I'm going to admit freely that I don't understand the cycle sp*mmers use for sending sp*m. I read, or at least saw mention of, an article a couple of weeks ago suggesting that there are really only four main sp*mmers in the world, and that they're responsible for 90% of all electronic sp*m.

I don't doubt it. One week it's all sexual potency drugs to enhance my male performance. The next week it's a cure for my bald pate that's guaranteed to attract coeds and starlets. On week three, it's about my heart disease (probably cause-and-effect from week two) and then the final cycle is all about how I'm financially set now that my mortgage refinancing has been approved. (I probably should have done that before I started chasing starlets.)

Maybe the four of them are taking turns, that's all I'm suggesting. Work one week, then take the next three off?

Every now and then, just to prove that women aren't the only ones worried about tubby tummies and droopy derrieres, comes a cycle of diet offers, targeted toward both male and female readers. I look on that sp*mmer as a relief pitcher. (S)He shows up when one of the others needs an extra day off unexpectedly.

And then there are the articles, of course. Not just about the sp*mmers, but about how the internet is killing us all and besides that, making us fat and lazy.

When I was young, television made us fat. Also, it gave us eye strain from constantly following moving figures and we were all going to get cancer if we sat too close to a color set.

Now they say we're all more obese than ever and I find myself randomly wondering if it's because we're burning fewer calories now that not even our eyes are moving.

For the record? In case any of you were wondering? I have a thick head of hair, no heart disease, and my biggest financial problem at the moment is the need to get to a bank and change a $20 before the weekend so I have some small bills for tipping with. My weight is not out of control and my sex life is noneofyerbusiness.

Also I need to get some snacks. Because snacks make me happy. But only allowable snacks, because a 3-1/2 lb weight loss in 30 days is not to be squandered recklessly.

Snacks were better in the olden days, you know. Did you ever notice that? Ritz crackers were butteryer. Popcorn was fluffier. Oranges were sweeter. Candy bars were creamier and twice as big. Gumballs weren't more empty center than gum. Animal crackers tasted more like crackers and less like dust. Ice cream was creamier.

Snacks were better in the olden days. Lots of things were better in the olden days.

I'm sure I've already waxed romantically geriatric over the wonders of television shows that lasted as long as they lasted and where commercial breaks were placed where they'd least disrupt the show, instead of today's regimented 12-minute program intervals that interrupt the incessant product hawking.

Shopping was better in the olden days. When you went to a different city, they had different stores. You didn't find the same, cookie-cutter mall in every city of any size across the country. When you went someplace new, you found different things to look at or even to buy.

When you went to "amusement parks" or "theme parks," every souvenir you saw wasn't stamped "Made In China/Japan/Korea/Other-place-not-here" either. Some things used to be made here in the olden days.

Happily, some things haven't changed. You still get New Book Smell when you open a new book up, although I notice that different genres have different smells these days and what's up with that? I sort of miss the days when you'd buy a new book and find that the page-cutting machine had missed a bit and you had to cut the corner of a page or two yourself. That's as new as a new book can feel, isn't it? (Yeah, yeah--I'm the only one here who has been alive that long. Bite me.)

There are days (more than you know) when I can't think of anything sensible or interesting to write about.

Unless you'd like to hear that the company I finally got my resume sent to yesterday already hired someone for the position--yesterday.

My own fault for dinking around. Concept-wise, I wasn't in love with the company anyhow, so it's not entirely a heart-breaker.

They offered me the sop of "telesales" which was nice and shows that DiamondGirl's reference meant something to them, but I think not. Their sales manager was the first person I talked to (last night) and he said their people cycle 80-90 calls/day. That's not "sales." That's a churn-and-burn cycle, built on the premise that there will always be an unlimited pool of fools to employ, so it doesn't matter how fast you go through them. Real sales departments consider 30-40 calls in a day to be a heavy call load. All this group is doing is dialing phone numbers, looking for someone who won't hang up on them, which means their "cold" calls are probably just randomly acquired lists. People who have to do that work have my sympathy but I don't intend to be one of them.