Clearly, insects continue to be the greatest fear of the human race.

Let us ponder this for a moment, you and I. Science fiction, ever-dystopian genre that it is, has always featured a populace-menacing array of buglike aliens, monsters, and general jibblie-jabblies. Most look like spiders, many have that crazy "exoskeleton" thing going on -- too cool, apparently, to be like us far more sensible beings who be keepin' it on the inside -- while still other science fiction monsters, Matrix-like, enjoy the occasional skeleton-less, "tentacle-y" form of the squid. (I hereby claim this new word, this "tentacle-y," for England. May they guard it well, and keep it out of the reach of disturbing web searches.) In my opinion, our societal monsters usually take the form of insects because, well, insects are gross. People regularly fear the gross -- childbirth, the dentist, eggplant parmesan -- of course, but insects have the added bonus of being purely instinctual creatures. To us, they are beings without brains, operating without reason, and thus they must be incomprehensible, creepy, and unable to be reasoned with, and therefore our insect-monsters on film represent a primeval sense of the other -- they are not precisely human, they are not "like us," and because we fear "difference" at every turn, giant buggies scrambling around in space continue to freak the "civilized" societal crap out of shrieking denizens everywhere. After all, science fiction isn't really about the future. Instead, that genre reflects the fears of our present. And you never know. Giant, unknown, well-and-many-armed outsiders might very well threaten our own little happy-dappy societal constructs of endoskeletal existence.

And now, let us take a moment to thank overpriced university education for clogging up my brain with utterly useless information like that. Perhaps someday, somewhere, in a not-too distant dystopian future, you too will be able to make use of your insignificant clutterhead ramblings. Perhaps, say, on a good night. When you let the insightful bedbugs bite.

Sometimes you can't help but think, "Gee, the entire world is asleep except for me."

But that's silly, you. Not only is the word "gee" decidedly out of fashion except amongst those with brothers named Wally, somebody out there has to be awake too -- just like me, curious insomniac that I am. At any given time in this sleepless little world, after all, a whole crop of somebodies are awake while others are asleep, what with our collectively living on top of a spheroid and all -- spheroid being the operative word, of course. On a big round sphere, on completely opposite sides, there's always somebody who's asleep, and somebody who's awake. Nice to know, right? Kind of evens the odds, yeah? Surely the pre-Columbus world was a bit more unsettling. Just imagine the plight of some sorry, sole, sleepless explorer, the only one left on watch, gazing out across the sea and just knowing that every one else on this stupid flat planet happened to be sound asleep. Of course, said explorer also just knew they were going to contract the dreaded scurvy any minute now, because between the oppressing of natives and the singing of chanteys, there was hardly any time to monitor one's citrus fruit intake.

So good-morning to you, other-sided sphere people, and don't spare the limes.

You know what's funny?

Nothing. Nothing's funny.

Okay, scratch that. Applebee's is sort of funny. Today my mum described that particular restuarant chain in the following manner: "It's like a ... like a ... well, it's like a slightly above-par Denny's," thereby rendering herself both humorously accurate and providing convincing evidence as to where I received my vocabulary genes. Also, I've noticed that the web -- o web, that seedy, mostly-settled frontier which remains ever-fraught by advertising ambushery! -- seems to have gotten a bit more wry around the personal edges these days, and let's face it, Toothpaste for Dinner is funny. In fact, I fancy this one, this one, this one too, and this one made my sides ache. In a good way. And this, well. That's for free, mateys.

Oh, you other people and your other humor.

Do you know why we -- mostly-humans that we are -- continue to love watching the Olympics?

Because there's something truly luscious about reclining on the couch with, say, a couple of choice bon-bons, all for the sole purpose of observing ridiculously active people as they run about like drug-infused racehorses. Surely this is how Caesar must have felt at the Colosseum -- you know, when he could watch the liberal spray of lion's blood from behind a protective screen of rose petals, palmetto fans, salad dressing, and pre-Brutus despotism.

Ah, luxury. See you next time in Beijing.

This holiday thing has gone too far. Not only are the local Hallmarks already full-up with the baffling anomaly of Saint Patrick's Day cards, but upon my last recent romp around the grocery store aisles, I discovered that the shelves are still full of discount Valentine candy. Think about that for a moment. Think of the sheer, mad, unadulterated holiday conflict of it all. "Darling, I finally remembered to celebrate our love with a dilapidated teddy bear, and I decided to herald our noble Irish descendancy with a little card o' mass-marketed sentiment! Ach, faith and begorra, but that Saint Valentine is always after me lucky charms!"

Cards are a silly bit of business anyway. Perhaps I am disloyal to my sex and my loved ones for thinking so, but come on now. They are silly, particularly if you haven't the presence of mind to pencil-in something witty and sentimental and important on your own damn terms -- erm, I mean, in your own damn words. And isn't that sort of the antithesis of a card in the first place? "Look, darling, here is a snappy commercial sentiment! And also, like a sort of mad, personal bonus, here is one of my own!" Yet cards remain a ubiquitous entity in the hallmarked proceeding of life -- I dare you to look that one up; in fact, I double dog dare you with cherries on top -- and sometimes cards are even needed, and they're pretty much always appreciated. I think. And yet they're silly. Cards are the Catch-22 of trumped-up holiday giving. But you better remember to give me one, because by gumbo, I like my mad little share of silliness.

Having wound up with such a multi-contradictory scribbling like this, I very well could begin to suspect myself of a preemptory nip at the Guinness. If I weren't so voguishly straight-edge, that is. Besides, the Guinness won't go on sale until after the holiday.