Things I'm Ponderin'

1) Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? Outside of a french restaurant, I mean. Despite the huge numbers of pigeons fouling our statues, parks, and shoulders, I haven't - I don't even think they exist. It's like pigeons reproduce through mitosis. And did you know that Mike Tyson trains pigeons? Does he train them to bite off other pigeons' ears?

2) Why do so many straight women enjoy talking about other womens' breasts?

3) Why is it that anyone would ever compliment anyone else on a memorandum? My first week in my first real job out of college, I wrote and distributed a memo describing the expectations for my position, and got complimented on it. Why would you do this? Who says, "Thanks, Brian, for letting me know what you do here, despite the fact that you're the third person to hold this position in the last 9 months and if I'd been paying one ounce of attention I'd have known what you do and how to utilize you to further my own professional objectives?" And why didn't any of my far more pertinent white papers get any attention at all? IT'S A FREAKING MEMO.

4) How long will it be until a major musical tour takes place with one of the supporting acts being a bunch of guys playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band on stage? Will they play their own music? Will they have to play on Expert Difficulty?

5) Where the hell is the orange button?

6) Why is it that whenever I pose for a picture, I let one arm relax, but the other hand goes on my hip? It's not like I'm posing behind a shark I've wrestled from the sea with my bare hands. I'm relatively sure of this, because I've never caught a shark, nor have I wrestled one using my hands or any other implement.

7) Who in the world lets Clive Cussler keep writing books? None of them are any good. Even by pulp standards they're terrible. Despite the crappiness of the books, why hasn't there been another Dirk Pitt movie? Sahara, while not at all like the book, was certainly plenty of fun, and a money-maker to boot. And everyone loves Steve Zahn, right?

8) Why do we wait so long to teach our children second languages? Starting to learn a language at any age is hard, and as your brain fills with sports trivia, 37-character computer passwords (I'm looking at you, Jonathan), wife's name(s), and movie quotes, surely it becomes even harder. Shouldn't we try to teach kids to speak something other than English a little before 7th grade? Or do we just assume that teaching them a second language invites invasion by some other country? I don't recall the kids in Red Dawn taking Russian classes, but I could be wrong.

9) Why are webcomics consistently better than their printed brethren? These are by and large drawn by amateur artists without the backing of large national syndicates, and they don't make money except n apparel sales. What happened to you, Jim Davis? Were you ever really funny?

10) Why are crocuses afraid of my neighborhood? Growing up in Charleston, the crocus was the first flower of spring, the proof that the seasons were changing. And they're popping up all over the place elsewhere. What is it about my neighborhood that scares them? Is it the constant 24-hour barrage of hip-hop music? The 3-am car alarms that people are too lazy to turn off? The litter everywhere? Or is it just that I don't have a yard?

11) Bonus wonder: How do the major broadcast networks continue to produce a plethora of really terrible TV shows and made-for-TV movies, when places like USA and TNT have been rolling out hit after hit since the late 1990s? Does anyone remember the TNT version of Frankenstein? AWESOME.