Thanks to Miss Feva, I found out that if I were a Dead Russian Composer, I would be Dmitri Shostakovich!

I am a shy, nervous, unassuming, fidgety, and stuttery little person who began composing the same year I started music lessons of any sort. I wrote the first of my fifteen symphonies at age 18, and my second opera, "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District," when I was only 26. Unfortunately, Stalin hated the opera, and put me on the Enemy Of The People List for life. I nevertheless kept composing the works I wanted to write in private; some of my vocal cycles and 15 string quartets mock the Soviet System in notes. And somehow I was not killed in the process! And Harry Potter™ stole my glasses and broke them!

Who would you be? Take the Dead Russian Composer Personality Test.

Truth in advertising... not: Slate is presenting today what they announce as their "new car column," "Gearbox" ("Reviews of cars, trucks, and other autos"), by Mickey Kaus.

The problem is, this isn't a new column at all!

Last year, Slate's resident weblogger Kaus had already published a first instalment of "Gearbox" titled Cartoon Cars, where he reviewed last year's (unintendendly) comic new models, the VW New Beetle ("an extreme cartoon body designed to make some sort of 'statement' that isn't automotive"), the Ford Thunderbird ("an elaborately targeted, ironyless menopausemobile for rich boomers"), and the Chrysler PT Cruiser ("I keep expecting Jessica Rabbit to emerge from the back seat").

So why announce this column as "new"? I guess when there's only one writer in a website who has the clout to get test models for review, he doesn't get to do the gig more than once a year. And if you want to call attention to your puny car column which no one has seen for a year, you have to re-introduce it as new every time. I can hardly wait another year to see Slate publish a whole new "new" car column.

I made it into Virtual Occoquan! I made it into Virtual Occoquan!

Woo-hoo!

A big, fat thank-you to Occoquan editor Mark Hoback for including One Hand Clapping in this week's edition! Oh my Dog! And he was even gracious enough to list me not once but twice at the front of the Salon Blogs All-Stars roster!

Wow!

Nothing will ever top this moment in my life! Ah! It had been so empty, and now it brimmeth over! Ow! That's it, this is it for me! I'm running out of exclamations points! Oh, dear! Don't come looking for me! I'll be sitting by the rails, waiting for Amtrack to seal this moment for posterity! Whoa, Nelly!