Been pretty quiet around here lately, huh? There's a good reason for that: my life is almost unutterably dull. But here, in the spirit of . . . something that I do not have a word for . . . let me give you some excerpts from recent goings-on!

You remember a post a while ago bragging about my winning at poker? Yeah, you can go ahead and ignore that. We had another poker night, and not only was I knocked out first (my pocket queens ran up against pocket aces), I didn't win one single hand. Joining me at the table was a guy named (allegedly) Elvis, who sported a good old fashioned handlebar moustache and who has no social skills at all, and a guy named Bert, who eventually won, and I assume ran home to roll around ecstatically on his tiny pile of money, upon which he later fucked his muppet gay lover.

Oh, and then a couple weeks later I lost at a fundraiser poker tournament, though not so spectacularly. This time I lost to a perfectly nice matronly gal who called my pocket sevens with absolutely nothing but suited cards--I think one of them might have been the joker of diamonds--and rivered a flush. I think it's safe to say that my terrifying reign of terrifying terror is over and that Phil Ivey should stop nervously throwing rocks at my wife.

You know, I have been meaning to write some stuff. Last week, I came up with an idea, too! I had it all planned out. It was to have been called "Hollywood Celebrities Who Are Also Elements." Here are some of the things I actually wrote down. Seriously, I'm transcribing this off of my scribblings on a Premera Blue Cross bill.

Weird Aluminum Yankovich
Molybdenum Shannon
Bradium Pitt
Cesiummer Glau
Max Vanadium Sydow (Jesus Christ)
Beryllium Streep
Timothydrogen Olyphant
Radon Chong

So I guess I'm losing my mind, probably because of my poker-related poverty conditions that have caused me to shoot rats for food. I got as far as typing out this:

RADON CHONG

"This faintly famous actress, known for her work in such movies as The Color Purple and Soul Man, later became known for becoming the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States. Radon Chong poisoning occurs when areas without adequate ventilation build up high amounts of radon gas. This can occur in underground mines, basements and in the homes of viewers of Commando."

Hilarious! Don't you wish I had filled out the rest of the list?

What else? Oh, right, I got a fresh lesson in WHAT NOT TO DO: Do not go out on the town with bartenders. I went out with my friend Will, who tends bar at The Place That Shall Not Be Named, and here's the thing. Bartenders all tend to know each other. We went up to Liberty, a perfectly lovely little jewel box of a lounge, and immediately the bartender there zoomed over armed with four bottles of whiskey, three of which I had never heard of. (Alternate strategy: always go out on the town with bartenders.) He proceeded to pour us shot after shot of gratis (dynamite) booze; I hadn't even gotten around to eating anything.

Here's another thing: bartenders are willfully perverse animals, given to doing insane things for no good reason at all. Which doesn't go far explaining why Will ordered us some daquiri shots, or, later, when ordering two shots of vodka, sorrowfully told our waitress, "Man, I hate vodka." But she was a pro, and didn't blink at this illogic. The next day, Will asked me, "Did I even eat anything?" Will is fifteen years younger and me and is famous for eating anything that comes into his ambit. "You ate the galaxy," I said. "You are Galactus. Then you drank God's shining blood."

"Who's Galactus?" he said, so I punched him in the face. Then he ordered a couple of killer bee shots, even though we were in a library. Don't go out on the town with bartenders, I'm telling you. Don't even go to the library.