Get to know your tetrominoes

I - The Intermittent Hero: Arrives just in time to save the day - when it damn well pleases.

T - The Problem Solver: Cleverly fits into all sorts of odd spaces without ever complaining.

O - The Chunky Thumper: Aka the Stupid One, it unthinkingly clunks down onto the most convenient spot.

L - The Industrious Ant: Makes Tetris miracles happen by unflinchingly providing a solid foundation on which the other pieces can build.

J - The Indolent Grasshopper: A crude and backward imitation of the previous piece, lacking
the L's dedication and selflessness.

S and Z - The Niche King and Queen, respectively: Usually only helpful after a string of themselves make the game board a terrible mess of a mountain range into which no other piece can snugly fit, these two filler pieces serve very little practical purpose.

Astronauts Work in Space

Thank you, CNN, for helping me fulfill a lifelong dream of catching an unintentionally funny headline.

Food for Thought or: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Generic Post Title/Clichéd Strangelove Parody"

When I was freeloading (growing up), I used to (unintentionally) irritate my mom to no end by eating all the ingredients of a sandwich piece by piece, without ever actually assembling them into a sandwich.

I think about that every time I grab some salami and cheese out of the fridge and fold it in half, or when I drink straight out of a carton or jug.

Those culinary traditions may have been born with me, but new ones emerge all the time. As a kid, for example, I thought licking peanut butter off a stick of celery instead of eating the whole thing was immature and wasteful. Now, it just sounds like a good idea ... or it would if I hadn't just eaten two handfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Marketable skills in [brackets]

Today I was applauded (two people at three claps each counts as applause, actually) for my ability to [hold a stuffed bird aloft for lengthy periods of time].

Yesterday someone finally knew the name of the song I make people "sing" for me when I [balance a chair on my palm].

A song with no words (or none that you know) is one of those few remaining things that's nigh impossible to look up. Typing "da da da da da da da waaaa waaaa" into Google doesn't exactly help, and even though it kindly asks "Did you mean to search for: da dada dadadada whaaaa whaaaa," that search produces about 126,997 fewer results.

In fact, I'm still searching for a song I heard once, but I only know one lyric: "California." No, it's probably not the one you're thinking of.

Goulash and monk bones

These are two things I see when I look around my room for inspiration.

Naming the new

Online name picking, be it an email address, profile name, or in this case, url, is never easy.

I tried many combinations of letters that meant something to me, but most were taken by someone who posted between one and three times and then abandoned their virtual real estate. I suppose that taken-but-unused is far preferable to taken-and-vastly-better-executed-than-I-ever-dared-dream.

[pause for some drunk guy shouting outside]

Among some of my efforts:
• My first choice was taken by someone who sounds, in three ancient posts of fewer than 100 cumulative words, like a person I desperately do not want to be.
• A German word produced a blog with a single entry in Japanese.
• My Italian last name produced a Brazilian blog with an English title - but at least it seems to be frequently updated. And anyway, as a repeat victim of Googling, I'm doing my best to stay off that particular radar this time.

This all helps explain why there is little that impresses me more than an original and clever handle.