"The Electronic Newspaper Isn't As Spiffy-looking as the Ads Imply..."

Well, readers, I'm finally back among the living after two weeks during which every family member--male, female, upright-walking, and four-legged and fur-covered alike--fell victim to the dreadful Oh-Nine variant of the 'flu. We've been going through decongestants and aspirins like water, and buying (and using up) coffee-table-sized multi-packs of Kleenex boxes from Costco. Meanwhile, grubby jeans and school uniforms would appear to have been breeding in the dark corners of the laundry room--not exactly the cheerful get-well present I was hoping for, but hey, I'm just grateful to be breathing freely and speaking in my normal baritone, as opposed to the unintelligible frog-croaking I was doing for a while there. Poor Marley, he seemed so insulted and pissed-off at the notion of microbes invading his sovereign feline self: he'd burst into a fit of little kitty-sneezes, then shoot me this withering look, as if I had something to do with it (I didn't; it came home with one of the Offspring and spread outward and downward from there. But try telling that to a cat.)

Anyway, let's kick off my return to civilization with this little blast from the past--1981, to be specific; it comes via Wayne Garcia, my new boss at Creative Loafing, where I'll be posting my work from time to time, starting this week. (For non-Floridians, CL is an alternative weekly newspaper somewhat akin to the Village Voice. Only it's not, obviously, of that particular Village, not unless you consider the Tampa area to be an extension of New York, which is probably kind of stretching things a bit. We did come close to being, ah, cursed blessed with our very own Trump Tower at one point, though. And you can get some pretty superb pizza here, if you know the right Italians, ahem.)

First, the electronic newspaper; then, what next--a telephone with pictures? Anything seemed possible...