STRAY LIGHTS

Jesus, where did the time go? We sit down to type, it's Thursday. We look up again and the weekend is over. Time to clean out the e-box and pass along some of the shells in our pocket:

•A shocked reader (self-proclaimed shock, and we have no reason to doubt it) points us to this News-Leader story with the instant classic hed:

Noon event to discuss lesbian oral history

Not as good as

Licking girls take titles

but pretty close.

•The New York Post says writer and permanent grouch Christopher Hitchens last week had a "full male Brazilian bikini wax," described as

the back, the crack and the sack.

Not being blessed with a hairy back -- damn the bad luck -- we conjure an image of a drunk Hitchens taking a deep pull from a fag while experiencing the bliss that is a smooth scrotum.

•Gawker clues us in on the worst parents ever, the improbably named Muffie Potter Aston and her husband, Sherrell Aston. The power couple have named their twins Bracie and Ashleigh. Nothing against Ashleigh (or Ashley, or Ashli -- or even Ashlii) -- but Bracie? No one will fault the child if she decides a Menendez moment is in order.

Life is strange right now. We never doubted it would be this way.

KEEP 'EM COMING

A bit of housekeeping, and a quick thanks to you for stopping by CHATTER. We get an e-mail when someone leaves a comment. Putting them in a folder for digital filing made us realize your role: More than 6,700 comments.

Add to that a half-million page views and pretty soon, you've got yourself a digital village. Thanks for building it.

POINT RESCINDED

Given the flurry of debate over the awarding of pre-points in the Great Game of Mortality, this clarification to the rules:

A pre-point is won if a death happens within 48 hours of a player's call. Thus, Addie's Lady Bird Johnson call expires (no pun intended) at 6:18 p.m. Sunday. Section B of this rule prohibits a player from active participation in the death. No slayings allowed, Addie. Behave.

DO NOT ADJUST THE VERTICAL

A switch to a three-column layout. Changes include:

•Your comments up high on the left sidebar.

•The CHATTERWORTHY blogroll regains prominence; it's over there on the right.

•Missouri news and Ozarks weather have been added to the left sidebar.

We're sure there's more junk to add, but we're trying to keep the page lean and fast-loading for our woefully archaic friends on dial-up.

DO NOT ADJUST THE HORIZONTAL

We're undergoing some renovations at the palatial CHATTER office complex and naked karaoke bar. If some of the sidebars don't work, it's not you. It's us. Sorry for the digital dust.

BACK AND FORTH

Disregard the previous post on Haloscan comments. After a couple days of messing with it, we're done messing with it. Back to Blogger comments.

HELLO, HALOSCAN

Strannix made us do it. Our cyber colleague at Welcome to the Revolution is remodeling that site, including an upgrade to the comments section.

Blogger envy set in, so we've switched CHATTER over to Haloscan comments and ditched the Blogger variety (for those who complained about the hoops that Blogger made you jump through to post a comment -- you're welcome).

We've kept the old comments from a few of the most recent posts. The rest of the slate is blank. Have at it.