The afternoon sun pierced lazily through the August afternoon, playing shadows over a hot sidewalk littered with cotton candy sticks and dropped ticket studs. I wandered through the zoo, lost but for just a second, not caring, so busy was I concentrating on the life-like behavior of the primates, blissfully ignorant as they chattered away between themselves, their hands combing through their mates’ hair as they ate their sunflower seeds and discussed their plans to mosey on down to the soccer field, in this case, a field belonging to Beitar Yerushalayim, after they finished watching the monkeys peel bananas.

*End recollection*

The vigilant reader, which you no doubt are, will realize what I did there. I conjured up a scene and forced the reader to pick a specific mindset, after which I rapidly turned the scene around, in the process snidely insulting an entire socio-economic group. Yes. I burned them. Which brings me to my main subject for this evening. Robert Burns. Known by a number of names, including “The Ploughman Poet” or “The Bard” (according to Wikipedia), the “Saviour of Scotland” (according to this site), “That Guy Who Kept On Winking At Us Until We Realized He Had A Tick” (according to Sara O’Conner ) or Ralph (according to that old drunk guy who calls anyone Ralph until you buy him a Happy Meal). Burns may be best known for his quote of:

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray”

According to the story, Burns, a farmer by trade and a righteous dude by night, was plowing and accidentally plowed through a mouse nest, built by a mouse who was unable to expect this. There are a number of possible conclusions which could be drawn.

1. Burns was a sick and depraved man who loved his Beef Jerky with a little special mouse sauce. Needless to say, this conclusion, while entertaining, is wrong.
2. Sometimes you should plan a little better. This is a good conclusion to draw. If you are a goddamn Sesame Street character who just shot up on super-happy-unicorn pills.
3. The mouse had gambled too much, went into debt at the Cheese Man, who started running the juice, so the mouse built his house right in front of a plow cause he wanted to kill himself. His wife took out insurance policy but was killed by the plow and the mouse, who was busy getting drunk at the church mouse strip joint, collected and lived like a king.

Clearly, C is the right answer. And thus we come to the daily Jon-a-Burn. Jon, cleary concerned that people think too highly of him, has gone out of his way to ooze stupidity in a way that would leave even Lindsy Lohan jealous. His most recent posting, or brain flush, as I have come to call it, focused on:

Okay, so this leads me to the topic at hand - how drunk should one get at a social gathering of “eclectic” people?

No, Jon. This is not a good topic. This is known as over-thinking. Excessive thinking. Too much planning. You know where they planned a lot? In World War Two. And 22 million people died. Jon, stop trying to kill 22 million people. Sometimes, you just have to let it go. Live a little. As Calvin once sagely pointed out in a Calvin and Hobbes strip - “Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.” And pointless can’t be planned (go ahead, followers. Quote me on that.)

As for the chart of the day. Enjoy. And respect me for I managed to do this on Windows 98. Which is liking flossing with a rope ladder. Not easy.