I was, then, very, very sick. I am not completely done being sick, but the worst is past. I can't remember ever having been more sick. Sunday was the worst. I couldn't really move. I had to keep all the lights off. Even the TV or the computer monitor took the pain of my headache up to '11'. Oh! I was beset. I couldn't take any time off from work, since the rabbi is off to California this week and had to cram to make up for it, including a marathon session where we composed a letter to the New York Times calling William Safire's favorite bioethicist wack, so all I could do was be dazed and plan to pass out during most non-work periods. It sucked.

Why does the rabbi get to go to California? Man, I never go anywhere.

I want to apologize to the several dozen people who were referred to this webpage over the last few days in their search for information on the Mayamura vs. Chase Manhattan lawsuit. Apparently, mine was one of only two or three pages on the entire web to make mention of the lawsuit, a hefty class action affair that netted me a cool 86 cents from a credit card I'd cancelled nearly a year before. Even law-related engines like lawcrawler and ilor were referring hapless law students to me. I doubt they found anything useful. Sorry. If you actually get to meet ol' Mayamura, though, sent him my best. That guy rocks.

ADVICE FOR WRITERS:
Title your first book The Koran. People will think it is the other, more famous book titled The Koran, and they will buy it. Mohammed did not register The Koran as a legal trademark under U.S. copyright law, so you will not be sued.

PRO:
The sales will be good. Hopefully, they will like it so much that they will keep reading even after they've discovered that it is all about relationships and crap, not Allah.

CON:
Muslims will not approve of this practice. It will be awkward between you and them at parties or in the elevator. They might have liked your book otherwise.

My job began on an awkward note last month when I ate the rabbi's Hannukah present. It was chocolate. I thought it was for me. It seemed like a very nice thing for the company to do, giving all of the employees a present of some chocolate for Hannukah, but it turned out to have been for the boss man, not for me. There was a card that said as much. I was hungry, though, and didn't read the card until after I was done. I felt bad. I threw away the card and made no mention of the chocolate when the rabbi came by, and it seems safe to say, one month later, that he knew nothing about it. (I didn't want to lose the new job, but it did seem like a pretty funny reason to get fired.) On Monday, people came by to drop off a tub of Tu B'Shevat kosher trail mix. Tu B'Shevat, according to the card, is the Jewish Arbor Day. I was in a fevered, paranoid state, and the gift seemed like nothing less than an accusation, a bloody red hand on my doorstep. I gaped at it until they came back around again and dropped off a second tub for the rabbi. I calmed down. When the rabbi came by, he told me I could have his. "Merry Christmas", he said. My paranoia formed a moebius strip.

(news) Fischer said all the Dole bananas in "Super Monkey Ball" originated in Japan, where the game was first released and "Dole was launching, as only the Japanese can, a line of luxury bananas. After all, this is the land of the $70 melon. So it was a great opportunity to do cross-promotion with them."

I bet Mayamura eats only luxury bananas. No, seriously, what the fuck is a luxury banana? Is there a hard-scrabble, life on the streets banana? Must we ghettofy fruit? I checked the corporate webpage, but Dole Asia made no mention of the luxury bananas. They did, however, in order to illustrate the effect that Dole Asia has upon Asia, have a picture of these smiling Asians:

So there's that. These people are eating Bright Yellow for dinner. He will be having some Bright Yellow Drink to go with his Bright Yellow Soup. I hope he's hungry.

(news) Scientists at the World Economic Forum predicted on Friday a grim future replete with unprecedented biological threats, global warming and the possible takeover of humans by robots.

Man, what is going on in New York? There are protests, obviously, but are the depressed mad scientists a front for the billionaire industrialist pigs or are the billionaire industrialist pigs a front for the depressed mad scientists? I mean, that was their phrasing, not mine. Possible takeover of humans by robots, indeed.

It's such a common assumption that robots are intent upon taking over. Babies are cute, robots are bent on domination, etc. Speaking as one of the world's foremost experts on the robot mind, I don't see that humans, at present, have anything that a robot would be all that interested in. They don't care about video game systems or cars or any of that. (They just draw lots on who's going to be the video game system that day.) The average robot might want to get its hands on my kick-ass ninja rattlesnake bowling ball, if I ever buy one, but I probably never will, and further research needs to be done on whether robots would care about bowling in the first place. Robots don't want your cell phones or your CDs or your credit rating. They can get all that stuff for themselves, and without working at some dumb consulting company first. I can see how, if I was dating some cute girl, a robot might try to take over so he could make moves on her. And I have some decent leftover pizza in the fridge, but it wasn't quite so good that a robot would go so far as taking over to get at it. This planet? I don't know. It's nice, but I think if I was a robot, I'd go set up on one of the moons of Saturn and make throwing things at Earth into the national pastime.