Imagine my delight when I found this book in my mailbox, courtesy of the brilliant and philanthropic Amanda Frazier. Amanda, as some of you may recall, sent me a little something from my Amazon wish list once before. This is how they used to do it back in the day, you know; wise and discriminating patrons (like Ms. Frazier, for example) would identify worthy artistic talent (which I guess — since we're using Amanda as an example of the noble patron — in this case would be me), and then buy them nice things. As all of you know, I am a firm supporter of tradition.

Of course now that it counts, I am at a loss to conjure something witty and insightful to say. So I'll just say thank you, Amanda.

And thank you as well to all of the nice people who send me emails (the corollary, for those of you who've sent me unkind emails, is bite me, though I can't expect you would know what the word "corollary" means). I am terrible about replying in a timely fashion, but be assured that I keep all of your emails until they've built up like a great ponderous snow drift of guilt, and then I reply to them in a marathon email session that leaves me almost as drained as if I'd spent the time engaged in actual human contact.

As an aside, some of you have asked why I've disabled the comments section of my website. It's not you; it's me. I got tired of policing them for spam. Speaking of which, did you ever wonder why we call it "spam?" Why single out that particular processed food product for ridicule? Why not pork rinds, or Fruit Roll-Ups, or Velveeta?

I've gotta get one of those Internet filters; my Inbox is stuffed with Velveeta.

Doesn't that sound more exciting? Plus, if you think about it, Velveeta is more capable of combining itself with other things, and the reality is that lots of email that isn't quite officially spam sure has plenty of extraneous junk in it. It's infused with Velveeta, in other words. Try it out for a while and see if it works, that's all I'm asking.

But the point here is not to bury Velveeta, but to praise Amanda Frazier, who is far more classy and generous than a rectangle of gelatinous cheese spread. And I'll bet nobody's ever complimented you that way before, have they Amanda?

In conclusion, I'd like all of you to think something nice about Amanda. Right now. But please, don't feel pressured to emulate her example. Not everyone can be as kind and generous and thoughtful of other people, after all. I'm sure the rest of you have really important things to worry over, and can't be troubled to think about whether Tony will ever get all the delightful things taunting him from his Amazon wish list. So don't feel guilty one bit. Really.

And thank you, Amanda. It's nice to know that somebody cares.