World Record and other stuff

World Record: Matthew Mitnitsky has done it! He vowed "to bring the meatball back to the East Coast," and he did! Now, when you walk into Nonni's Italian Eatery in Concord, NH and order spaghetti with meat ball, you'd better be specific. Which meat ball?

Mitnitsky's giant meatball weighed in at 222.5 lbs, blasting the old record of 202 lbs to pasta-fasulli heaven. I guess the logical question would be, "Do I get bread sticks with that?"

Nice going Matthew! I guess we showed those Mexicans (who held the world record just five months ago) and Jimmy Kimmel (who beat the Mexicans last month) a thing or two. One of these days, maybe we will have AN ITALIAN breaking the meatball record, as it should be. You don't see an O'Leary holding the record for world's biggest taco, do you... or Mama Mia holding the sauerkraut title?

Other Stuff: If you are not familiar with the Bulwer-Lytton contest (run by the English Dept. of San Jose State University), you should be ashamed of yourself. Annually, the contest seeks to find the worst opening line of a novel, were one to be written with this line. Among the recent submissions:

• "As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it."

• "Andre, a simple peasant, had only one thing on his mind as he crept along the East wall: 'Andre creep... Andre creep... Andre creep.' "

• "The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness, crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess, hand at throat, crown asunder, gasping in frenzied horror at the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly, 'You lied!' "

And finally: How many science fiction writers does it take to change a light bulb? Two, but it's actually the same person doing it. He went back in time and met himself in the doorway and then the first one sat on the other one's shoulders so that they were able to reach it. Then a major time paradox occurred and the entire room, light bulb, changer and all, was blown out of existence. They co-existed in a parallel universe, though.

How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Two. One to screw it almost all the way in, and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.