And see my name, Leo Bloom, in lights

[austin_dern]

It was my brother on the phone. ``I need your help with something,'' which is the traditional opening for a lot of great ideas that I never really get around to following up on.

``Well, if I can help, sure,'' which is a useful thing to say in any situation since that little conditional leaves you completely off the hook.

---

The remainder of this dialogue is over at my humor blog, which along with last week's big essay includes the past week's bits:

• Movies With Kanye West, inspired by the eternal question: what if Kanye West were a tiny girl made of candy?
• Missing International Rabbit Day, with our rabbit unhappy once again;
• Reused Thoughts, in which a new recycling bin appears;
• The First Day Of The New Recycling Bin Program, in which I exaggerate how the new program went by about two-thirds of one percent;
• Another Warning From The Dream World, because surely my dreams hold important messages for us all; and finally,
• September 2013 In These Numbers, just tracking how things are going. The Pythagoras essay is popular, for good reasons.

Trivia: A memorandum from D J Markarian, Vanguard Project engineer for Glenn L Martin company, dated 18 April 1956 asks the Naval Research Laboratory for permission ``that we be allowed to use a spring removed from a Victor Mouse Trap, manufactured by the Animal Trap Company, Lititz, Pa, for our magnetic disconnect doors in the second and third stages of the Project Vanguard vehicles''. Source: Project Vanguard: The NASA History, Constance McLaughlin Green, Milton Lomask. NASA SP-4202. (The book doesn't say whether permission was granted.)

Currently Reading: Hitler's Secret War In South America, 1939 - 1945, Stanley E Hilton.