And it's certainly not for the faint of heart

Winning posthumous acting Oscar not easy

(AP headline)

Stopping by a 'prison' on a snowy evening

With apologies to Robert Frost....

Whose penthouse this, I think I know.
He should be in a jail cell, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To curse him o'er my missing dough.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a hedge fund near
Between Bear Stearns and Lehman freres
The reddest ink I've seen all year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's been some mistake.
The only other sound's a cry:
"He screwed us all, for pity's sake!"

The penthouse throws me for a loop,
For I have naught to eat but soup,
And eons to go ere I recoup,
And eons to go ere I recoup.

Fast-breaking punctuation news

Last year Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint, M.D., published a book with a title that raised some eyebrows:

COME
ON
PEOPLE

In his blog, Bill Walsh of The Washington Post reacted to this by commenting that "Bill Cosby is either one kinky bastard or a guy who never learned about the comma of direct address. Or both."

At the bookstore today, I noticed that Mr. Cosby's opus is now in paperback.

With a comma after "on."

"Christmas - 1954"

Stare
In awe
At Him
On straw --

Fleshed Law,
Fleshed Love,
Deity without flaw.

Look down
Above to see:
Kneel to
Mystery

-- The Rev. Robert H. Flood, C.S.B. (1919-1974)

(my uncle)

Maybe ... but I wouldn't bet the ranch house

The Associated Press reports that Ed McMahon and his wife won't be leaving their home, which has been facing foreclosure for nine months.

Publicist Howard Bragman "said he doesn't have details about the deal that's allowing the 85-year-old McMahon to stay, but added: 'They ain't leaving.'...

"In a time of bleak financial news, Bragman expressed hope that the resolution to McMahon's situation served as a good omen. 'We hope every other American in trouble has the same experience,' he said."

Have they got a life coach for me!

The folks at Borders, apparently not content with depleting my bank account (with my connivance, I admit), have apparently decided that I've been spending too much of my time in the company of books.

Now they seem to want to fix me up with someone -- a someone named Mel Robbins, who is described as "one of the top life coaches in the country."

That's very sweet of them, don't you think?

Oh, you don't believe me?

Well, phooey on you -- you're wrong, and I can prove it!

The Borders folks actually have a radio show titled "Make It Happen with Mel Robbins."

OK, so they don't exactly say what "it" is, but they're obviously just being coy. "It" obviously means love, excitement, all the things that make a life coach's life worth living.

And certainly Ms. Robbins is quite attractive. Sorry to say, this coach is so attractive that she is way out of my league. But if the Borders folks say they can help me win her over, I'm certainly willing to let them try.

But I have one problem with all this.

Borders also has a program titled "Advice for Living with Mel Robbins."

Whoa! Aren't those Borders folks moving just a little too fast? First they seem to want to get me to first base, but then I'm apparently supposed to bypass second and third, head straight for home and continue on through to the parking lot.

I mean, shouldn't there be a few intermediate programs? Such as:

Advice for Sitting Through "Mamma Mia!" with Mel Robbins

Advice for Meeting Mel Robbins' Parents

Advice for Picking Out Furniture with Mel Robbins

But no -- they have me living with the woman, almost from the get-go.

Frankly, I'm not sure I'm up for all this. Tires me out just thinking about it.

And I'm sure Ms. Robbins can do a lot better.

Hyphenation deviation

A "rent-to-own" store at a local strip mall has the following sign in its window:

GOTTA
HAVE
GIFTS
FOR THE YEAR
ARE HERE

But hanging above the store's entrance is another sign:

GOTTA-HAVE
GIFTS HERE

Which leads to (not "begs") this question: Why is there no hyphen in the other sign?

My best guess: Some designer said that

GOTTA-
HAVE
GIFTS

would look lousy.

Or could it be that, in these ever-tightening financial times, the store chain decided it had to cut back on hyphens?

And if so, where does the store get its hyphens? From Rent-a-Hyphen?

Are there specialized stores for this sort of thing? Comma World? The Period Store? Or, for those who can afford a more upscale product, Ampersands R Us?

And if you rent a hyphen but miss a payment, does someone come and repossess it? And maybe take a semicolon or two as interest?

Are punctuation-mark stores a good investment? Is it best to diversify -- put some of your money in hyphens and dashes, and some in diacritical marks? Should we keep a sharp eye on the international value of the umlaut?

And do badly placed apostrophes drive properly placed apostrophes out of circulation?

It's hard to say. Perhaps we should just await the release of that key indicator, the Gross National Syntax.