Literally. Although the day started out quite promisingly, I spent the evening and all of today being very ill. I’m hoping that I recover soon, as I’m supposed to go do some stand-up comedy in Pittsfield later this week. And then in April, I’ll be doing some stand-up in Rhode Island. I’m trying to separate my comedy from my rapping a bit more, so I’m going to try to do these two shows with no rapping. Although one of these days, I’d love to do a rap-only show. Yo.

Anyway, Valentine’s Day may be a hateful thing, but I’ve still got my column for you, so that’s good. There was going to be something funny in this post, but I’m too ill to remember it, so I think I’m going to step away from the computer now.

My Groundhog Day column comes a bit after Groundhog Day. To make up for that, next week I trust my Valentine’s Day column will be out the day before Valentine’s Day. Which, coincidentally, is Friday the 13th. And if you’re looking to celebrate Friday the 13th, you could either put on a hockey mask and buy a chainsaw, or you could come out to the RBIT show. The Royal Berkshire Improv Troupe will be appearing at the Main Street Stage in North Adams at 8pm, and for a mere $5 cover charge, hilarity could be yours. C’mon, it’s Friday the 13th, February, and near Valentine’s Day. You NEED some hilarity.

Actually, if you were the type of person who plays a lot of video games, there’s a new video game humor site that recently launched, called Gameist.com. And the reason I know this is because I’ve written a few articles for them, and hope to write a few more. The site is very video game focused, so if you like video games, you should go read my articles there. Conversely, if you hate video games, don’t bother following that link. You’d be better off just listening to the newest episode of News In Rap.

But not so much toil, and not so much trouble.

It’s been a good week for double things. My column from last week about the decline of the newspaper industry got bumped to this week, so along with today’s column about dinosaurs, it was a two-column week.

Speaking of columns*, this week I finished reading The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, and thus freed myself to finally open and play my Pillars of the Earth board game. I had been avoiding it because I was worried about spoilers. Yes, from a board game. I hate spoilers. Unless it’s the Red Sox in a World Series. Anyway, double Pillars: a capital idea.

This week was also a delicious week, because we made a double-batch of Moussaka, thus guaranteeing a lunch of delicious leftovers for days. This pleases me greatly. If you have not had Moussaka, then you are missing out. I think I’d even recommend Moussaka over Rattattouie, if you are looking for a dish that is not made from rodents but is spelled like it might be.**

And finally, if you are not familiar with the work of fantasy author Margaret Ronald, you have the double good fortune of being able to read her newest short story, and being able to purchase her just-released novel, which I recommend.

*How ionic.

**See also: Vermicelli.

Last week my improv troupe had two performances in South County. During the Saturday performance at Barrington Stage, there was a game of Quotes* where I was playing a mad scientist**. For this reason, with no other prompting, I decided to threaten my enemy with a giant gorilla robot. Sadly, my invention was not perfected, and the robot stalled out and did not attack. A minute later in the scene, my partner picks up a quote and reads “Get your stinkin’ paws off me, you damned dirty ape.” Needless to say, I was overjoyed to have proof that my evil gorilla robot was functioning after all.

Note to self: Never try to describe improv to people who weren’t there.

In other news, my column is about board games, my freestyle rapping is about the news, my friend’s new fantasy short story is about Odin’s ravens, my rhyming version of the Torah is about due for a shot at publication, and my bedtime is about now.

*Quotes is a game where we get our audience to write random lines of dialog on scraps of paper before the show. These papers are folded and not looked at. During the scene, actors will pull out random quotes from the audience, read them, and work them into the scene.

**Yes, I know, typecasting.

Hello, new year! I greet you with open arms*! I enjoyed last year quite a bit, so I’d like to sign up for more of the same. That’s why we’ll start off the new year right with a column about infinite food, millions of wasted dollars, and clean plates.

I know, you’re thinking, “Surely you won’t manage a whole post without talking about board games?” Well, you’re right.**  Some of you know that I recently got yet another shipment of board games. Among them was Android: an epic adventure game with a much bigger rulebook than any other game I own. This is also the first boardgame for which I’ve seen a truly compelling trailer, which is linked in my review, which you should go read.

Man, that’s enough whiches to start a coven.

*To hug you. Also with open mouth, to eat your tasty food.

**And quit calling me Shirley.

And what better way to celebrate than my Day After Christmas column?  Well, sure, you could catch up on God To Verse, or News In Rap, but why not do all three?

I enjoyed a wonderful Christmas, playing board games all day, then out for traditional Chinese buffet with some artist friends, some gaming friends, and some girlfriend. Said girlfriend and I then came home to watch Police Squad and play more board games, which is pretty much a perfect evening. If you’d like to learn more about gaming with your partner, why not read my new article about that?

Also, I’m always surprised when the Chinese restaurants have Christmas music playing on Christmas. I asked them to either turn it off or switch to something more traditional Chinese, because most people going to Chinese restaurants on Christmas? Really don’t need any more Christmas music right now, thanks. Anyway, Christmas is over, so there’s the Chanukah party tomorrow, and then New Years festivities for the next week. Now that’s how you ring out a year.

Well, all the winter holidays are here, so what better way to celebrate than reading my column about your holiday horoscope? I’ve been having a grand time, attended a Solstice party tonight, performed at a holiday revue (did I mention I enjoy revue-ing?), and am looking forward to playing lots of board games over the next week, followed by hosting a number of old friends, the usual New Years parties, copious amounts of tasty food, and so forth.

For once, I may enter the new year hoping that it mirrors the old one for me, because I’ve really enjoyed 2008. But I get ahead of myself. We’re still in the tail end of this year, so I hope you all enjoy the holiday season, whatever holiday you celebrate. Including empty set. Which sounds like a weird holiday where people give each other matching gift-wrapped boxes containing nothing. Or maybe that’s Buddhist Christmas. Although that’d probably be one with everything, not nothing. I guess they’re linked, but Buddhist philosophy may not be the ideal topic for a humorous blog. I just mention it now and zen.

Also, there’s a new News in Rap posted.

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy reviewing things? Well, I do. And hopefully you enjoy when I review things too. Because I have two recent reviews. One of them, team-written, can let you know where to get pizza in the Berkshires. The other will tell you whether you’re likely to enjoy a certain party board game, which happens to be a decent game for people who don’t like most board games.

And you should be glad that I’m happy writing these reviews. Because as I mention in yesterday’s column, new research suggests that your happiness is affected by the happiness of your friends, their friends, and even their friends. So if you’re looking to help yourself out by making me happy this holiday season, tell a religious friend about GodToVerse. Mentioning it to your pastor, your rabbi, or even fellow members of your congregation, would be appreciated. Definitely by me, and quite possibly by them as well.

It’s a phrase that has a number of interesting endings. Sure, there’s damn and darn, but there are also more colorful expressions like rat’s ass, tinker’s cuss, and airborne intercourse.

Anyway, speaking of giving, last week’s column was about Maimonides and the eight levels of charitable giving (and how it relates to the old Batman TV series). You’ve probably noticed that I am not always instantaneous with my column updates. However, I’ve arrived at a reasonable solution. I have added to the sidebar, under current projects, a link that says “The Pun Also Rises”. This is a link to a search for my name on the Transcript site, which should always bring up my most recent columns. As an added bonus, if I am performing at some newsworthy local event, or have been arrested for making jokes at a funeral, it will probably find that too.

My column from yesterday was about cliches. Yes, there should be an accent, but I’m too lazy to find it. For professional correspondence — and this is a trade secret — I tend to use Google to find a page with an accented e, and then just copy and paste that at the bottom of my document, to use whenever I need it with more pasting. But it’s 2am and right now, I’m not feeling professional.

The latest episode of my non-professional freestyled reporting is now available at www.NewsInRap.com. Tomorrow night (well, okay, technically tonight) I’m performing with the Royal Berkshire Improv Troupe at the local theatre, which is also not technically professional. And although I’m not a professional board gamer, I probably spend as much time gaming as one. My latest addiction is Dominion, which we acquired barely a few weeks ago. We’ve already played two dozen games,

Today I ate a pizza at a restaurant called “Hold the Anchovies”, and roughly 10 minutes after I ordered, while sitting at my table, it suddenly hit me: I can’t believe I didn’t order anchovies.