� As glad as I am that jellies came back, why did it have to be in clunky sandal form instead of classic 80s princess slipper style.

� The only thing worse than a client bringing in at the last minute a house proofreader who isn't aware of the idiosyncratic design quirks of a particular project and who marks all sorts of already settled punctuation and style issues 'wrong', is when they bring in a house proofreader who also has zero understanding of the content of the project and litters the pages with indignant sticky-note queries such as "What are push and pull factors?" as if we just made things up to fill space.

� When I read the story on CNN today about how Saddam is filling his days gardening and eating muffins, at first I misread the part about his no-fat diet as if it were high-fat and thought for a moment that the world finally had actual proof that the Atkins diet is, in fact, evil.

� Of all the reviews I read of Troy, the funniest to me was the one by the People critic whose main complaint seemed to boil down to "Why was Achilles so angry all the time?" Which is a hilarious commentary on the sad state of education today.

� E-mail exchange between my friend who just started working at my office and me today.

friend: Thanks so much for bringing in the pretty pink cookies. I'm helping to make

short work of them!

me: I plan to fatten you up so you can go on disability and work from home. Next step: ordering your special dialing wand

friend: And don't forget my cape and muumuu. But no large robes--I don't want to

look ridiculous.

me: Heck, I can't decide without the pictures.

I use the "I can't decide without the pictures" line so often in my day-to-day discourse that it wasn't until after I sent the last e-mail that it dawned on me that that line, too, was from "King-Size Homer."