I'm not a big clapper. Never have been. I don't know why. I just feel silly doing it. Clapping.

It's goofy. I mean I'm physically capable of clapping. I just don't like it. I'm self-conscious about it. Slapping my hands together.

What a funny way to show appreciation. Making noise with your hands. I do get excited about stuff. I am capable of appreciating stuff. But I am rarely so excited that I am moved to force my palms to collide with each other.

So I save my clapping for really important stuff.

Unless you turn a double play or beat out a bunt, don't expect me to clap for you.

I'll tell you how much I appreciate you, and how much I value your work. But I doubt if I'll clap. Sorry.

All cartoons being produced now are either educational or Japanese.

My daughter can't watch a simple Saturday morning cartoon without either being taught how to count or seeing big-eyed, cheaply animated robotic dinosaurs attack each other, flying through the air and emitting speech that is unsynchronized with their mouths.

All I want is to be able to turn on the TV and see a duck get hit in the head with an anvil, or see a rabbit dodge shotgun pellets. Where is the sheer silliness?

Educational cartoons earnestly desire to fill their little half hour with an enriching lesson so that no part of the child's day is wasted. The ultimate tragedy would be for a parent to put their child in front of the TV for a few minutes with a bowl of cereal (while the parent did something frivolous like take a shower, do the laundry or read a magazine article) and that child not develop some greater awareness of colors, letters, or learn how to share. But what's the point of knowing the difference between a square and a rhombus if you don't first know how to laugh at the word "rhombus"?

The other alternative, Japanimation, has never appealed to me. There is something about Japanese culture that is so oblique, so alien to my Western-ness, that I just have never been able to appreciate it. I just don't get it. The Japanese cartoon is an assault on all of my senses.

I predict that soon the two formats will merge and our kids will spend thier Saturday mornings learning how to count in Japanese. And then Western Civilization will collapse.

What a deal. A $90 boxed set of DVD's going for $6 on Amazon. Click here.

Yeah, they're black and white public domain silent films, but Metropolis, Birth of a Nation, and Buster Keaton's The General are definitely worth the six bucks.

It is possible that these won't be the cleaned-up versions available elsewhere, but I'm willing to take a chance.

Based on a very complicated formula that I came up with, here is who I believe will put up the best offensive numbers this upcoming baseball season (no real suprises):

1. Albert Pujols
2. Barry Bonds
3. Todd Helton
4. Alex Rodriguez
5. Vladamir Guerrero
6. Gary Sheffield
7. Carlos Beltran
8. Brian Giles
9. Manny Ramirez
10. Luis Gonzalez

Top 10 most valuable starting pitchers:

1. Curt Schilling
2. Mark Prior
3. Pedro Martinez
4. Randy Johnson
5. Roy Halladay
6. Kerry Wood
7. Javier Vazquez
8. Mike Mussina
9. Roy Oswalt
10. Kevin Brown

Other predictions: Tampa Bay will not finish in last place in the AL East for the first time in their history, the Cubs will not be in the postseason, the Rangers will be to 2004 what the Marlins were to 2003, and a man named Milt sitting in the third-baseline seating section will accidentally spill his beer on a woman in front of him during the seventh-inning stretch at Fenway on a Tuesday night in July in a game wherein a visiting left-handed pitcher has given up three earned runs and the Red Sox have committed two errors, marking only the fourth time in Major League history that this has happened.

If you ever catch yourself wondering whether it is a good idea to buy a two-year-old a kazoo...

believe me, it isn't.

I just noticed that all of the albums I listed below are about ten years old.

What's THAT all about?

You've got a five disc CD changer in your car and 300 miles to drive. Based on how you feel today, what do you put in there?

Me?

Everclear - Sparkle and Fade
Weezer - you know, the blue one
Lyle Lovett - Joshua Judges Ruth
Meatloaf - The first one
Better Than Ezra - Deluxe

I've often pondered the fact that everyone is pretty good at something, and I've thought about how for some reason I'm not good at anything.

So I've always thought that I've just never gotten around to trying whatever it is that I have a God-given gift for. What if I could be a world champion steer wrestler and just don't know it because I've never done it? Somebody else is out there winning my prize money and getting my big trophy belt buckles, all because I've never had a chance to wrestle a steer and show the world just how wonderful I am?

Maybe I could possibly be the world's most reknown basoon player. I could be selling millions of records and touring Europe. But I'm not. Because I've never picked up a basoon.

Well that's the way that I used to think, anyway... until a couple of weeks ago. I've found my calling.

All my life I have seen those machines full of stuffed animals - you know the ones with the big claw that barely grabs a piece of the toy before missing it altogether - and all my life I have seen people put their quarters in only to walk away empty handed. I thought that surely it had to be a rip-off. No one ever wins anything out of those.

But a few weeks ago my little girl begged me to put some money in the machine to get her something out of it. I'm sure that she was thinking that it works just like a Coke machine - put your money in, get a toy out.

Well I put the money in, manuevered the claw, hit the button, the claw dropped, grabbed a pink dog and dropped it in the chute. First try.

Since then, every time I go past one of those machines I put my money in, and invariably on the first or second try, I win. I have never had to try more than twice to get something out.

Now we have a toybox full of cheap, stupid stuffed animals that only cost me about five bucks, tops. But that is a small price to pay for finding your niche in life.

So this is my offer to you... you need something out of one of those machines? Call me. I'm the guy that can get it for you.

So is everyone in the tax return preparation business now?

Can you tell me who would actually take their tax forms to a used car dealership?

"Yeah, uh. Looks like yer getting a tree-tousand dollar refund here. We have a very fine Buick wit low mileage for jus about that. Jus sign right here, we'll take care uh da rest."