The interwebs are stalking me.

Am I a guy who’s taste in popular culture is, well, unpopular? Well sure. Reason #4: there are few things I enjoy less than psychological “thrillers,” such as they are, that seem to dribble out of Hollywood at a predictable rate. And of course to me, the predictable rate of their production is matched only by the predictability of their plots. To wit: a spunky / world-weary Protagonist who is a hapless victim / detective inevitably stumbles-into / is preyed upon by a disarmingly attractive sociopath / disturbingly charismatic psychopath. Now go ahead and mix and match.

Anyway, fans of the genre will know that the above formula requires, as often as not, a scene somewhere in the movie in which Protagonist finds his or her way into the lair of the attractive sociopath / charismatic psychopath. The lair is inevitably covered in newspaper clippings, photographs and manic scribbling, all of which are a product of the aforementioned wackjob’s crazy obsession with the Protagonist, if not a general spooky madness.

So really all of this is just my characteristically long-winded way of pointing out something very simple; that there are places in the real world which are covered with clippings, pictures and scribblings… about you. Really, unless you’ve been living the life of a digital Luddite, the interwebs are full of the electronic detritus that you inadvertently leave behind. Ever hear of Pipl.com? Peekyou.com? Go on, put your name in. I’ll wait.

There. So how creepy is that? *shudders* Now I’ll grant you that I seem to have left a broader swath of digital debris in my wake than the average bear, but still, it’s something to consider the next time you think about signing up for MySquareTwitterFaceSpaceYelpBook.com, or some such similar nonsense. Or if you’re going to anyway, at least think about using protection. You know, like a fake name.

Hey, have a nice day!

Harbingers, holidays, and science. And my pants.

In case you hadn’t noticed, harbingers, not unlike celebrity deaths, tend to come in threes. Here in our little neck of the woods just outside the city that nobody calls the big apple, there are three major harbingers that Santa will be calling before you know it. The first is that the leaves have finally finished falling, the second is that the infestation of vermin called Canada geese has temporarily retreated, and the last is that the waist sizes of all my pants have also begun their annual retreat.

Despite the obvious iron-clad scientific basis for these seasonal events, my Lovely Bride never hesitates to question that last one about my pants. She has been known, for instance, to wonder aloud about how likely it is that my pants really do experience a cycle of holiday shrinkage and summer expansion. Moreover, she’ll even suggest that the Holiday Pants Effect is nothing more than me eating a lot of pumpkin pie.

Really? Does no one remember sixth grade science class? Cold makes things contract and heat makes them expand. Like pants. Sheesh, chicks and science. Anyway, happy harbingers, people!