This weekly feature contains the least-unfunny items from seven days’ worth of search strings leading to this very site; in its only world competition, it took the tin medal.

time compressed movies:  For instance: 1620: A Space Odyssey.

female clothing optional birthdays:  If you can persuade them so, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

insanity nekkid:  Aw, give her a break. It’s her birthday.

Application “Who has seen your profile?” is unavailable:  Perhaps someone was looking at your profile at the time.

what was the name of the country where the sun doesn’t go down:  I dunno, but I bet it’s on the warm side of Mercury.

penis football field:  If he even starts to compare his to one, he lies.

i’m reputedly intelligent:  You’re seeking corroboration, then?

do any rockstars have a prince albert piercing:  I dare say, this question is above my pay grade.

hysterectomy sling anal sex:  And they say I have no patience.

how can i ease my mind the day before an HIV test?  If it’s any consolation, this isn’t the kind of test you have to cram for.

who is more attractive judith miller or maureen dowd:  You tell me:

Obligatory Rule 34 item: gay sex with old men scholl sandals.

As distinguished from these, those, and them smarts, I suppose.

Steven Lang picks up eleven certified crapmobiles for $8500 or so. Why? It’s just that time of year:

I bought them because I needed to fatten up my dealer auction for next Tuesday. Will it work? You bet.

We’re in a time of year called, ‘Tax Season’. This is the time of year where most independent dealers will make their fortunes. From late January to late May Uncle Sam will be throwing over $300 billion in overseas supported currency into American hands. The single mom with three kids and a $16,000 income? Her tax return will border on the mid-four figures. I’m not here to rationalize income redistribution or toe the political lines. But I will tell you straight up that when it comes to cars, money and bullshit are in full swing this time of year.

Most of that ‘money’ will be gone within a week and will go to either one of two things. Electronics or a car. The cost of most used cars at the auctions usually go up about 20% to 40% this time of year for one simple reason. They sell. Even the lowliest of vehicles can find the loftiest of returns during tax season.

I wonder if the price of big-screen TVs goes up during the same time frame. Of course, the pivot point is not going to be the middle of April, the end of Tax Season, but somewhere during the first few days of February. Think “Super Bowl.” I’m guessing demand is very high just before, and remains fairly high for a few weeks after that as people decide that their existing hardware was simply insufficient for the proper appreciation of beer commercials.

One thing is certain: the guy in the plaid jacket will be more than happy to take your tax-refund check, and I assume that a smart mechanic will be able to spruce up even the crappiest of cars to a condition that insures they’ll run at least long enough for someone to sign on the dotted line.

Tom T. Hall, from “Ballad of Forty Dollars,” 1968:

Well, that must be the widow in the car
And would you take a look at that
That sure is a pretty dress
You know some women do look good in black

The gravedigger was just thinking out loud, of course, and anyway, it’s probably a safe bet the widow wasn’t trying to attract attention to herself. Forty years and odd later, that’s probably still true of the widow, but maybe not so much for the rest of the funeral party:

I was then struck by the dress of the young female mourners. And I really don’t mean this in a “tsk, tsk” kind of way, but they were not dressed well. Most of the girls looked like they were on their way to a prom or Spring formal. Some knew enough to wear black, but the outfits they wore were sleeveless and halfway up the thigh, while their heels were strappy and “sexy.” There were some who actually sported ensembles that were backless. This was in stark contrast to the men at the funeral who were mostly in their military dress.

Naturally, these girls meant no offense, but they simply have not been taught how to dress for such an occasion. It is as if the only look they’ve been taught is “sexy, sexy, sexy.” It’s sad, really. It’s one thing for a girl to know how to dress to attract a suitor or “turn on” her husband, but you know things just aren’t right when certain people don’t know how or when to turn it off.

So I betook myself to a search engine, keyed “what do I wear to a funeral,” and found this:

If you want to be traditional, go with a black suit, either skirt or pants. Otherwise, the following options are recommended. If it is summer, choose a black cocktail dress that is plain and not too short or low-cut. For winter, wear a black skirt and black sweater or a long-sleeved black dress (again, not too short). Make sure to wear close-toed shoes! If you want to mix it up a little, get a hat, such as a wide brimmed black hat. Don’t wear a trucker hat or other casual hat! If you are unsure in this department, look at some pictures of Queen Elizabeth II, or any other female member of the English Royal Family at a funeral. They have the basic idea.

Guys, needless to say, have fewer choices to make, but when is that not the case?

I’m inclined to be a little more forgiving, since presumably the young ladies in question were friends of the widow, who is described elsewhere in the piece as “painfully young,” and it’s likely few of them have ever had a reason to dress themselves for a funeral before. Perhaps some were not in a position to buy something new. The thing to remember, and this applies to all of us of whatever age, is that we are not the center of attention and we are to comport ourselves accordingly.

I might think otherwise if they’re burying me, but at that point, what I think isn’t likely to make a whole lot of difference.

“What kind of difference can a few years make?” wailed Darlene Love. “I gotta have you now or my heart will break.”

Of course, Darlene was complaining about objections by the parental units. But if he’s reluctant, perhaps you should hand him a calculator:

Mathematicians have come up with a ‘fiancee formula’ that allows men to work out the perfect time to pop the question.

All he needs is the age he would first consider marrying and his cut-off point — and the equation does the rest.

Variables:
  p = youngest age desired to “settle down”
  n = oldest, &c.

Then calculate [(n - p) x 0.368] + p.

Supposedly, this works just as well if she’s the one who’s not so sure.

Still, this comment seems apropos: “Shouldn’t academics get a girlfriend before they do these surveys?”

That chart full of dots in the back of the Consumer Reports automotive section used to be called “Frequency-of-Repair Records,” although somewhere along the way someone with fear of hyphens or something decided it ought to be “Reliability Records.”

Then again, “reliability” isn’t exactly the easiest word to define, as Tam explains:

“Reliable” is another one of those vague words, like “peppy”, that get used a lot and leave me puzzled. Do they mean “reliable” as in “will start and run forever with minimal maintenance” or do they mean “reliable” as in “I followed the manufacturer’s service schedule religiously and the cruise still works after three years”?

There’s different kinds of reliable. When I was dirt poor and needed a “bridge” car to last me until I could get something better, I bought an ’84 Pontiac Trans Am. I did not buy it necessarily because it was a Trans Am, but because it was the newest car I found on short notice with a carburetted Chevy small-block V-8 and a GM Turbo Hydramatic transmission; a combination that will run like crap longer than most cars will run at all, can be repaired by anybody, and every junkyard in America is full to the brim with spare parts. Plus, you know… hey, Trans Am? Anyway, it was reliable in the ‘start up and run’ sense, but it was also a mid-’80s GM car, which meant that somewhere around 75k or so miles, bits begin to fall off and subsystems start checking out, but you don’t really need cruise control, AM/FM cassette, the dome light, or various small interior trim bits to get to and from work.

Same thing with applying “reliability” as a constant across an entire brand. BMW’s E36 platform is the automotive equivalent of the cockroach; they’re still everywhere on the roads and the newest one you see is twelve years old; they’ll often go a quarter million miles without using anything but gas, tires, and oil. Conversely, a 750iL won’t make it across a parking lot without breaking down. Most any little Japanese sedan from the ’70s was reliable as all getout; they’d run ’til the body rusted off… if it had a manual transmission.

I had a ’75 Toyota Celica, which wasn’t a sedan but which did in fact have both a manual transmission and a fair amount of body rust; it was still running in 1995 when I decided I’d had enough of this particular automotive hair shirt. Unfortunately, what I got to replace it was a middle-80s two-door Detroit sled with two good ideas implemented badly: fuel injection (one injector in the middle of the throttle body) and aluminum heads (on top of an iron block and a gasket that couldn’t deal with either). On the upside, the interior was sweet, albeit with too many touches of domestic baroque, and the ancient three-speed automatic never missed a shift.

Said Celica survived a lot of horrible things: a collision with a petroleum tanker, several trips across the Mojave, and perhaps worst of all, maintenance by the likes of me. Now that’s “reliable.”

Hey, this works for me:

If you ever have trouble getting interested in the same bland crop of Oscar winners and nominees we seem to get every year, just imagine all the film titles prepended with “Tyler Perry’s” to spice things up. Tyler Perry’s The English Patient. Tyler Perry’s Shakespeare In Love. Tyler Perry’s The Hurt Locker. Seems to work every time.

I might draw the line at Tyler Perry’s Being John Malkovich, though.

Outgoing Governor Brad Henry may be the state’s most popular Democrat; he spanked Republican Ernest Istook in the 2006 election, pulling 66 percent of the vote, and he still enjoys lofty approval ratings.

But a Rasmussen poll shows that not even Brad Henry could dislodge Tom Coburn from the Senate:

The first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 telephone survey of likely voters in Oklahoma finds Coburn, a Republican, leading Governor Henry by 12 points, 52% to 40%. Two percent (2%) like some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided.

Both men are popular with Oklahoma voters, but the problem for Democrats is that Henry, who is term-limited and can’t seek reelection, has said so far that he has no interest in running for the Senate this year.

The Muskogee Politico quips:

Just more evidence that the conservative movement is turning Oklahoma the ‘reddest of the red’, thanks in part to the work of people like President Ronald Reagan, President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Harry Reid, all for convincing Democrats that they were actually Republican, and to OKGOP Chairman Gary Jones, for his adept leadership of the Republican Party in Oklahoma.

I’ll grant him Gary Jones, but at the moment, Harry Reid doesn’t have the persuasiveness to run the ice-water concession in hell, and Nancy Pelosi would spend all her time trying to get the lesser demons to agree to a bottle deposit.

My bank balance being not quite as low this past week as it usually is, I noted yesterday morning that I’d actually earned a cent in interest, the first such income in a year or so.

Interest rates being what they are, it’s possible I could earn as much as half a buck by the end of the year, which of course will be taxed. And in the 25-percent marginal bracket, assuming that the tax application will round it up to the nearest dollar, I’ll have to pay a quarter in tax on that 50 cents of income, rich bastard that I obviously must be.

It was just a matter of time. Allegedly from TOYOTA JUMBO DRAW ASIA FOREIGN SERVICES MANAGER, ASIA PACIFIC CHINA, this email promises:

Due to the Recent problem related to our product we have decided to promote our new camry to reconfirm our stand to the recent fault in our brakes and malfuntional parts in our product. As part of this promotional statue we select you as a beneficiary of our Toyota Camry latest edition and a sum of USD$500 that wil paid to your by Swift Card payment system.

Our promotion council have decided to help stimulate the world economy by email balloting of people that have email in the internet by random selection and your email is among the selected email and you are qualify to receive the lump sum of USD500,000.00.

The contact is a Mr. Steven Ho, and I think I’m going to leave it at that.

One has to assume that Mayor Mick Cornett will win reelection today — Clark Matthews figured a 99.999-percent probability — but people aren’t exactly storming their way to the polls, if my own neighborhood is any indication: at 5:05 pm I shoved ballot number 164 into the box, indicating that there had been a lot of slack time for the two babes working the precinct. (They did fetch up a box of magazines, I noticed.)

And actually, I was wavering a bit until the Gazette put out its head-to-head on the two candidates last week. (You’ll note that no endorsement was offered here.) Maybe some day I’ll tell you why.

Addendum: It actually came out fairly close: Cornett 58 percent, Hunt 42.

The Kings must be wondering how many shots they have to make to win a game. Sacramento shot a highly-creditable 53.9 percent, and Rookie of the Year candidate Tyreke Evans knocked down 27 points, but the Thunder got stops late and squeezed out a 113-107 win.

If you read that and thought “Does this mean they didn’t get stops early?” the answer is Yes: the Kings didn’t exactly score at will, but they were efficient, making 41 of 76 from the floor (including five of 16 treys) and 20 of 24 from the stripe. What Sacramento didn’t do was rebound: they picked up only 32, against 43 by OKC.

The Thunder hit 40 of 80, an even 50 percent; they were in the 60s in the second quarter. Two of the Big Three made it to double-double land: Kevin Durant had 39 points and 10 rebounds, and Russell Westbrook came up with 30 points and 13 assists. If your defense isn’t working so well, you might as well have offense, right?

This was the third game of the season series, which OKC now leads 2-1. The fourth will be Sunday at Arco Arena. In between, the Thunder will tangle with the Nuggets (tomorrow) and the Clippers (Friday); the next game at the Ford is a week from Wednesday, against the Hornets.

Addendum: Inspired snark from Royce at Daily Thunder: “Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Thabo Sefolosha combined for 69 of OKC’s 113 total points tonight. Durant and Westbrook had 69 of those.”

Advice to blogdom assembled, by Robert Stacy McCain:

Here’s a helpful hint for happiness in the blogosphere: Don’t ever get a Google alert for your own name.

The very fact that you would consider getting a Google alert for your own name probably indicates a tendency toward personal vanity. All that is then necessary for your enemies to goad your fragile ego is occasionally to write a sentence like, “Charles Johnson is a sociopathic narcissist,” and it will ruin your entire day.

I have to admit, it never once occurred to me to get a Google alert for my own name. Then again, to rework a phrase from the perhaps narcissistic but not exactly sociopathic Samuel L. Goldwyn, every Tom, Dick and Harry has a name like mine, so chances are I’d actually be getting an alert for someone else.

Jimmy Buffett, you’ll remember, once ended a song with “And I know it’s my own damn fault.” I doubt Warren Buffett spent a whole lot of time wasting away in Margaritaville, but it’s clear from his letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders [pdf] that he knows where the buck stops:

For many years I had struggled to think of side products that we could offer our millions of loyal GEICO customers. Unfortunately, I finally succeeded, coming up with a brilliant insight that we should market our own credit card. I reasoned that GEICO policyholders were likely to be good credit risks and, assuming we offered an attractive card, would likely favor us with their business.

We got business all right — but of the wrong type.

Our pre-tax losses from credit-card operations came to about $6.3 million before I finally woke up. We then sold our $98 million portfolio of troubled receivables for 55¢ on the dollar, losing an additional $44 million.

GEICO’s managers, it should be emphasized, were never enthusiastic about my idea. They warned me that instead of getting the cream of GEICO’s customers we would get the — — well, let’s call it the non-cream. I subtly indicated that I was older and wiser.

I was just older.

During the period of heavy TARPage, in fact, GEICO sent out a letter to policyholders to the effect that inasmuch as the bank they’d hired to manage their MasterCard was busily slicing credit lines left and right, you might want to consider moving to a competitor’s card. (I got this letter; they did not cut my line, but they imposed a stiff annual fee and raised the interest rate a couple of ticks.)

I’ve got to believe that the ability to learn from his mistakes played a major factor in propelling Buffett to Richer Than God status, though how I’d get there, I haven’t a clue.

(Seen at Fritinancy.)

“Never tell me the odds!” barked Han Solo. He might have said that because he’s a swashbuckling kind of guy, but it’s occurred to me that he might have said it because we don’t know the odds ourselves. Will Truman relates a sad story from South Africa:

Deaf hardware store cleaner Stanley Philander had the numbers that won the record $12 million rollover (91 million rand) lottery in South Africa on Friday.

Problem was, he bought it after the numbers were selected, which means, that if those numbers just happen to come up again in next weeks drawing, Stanley is golden. Not quite as golden as if he had won this week, however.

Let’s face it, not only is poor Stanley in the midst of a huge letdown at the moment, but that ticket of his is useless. The chances of the same numbers being drawn in back to back lotteries are astronomical.

Um, no, says Truman. “The chances are, of course, just the same as any other set of six numbers!” Similarly, if you’ve tossed a coin nineteen times and somehow managed to get nineteen heads, the chance of getting tails on the twentieth toss is still 50-50.

Yours truly, in the summer of ’02:

I would hate, of course, to write one huge check [to the IRS] in the spring, but if the government can be forced into fiscal discipline, well, so can I. Now, while we’re on the subject, can we throw FICA into the mix?

Absolutely, says Daphne:

Make every working man cut three checks to Washington every April out of their own bank accounts and you’ll see a vast, seismic shift back towards limited government and fiscal conservatism. Directly paying income tax, social security and medicare/medicaid straight up would be a stunning eye opener to most working citizens.

Assuming the states that impose income tax followed suit, I’d be shelling out somewhere around $12,000 right about now, and the language here would be far saltier. Count on it.

Okay, fine, cut out Saturday mail delivery. I won’t lose any sleep over it.

Until the next Monday holiday, when it will dawn on me that I will have gotten no mail for three days, and I will utter all manner of unpleasantries. (Especially if I have to work that day, which I usually do.)

Although James Joyner, as usual, seems quite a bit less agitated than I:

The irony of course is that people are increasingly accepting of the possibility of losing Saturday mail delivery precisely because of the obsolescence of regular mail. That is, if you absolutely, positively need it overnight, you don’t mail it. So, for the most part, all that comes on Saturday is junk mail and sundry other crap that can wait for Monday.

Perhaps his crap is sundrier than mine.

Compromise: Why not cut out Wednesday mail? One day’s as good as another, right?

Harry Belafonte turned 81 this past Monday, which makes him 30,318 days old. DAY-AY-AYS OLD.

(Linked to this.)

When garbage time starts in the third quarter, something is dreadfully askew. Denver led 61-52 at the half, not quite enough to declare victory and empty the bench, but the Thunder managed a mere twelve points in the next twelve minutes, and at one point trailed by 41. This wasn’t a blowout; it was a full-fledged implosion, to the tune of 119-90, and the Thunder pretty much did it to themselves. We’re talking 32.5 percent shooting and 26 turnovers, and only 46 points from the starters. (Remember when Kevin Durant, all by himself, had 39? That was last night.)

In fact, KD and James Harden tied for team high, with 19; Serge Ibaka, who played 27 minutes — more than Durant, Jeff Green or Russell Westbrook — put together the only double-double, with 15 points and 13 boards. Etan Thomas played most of the fourth quarter; Antonio Anderson, currently on a 10-day contract, got his first NBA minutes and first two points.

The Nuggets were pretty much what you’d expect: Carmelo Anthony scored like crazy (30 points), Kenyon Martin reeled in the misses (13 boards), and Nene was a looming presence at seemingly every turn. Denver shot 50.6 percent and scored 50 points in the paint, versus 18 for OKC.

What’s scary, of course, is that Denver right now holds the third seed in the West, OKC the sixth. If those positions hold, it’s Nuggets vs. Thunder in the first round. And if the Thunder have another night like this, don’t even think about a second round.

Remember when the women of auto-show displays actually bothered to feign enthusiasm?

The photo is by Martin Schwoerer, from this week’s Geneva Auto Show. The car — you did see the car, right? — is the new Opel Meriva, which won’t be coming to the States, though Chevrolet (!) will be selling it in Mexico.

Wilma Mankiller, first female chief of the Cherokee Nation, following husband Charlie Lee Soap’s revelation that she has terminal pancreatic cancer:

I want my family and friends to know that I am mentally and spiritually prepared for this journey; a journey that all human beings will take at one time or another. I learned a long time ago that I can’t control the challenges the Creator sends my way but I can control the way I think about them and deal with them.

On balance, I have been blessed with an extraordinarily rich and wonderful life, filled with incredible experiences. And I am grateful to have a support team composed of loving family and friends.

Mankiller, now sixty-four, was the deputy chief in 1985 when Ross Swimmer resigned as principal chief to join the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington; she won the tribal election in her own right in 1987, and was reelected in 1991.

Herewith, two fascinating (to me, anyway) posts connected, not to each other particularly, but to Nineteen Eighty-Four. First, a memory from Tam:

In my sophomore year in high school I had one picture hanging in my locker. It was a black & white, postcard-sized photo of a skinny English guy behind a mic. Not Simon Le Bon or Sting, but an author. With that archness that comes so naturally to high school students, I’d completed the picture by scrawling in the corner “All the best in the new year, Eric. XXOO.” Hardly anybody got it.

Second, a safe-word suggestion for the, um, sexually exuberant from Bitchy Jones:

Here’s what’s fun. Just tell him, just make it clear, that from now on there is only one effective safe word. And it is this: Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia!

(This latter link might annoy your filters at work. With thanks to Zeeke42.)

Plaza, schmaza, says Downtown Ranger Nick Roberts, the Kermac Building ought to be saved:

I don’t want to second-guess their commitment to the community, as it turns out SandRidge’s founder, Mitchell Malone, is an OSU alum who recently donated $29 million to OSU. So there’s no doubting their commitment to Oklahoma, and that’s great. But SandRidge, formerly known as Riata Energy, is not from OKC — it relocated here from Amarillo. They are likely familiar with the Kerr-McGee story as anyone in the energy industry probably is, but preserving that history is undoubtedly not a priority for them like it should be for people who are from OKC.

Furthermore, who’s to say SandRidge isn’t out-right trying to root out the KMG legacy around their headquarters and replace it with SandRidge footprints? I can even see a reasonable debate for and against that, because it’s certainly understandable that SandRidge DID thankfully purchase and occupy the tower when KMG left us high and dry. However on the other side, the argument that KMG history is NOT Luke Corbett history has to win at the end of the day. KMG history is OKC history, and it’s about the history of the thousands of people that worked for it, people from hard working oil drillers, to people like Karen Silkwood. It’s the history of Oklahoma, in a microcosm. SandRidge needs to be respectful of that, and there is no reason for them to mow down the original headquarters of Kerr-McGee and replace it with nothing more than a windswept plaza to inflict SandRidge’s corporate image on Robinson Avenue.

Luke Corbett was the last CEO of KMG; the sellout to Anadarko Petroleum happened on his watch, and he reportedly pocketed $200 million from that 2006 deal.

I am not entirely unbiased in this matter: my father worked for KMG for many years, as did my stepmother. But those considerations aside, it strikes me as a bad idea aesthetically to remove the building simply to increase the visibility of the new SandRidge plaza. Steve Lackmeyer noted a few weeks ago:

[T]he building can be salvaged, and there are good prospects for adaptive re-use. Further, SandRidge Energy plans to create an open plaza where there is now a strong urban streetfront. The entrance would create a gap — the sort of thing that pedestrian consultant Jeff Speck described as a sap on walkability and urban life.

I concede, the project plans look pretty good. Then again, we had pretty good plans back in the 1960s, and we wound up with a mausoleum for a downtown, a situation we’ve only just begun to correct.

And Rudy Huxtable is thirty now:

Um, wow. This is Keshia Knight Pulliam, a winner at last week’s NAACP Image Awards, for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Tyler Perry’s House of Payne).

(Courtesy of the Fug Girls.)

Politico has been circulating this story:

First-term Rep. Eric Massa announced Wednesday that he will not seek reelection, saying his doctors have told him that he can’t continue to “run at 100 miles an hour.”

But several House aides told Politico that the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that the New York Democrat, who is married with two children, made unwanted advances toward a junior male staffer.

If he did that at 100 mph, I suppose I ought to be impressed.

Jenn’s take on the matter:

His sin here isn’t that he wanted to have sex with his (male) staffer (although sexual harassment is very wrong), or that he was attempting to cheat on his wife (although that is both sleazy and wrong). His sin was that he was apparently a bad enough boss that other staffers didn’t feel the need to protect him, and instead turned him in. You reap what you sow.

I dunno. I figure anything done or attempted on the side qualifies as sinful as well as sleazy, but I have to figure, if your own staff sells you out, you can’t be much of a bargain.

Speaking of office atmosphere, the following dialogue took place at my door yesterday, the first day in several weeks that was actually warmer than the seasonal norm, resulting in the usual HVAC Fail:

Office Babe: “Are you hot?”

Me: “No one’s ever said so.”

I suppose you had to be there.

And he still doesn’t have time to go rifling through your data:

When you have that level of access, users become paranoid that you’re pilfering through their computer, looking at their “stuff”. My “official” answer was always that, well, it wasn’t their computer — it was the government’s. Even today, every time I log on to my computer, a big banner pops up and reminds me of that fact. It also states that anything I do can be logged or monitored. People have a sense of personal ownership and privacy when it comes to the computer that they use on a daily basis, but it’s not so.

The “unofficial” answer, however, might surprise you. Unofficially, none of us had time to look at people’s data. At my old job, three of us managed a domain for 6,500 users. None of us had the time (nor the incentive) to randomly select someone’s workstation and browse the contents of their hard drive. People would get so bent out of shape over the fact that I had the ability to peek into their My Documents folder or their network home drive and thumb through their documents, but the reality was we were way too busy to be doing that. And when we did have moments of down time, the last thing I wanted to do was look at someone else’s vacation photos or search the network for small pools of mp3s.

My access level at work is “Seated at the Right Hand of God,” but I don’t have time to browse everyone’s machines. I can barely keep my own box updated. Then again, stupidity of a flagrantly blatant, or blatantly flagrant, nature will be noticed. We had one lost soul who one afternoon installed LimeWire on her work box. Now there’s nothing inherently evil about LimeWire, but she was using it as ductwork to load up her iTunes folder, and files of dubious provenance often contain Really Bad Stuff of the sort one does not want on a corporate network. Still, I might not have noticed it except that she had iTunes sharing turned on, which meant that all this stuff materialized one day on my machine. I mentioned this in passing to the powers that be, expecting that a tech would remove the offending files. Instead, the poor girl was subsequently frogmarched to the curb.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s this: you can probably get away with more than you think, but less than you’d like.

Hardly anyone bothers to ask “What’s the deal with the bird on the sidebar?” anymore; this particular feathered friend has been here more or less continuously since 2002, and there was great outcry when I attempted to substitute a different picture, even of the same species. (There was a bird even before 2002, but it probably wasn’t the same species.)

If you’re still curious, it’s answered in the OAQ, and let me assure you, this bird was not selected for sheer brilliance:

One male goldfinch, yesterday, in particular, was amusing to watch. The tube feeder has four perches with ports: two midway down the tube, two at the bottom. But the attachment point for the hanger up at the top also looks kind of like a perch. So this bird was hanging upside down from that top bit — and he kept pecking at the tube. I guess he could SEE the seed inside it, and having no experience with clear plastic, he assumed that the seed should be accessible, since he could see it. But he kept pecking … even after several minutes’ worth of lack-of-success.

I actually felt kind of bad for him, but at one point said aloud, “Bless your heart, you’re just not very BRIGHT, are you?” (I think he eventually figured it out and went down to the usual seed port).

As though I needed further justification.

No, really, I don’t mind charging the wireless bill each month to Visa. It’s usually about the same amount, it’s always the same day of the month, so it’s not like I’m suddenly going to be shocked out of my shorts when the bill arrives. (Shorts may vary in shock capacity. See dealer for details.)

But if I go to your little Web site to punch in these changes, the database, which seems to be accessed by a combination of Ajax calls and wishful thinking, goes away at the precise point where I’d be expecting to enter a sixteen-digit number and an expiration date. This is, shall we say, suboptimal.

So once again, I dial up the phone and converse, so to speak, with the disembodied voice. At least she knows where to find the appropriate data. It occurs to me that you might want to reprogram her slightly, give her more of a Catherine Zeta-Jones kind of sound. It worked for you before, didn’t it?

After being thoroughly schooled by the Nuggets on Wednesday, the Thunder took out their frustrations on the not-as-hapless-as-you’d-heard Clippers at the Staples Center, 104-87, demonstrating two Great Truths: (1) OKC has some serious resilience, and (2) the Clips really miss Marcus Camby.

Defense was definitely a priority: the Thunder blocked 11 shots, pulled off 13 steals, and held L.A. to 37.2 percent shooting, 28.6 from beyond the arc. The Clips weren’t lacking in offense — both Chris Kaman and reserve forward Craig Smith came up with 19 points, Kaman recording a double-double, and sharpshooter Rasual Butler added 17 more — but OKC kept them from putting together any serious runs.

The Thunder landed five players in double figures, led by Kevin Durant with 32; James Harden got 15 off the bench. Nenad Krstić posted a double-double, and Russell Westbrook was one assist short of getting one of his own. (The Russmeister had seven steals, more than the rest of the team combined.) OKC shot a tolerable 45.6 percent, hitting five of 14 treys.

Oh, and rebounds? There were literally a hundred in this game, and OKC snagged 53 of them.

This finishes off the season series, with the Thunder taking two out of three. Another series will be completed Sunday, at Sacramento.

Technically, there are 351 possible chords in the equal-tempered scale as we know it, though there are only 12 which are “musically distinct.”

After this, you’ll wonder what happened to the other eight.

(A brief bit of salty language near the end. From Ethan Hein via Donna B.)

“Dear Customer,” said the fake Amazon.com email:

Your order has been successfully canceled. For your reference, here’s a summary of your order:

You just canceled order #035-7974456-97033

Status: CANCELED

ORDER DETAILS
Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC

Under “ORDER DETAILS” is the evil link.

Incidentally, this might have worked better if the subject line hadn’t read this way:

Amazon.com – Your Cancellation (201-1308925-1761919)

You’d think the numbers would actually match.

I can’t say I’m surprised by this, but it’s still a tad weird:

“OMG!” she said, quickly backing up and heading into the other available stall. Her peroxide blonde hair about stood on end, I imagine, from the sound of her voice. Whatever was in that stall was likely disgusting.

I don’t really care.

What I couldn’t get past was hearing someone speak the letters “O” and “M” and “G”, a text messaging abbreviation, instead of the actual words. We have, oh joyous day, come to a place in the demise of the English language in which we save on syllables by speaking the nonsensical abbreviations we used to save on text characters.

In fact, it’s worse than that: we’re not even saving on syllables. “OMG” takes precisely three, as does the phrase for which it stands. And certain phrases — “WTF” comes immediately to mind — actually take more syllables, IYKWIMAITYD.

And if I live to be a hundred, I’ll never quite understand 1174.

Maybe it’s just me, but each year the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue seems just a (simulated wayward) hair less inspired than its predecessor, and I think it’s just that the young ladies sporting the suits, or semblances thereof, are just freaking bored with the whole concept.

The one possible exception this year, I’m thinking, is Anne V, who isn’t immune to the standard-issue Petulant Pout, but somehow often manages to look like she’s about to break out into the giggles, even in moments of feigned sultriness.

And when the situation is clearly goofy:

I’m pretty sure she’s not laughing at Cubs fans.

Historical note: Technically, this post title became obsolete when she was about four years old.

Did I miss something? Mark Steyn seems almost as perplexed as I:

[Y]ou’d have thought that an education system that teaches schoolgirls how to perform oral sex wouldn’t also have to schedule time to teach them how to consume a hot dog safely. Multi-tasking, people!

[Insert "relish" reference here]

The artist currently known as Dawn Summers reveals a deep, dark secret about women’s-wear storefronts:

A few years ago, my friend Lola and I went into an Anne Klein and we discovered that the stores basically paste clothes to the mannequins and then pin them shut in ways no human being would ever do, except in movies about the future where everyone is wearing form fitting jumpsuits.

Or maybe in Mannequin, since presumably Kim Cattrall didn’t worry about such things.

Then again, once your Life Clock turns black, it presumably doesn’t matter anymore.

You might call this a tempest in a B-cup, but maybe you shouldn’t. Russian president Dmitry Medvedev was invited to the Élysée Palace, and the Sarkozys dressed for the occasion. It took about thirty seconds for everyone to note that there couldn’t possibly be room under Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s form-fitting Roland Mouret gown for anything resembling a brassiere, which precipitated a minor scandal among the chattering classes.

Persuaded as I am that to show you (almost) everything without actually letting you see anything is not at all an unreasonable desideratum for women’s fashions, I tend to take Mme. Bruni-Sarkozy’s side; there will always be the tut-tutting, or something similar, from the Nipple Patrol, but I have a feeling that she was motivated more by “What a lovely dress!” than by “Let’s give everybody a look at the girls.” I mean, it’s not like she’s sporting cleavage or anything. And besides, as Hannah Betts notes in the Times, “in the brouhaha over Carla’s bralessness, no one has remarked that she doubtless also went knickerless.”

Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, I think it’s probably safe to say that you’ll never see Michelle Obama in one of these.

Canada is getting rid of paper money, or at least the “paper” aspect of it:

They say money doesn’t grow on trees. Well, the federal government has taken that adage to heart — it announced earlier this week that Canada’s paper-cotton banknotes would be replaced by newly designed plastic ones next year.

It’s part of a plan to modernize and protect Canadian currency against counterfeiting.

The new plastic bills, made from a polymer material, are harder to fake, recyclable, and two to three times more resistant to tearing, the Bank of Canada said.

If “will not jam the soda machine in the breakroom” also makes it to the list of advantages, and I suspect it will, I’m calling for Washington to follow Ottawa’s lead here.

Joe Sherlock reports this bit of automotive cognitive dissonance:

Last week, I spotted a geezer-piloted white Chrysler 300 sedan with aftermarket Buick-style portholes installed.

I object. A true geezer would have bought an actual Buick.

That said, this particular aftermarket excrescence is showing up a lot of places, putting a few bucks in the pockets of Manny, Moe and Jack while annoying anyone with a sense of design history. The last set of bogus Cruiserline Ventiports I saw was on a GMC truck; I suppose I should be grateful that at least they were on an actual GM vehicle, instead of a freaking Chrysler fergoshsakes.

Or, for that matter, a Maserati.

You should not make Russell Westbrook bleed.

A couple of minutes into the second half, Westbrook, who hadn’t had a particularly good night up to that point, retreated to the locker room, bleeding from one eye after a swipe by the Kings’ Carl Landry. He was gone maybe nine game minutes, and came back with a bumpy countenance and a chip on his shoulder. He finished with 21 points and eight boards as the Thunder finished off Sacramento, 108-102.

And this despite a considerable offensive display by the Kings, who shot 50.6 percent from the floor, knocking down five of nine treys. But OKC owned the boards, 45-33, including 16 off the offensive glass, and when super rookie Tyreke Evans drew two fouls in the last two minutes and connected on only one of four free throws, it was pretty much all over.

Not that Evans was a slouch or anything: he had 24 points. Landry had 20 more, and the Sacramento bench rose for 36. It might have helped their cause if some actual fans had shown up: attendance was reported at a hair over 12,000. I blame Oscar.

Your Thunder Big Three were fairly large, Kevin Durant managing 27 and Jeff Green adding 12. Thabo Sefolosha, who hadn’t been hitting any shots of late, came up with 10 points; Nenad Krstić had only five points but 10 rebounds. Both James Harden and Serge Ibaka came up with double digits off the bench. OKC shot 47.7 percent, but just four of 14 from downtown.

This puts the Thunder at 38-24 with 20 games left, none against the Kings, against whom they finish the season 3-1. A home stand begins Wednesday against the Hornets; the Nets will arrive Friday, and the Jazz on Sunday.

Hollinger’s current Playoff Odds land OKC at sixth with a 50-32 record. Dallas and Utah, says Hollinger, are set to tie for second, but the Mavs get the tiebreaker, so the Thunder end up playing the Jazz. (The Nuggets fall to fourth and take on fifth-place Phoenix.) I can believe we’ll go 12-8 the rest of the way — but we have 12 games left against playoff-bound teams, and only eight against the members of the Lottery League. By no means is any of this going to be easy.

Time once more to sort through a week’s worth of Googlers and Bingers and whatever and find something, anything, to make Monday morning bearable.

“verb that noun”:  What the adjective noun are you verbing about?

“can i just remind you to bite me”:  Maybe, but you really should work up a calendar entry, just in case.

how many demerit points lost if you crowd the driver’s seat:  It varies. Did you also crowd the examiner’s seat?

there’s a spammer on your aim:  Let’s say he makes a credible target.

oklahoma city roman numerals downtown:  Your best bet will be somewhere south of VIth Street.

sarcastic wit vs clown wit:  You need them both. Otherwise, you’re just a half-wit.

I want to webcam chat with naked grownups:  Sure you do, Mr. Special Agent, sir.

Avon’s Marketing Strategy compared to ESPN’s:  Forever apart, unless someone develops a beer that contains moisturizer.

bud light urea:  Well, at least it isn’t moisturizer.

vedio white lady faulking in the pool:  Some of us don’t tolerate faulks like that.

“newspaper dress” “saint paul”:  Be sure to Pioneer Press before wearing.

charles hill okc suicide:  Why doesn’t anybody tell me these things?

“amputee whore”:  You’ve really got to hand it to her, so to speak.

Obligatory Rule 34 item: classic bulb enema pictures.