Well, folks, it’s that time of year again. In consultation with Special Birthday Edition Josh, we have come up with the following itineraries. Cheap Fun Day is cheaper and funner than ever, due in part to many of the former staples of Cheap Fun Day no longer being particularly cheap. Josh and I were laughing so hard at one point while we were planning this that I thought I was going to drive off the road. The scavenger hunt list is particularly hilarious. Also, because Josh and I are both acquiring ages that are prime numbers, many prime number themes will be popping up.

CHEAP FUN DAY Saturday, March 8 - Pancakes, gas can mimosas and stairway golf / whale & dolphin harpooning / manatee or seal clubbing at Josh’s - Miniature golf (Adventure Golf is due to reopen for the season on the 8th! If too crowded or whatever, Boondocks instead) - Lunch at Patrick Carroll’s - Bowling at Elitch Lanes - Digital photo scavenger hunt - Backyard ballistics shopping at Wal-Mart - Backyard ballistics (Cincinnati fire kites, papermatch rockets, tennis ball mortars, etc.) - Raffle to dye Josh’s hair - Other weird contests, such as pirate leg, milkchugging, pepper snorting, and a possible water balloon fight

DAY OF Sunday, March 9 - Breakfast at Hamlin’s - Botanic Gardens - Lunch at Pints - Walking it off in the art museum - Zoo - Dinner at Le Central - Post-dinner activity to be determined later (IMAX, the ballet, etc.)

MOVIE DAY Saturday, March 15 Theme: mob movies In all likelihood accompanied by spaghetti

I will be dispensing terrible lifecoaching advice on KGNU this afternoon. We’ll be in the spacious Boulder studio today, where the band Latch will also be playing live. Should be crazy fun! You can listen along if you wish from the KGNU website.

Okay, I find Obama really inspiring. That “Yes We Can” business gives me the kind of hope I never thought I’d experience, having been born at a time in American history after it was apparently fashionable to assassinate as many truly inspiring visionaries as possible. But I also really, really love good satire. Here’s some now. Enjoy!

The celebration of my annual 29th birthday will soon be upon us, so I’m considering what to do. Full-day attendance at Cheap Fun Day has dwindled in recent years, suggesting to me that perhaps something else should take its place if we are all to maximize the fun of this special time of year. Also, my actual birthday is on a Sunday, presenting a few challenges with regard to scheduling activities. Suggestions?

I confessed in an early TISA (Things I Suck At) installment that I am an insanely picky eater. I believe it’s #32. In my defense, I’m a lot less picky than I used to be. As a child I would only eat about half a dozen things, and those included hot dogs, corn, spaghetti with ketchup, and Cheerios. Over the years, that repertoire has expanded considerably, but it never did include tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, or any number of perfectly normal foods regular people eat. Those little diced bits of tomato they sometimes throw all over your food in restaurants? They make excellent plate border mosaics. For some reason I’ve never quite been able to discern, I don’t recognize them as food.

I have a new friend who has been trying to figure out what-all I will and won’t eat. Honestly, I wouldn’t wish feeding me on anyone, and I tend to avoid dinner at people’s houses and stuff until I know them really well, because I don’t know what the hell I will do if someone serves me a lovely gaspacho. It’s not like I can choke it down. There must be some guidelines here somewhere. Let’s see…

1. I do not eat the landgoing. Fish is okay, as long as it’s not too strong. Shark, for example, is nasty.

2. I will eat tofu and tofu products, provided they are not too mushy.

3. Raw tomatoes are evil. Tomato products are fine, cooked tomatoes are okay, sun-dried tomatoes are lovely, but the raw ones taste metallic and have those slimy, disgusting seeds, not to mention all that nasty, gelatinous goo in there. How do people eat those things without thinking of low tide or medical waste?

4. Indeed, many foods are rendered unacceptable by their textures. Squishy is always bad. Slimy is terrible. Advocadoes, for example, might as well be slugs. Gelatinous is usually bad, unless of course it’s Jell-O. Firm is usually good, as is varied and interesting (like, say, Tempeh). Soup must be consistent, with the background perfectly smooth, and anything in the soup cannot have been cooked to bits and must still be firm. No soup clots will be tolerated at any time. Anything I have to masticate for hours on end, like celery, is suspect. Whole pickles are okay, but pickle spears are not because they’re too squishy. Paste-like textures are OK, because they’re nice and consistent: hummus, squash, mashed potatoes, goat cheese… Peanut butter is a damn nice texture, as is melted cheese.

5. Nuts and fruit do NOT belong in candy or ice cream, because candy and ice cream are to be savored. If you slowly let a bite of Hershey Bar dissolve in your mouth and there are nuts in it, you will end up with a mouthful of wet nuts, and nobody wants that.

6. Left to my own devices, I would probably subsist entirely on bread, cheese, and nice fruit (as opposed to, say, cranberries, which are every bit as bitter and nasty as the climates from which said gangsta fruits issue). Maybe some nice red wine.

7. I have never been to a French or Thai restaurant where I didn’t like what I got.

8. If you were trying to set a trap for me in the woods, good bait for the trap would include still-warm, fresh bagels. Talk about kick-ass texture!

9. As previously noted, green tea tastes like a hot urine sample, whereas coffee is the nectar of the gods.

10. Ironically enough, my favorite flavor is “assorted.”

I’ll supply more of the rules as they are revealed to me by further reflection and analysis.