1. You hear tons about the first Noel, and absolutely nothing about the sequels. I wonder if they were really all that terrible. Were they as bad as, say, “Grease 2”?

2. The line isn’t “Across the bridge and through the woods”; it’s ”Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go.” Who in their right mind jumps into a river with what is presumably a horse-drawn carriage? I can imagine the grandmother’s reaction when the soaked, bedraggled family finally shows up on her doorstep: “Oh my goodness. What
happened to all of you?” “Oh, Dad was sucking down the hot-buttered rum again and decided to take a plunge into the rapids.”

3. If you think about it, it’s pretty rude to say “God rest ye merry gentlemen.” It’s like turning out the lights on a party that’s still in
progress. “God Rest ye merry gentleman!” “Uh, thanks, but we’re still feeling pretty merry.” “Well, but rest ye.” “No, we’re going to stay up late and scarf more spiked eggnog.” “But--” “Look, get out of our face.”

4. I don’t happen to believe there’s anything immoral about “donning now our gay apparel.” Heck, I personally own a couple of sweaters that are pretty borderline.

5. It’s strange to think that, at some point in human history, people thought that a “one horse open sleigh” was more fun to ride than a two or three horse open sleigh. People actually wanted less horsepower, not more. Whereas now we’re like, “You don’t have a V6 engine? What are you, a high school teacher?”

1. I was two names below Scott Adams when I signed the visitor’s book. I thought: “Wouldn’t it be nice to meet Scott and say something intelligent, incisive, and breathtakingingly original. Like: ‘We have your cute little Dilbert strips all over our cubicles, Mr. Adams.’”

2. I said to my escort, “I was two names under Scott Adams.” She said, “Actually, he just left in his limo.” And I thought to myself about the dichotomy of Dilbert and how the strip reflects the position of the white collar drone, yet Scott Adams tools around in his limo. He’s both proletariat and bourgeois at the same time. And this weighty philosophical treatise occupied me until I tripped on a piece of carpet.

3. My escort led me past room after room full of equipment, microphones, and computers, as well as lines of glowing
“Taping in Progress” signs. I realized that it doesn’t take that much stuff to report local news and weather. The truth dawned upon me: KQED is a front for an evil empire about the take over the world. They’re practically bursting to the seams with weapons of mass destruction.

4. After the first taping, Dan the Engineer advised me: “Careful about taking deep breaths between sentences; the tape can pick that up.” I coached myself: “More Walter Cronkite, less phone sex.”

5. During the second taping, I accidentally jostled the table. When Dan the Engineer played the tape back, you could audibly hear the noise. I said, “I think you can hear me hitting the table.” Dan the Engineer said, “Nah.” I think he’s using this version, because he fiddled with it and spliced it a little. So when you listen to the segment, you’re bound to hear a sound that reminds you of Chuck Barris’s “Gong Show.”

6. It was confirmed that my segment is an “Evergreen” segment, meaning that it’s not time sensitive. Meaning that they can save it and air it whenever they don’t have anything else. Meaning that it may well be aired this time next week, circa the year 2008.

7. No one offered me a free Big Bird lunchbox.

In looking back on a classic of literature, George Orwell’s 1984, we can observe that Orwell was very poor at predicting the future. I mean, the book is hundreds of pages long--and there’s not one mention of Cyndi Lauper.