Certain conversational gambits should come with warning flags. I've decided that any conversation I start that begins with the phrase "So I was on the elliptical, and I was thinking…" should be treated with the same level of skepticism and distrust given to any conversation that starts with "There was this one time at band camp…" Nine times out of ten, it's going to be a boring, dull recitation -- but it's the pesky tenth time around that'll get you when you're not looking, and make you wish you carried a big fat wad of mental floss in your pocket.

1. My current read, Booth Tarkington's "The Magnificent Ambersons," is proving to be one of the most delightful literary exhibitions of schadenfreude I've ever had the pleasure to read. I'm about a third of the way through, and I know that the lead character is going to get everything he deserves: to wit, nothing at all.
2. While we'll miss Sex And The City, we'd like to note that the characters depicted in the show, despite protestations to the contrary, bear as much resemblance to the rest of humanity as a soap opera about mutant Prada-wearing cockroaches.

With twenty minutes left to go on the elliptical machine this morning, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was time for us to purchase a new mp3 player. Our current one, bought for $30 off of Heather some time ago, has developed the electrical equipment of Alzheimer's; it no longer remembers that it's supposed to play mp3s as well as audio CDs, and only plays audio CDs when it gets up on the right side of the bed that morning.

We watch the strangest stuff around here. Possibly the only thing stranger than a couple who intends to remain childless watching a show about human reproduction is hearing said couple's comments during the course of the show.

If someone starts showing me a laparoscopic view of actual human ovary as it's trying to, well, ovulate, of course I'm going to start providing Gary Larson-style commentary:

*hand puppet*

"Hi, I'm an ovary."

(Perhaps it was funnier if you were there.)

A few minutes later, as the nice little camera image shows the unfertilized egg ambling along toward the uterus:

Part two of two. Yang: light.

...and yet, it isn't all sadness; there are hours and days in which the sadness doesn't come, and making a last-minute run to the store to buy crayons leaves you laughing, marveling at how the streams of light from the snarled traffic on the other side of the road remind you of nothing but a long string of Christmas lights.

Life's like that.Or, as gleefully said to Heather earlier today:

me: Oh dear. We get both IFC and Sundance.

Those of us who read entertainment news with any degree of amusement, skepticism, or fascination have probably greeted the idea of Spike TV with either a waggle of eyebrow (or at least a waggle of tentacle). "Television for men," they say.

"So," you say (if you're me), "what portions of the male television need have not been met? What heretofore-undiscovered niche of male television programming has not already been exploited for its inherent commercial breaks?"