At long last (read: I finally asked Gareth how to do this) I've finally managed to sit down and write a greymatter modification that generates an external file with data about recent comments. I've currently got it set up to generate five results, but it can be customized for as many or as few comments as your little journaling heart desires.

So, Andrew asks, what did I think of the Oscar nominations? I think my overwhelming feeling was a complete and utter lack of surprise. I saw a lot of choices that could only be described as "safe." We rant about this every year, he and I, and for once I thought I'd be brave and daring and post my initial commentary today, before all the ad campaigns kick in to try to sway opinions. I'll feel a bit better about my choices after I get to see a couple more movies, but I'm going to talk about all this in my usual pseudo-knowledgeable way. Hey, I pay enough in movie rental fees to finance a low-budget film or two; with that and a tiny dose of misplaced chutzpah, you too can be a movie critic! Enjoy.

Andrew, last year: "Oh, you should come up here for this! You'd love every minute of it. You could come stay with us, and we'd love to have you visit. Why don't you try to arrange to come up here?" In the end, I didn't do it, and had good reasons for not doing so, but I spent the rest of 2001 doing two things: kicking myself for not going, and promising myself that I would go in 2002.

The event: Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival. Location: Champaign, Illinois. Date: late April, 2002.In 2001, I was too ill to attend. Realistically, I knew that I was capable of driving to Illinois, but that once I got there, I would be too exhausted to actually attend the event. So I bowed to the dry, spinsterish voice of reason, and stayed home.

Given that several of my friends grew up in northeast Arkansas, I would make a yearly Christmas-break pilgrimage to visit them and their families. My general rule: see as many people as possible, cause as little fuss as possible, and stay no more than two nights at any one house. Even under those circumstances, I could easily be gone for a week.

In the years that have passed, I've managed to forget all but the most amusing—or embarrassing—moments that occurred during those trips. I distinctly remember the drives Monica and I made back and forth to Paragould, and my complete and utter inability to use my normally-excellent poker face against Matthew. Matthew, of course, beat me senseless at poker and made me laugh the entire time.

(Luckily for me, I know Matthew well enough to know better than to play poker against him for money. Ever.)

A couple of weeks ago, Susan popped up in my life again. I hadn't heard from her in a year or two; the last time I'd heard from her, she was sharing an apartment with a fellow whom, I later learned, was from the United Arab Emirates.

I will say this for Susan: she is cursed to live an interesting life. I began to understand this when I was a sophomore and she a freshman in college. She tried to explain her love of fast cars to me at one point in time, shortly after we met. I don't remember what it was that she drove, but it was all black—from the paint to the tinted windows to the leather interior. I called it the BatCar.

I present to you photos of what may possibly be the most rotten cats in the history of the world. Edmund on the top shelf of my computer desk during the day:

Always good for an or two.

My favorite, though, is when his head and he keeps on sleeping.

Tenzing is more demanding. When he wants scritchies, he lets you know, and he usually gets what he wants: