---

Hangover forces
pause for reflection

Like most Digital Slobs returning to work after overindulgent New Year's celebrations, the deafening sound of a clicking keyboard is threatening to split my head wide open.

Therefore this week, I'll only be able to communicate through my computer's much quieter "cut and paste" maneuver -- doctor's orders.

But thankfully, even with my limited range of motion due to holiday excess, we can still review what Slobs learned about ourselves, Respectable People and the world around us in 2004:

Ourselves

» When compared to an oak tree, many Slobs have about the same metabolic rate, and can post only slightly better times in the 50-yard dash.

» We're not worried about TiVo invading our TV viewing privacy. If Big Brother is watching us, we're pretty sure he's bored to death.

» Slobs live just like Oprah Winfrey, if Oprah Winfrey's domestic help all went on strike at the same time.

» After returning to Disney World recently as an adult, I can say it has improved its attractions immensely since 1971, and I'm happy to report that Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum no longer trigger panic attacks when I pose with them for a picture. Child-averse Slobs will agree, however, that the one thing the Magic Kingdom desperately needs is a Ye Olde Vasectomy Shoppe somewhere along Main Street USA.

Respectable People

» RPs take courtship way too seriously. For them, it's not just a game, it's an Olympic event. That's why stressed-out RPs on blind dates wear clinched-teeth smiles so big it looks like they're ordering appetizers inside the space shuttle during takeoff.

» The next time you're stuck in line at the DMV behind an RP wearing a cell phone headset who doesn't mind letting everyone hear the post-op play-by-play of his proctology exam, pull his pants down and tell him you thought some might want the full effect.

The World

» Now that privately funded SpaceShipOne has entered space and returned -- in one piece -- twice in two weeks, handfuls of run-of-the-mill millionaires will be rocketing up in SpaceShipTwo as soon as 2007, needing only the kind of Right Stuff that $200,000 can buy.

The fact that this endeavor was bankrolled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, however, doesn't make flying the friendly stratosphere that appetizing. True, it's hard to do anything these days without Microsoft in the room, but at least when the servers freeze up in our offices, our buildings aren't sucked into a lifeless vacuum. When you run out of RAM in space, no one can hear you scream.

» The CDC says 60 percent of America is overweight or obese -- that's about 13-17 billion extra pounds. This makes me think that fat Americans are pulling the planet closer to the sun. Certainly, this would explain all the nasty looks we're getting at the United Nations.

Think about that the next time you finish off a box of Twinkies and you see another chunk of ice break off the Antarctic on CNN.