modern technology, common sense, and untold resources. So I did what any intelligent person faced with an uncooked egg would do:

I googled "how to cook an egg."

Funnily enough, there's a website devoted to it. And I'll guarantee you that it's last 20,000,000 visitors have all been single guys. Still, I learned how much Pam to spray in the pan, how hot to make the stove, and when to flip. At the end, I had some not-too-bad-if-I-do-say-so-myself eggs. And that was just the start. My culinary talents soon extended to sandwiches, milkshakes, fish sticks, and beyond. By the time Amy got back, I was grilling burgers and experimenting with the best homemade sauces to accent my broccoli florets. It turns out I CAN COOK. And thus far, no flying horsemen as a result.

If only I'd discovered this earlier, I'd have been making my OWN thickburger and living in blissful ignorance of our pending doom. I'm playing the odds, though, and marinating some chicken Friday night - if the world DIDN'T end yesterday, I'll be celebrating with a full stomach.

COLUMN: Snakes

Once upon a time, the house that I now call my own was built. This was about a decade ago. And way back then, whoever owned the place cared about the lawn. Hostas and decorative bushes lined the front of the house. Hydrangeas were planted on the south side to add some floral edging. On the north side, the new home was christened by the arrival of a small Japanese maple sapling. Home sweet home.

And from what I can see, that was the last time anybody looked at or cared about the lawn of this property until I moved in one year ago.

The Japanese maple? Dead as a doornail. The hydrangeas had grown together, merged, and transformed into some kind of Optimus Prime hydrangea monster -- half taller than my girlfriend, the other half collapsed under its own weight. And as for whatever the heck these bushes out front were supposed to be? Your guess is as good as mine. The whole mess had become so overgrown with weeds that I was clueless as to what was supposed to be there and what was an opportunistic passing seed in the wind forging a new homestead. The front of my house was little more than a habitat for passing chupacabra.

Because I bought the house in mid-summer, I let things slide last year. This spring, though, it was time for a little creative editing of Mother Nature.

That's when I set forth my Yard Work Action Plan, and I've got to tell you, it was exhausting. And now that I'm an expert in yard maintenance, perhaps it's unfair to hold all this knowledge myself. Many of you are first-time homeowners yourselves, and I couldn't sleep at night knowing that I'd failed to mentor those who so desperately need it.

Therefore I will share with you all my expertise. The hard work that I put into my lawn care can be divided into three major steps:

(1) Looking out the window and assessing the situation.
(2) Picking up the telephone and calling a lawn care service.
(3) While paying careful attention not to strain fingers, sign check and hand to lawn care guy.

I told you it was rough.

My lawn guy did an awesome job. I found him thanks to an ad right here in the Dispatch/Argus, and I'll even give him a personal plug later in this column. In a whirlwind, the maple was gone, the hydrangeas pruned, and my bramble patch out front totally obliterated.

While they worked, my girlfriend and I sat inside, watching TV and feeling horribly guilty about sitting inside and watching TV. We kept the window open, though, as if to somehow be part of the action. That was when I heard this exchange from outside:

"Blah blah blah." "Blabbity blah blah, blah blah." "Blah. Blah-blabbity-bab SNAKE blah blahity." "Blah blah GET IT!"

Say whaaaa? Did I hear SNAKE?

And that, dear friends, was the moment of my lawn care retirement. I hate spiders, bugs, and bees, but I'm deathly afraid of snakes. They're abominations of nature. If you're gonna be a creepy reptile and live in my yard, at the very least you should man up and grow some legs. I sincerely thought that living in the city, the last thing you had to worry about was snakes.

I grew up in the country, in an earth-sheltered "underground" home built into a hillside. "Cave sweet cave," as my dad said. One day, my mom and I were alone in the house while my dad was at work. Earlier, he'd been working on the roof to re-seal a skylight window that hung over the house's central courtyard. I was laying on my bedroom floor, reading a book, when I heard a noise and saw some movement. I looked up in just enough time to see a very unamused garter snake fall from the skylight onto the floor some six feet away and start slithering straight at me. My scream was so loud I almost broke my larynx. The whole nasty episode ended with my mom - a fellow snakeophobe - grabbing the thing with a pair of kitchen tongs while the two of us shrieked together like banshees. It was NOT my best moment.

I went out around sunset to admire my new lawn only to find a snake (the same one? a new one?) sunning himself under the newly-exposed porch. I took a rake and tried to toss him off my land but snakes don't fling as far as you'd want them to. Instead, it landed in the middle of the yard, coiled up, rose, and tried to take a big ol' chomp off the rake. I held back my scream and instinctively flung him into the street, where he immediately slithered into a storm drain and is now probably working at great lengths and expense to figure out how to snake up my toilet to bite my butt with gleeful abandon.

I got home tonight, now constantly looking straight down as I walk, when I noticed two of my neighbors surrounding his basement window well. He had just found THREE snakes hiding out down there, including one that had somehow made it inside the first of his two window panes. This is thoroughly unacceptable. If you're good with math, that makes 4 if not potentially 5 snake sightings in spitting vicinity of my yard in a 24-hour period. And my neighbor just told me, "Oh yeah, we get 'em all the time. They'll get in your basement window, just wait."

I'm not waiting. When I moved in, my dad replaced and insulated the basement window, so I called him up at light speed.

"DAD!" I said before he could even get a word out. "Can you promise me that no snake will get through my basement window and come say howdy while I'm watching TV?"

"Well," my dad replied. "Let me ask you a question. Now, these snakes that you've been seeing... would you say they're bigger or smaller than a molecule of air?"

"Umm... bigger?"

"Then stop worrying, because I sealed that window airtight."

There are times when it's good to have absolute and total blind faith in your father, and this is one of them. I am equipped to do MANY things in this life, but running a snake ranch is NOT one of them. As I type, I'm pretty sure I can hear them outside, speaking in parsel-tongue, conspiring to bite whomever mowed down their habitat.

Which is why I name-drop as promised and remind all snakes that the blame falls squarely on John at QC Quality Lawn Care. I'm just the dude who signs the checks. But if any of you snakes insist on requesting a meeting, I'll be available the next time I step out onto my lawn. How's December sound for you?

COLUMN: Royal Wedding

As a weekly columnist prone to writing about whatever's happened in my life over the past seven days, occasionally I worry about revealing TOO much. Not that I have any particularly embarassing skeletons in the closet or lead any kind of exciting double life -- but still, I can't help but feel that some things should simply remain private.

However, there's no good way to begin this story except to admit to you all that, in the wee morning hours of April 29th, I had bad gas.

So bad, in fact, that it woke me in the middle of the night. "Ugh," I simultaneously thought and said as I zombie-walked to the bathroom. By the time it was all over (a column I'll save for the next issue of Gastrointestinal Digest Monthly,) I sauntered back to bed far more awake than I ever cared to be at 4:30 a.m. That's why I decided to turn on the TV for a few minutes in hopes of getting lulled back to sleep.

And THAT, my friends, is how yours truly got an unintentional last-minute invitation to the Royal Wedding. The TV sprung to life at the exact moment Kate Middleton was entering Westminster Abbey, and by the time I fell back asleep, she was Mrs. Prince William Arthur Philip Louie Louie Me Gotta Go And The Revolution. And once again -- with all due apologies to ladies, Britons, and Elton John fans worldwide -- I just don't get it. But I think I've narrowed it down to a few select reasons, which I shall bestow upon you as an essay entitled...

Why Shane Doesn't Give A Flying Fascinator About The Royal Wedding

(1) I'm a guy. This means that I'm biologically predisposed to roll my eyes at any event featuring dresses, flowers and hats as major selling points. I'm just not a wedding kinda guy. Don't get me wrong -- when I get married, I'm going to care a heck of a lot about dresses and flowers -- but that's only because I know the future Mrs. Me enjoys that kinda stuff. But if it's a wedding that affects me in absolutely no way, shape, or form? Watching it unfold was about as exciting as watching paint dry. I found myself viewing it not unlike a NASCAR race -- waiting for any kind of trip, stumble, or misspoken name to liven things up. Sadly, the whole affair went as smooth and boring as I'd feared. Yawn. And as for the hats? No one can ever mock me again for my beloved ill-fitting Greek fisherman's cap, because the hats and fascinators on display that morning fell squarely into two camps: (a) things that looked like dead animals and (b) things that I'm pretty sure I saw Judy Jetson wear. If THAT'S what's passing for high fashion these days, my smelly cap should land me a GQ cover any day now.

(2) It's amateur hour for Anglophiles. For years, I used to run a website devoted to US fans of UK pop culture. I've got lifelong American friends who still to this day insert words like "loo" and "petrol" into everyday conversation. I used to stay up until 4 a.m. just to place mail orders with London record shops. If anybody's a fan of British culture around here, it's me. Yet last week, Americans were coming out of the woodwork to drink tea, wave the Union Jack, and cry over two people getting married a thousand miles away. There were girls in our office that held 3 a.m. Royal Wedding parties and talked endlessly about the Middleton clan as though they were on a first name basis with the entire extended family. When I used to DJ down in the District, we joked that no regulars ever came out on New Year's Eve. Same rule applies here. Let the amateurs have their royal wedding - come see me once you own the entire Smiths discography and can act out every Monty Python sketch from memory.

(3) What purpose doth the royal family even serve any more? Maybe I'd care more if these folks actually RAN the country they're supposed to represent, but they don't. As far as I can tell, the entire purpose of the royal family is to occasionally put on royal weddings. And if that's the case, well then I say "Brava!" Mission accomplished - it was a perfectly opulent pomp and pointless ceremony to befit such a pomp and pointless monarchy. Perhaps I'd have more of a vested interest in the whole affair if the Queen occasionally, oh I dunno, declared war on Iceland or something. And then she could force her army of knights into battle -- you know, such brave souls of combat like Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sir Ian McKellan, and Sir Anthony Hopkins... and they all have to occasionally don swords and fight Bjork. Then maybe I'd care.

(4) Hi-definition ruined the magic. I have vague memories of the wedding of Prince Charles & Diana Spencer, though I hope I didn't wake up at 4:30 a.m. for that one, too. What I remember was the same sort of spell-binding, fairy-tale, gag-me-with-a-spoon regal splendor of this one, but with a bit of a difference. With Charles & Di, it really did seem like you were watching a movie and catching an illicit glimpse of a Cinderella world you'd never be a part of. THIS wedding, though, I enjoyed in crystal clear hi-definition -- and I think it stripped the magic right off the affair. Suddenly, Westminster Abbey seemed royally REAL. It wasn't a fairy tale. It was just regular folk with the same pock marks and balding heads as you and me. We got to see the entire wedding as though we were there -- and that's no place for common folk like us.

(5) But most importantly, I don't give a flying fascinator about the royal wedding because no one asked me to come DJ the reception. You'd think the royal wedding planners wouldn't have made such a terrible oversight, but it appears they forgot to have me come play "Y.M.C.A." for the bridal party. What would be more fun than teaching Queen Elizabeth how to shake her royal fanny to the Cha-Cha Slide? And let's be honest, nothing brings out regal splendor quite like a good Chicken Dance (some people certainly had the right hats for it, that's for sure.) And tell me they wouldn't have made a KILLING from some well-timed dollar dances, no? It's all a huge missed opportunity.

It's enough to give me a stomach ache. Wait, nope, that's just gas again.

COLUMN: Celebrity Apprentice

It's no real secret that I've had a long-standing, sordid, and emotional love affair with bad TV.

I grew up on a steady diet of "Knight Rider," "The A-Team," "BJ and the Bear," and "The Dukes of Hazzard." My favorite show as a kid was a swiftly-cancelled series called "Salvage 1," starring Andy Griffith as a junkman who builds a rocket out of scrap metal and flies it to the moon to harvest space junk. (No foolin'. Look it up.)

In college, bereft of cable, my friends and I would spend hours in the dorms watching the home shopping stylings of John Cremeans aka The Late Nite Doctor of Shopology. Just the other day, I reached an "I'm-too-lazy-to-find-the-remote" mode and ended up watching an entire afternoon's worth of "Sonny With A Chance" on the Disney Channel. My girlfriend can testify that she once caught me in midst of an entire afternoon of down-with-men Lifetime movies.

In other words, I know bad TV. The denizens of the D-List have long been my life's companions. Yet there's one major pitfall of lowest common denominator television that I have, until recently, managed to avoid.

I like to split reality TV into two categories: Classy and Trashy. On the classy side exist shows that I watch without shame: "American Idol," "The Amazing Race," paranormal shows, and anything involving deadliest catches and/or ice road truckers. On the other side? The shows even MY thick skin can't sit through: The Hills, Jersey Shore, teen moms, "real" housewives, and anything involving "celebrities" dating, skating, and/or dancing around.

That said, I've recently fallen under the spell of a show I would normally throw in the trash bin: the current season of "Celebrity Apprentice."

Have you guys seen this fabulous trainwreck yet? Surely by now you know how the show works. Twelve "celebrities" compete against each other for charity in a series of blatant product placements disguised as simple marketing tasks. At the end of every episode, the task results are assessed, resulting in one celebrity being "fired" by famed entrepreneur, hair maven, and (can I REALLY be saying this?) arguable GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

This year, though, Trump's spotlight-hogging has taken a backseat to the wondrous shenanigans of the almost-perfect cast of celebrity has-beens and wanna-bes. In the mix this year? Former "View" co-host (and mega diva) Star Jones, "Real Housewives" star (and mega diva) Nene Leakes, singing sensation (and mega diva) Dionne Warwick, possible Martian (and mega diva) LaToya Jackson... get the pattern? On the men's side, you've got doting rock god Meat Loaf, hip hop mogul Lil Jon, nefarious "Survivor" winner Richard Hatch, and the always bat-poop crazy Gary Busey.

The result is the most hysterical television I've seen all season. Just the other day, Busey's insane antics caused poor grandfather-ly Meat Loaf to scream at him like a mental patient, while the claws have come out full throttle on the women's side and evidence mounts that Dionne Warwick might be the most evil person on the planet. When the sanest character turns out to be a rapper whose biggest contribution to society thus far is yellin "Yeeeeeeah!", you know it's a show worth watching.

The whole thing's got me thinking, though -- could it be even BETTER? Could there be an even better trainwreck of a cast to torment each other and The Donald to the brink of sanity? I think I've figured out the perfect mix. If I was casting director of the next season of Celebrity Apprentice, here's who I'd go for:

* LADY GAGA - A good chunk of the tasks thrown at celebrities involve putting them into embarassing, slightly awkward situations. But is it possible to embarass someone who wears a meat dress to the MTV awards? The only downfall is that every idea she'd bring to the table would have probably been done by Madonna a decade ago.

* ROSIE O'DONNELL - Why should only the CELEBRITIES have to squirm? Rosie and Trump's war of words have been going on for years now - let's let them duke it out in a boardroom cage match and make life rough for The Donald for once.

* MIKE TYSON - In case Rosie chickens out. I just want to see Donald Trump wag his finger at Tyson's face and tell him he's fired. He might not make it out of the boardroom with both ears intact.

* BILL CLINTON - To survive in The Apprentice, you've got to give good boardroom speech, and no-one's better at covering their own butt than our pal Bill. Say what you want about his presidency, the man might just be the best debater of this generation. Plus I just want to see him have to sell ice cream or make a painting or whatever ridiculous task Trump dishes out.

* PAUL LYNDE - Because a team just isn't a team without a snarky effeminate deviant, and no one did it better than our favorite center square. Just one problem -- he's long dead. Which means we need:

* RYAN BUELL, host of A&E's Paranormal State, to communicate with the ghost of Paul Lynde and be there just in case Trump challenges the team to rid a farmhouse of a demonic poltergeist. Hey, always be prepared, I say.

* MUAMMAR KADHAFI - "Muammar, you've been Project Manager of Libya for a record 42 years, and frankly, it's a friggin' mess. Muammar, you're fired." And you thought Trump would make a BAD president, didn't ya?

* KATIE HOLMES - Because of her exceptional leadership skills and business savvy and NOT because she's super cute because I clearly don't find her attractive because I clearly know my girlfriend reads this column. But when one's girlfriend makes one too many references to having a crush on a certain local weatherman (back off, Greg Dutra,) one feels slightly justified in making a passing Katie reference.

* OPRAH - Because it'd be fun to try and watch The Donald boss around someone with MORE money than him, wouldn't it?

* CHARLIE SHEEN - Because a tiger-blooded warlock armed with violent torpedos of truth might just have the winning edge in this circus.

Ah well, a fella can dream, eh? In the meantime, my money's on Lil Jon. Actually, my money's probably on a new present for my girlfriend to make up for calling Katie Holmes cute in print. Either way, you'll have to excuse me. I'm certain there's something horrible on TV that I need to be watching.

COLUMN: Porch

9:02 p.m. "Man, I wish there was someplace we could go and just sit around outside for a while."

It was Saturday night and me, Amy, and my best friend Jason had just left D'alessandro's in Rock Island with full bellies and good moods -- and it just seemed like a waste to end the night. Early spring is my absolute favorite time of the year. It's that small fragile window when you can be outside without humidity or spiders or mosquitos or moths or mayflies or all that other gross stuff they call "nature."

That was when Amy pointed out the obvious.

"Umm, duh," she said. "You DID buy a house. You have a porch now."

Wow. I DO have a porch now. Growing up in the country, our patio looked out on a serene view of a massive front yard, drifting hills of pasture, and nature aplenty. It was a midwestern paradise for some, I'm sure, but I never thought about hanging out there. If I was going to be outside, I wanted to look at something more exciting than grass.

When I first moved to college, my dorm window overlooked the parking lot, and I remember spending those first few nights away from home with the lights out, just staring out and people watching. In Rock Island, people watching is a way of life. You can drive around anywhere in town and spot folks on their porches just watching the world go by. Now, I've got a porch of my own, and that's where the three of us headed as soon as we got back.

9:12 p.m. Talk immediately turns towards the giant tree that grows in my front yard. It's majestic, but is it growing out over the road too low for passing tall trucks? Amy thinks maybe. Jason and I think it's fine.

9:14 p.m. Jason is now standing in the middle of the street, holding a 5' rake over his 7' frame to demonstrate that it touches the lowest tree limb at 12'. This is a nifty science experiment, except none of us know the height of the average truck. We decide that not enough trucks run down our street to care.

9:18 p.m. Amy: "What's the verb for when you invent something and then make it?" This is the intellectual high point of the entire evening.

9:20 p.m. We are now quabbling over whether "create," "produce," or "manufacture" is the best answer to this question.

9:22 p.m. A dude walks by, swearing into his cell phone -- but we rapidly realize he's not swearing INTO his phone, but AT his phone, which has apparantly failed to send a text message of some importance.

9:23 p.m. We agree that "manufacture" is definitely best. Trouble is, I can't remotely remember why she asked this in the first place.

9:25 p.m. Our two neighbors across the street couldn't be more different. House on the Right is a bit of a fixer-upper -- collapsed porch, overgrown lawn (already?!), and blocked windows emitting dim light from rooms in which I can only assume boiling vats of soup await curious neighborhood children. House on the Left is so immaculately landscaped that dark magic MUST be involved.

7:28 p.m., Three Days Into the Future: I just went to type, "our two neighbors across the street," but it came out "our two neighbors across the hall." Parts of my brain still live in my old apartment, methinks.

9:28 p.m. We notice that behind the two houses and across an alley, there's activity in an upstairs window, but it's too far away to see anything except a blob that may or may not be in a shiny red dress. Amy lectures us that leering into a stranger's window isn't just creepy, it might actually be illegal. Point taken, but are you a peeping tom if you're too far away to even ascertain the sex of your target? It's up for debate.

9:35 p.m. A guy walks by and asks us if we have seven cents. I'm pretty sure the same guy asked me for seven cents over five years ago down in the District. I hope he hasn't been seeking the same seven cents all these years.

9:40 p.m. Red Blob keeps repeating the same motions over and over again: She steps in front of the window, and then back... and to the left. Back... and to the left. It's like watching the peeping tom version of the Zapruder film. We try not to stare, but it's the only motion at the moment, and it's red and shiny. But what on Earth is he/she doing? The cha-cha slide?

9:45 p.m. You know a car stereo is impressive when you can clearly hear song lyrics while it's parked at a gas station over a block away. A rapper ensures us that it's alright to smoke narcotics because "that's how it's supposed to be when you're living young and wild and free." I, meanwhile, wonder if I should take a Claritin.

9:47 p.m. Amy heads inside. We worry she's become bored of the porch life until we realize she's running around the house, performing every mundane task she can think of to see if ANY of them involve the back-and-to-the-left motion of Red Blob. "Maybe she's doing dishes... oddly." Are you a peeping tom if you ask your girlfriend if she knows where the telephoto lens for your camera is? The answer is a definite yes and we think twice.

9:50 p.m. Awesome! My wireless works on my porch. Amy and Jason talk about how nice nature is or something lame like that. I, meanwhile, watch highlights of tonight's NASCAR race.

9:55 p.m. The three of us are staring squinty-eyed at Red Blob when a Rock Island police cruiser drives by. The officer waves and asks how we're doing. The answer? SHAMEFULLY, that's how we do. Thank God I didn't grab that camera. Time to look at ANYTHING but Red Blob. Our choice? The black blob that appears to be hanging on the wall behind Red Blob. We are sad, sad people. But what IS that thing?

10:01 p.m. An opossum wanders across the street, onto my lawn, looks at us, and clearly says with his eyes that we don't belong here. We decide to start packing up the lawn chairs.

10:05 p.m. In a flurry of activity, Red Blob shuts the window and turns out the light. Sadly, this is the most entertaining Saturday night any of us have had in an awfully long time.

7:00 p.m., One Day Into The Future. Amy asks me what my column's going to be about. I tell her it's about our exciting night on the porch. She tells me definitely NOT to make us look like creepy pervs who like to leer in our distant neighbor's window. I tell her not to worry. I just like my porch.