What they don't know is... every night, I come in and eat the M&Ms. It's like the elves and the shoemaker, only in reverse.

Thanks, I appreciate it. (ha!)

That's why I try to underachieve as much as possible. That way you get inured to that problem.

I love Decemeber. It's my second favorite month after December.

Is the real estate office really a cardboard box? Because sometimes I tell my family I'm going to the law library when in reality I'm going out to hide in a cardboard refrigerator box. I just assumed everyone does it.

Hmmmm.... okay, done pondering, GIVE ME PRESENTS!

Be glad that it's always something. If it stops being always something, it starts being always nothing.
That means you're dead.

As in, you have a huge water mammal gaining on you? How WOULD you get into that predicament?

It's funny, but that kind of thing isn't as rare as it used to be.

Keep it to yourself, big guy. Remember the restraining order.

Because I drug you each night. You just don't notice because I'm stealthy. And a ninja. And invisible.

You're a hateful, hateful man, Matt. Makin' us all feel bad.
I did a pull-up yesterday.
Okay, it was more of a pull-down. But the Pop Tarts box was REALLY HIGH so I'm counting it.

"plotting" for Christmas? Somehow those two things don't seem like they'd go together... unless you're the Grinch who Stole Christmas.

And now (for those of you who haven't already given up), you should be thinking "WTF?" (meaning, of course, "Where's The Fudge?" Answer: there is none. Give it up already.)

But seriously, what the heck was all that?

Well, I'll tell you. But first, a random-seeming segue that will seem less random after I'm done. Stick with me just a little longer.

Fourteen years ago I returned from a two year stint as a missionary in Paraguay, South America. It was a great time, especially if you like flying cockroaches the size of a Cap'n Crunch box. It was also a great time for the "interweb" as it's come to be known. Unfortunately, the areas I was living in usually didn't have phones, let alone computers. So when I returned, all this interweb stuff was new. In fact, several friends sent me cryptic letters while I was in South America, referencing things like "emails" and "chatrooms" (actually they were called "muckrooms" back then), and other jargon-y sounding things that I did not understand at all and chalked up to the fact that most of my friends were drug addled lunatics. Well, not most. Okay, only one. I'm looking at you, Vinnie!

At any rate, when I returned from my missionary time, after getting a full body scrubdown and being coated with lime to prevent the spread of my South American cooties to anyone else, my parents took it upon themselves to show me the joys of the interweb.

My dad was an English professor. That meant all-access time at the university computer lab. My parents "signed me on," gave me a "user name," and suddenly BAMMO! I'm talking to some guy in Norway whose username is something like Gorbladt or Shrimschirver or something equally Dungeons and Dragons sounding.

Even so, it was amazing! I was talking to Gorbladt! All the way in Sweden! (I know, I said Norway before, but I honestly don't remember which it was. Someplace with lots of tall blonde people, so either one of the Scandinavian countries or Beverly Hills.)

Gorbladt and I "chatted" as the techies called it for a good half-hour before my fingers started cramping and I realized that I had to stretch (meaning pee). So I said my fond farewells to my new best friend Gorbladt, promised to "muck into him" again real soon, and stood up.

And here is where I stopped in my tracks. No, I hadn't wet myself. It was something else this time. I looked around and realized that I was in a room full of college students.

Let me say that again: I was in a room full of college students.

Some of you may not be getting the inference here, so I'll just come out and say it: I'd just spent the last half hour making life-partner attachments to a guy in a foreign land (Beverly Hills) who insisted on telling me that his "alignment" was "good/chaotic" who I would NEVER SEE AGAIN while sitting in a room full of people that I could actually touch, make real friendsies with, and would probably be seeing in class at some point, since I was going to start school there in a week or so.

I actually got goose-pimples. The threats to my social life and my sanity were so clear that the next time I got on a computer to use email or a chatroom was when it was mandated by one of my teachers: I didn't want to get sucked in to a virtual world full of "people" who were no more than fictitious avatars made up by folks I would never really get to know... and at the expense of time that could have been spent making a real difference in my immediate community, in the world that I actually physically touched day by day.

And so now we circle back to my list of weird one-liners. What was all that? It was my last few entries on Facebook. Fourteen years after my abandonment of what I saw as a freakish misuse of time and social output, I no longer even "chat" with Gorbladt: I am reduced to one-liners that would have made Dan Quayle blush back in the day when people actually made fun of him (you younguns may not remember such a time, but before he became inconveniently truthful he had a knack for sounding inconveniently dumbful).

Where am I going with this (far too long) essay. Well, first of all, I'd like to point out that I did classify it under the "ultimate randimosity" tag, so you should have known what you were getting into.

But blame game aside, my point is that we've become a society of lonely people whose only hope for finding friendship resides in a little white box (or thin overpriced laptop if your a Mac cultist - er, user). Ask yourself this, as you read this column: when was the last time I Facebooked, or Tweeted, or Digged, or Goobahed,* or Whatevered?

Now, ask yourself: if you are at work, when was the last time you went into the office/cubicle next to yours and asked your coworker something about their family, their school, their religion, their politics, their LIFE? If you are at home, do you even know your next-door-neighbors' last names? If they have kids? Have you taken them cookies?

Don't get me wrong. I don't think we should abandon all things electric and go back to beating on one another with clubs to determine which one gets the cave-girl with the most teeth (though I do have a club and have been practicing... you never know). But I do think that the balance of our lives has shifted. We complain about being stuck inside in a cubicle or office all day, then go home and voluntarily stick ourselves in a room with no one but Gorbladt for company.

Think how many hours a day you spend using a computer for silly little Tweets or Facebook entries. I'm not telling you to stop. But I am asking this: if you spent one tenth of that time on making the world a better place, what could you accomplish?

I'd write more about this, but I think that question is a good note to stop on. I'm going to log off and talk go ask my boss how his mom is doing.

*That one was made up. But I've already trademarked the name, so no stealing.