Think of this as trash day. I'm tossing out all the little things I've wanted to write about but weren't big enough to merit their own post. So I'm cleaning out those three sentence posts I've got saved as drafts. Revel in my randomness!

Two really trivial things that bug the shit out of me

1. DVDs that don't let you skip forward to the menu. The perfect DVD would have me pushing that play button within three seconds of inserting the disk. Anything more than that is hijacking my time. I bought the DVD for the movie, not for previews, animated menus, and several minutes of Interpol notices.

2. Those magnetic yellow ribbons that people stick on the back of their cars. Supporting the troops is great, but isn't that the default position? Everyone supports the troops. I know some people that are rabidly anti-war. Even those people love the 25th Infantry Division. They just hate the way they're being used. Everybody knows that supporting a war is different from supporting the troops. And besides, the troops who need support aren't hanging around behind your SUV to see your pretty magnet. Exactly how is your magnet supporting the troops, anyway? Supporting the troops means writing letters, sending care packages, actually doing something. Your magnet is for you, not for them. Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm on to you.

Four reasons I want to be a vampire

1. I want to live forever. Not for some egocentric "I am the lizard king" bullshit reason, but so that I can watch all that history roll by. I'm picturing in my head scenes from The Time Machine, where everything zooms past and Rod Taylor watches the changing fashions on the mannequin across the street.

2. Vampires tend to wear much cooler clothes than I do.

3. Vampires stay up all night and sleep all day. That's kinda what I do now anyway.

4. Vampires have really cool soundtracks.

Three outbursts

1. Favorite exclamation that I have yet to use: crap mackerel! (Thanks, Blog Kris)

2. Favorite insult that delights me whenever I hear it: ass clown. (Thanks, Chevalier)

3. Favorite insult that I use all the time: slow-learning mouth-breather. (Thanks, uh… whoever)

Two unrealistic desires

1. You've seen the old James Bond movies, right? There was one where Bond is skiing down a mountain with bad guys chasing him. He skis right off a cliff. But rather than plummeting to his doom, we suddenly learn that he's wearing a parachute. The chute pops out. The theme song plays. That's what I want. Just once I want to do something so outrageously cool that I hear the James Bond theme in the background.

2. Recently I tried a new brand of condom, Inspiral. The package lists quotes from GQ, Cosmopolitan, and Men's Health, each quote saying some variation of "Top Rated." That's what I want. I want to be the condom rating guy.

Three news stories that caught my eye today

1. You heard about today's bombing outside the British consulate? Reuters has a headline about it: NY blast could have link to Britain or Middle East. So… the bomb in front of the British consulate might be related to Britain? At least they aren't jumping to conclusions.

2. BBC News reports a guy sold the Pope's car on eBay Germany. Don't get excited… it's not the Popemobile. It's some car the Pope owned five or six years ago. The winning bid of 189,000 Euros was from GoldenPalace.com. What the hell are those guys doing? Are they planning a Museum of The Weird? They bought the Virgin Mary grilled cheese, a porn star's breast implants, advertising space on a woman's chest, Britney's used home pregnancy test kit, the naming rights to a newborn, etc., etc.

   I wonder how much I can get for my soul?

3. Remember when Al Gore took too much credit for "creating the internet?" The truth is that he was a powerful and consistent voice, always pushing for more funding and development when he was in Congress and the Vice President's mansion. The organizers of the Webby Awards are belatedly trying to make sure he gets his due. The Washington Post reports that Gore will receive a lifetime achievement award for… well, creating the internet. The award will be presented June 6th by internet pioneer Vint Cerf.

Three search engine hits

Me-ow!

1. #2 on Yahoo! for ann coulter haiku. See? I knew there was an unfulfilled demand.

2. #6 on Google U.K. for played deputy prime ministers secretary in ali g indahouse. I thought everybody knew about IMDb, but apparently this guy didn't. The actress in question is world-class hottie Rhona Mitra.

   On a related note, why is it we still use the word "played" interchangeably with "acted," but we no longer use "player" interchangeably with "actor?"

3. #1 on Google for Too my salad. I've got so much anilingus here, there's even some left over for those who can't spell.

Two memories from my childhood

1. Years ago, the world didn't seem to be such a dangerous place for children. Parents could let their kids go to the park without fearing they'd never return. I'm just old enough to have caught the end of that era.

   There was this one time my mother went to this ceramics store. She must have been afraid I'd break something, because she had me wait out on the sidewalk. I was about six years old and I was just standing there waiting. A car pulled up in front of me. I don't remember what kind of car it was, but I remember it was really shiny. A man got out of the car and headed toward one of the other shops. He saw me looking at his car and he said something like, "Hey, kid. If you watch my car, make sure nobody touches it, I'll give you ten dollars when I get back." Of course I agreed.

   I spent the next five minutes or so guarding his car diligently and dreaming about what I'd do with my vast fortune. When the man came out of the shop, he got back in his car without a word. He didn't even look at me as he drove away in his nice shiny car.

   Fucker. I hate that guy.

2. When I was seven years old there was a family that lived two houses down from me. There was a boy whose name I don't remember and a girl named Violet. The three of us were fast friends. There was one evening when the kids and their parents came over to my house. We all stayed out back as it got dark. The four parents sat on the back porch drinking beers and Cokes from glass bottles. Their cigarettes were like flares in the darkness. Me, Violet, and her little brother crept around the yard trying to catch lightning bugs. Most of the time it was "catch and release." We always wanted to keep them, but our parents always told us they'd die in a day or two anyway.

   There were so many lightning bugs then. Any night we wanted, we could catch a few dozen. They were everywhere. My back yard was like a field of stars. Lightning bugs seem to be getting more scarce all the time. I haven't seen one in two or three years.

   Think about it a bit, and that becomes a really depressing metaphor.