For the last two and a half years I have done an inordinate amount of sitting. I am a professional sitter. I sit in my car, I sit at my desk, I sit on the can, and then I come home and feel so tired all I want to do is sit on the couch. And, while sitting oughtn't be knocked with too broad a brush (consider, for instance, the benefits sitting imparts on lap-dancing or a good game of duck-duck-goose), the net result has been that I'm becoming inflexible, soft, tired and fat.

Being unemployed would seem sweet right now (aside from the whole poverty/loss of dignity angle, that is).

Details below.

I'd like to get a few things off my chest with respect to the printing and distribution of my first novel by a small traditional publisher from the United States.

Be fairly warned: this rant contains a measure of vitriol.

Poor Mohit.

He was so fresh from India that he still sported one of those pompadour hairstyles that are so gentlemanly in Mumbai but positively anachronistic here in the New World. His accent was thick enough to drown baby seals.

He stood in the sundrenched lobby of Toronto BMW, surrounded by pricks in golf shirts that cost more than a set of clubs and by little waif-girls with sparkling purses so small they had to stretch to accommodate an iPhone and a tampon. The golf pricks and the whiny waifs were very displeased, because the rental car outfit associated with BMW had just run out of vehicles.

We'd been waiting for almost two hours.

Periodically, a prick or a waif would come up to Mohit and tear a strip off him while he smiled and nodded. Nobody actually said "Do you know who I am?" but there was a distinctly do-you-know-who-I-am? vibe in the air. After concluding his tirade, one prick unfolded his iPhone and proceeded to tell whoever was on the other end en haute voix how "some clueless FOB" refused to magically call luxury cars out of his brown ass to save the day.

Yes, the rich are different than us -- they're assholes.

"You wanna split my banana with me?" I asked Mohit.

"No thank you sir but thank you sir," he said, smiling glumly.

I ate my banana while Mohit and I talked about India. I asked him if he could arrange for a train for me to hang off the side of, since I really did have to get into the office very soon. He laughed, then excused himself as his telephone buzzed.

There were ten of us waiting there in the sunny lobby. The rental car company managed to scare up two additional vehicles. The question of the moment became: who would score the cars?

First choosies went to a little, sweet old Chinese lady with a ravishing silk scarf. She took the minivan. Then Mohit drew me aside and quietly told me he was giving the second (and final) vehicle to me. "Holy crap -- thank you!" I whispered. "What kind of car is it?"

"There's nothing else to choose from," he apologized pre-emptively.

I frowned. "Dude, what kind of car is it?"

Turns out, my vehicle was a truck the size of a baseball stadium.

"By the way, I oiled the hinge on your diary."

On Friday night I was sitting at the piano with my daughter when my son decided to attempt a flying leap from the couch onto my back. He missed. He dropped just short of me, his little hands clawing at my shoulders, and then caught the full impact of his fall with his upper jaw on the edge of the bench.

Blood? Oh yes. Plenty of that.

His left-side upper incisor was canted about forty-five degrees forward, and the tooth to the left of that was pushed about twenty degrees backward. This rearrangement left a gaping open wound behind the incisor, and it was this hole through which most of the blood was coming.

So, now he looks English.

There are no spoilers in the body copy.

Sokath, his eyes uncovered!

Why do people hire experts and then ignore their advice? Further: is the condition treatable with medication, patient explanations and/or violence?

Doing laundry at my house is like shovelling coal.

I continue to surprise myself by failing to expire or spontaneously combust. Details beneath the fold.

My colleague and I carpool, and are thereby single-handedly saving the world. Suck it, sinners.

Capgras Syndrome causes its victims to believe, in moments or as marathons, that people they know and love have been replaced by evil alien replicons from beyond the moon, identical to the originals in every respect save the intuited fact that they are, in truth, imposters.

People who suffer from Capgras are crazy, like Super Mario's brother Luigi.

Team CBB is just moments from rushing out the door for SciFi Con Day III, but a smattering of Littlestar's photos from Days I and II are below the fold.

I don't have time for captioning so I'll just let the photos speak for themselves for the most part.

Highlights include Popsicle with the stormtroopers; the awesome, stunned expression on Isosceles Cat's face after checking out He-Man; and me getting a hug from the Sexual Harassment Panda.

For the past year or so I've been writing for a local rural newspaper. My latest contribution, however, has been rejected on the grounds that the subject matter might be "too upsetting" for the sensitive people of our town.

Judge for yourself: