In marketing, it's all about timing.

 
It's probably just me, but when university folk spend two years worrying over reptilian gastronomy, I have trouble calling them biologists.

 
Keep an eye out for a new phrase on the blogmeme horizon: Trent mouth.

 
Old Guy: "Things were better when I was a kid."

Kafkaesquí: "What, you mean like the depression?"

Old Guy: "No, but they were better."

Kafkaesquí: "World War II?"

Old Guy: "No, but they were better."

Kafkaesquí: "Lower life expectancy, higher death rate in children? Segregation? The beginning threat of nuclear war?"

Old Guy: "No. But they were better."

Kafkaesquí: "How so?"

Old Guy: "We could keep our doors unlocked at night."

Kafkaesquí: "Ahh. That does sound better."

 
Interesting. Now as long as they don't get Cats, I see this is as good sign.

 
Amazing how on top of things the US government is when it comes to dealing with Saddam (or in this case, Saddam and family). Next up, Microsoft will be told asked to refuse Saddam's nephew an upgrade to his copy of MS Flight Simulator. You all know why.

 
Diane over at Letter from Gotham has given the blog Gene Expression a new name: Boobs and Brains. I guess it's nice when you have both.

(By the way, wouldn't it be sort of cool to have the name Gene O'Type and work in DNA research?)

 
Yet another sign of the coming apocalypse.

British friends who belittle television here in the states will now be ridiculed. That is, until we Americanize this and put it on opposite The Bachelor.

 
As far as the dog is concerned, this is pure one-upmanship.

 
Hey Christians (hell, hey to everyone), do you want to eat like Jesus and his disciples, but don't look forward to all that old-fashioned farming and foraging and cooking over an open flame? Well, now you can get it prepackaged.

For the nutrition-conscious, not to worry. Seems God was a bit of a health nut. I mean is. Hmm. I think what I mean to say... Nevermind. You'll figure it out.

 
Damn!

And when I say "damn," I mean "I'm glad they've banned this vile, disgusting activity." Now excuse me while I go scratch Seattle off my vacation list.

 
Are you stuck trying to find the right Christmas gift for the socially conscious (i.e. annoying) friend? Check out SweatX.

Being a leftist radical doesn't mean being out of fashion any more.

 
Isn't this the opposite of reality television?

 
Clarence Thomas: "Excuse me sweetie, but is that a pubic hair on my Coke?"

Intern: "No, your honor, it's just my panties."

 

Finally, proof that reincarnation exists. (Hey, at least I avoided the "separated at birth" cliche.)

 
Digging a bit through the guff archives, I'm finding a number of off-site links now lead to invalid or nonexistent locations, thereby destroying the small value my vague comments on them may have offered. So from now on, the rule is: links suck.

It's a shame I'll keep using them.

 
While I was away, I had some (thankfully) fleeting thoughts about changing the direction of this blog. One possible navigational plotting I could have taken was to add to the noise of anti-pundit discourse, which by that I mean picking apart and destabilizing the posts and/or op-ed pieces of various pol pundits I disagree with (and these are legion).

However, there's a bit of problem with that, at least in my case: you have to read them to dissect them. And really, I have enough opinions of my own to want to bother with the hassle of providing due attention to others.

 
I've always been a big fan of Dr. Suezz.

 
During my (more than a) month away, I noticed some things on the blogging front, at least in my neighborhood:

Diane at Letter from Gotham stopped blogging (again), then quietly returned. Ok, maybe not quietly. Then she changed LfG's look. Um, pretty.

Shannon moved! However, she apparently dropped the ball on her NaNoWriMo novel. I'll cut her some slack.

John Scalzi decided to post his latest SF novel online. I'll let you read why. I really have to add him to my blog links...

Just as Tom moved over to Movable Type, it appears Phil may be planning a move away from it. Or not.

Blogger's user discussion forums broke, and remain so. Actually, they went south back in October, but no one made much of a fuss about it. Not even me.

(Addendum - forgot to mention that Yahoo fora were set up to *replace* these, for Blogger Developers, Blogger user support, and Blogger Pro help.)

A query on Google for "guff" lists this blog as the #3 result. Several months ago I was down around #8. Proof you can move up in the world without even trying.

 
Why won't I date European women who smoke? I have my reasons.

I am not dead, thank you very much. Expect more from me soon.