I like this much better than shaming dogs for being dogs.

'Vacation on Arrakis, they said. Take in the local wildlife, they said. If I survive this planet, I've got to get some new friends!... right after I kill the old ones.'

What bothers me about this list, is that other than showering every day (I make an exception for summer), I'd make a pretty good date for this guy. But guys with long lists of turn offs... are turn offs.

To this mere middle-aged mammal, it isn't the length that's impressive, it's the circumference.

Likewise, small dogs are oblivious to their diminutive size. They just want to be loved and cared for and to do their doggy best, and why should size matter?

How does Ariel know the dog was having a nightmare? My four-year-old Schnauzer was behaving the same way yesterday while he snoozed. I thought he's probably dreaming of some dog passing his house and he's defending his turf even in his sleep, by giving that dream intruder a good sublingual woofing at. When he's awake, woofing at passers-by is some the best parts of his day. Why would that change with age?

Oooo, kids and magic wands! Yay! Genius.

Most of those don't bother me, just oversights by the restaurant and if there are too many of them, we take our business elsewhere and tell management why on the way out the door.

I once considered stabbing a busboy while sitting in a comedy club, after he zoomed by our table in the middle of the show, snapped up my half-drunk cola (cola only) and kept running on down the aisle, stacking the glasses inside each other on the tray. Even if I could have caught him in time, the cola was gone (along with my sense of humor) and I'd have missed several minutes of the show trying to get that vastly overpriced drink replaced. All the time he's grabbing drinks off people's tables, he had this little smile on his face, like he'd made a game of it and was enjoying himself at our expense. I warned the waitress the next time we went to a show there I'd sacrifice my good time to kill the busboy who snatched my drink off the table without permission. I don't think we saw a busboy all night and beyond the two-drink-minimum, the waitress left us alone too. I recall it was a fine evening.

For the more outdoorsy types, a slide through the potty of a travel trailer, an hour in the 'sensory deprivation' black tank, then you get flushed out at the 'dump site' using a turbo hose.

Actually, we installed three Japanese-made toilets last year, Toto 'Drakes'. They are in every way superior toilets. We added only soft 'quiet close' toilet seats; there were a lot of other possible bells and whistles.

If Peter Sellers was reincarnated as a cat... 'Careful, monsieur, with me. Do not tangle with me. I'm a trained expert in karate. My (paws) are lethal weapons. Now where did that Cato get off to?'

*clapclapclapclapclapclap*

It would have been alright, John, if we Neatorama readers had gone on the rest of our lives believing there were some parts of the pig they just throw away.

How am I to go about delicately asking the waitperson if the dumpling has any asshole in it? As if the language barrier wasn't challenging enough. 'Can I get the dumplings asshole-free? I'm the designated driver. I'll be dealing with enough of those out on the road later in the evening.' If the customers gets food-poisoning, is the top suspect the box of pig rectums or the prep cook who didn't wash his/her hands?

King Lear might be a bit of a stretch, but apart from that, I couldn't think of any leads he'd be lousy at. I first noticed Dinklage in 'The Station Agent', and what it was about him that I'd stopped noticing - his height. His manner asks that we take him as seriously as he takes the character he's playing, and so we do.

There's a flip side to comics, where they're deadly serious, high intelligently and usually... complicated. Humor is how they cope. Keaton was a great choice for Batman. I don't find anything complicated about Ben Affleck. I think his brother, Casey, would have been a better choice.

I liked that the dogs are just as delighted to see a member of the pack return to the den. Yay!