From my inbox this morning:

Jonathan,

My name is xxx, and I’m a Program Manager here at the Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft. I work on Excel.

I’m a regular reader of Slog, and saw your post back in February about the lack of custom error bars in Excel 2008.

I just wanted to reach out and let you know that our first Service Pack for Office 2008 became available as of this morning, and custom error bars are now back in the product (along with a host of other fixes and improvements). You can get SP1 from our downloads page.

Thanks very much for your business, and the feedback.
Have a great day!

I started dancing at lab upon hearing this. Custom! Error! Bars!

Team Youth Pastor Watch (AKA Team Rain Man) and Team Ecce Homo's Enormous Penis both rocked the trivia game last night, rising well above four other teams to tie for first place after an hour of hard quizzing. In the end, Youth Pastor Watch took the huge bag of prizes via a tie-breaker. Congratulations to the winners (Scary Tyler Moore, Wisepunk, Rain Main, Infrequent, and Enigma). And a sloppy Stranger thank you to everyone who showed up and played and drank and guzzled fried fish nuggets (and especially to Wisepunk for delivering the scrumptious triple coconut cream pie).

I'm sure the commenters will fill you in on all the salacious details that I'm forgetting. Some photos are in our photo pool already.

In the meanwhile, here are the questions, in case you missed the party or want to quiz your mother this weekend:

ROUND 1: Arts and Assholes

1) Kevin Hyder, Emmett Montgomery, Daniel Carroll, and Scott Moran, the comedians behind Chop Suey's Laff Hole, are part of which comedy production group?

2) Seattle Art Museum recently received a gift of "The Great Wave at Kanagawa," from the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji," by which Japanese artist?

3) Architect Rem Koolhaas is planning to build a 44-story replica of the Death Star in which city?

4) Auschglitz! is a blog devoted to what?

5) Which radio station is an Enemy of Slog?

6) What book convention did Paul Constant recently cover on Slog?

7) What is the name of A Million Little Pieces author James Frey’s upcoming novel?

8) Name two local productions that Nick Garrison has acted in.

9) Andrew Wright said this about which film currently in theaters? "The two most attractive women in the cast never even take their tops off. That faint thumping noise you hear is Russ Meyer doing donuts in his grave."

10) What was the popular catchphrase of legendary Slog homophobe Daniel Freykis?

ROUND 2: Local News

1) Which Seattle City Council member just can’t stay out of trouble?

2) Which local athlete was recently arrested on a domestic violence charge?

3) Who was recently banned from the Fremont market?

4) Amazon.com just filed suit against which state to block a law requiring online retailers to pay sales tax?

5) How many cops does the city want to hire over the next five years?

6) What’s our new soccer team called?

BONUS POINT: What’s the name of the first player signed to the team?

7) Which Stranger staffer recently caught a man masturbating outside their window?

ROUND 3: Sex, Drugs, and Science

1) The inventor of LSD died at age 102 last month. What was his name?

2) Which nation has the most prisoners behind bars?

3) David Schmader, in an ode to great prescription drug names, said if he ever has a son, he'll name him what?
Multiple choice:
a. Mucinex
b. Plavix
c. Flomax
d. Xanax
e. Cialis

4) One of the most-read Slog posts of all time involved a graphic cooking experiment carried out by Jonah and his deep fryer. What did Jonah make?

5) Which of these so-called "clean" fuel sources is greenest, according to Jonathan Golob?
a. nuclear
b. hydroelectric
c. wind
d. biofuels
e. wood

6) Last month, 29 people Germany sought medical attention after smoking weed laced with what?

7) Which CNN personality was arrested in Central Park CNN in April with drugs and a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals?

ROUND 4: National News

1) Earlier this week, Belinda Carlisle—via her son—endorsed which presidential candidate?

2) Which two counties in Indiana were way late in reporting primary results on Tuesday?

3) Name one of the five states that just announced they’ll try to save money by letting prisoners out early.

4) Which vodka producer recently caught shit from crazy redneck hicks over an ad showing the Southwestern US as part of Mexico?

5) Which controversial church does Obama attend?

6) Which hotel chain is testing new room amenities including waterproof mattresses?

ROUND 5: We Also Publish a Damn Good Newspaper

1) Who was the author of the I, Anonymous column in which a daughter bitched out her father for giving two of her girlfriends herpes?

2) What did that six-year-old girl in Minneapolis sit on that sucked out her lower intestine?

3) What mundane scenario did Last Days encounter on a Seattle street, describing the event as "the most depressing thing we've ever seen"?

4) Stranger readers are familiar with the beloved “New Columns!” STUPID, STUPID BABY and STUPID, STUPID KITTEN. What was the subject of the third installment of the Stupid Stupid Trilogy?

5) Name two of the comic strips that appear in the current issue of The Stranger.

6) Who writes the weekly column “Bug in the Bassbin”?

7) What is the popular nickname for the man who wraps his head and torso in silver duct tape and walks around the University District?

Tie Breaker

On what day, month, and year was Slog born?

Continue reading "Slog Happy Recap" »

Boy, I am sick of looking at this ad. Sorry. See you at 6 pm with bells and thinking caps on.

Trivia teams should be formed and wittily monikered by 6:30 sharp—five to a team, no limit on the number of teams. Teams will be competing for glory and one gigantic bag of wow, including a stack of DVDs (Head Trauma, Boy Next Door...), a pile of CDs (Dark Meat, No Age...), passes to NW Film Forum, Babeland goodies, an armload of brand-new books (Willy Vlautin's Northline, a full-color coffee-table collection of Playboy cartoons), a Kevin Federline wall clock, and much more!

Everyone is welcome, especially you silent majority—no familiar handle required.

Slog trivia, with celebrity judges and a hefty prize trove, is going to be actual, non-ironic fun, I'm almost certain. Also: fried fish and a very special DJ. Don't miss it.

As you requested, next week's Slog Happy will include a Slog Trivia Contest (five people to a team max, start studying...) and the brand-new Pike Street Fish Fry's menu will be available inside Moe Bar:

the menu (as of today)

battered and fried:
catfish , ling cod, rockfish, spearfish, smelt, oysters, halibut, asparagus

just fried:
fries, spanish fries, fish balls

grilled:
fish o' day, octopus, steak, house sausage

sauces:
housemade tartar, lemon aioli, curry "ketchup," salsa verde, smoked-chili mayo

want a sandwich?
we will slap anything on this menu inside a French roll with a pile of slaw for an extra $1

Hope you can come!

This is not Ronaldo's girlfriend (NSFW). Below is the girlfriend of the famous footballer in the middle of a sex scandal involving no less than three transvestites.

Her name is Maria Beatriz Antony.

Two weeks until the next Slog Happy (put it on your calendar), and though the first five were well-attended and totally entertaining, it's time to improve our monthly party. I'm sure you have ideas...

Readers who've never been: What's keeping you away? Slog Happy regulars, how should we make it better and more inviting? Free hot dogs? I'm listening.

Attention
Rural
Bathroom:
Your

Mnemonic [is]
Complicated
To
A
Ridiculous
Degree.

Sincerely,
Arby McTard

Thank you for returning my wallet and credit cards, which were left on two different buses, in such a timely and professional fashion. I take back everything bad I ever said about you.

Dear assholes who stole my credit card and charged up hundreds of dollars at two convenience stores, Blockbuster, and Taco Time (?!?) and then ditched my wallet and cards on two different Metro buses: Fuck you very much.

That is all.

I offer this:

We'll have name tags and Stranger swag. We'd love to meet you. Don't be shy.

The painting on the cover this week is by Tram Bui, who has had a show up at Davidson Galleries until March 29 (but one piece, Battery, is still on view; follow the link to see it). This one on the cover is titled 2903. Jen Graves, in a profile of Bui from March 2006, explains: "Every one of her paintings is a portrait of a real building under construction around town. Seen in a group, this becomes rather obvious, since the titles are either numbers or street names." Graves goes on to explain:

Bui's early education was as a representational painter, and she focused on interior scenes. When she got to Seattle in 1999 to attend graduate school in painting at the UW, she had a tiny apartment with no pictorial potential, so she set about making a cityscape, only to realize she was more interested in the construction site in the foreground than the city behind it. Her paintings... strip away all the stray elements in the landscape, leaving only building and sky, mano a mano.

The last time Bui had a painting on the cover was July 20, 2006:

Everyone's welcome.

Re: our earlier meeting declaring war on the Seattle Times.

Keep up the good work.

The charming Paul Constant will be your host at this month's Slog Happy; I am en route to Cairo today.

If you haven't yet, go read Jen Graves's fantastic feature this week on Seattle's obsession with views. It touches on real estate, the mountain-vs.-water debate, and the value of views that aren't really "views." Here's how it ends:

An encounter with a view is visual, not participatory, like looking at landscape art. Beginning in the 18th century, there was a cottage industry of "view" painters—painters who made portraits purchased by gentlemen on their travels. At home, the paintings didn't just show off the traveler's sophistication; they also provided cold, damp, dim northern homes with false windows that "looked out onto" the warmth and light of southern climes. Seattle Art Museum has one of these paintings on display right now, in the European art exhibition on the fourth floor, by Luca Carlevariis, made around 1710. It depicts a storm brewing in dark clouds above the Grand Canal in Venice, but a balmy late afternoon hitting the side of the Doge's Palace anyway, warming the people strolling there.[...]

It's not just spectacular views that count. Underdog views can turn out to mean so much. Take the view out the window in front of me right now, as I'm writing this. I'm in my house in the Central District, looking out the front picture window. What I see is the front yard of the house across the street, which, instead of a lawn, is a slab of concrete fenced in by chain link. It sounds like a sorry excuse for a landscape, but it has animals. Several of them. Woodland-creature types. I can make out a deer, a bear, a baby bear, two frogs, a seagull, a pig, and two turtles. They're garden sculptures with no garden. An elderly black couple lives in the house. By contrast, I've planted a high-maintenance number of trees and flowers over here. Every time I look out the window I'm embarrassed by the old stereotype: Why are white people so obsessed with lawn care?

Before the house in the Central District, we lived in a house in Tacoma that had what real-estate agents call a "peekaboo" view of Puget Sound (meaning we had to stand funny to see it). Before that, we lived in a loft in Tacoma, in a building obsessed with views of Mount Rainier, but we lived on the back side, so our big bank of windows had a "territorial" view of an old brick wall with a giant word spray-painted on it. The word was OPAL. That piece of graffiti figures prominently in family photographs from that time. One day we came home and it had been cleaned off. It had been the largest work of art we ever owned.

Happily, even now that I work for The Stranger full time, there are still little moments of surprise when I read the paper on Wednesday night. One of the things that I have no hand in at all is the Letters Page; I never know which letters are going to wind up running in the paper. Most of the letters in this week's paper are about Jonah's great feature from last week, and rightfully so. It's, well, a great feature.

Unfortunately, this means that my favorite letter in response to the Norwescon books lead that I wrote last week didn't get to run, so I'm going to share it here. The writer didn't ask to be anonymous, but I'm going to pretend that he/she requested anonymity, anyway. The entire letter is (sic).

You writer on Norwescon had no true clue as to what the con means to many people. I for one never found in one fucking in the bathrooms and so one. I notice he didn’t even discuss the writers panels or the costume panels. Your writer was very limited to his or her very of the con. You should have someone who has an opened mind attend the cons and not just one.

This was not the only letter that I got--I received many well-written responses both positive and negative--and it's not even the most unintelligible letter I received, but it's clearly the best. From now on, I solemnly vow to try to write with a true clue.

"Man Shooting Hole Through Wall Kills Wife."

As part of our site upgrade this week, we tuned up our events searches. TheStranger.com now has what I think is the most comprehensive and easiest to use movie times search, arts calendars, and dining/drinking guides Seattle's ever seen.

You'll notice several new paths to these listings—under the "listings" heading on the home page, on the azure "Find" bar in every section, and under their respective categories in the navigation bar at the top of every page.

If you can spare a few minutes, take a look at the guide that suits your fancy...

Movie Times
Music Listings
Visual Art Listings
Performance Listings
Books Listings
Restaurants
Bars

...and then come back and tell us what you think.

Something's different, you've no doubt noticed. Last night we moved our main navigation bar to the top of the site. As a result, our pages are wider, with more room for content, and we've spiffed a few other things up, too: We improved our movie times, music listings, arts events, and restaurants and bars search. Links to these are now located below their respective categories in the navigation bar.

If you haven't already, please tell us what you think. We're continually trying to improve this thing. (And yes, registered commenting is coming very soon!)

xoxo
The Web Team

Just to keep things on-topic around here, please enjoy this late-night We Hate It thread.

Go nuts.

UPDATE - Note: it may take a couple refreshes and/or a clearing of your browser's cache to get all the changes to show up properly. Thanks for all the feedback.

Anyone know where I can get a straight razor shave in this town?

What are those people called again? Those bug scientists? I need one. Anyone out there know one? Anyone out there a bug scientist?

In today's mail...

Mr. Savage: Having just Google-search Garrison Keillor to find out how to spell his name, I see that a link broadcasting—in big, blue, capital letters—a profane epithet against Keillor leads to a column you wrote.

I read the column, and I don't care about it.

But please contact Google and get your profanity out of the public view.

Thanks,

Andy Haraldson
Lake Worth, FL

I'll get right on that, Andy.

Thank you to our guest Sloggers and all the back-seat-driver commentary today. The blog was lively, weird, and wonderful, while the staff writers enjoyed a leisurely 18 holes. (If you're looking for more critical feedback, Strangeways offers his review.) Bravo!

Thank you to The Stranger and Ms. Horn for the opportunity to Slog for a day. Thank you to the commenters for making it fun. Thank you to the wife for all her help.

"But why shouldn't I post a response?" she's asked for the fifth time today. "What the heck is a troll?"

Have a good weekend everyone. Try to stay out of trouble.

Many thanks to Ms. Horn and The Stranger for picking me to guest Slog. I’m as excited as a fat kid early for an ice-cream party. Also, I’d like to thank to Ms. Horn for making posting firefighter-proof.

Firefighter-proof: adjective 1. Impossible to use incorrectly: Hey Six Shooter, use the stairs. That elevator isn’t firefighter-proof. 2. Hard to break: Sorry about your high-dollar camera, Chief. I thought it was firefighter-proof.

I’ve surveyed friends, coworkers, and family members for Slog ideas. Most of them are useless. I’m pretty much unqualified to write about anything else, so let’s all hope a building catches fire or some other tragedy happens.

Good morning! Today 10 of our favorite commenters will take over Slog. Here are brief biographies for each.

AISLINN

Aislinn made a name for herself on Slog by defending bestial-necrophilia and sticking up for ECB (aspiring Freaky Friday-ers, take note). She's a 24-year-old office monkey and part-time student. She goes to a lot of shows, reads a lot of books, and drinks a lot of gin; sometimes all at once. Despite hailing from coastal Maine, she has fully embraced Seattleism and is liberal, vegetarian, and gay-friendly, with a pierced nose and frequently-fluctuating hairstyles—just like everyone else. She plays too much Scrabble and takes Trivial Pursuit more seriously than anything containing the word "trivial" is meant to be taken.

BIG SVEN

Big Sven is a Midwestern transplant to the Pacific Northwest, and an unapologetic suburban breeder. He is an engineer in the aerospace industry, but neither works for Boeing nor designs anything that ever gets sold to, or used by, the Department of Defense. Having campaigned for Carter over Ford with the all important first-grade vote, he has been a Democrat ever since. He shares his mountain lair with Inga (Mrs. Sven), Lena (10), and Sven Jr. (7). He gets worked up some times, and begs your preemptive forgiveness.

DOUG.

DOUG.'s pet/street stripper name is “Lady Orchid.” He grew up in Santa Barbara, idolizing Steve Garvey. His first concert was the Simple Minds. He has an English degree from UCLA, yet finished no books last year.
Bumbershoot cost $6 when DOUG. moved to Seattle. He met his wife at the Fremont Dock. They rented near Broadway for a decade, now they’re in Wallingford.
DOUG.’s eaten 200 mini-pizzas at Bill’s Off Broadway. He subscribes to The Nation and Sports Illustrated. He loves anagrams, palindromes, and squirrels. He makes large pancakes and wishes he were Picasso. If Oprah gave DOUG. $1,000,000 he’d still live in Seattle.

EXELIZABETH

Exelizabeth moved from Sacramento to Seattle when she was 18 to attend the UW—she graduated in 2005 with a degree in English and a plan to work in politics. However, working multiple campaigns left her burnt out and made her realize that she actually wants to be a teacher. So she's a desk jockey for now, but is hoping to be accepted to the UW Masters in Teaching program for next year. Ultimately, she would like to teach middle school. She has yet to meet anyone who doesn't cringe when she tells them that.

GEOFFREY INFREQUENT

Geoffrey initially called himself “infrequent” because he didn’t think he’d comment often (he was wrong about that). He loves Washington, Seattle, and Capitol Hill—he was born in Seattle’s Providence Hospital, and the longest amount of time he's spent outside of Washington was three months when he gave Portland a try.
Goeffrey likes music—he plays organs and synthesizers in razrez, and used to play in infomatik. He also likes movies, walking places, synthesizers, tight jeans, sushi, school, selling things and buying them back later, Scrabble, and, of course, Slog.

IT'S MARK MITCHELL

Mark Mitchell is a local yokel—Capitol Hillbilly division—of the last 25 years. He's never considered a conservative vote of any kind, is great at a party, and is blissfully "gay married." He makes custom clothing and costumes and lives in a pagoda.

KID ICARUS

Kid icarus has been crushing eggplant wizards since his formative years in the Bay Area, CA. He fell in love with Seattle a decade ago and now happily(?) whiles away his hours clicking Refresh at a downtown biotech. He thinks this town is rocking some of the greatest cuisine in the country and can’t understand why Top Chef hasn’t filmed here yet. His favorite Slog moment ever was that one time when Fnarf was all “Eat my fuck” to Mr. Poe. That was awesome. Kid icarus would like to remind you to please not feed the trolls.

MR. POE

Mr. Poe was born in Minneapolis and raised in Boise. After years of excessive right-wing political action, with the support of his abhorrently racist and conservative family, he flew 3,100 miles away from "home" and finally wrapped his lips around a nice big cock. Finally ditching his religion and politick, he studied film, film theory, entertainment law, and older men. Rarely will he take anything seriously, and no, he'll never care what anybody thinks of him. The only thing he cares about is having a sense of humor.

SIX SHOOTER

Six Shooter loves the sound of his own voice. He sees facts and figures as crutches for the unimaginative. When he gets old, he hopes he’ll be slightly deaf and completely cranky. Complaining, to him, is as American as voting.
Six Shooter is 34 years old and has lived in Seattle since 1996. He, like almost every guy knows, moved to Seattle to follow a girl. When that didn’t work out, he got a computer job, made some Internet money, married a girl way out his league, reproduced and reevaluated his day job.
Six Shooter is a professional firefighter. “The fire service is the sorority I always wanted to join,” he says. He’s never loved a job or the people he works with more than he does now. Most days he feels like he's won the lottery.

TSM

TSM lives in Capitol Hill with his girlfriend. After carting dead bodies around a gross-anatomy lab and playing in punk bands to an audience of three, he went on to spend too much time in school and then took a postdoctoral position at UW. When not toying with probabilistic models or feeding his insatiable internet addiction, he may be found playing any number of musical instruments, playing Scrabble, and cooking strange and unfamiliar food.

Slogging is hard work, so make them feel welcome and cut them a little slack while they figure out how best to feed this blog monster.

If you went to tonight's party at Havana AND one of the past Slog Happys at Moe Bar, which venue did you prefer?

Those of you who missed it tonight missed many fine mojitos, lots of small talk, and a good turnout, including Michael Strangeways, Lindy West, and every single healthy Stranger writer.

Expect a slimmer-than-usual Slog today, as half of editorial is out sick. "Looks like we're going to have to put a stop to Make Out Mondays," says Steinbacher.

On Friday, between 8 am and 6 pm, 10 of our favorite commenters will take over the blog. (If you weren't chosen, know that we do this every few months.)

AISLINN

Aislinn made a name for herself on Slog by defending bestial-necrophilia and sticking up for ECB (aspiring Freaky Friday-ers, take note). She's a 24-year-old office monkey and part-time student. She goes to a lot of shows, reads a lot of books, and drinks a lot of gin; sometimes all at once. Despite hailing from coastal Maine, she has fully embraced Seattleism and is liberal, vegetarian, and gay-friendly, with a pierced nose and frequently-fluctuating hairstyles—just like everyone else. She plays too much Scrabble and takes Trivial Pursuit more seriously than anything containing the word "trivial" is meant to be taken.

BIG SVEN

Big Sven is a Midwestern transplant to the Pacific Northwest, and an unapologetic suburban breeder. He is an engineer in the aerospace industry, but neither works for Boeing nor designs anything that ever gets sold to, or used by, the Department of Defense. Having campaigned for Carter over Ford with the all important first-grade vote, he has been a Democrat ever since. He shares his mountain lair with Inga (Mrs. Sven), Lena (10), and Sven Jr. (7). He gets worked up some times, and begs your preemptive forgiveness.

DOUG.

DOUG.'s pet/street stripper name is “Lady Orchid.” He grew up in Santa Barbara, idolizing Steve Garvey. His first concert was the Simple Minds. He has an English degree from UCLA, yet finished no books last year.
Bumbershoot cost $6 when DOUG. moved to Seattle. He met his wife at the Fremont Dock. They rented near Broadway for a decade, now they’re in Wallingford.
DOUG.’s eaten 200 mini-pizzas at Bill’s Off Broadway. He subscribes to The Nation and Sports Illustrated. He loves anagrams, palindromes, and squirrels. He makes large pancakes and wishes he were Picasso. If Oprah gave DOUG. $1,000,000 he’d still live in Seattle.

EXELIZABETH

Exelizabeth moved from Sacramento to Seattle when she was 18 to attend the UW—she graduated in 2005 with a degree in English and a plan to work in politics. However, working multiple campaigns left her burnt out and made her realize that she actually wants to be a teacher. So she's a desk jockey for now, but is hoping to be accepted to the UW Masters in Teaching program for next year. Ultimately, she would like to teach middle school. She has yet to meet anyone who doesn't cringe when she tells them that.

GEOFFREY INFREQUENT

Geoffrey initially called himself “infrequent” because he didn’t think he’d comment often (he was wrong about that). He loves Washington, Seattle, and Capitol Hill—he was born in Seattle’s Providence Hospital, and the longest amount of time he's spent outside of Washington was three months when he gave Portland a try.
Goeffrey likes music—he plays organs and synthesizers in razrez, and used to play in infomatik. He also likes movies, walking places, synthesizers, tight jeans, sushi, school, selling things and buying them back later, Scrabble, and, of course, Slog.

IT'S MARK MITCHELL

Mark Mitchell is a local yokel—Capitol Hillbilly division—of the last 25 years. He's never considered a conservative vote of any kind, is great at a party, and is blissfully "gay married." He makes custom clothing and costumes and lives in a pagoda.

KID ICARUS

Kid icarus has been crushing eggplant wizards since his formative years in the Bay Area, CA. He fell in love with Seattle a decade ago and now happily(?) whiles away his hours clicking Refresh at a downtown biotech. He thinks this town is rocking some of the greatest cuisine in the country and can’t understand why Top Chef hasn’t filmed here yet. His favorite Slog moment ever was that one time when Fnarf was all “Eat my fuck” to Mr. Poe. That was awesome. Kid icarus would like to remind you to please not feed the trolls.

MR. POE

Mr. Poe was born in Minneapolis and raised in Boise. After years of excessive right-wing political action, with the support of his abhorrently racist and conservative family, he flew 3,100 miles away from "home" and finally wrapped his lips around a nice big cock. Finally ditching his religion and politick, he studied film, film theory, entertainment law, and older men. Rarely will he take anything seriously, and no, he'll never care what anybody thinks of him. The only thing he cares about is having a sense of humor.

SIX SHOOTER

Six Shooter loves the sound of his own voice. He sees facts and figures as crutches for the unimaginative. When he gets old, he hopes he’ll be slightly deaf and completely cranky. Complaining, to him, is as American as voting.
Six Shooter is 34 years old and has lived in Seattle since 1996. He, like almost every guy knows, moved to Seattle to follow a girl. When that didn’t work out, he got a computer job, made some Internet money, married a girl way out his league, reproduced and reevaluated his day job.
Six Shooter is a professional firefighter. “The fire service is the sorority I always wanted to join,” he says. He’s never loved a job or the people he works with more than he does now. Most days he feels like he's won the lottery.

TSM

TSM lives in Capitol Hill with his girlfriend. After carting dead bodies around a gross-anatomy lab and playing in punk bands to an audience of three, he went on to spend too much time in school and then took a postdoctoral position at UW. When not toying with probabilistic models or feeding his insatiable internet addiction, he may be found playing any number of musical instruments, playing Scrabble, and cooking strange and unfamiliar food.

This Friday is Freaky Friday, when we'll turn the blog upside down—commenters become front-page bloggers, and bloggers are relegated to the comments. Come back this afternoon to learn who will take over our megaphones.

I HAVE:

1. Talked on the phone to Ron Jeremy.

2. Never seen Terminator 2.

3. Been detained for protesting.

4. Read the most books of my fourth grade class.

5. Had many bangovers.

I HAVE:

1. Never voted in my life.
2. Been a member of a radical Marxist group.
3. Never learned how to drive a car.
4. Worked in a brick factory in Barking, London.
5. Never seen Victoria Falls ("the smoke that thunders").
6. Seen Niagara Falls.