A long time ago, I read a quote that stuck with me: "nothing very, very good or very, very bad ever lasts for very, very long." I think it was from a Douglas Coupland novel, or maybe not, but anyway, it's been going around in my head for a few days now, dredged up from whatever notebook I scrawled it in during the 90s. And it just seems to fit.

Internet, why has no-one told me before about the miracle of the grilled cheese? With the bread? And the cheese? And the frying of the bread and the cheese? In the frying pan? With the butter? REALLY, WHY NOT?

So there I was, sitting at my desk, marveling that 89 people had something to say about grilled cheese, and scouring Craigslist for writing jobs that would allow me to feed the horrendous IKEA habit I seem to have developed in the last week, when I started to smell something funny. It was sort of a .... singed smell, sort of like Clean Linen had turned into Burnt Fleece. I looked down: both of the candles I'd been burning seemed fine.

I've been meaning to tell you this for a while, but for the last few months I've been writing a column on online culture for a paper back in Charleston. The column is called The Weekly Geekly and you will remember that this very site was, at one point, featured in it, and the timing was awful because not only had I just had a fight with a man in a Wal-Mart parking lot, but then I'd gone right out and picked up some second-hand lawn furniture from the side of the road.