����Well, now that you've been exposed to the simmering cesspool of my sexual fantasies (Harrison Ford, Mountie uniform, flickering firelight--let us never talk about this little bit of ugliness again) I feel it's time to dump it all, to release all my inner demons.

����Yes, today I will talk about fruitcake.

����All during the build-up to Christmas, comedians make fruitcake jokes. They compare them to bricks, to curb stones. They say cruel and cutting things and I laugh along because I don't want to be singled out, I don't want to be known as a rebel and a loner.

����But I am.

����Because, you see, I like fruitcake.

����Actually, "like" is too wishy washy a verb. I must be honest. I LOVE fruitcake, eh.

����I have been hoarding the fruitcake Paul's mom makes us every year for Christmas, only allowing myself miniscule little squares of everlasting joy and happiness.

����When the spousal unit asks if there's any fruitcake I don't actually lie, I just cleverly redirect him to the cookies.

����But even with my hoarding and um, er, ah fibs (I mean the words "bald faced lies" are so perjorative, don't you find?), the wonder that is Norma's fruitcake ended a last week.

����And now ... now I am reduced to controlling my fruitcake jonesing by eating a storebought fruitcake that was given to us as a Christmas gift. It has been sitting in my freezer, waiting for the dark day when The Real Fruitcake ran out.

����Now don't get me wrong, the cake itself is okay. In the world of fruitcakes I would give it a six out of ten.

����But the icing ... Mr. Man, the icing is truly nasty. We're talking heart of darkness here, folks.

����I think they meant to make ersatz marzipan. You've got an odd creamy texture and a strong almond note happening, but then there's this weird chemical taste that kicks in, followed by what I assume is flour gone terribly, terribly wrong.

����Look, I know that what I should do is just scrape the icing off and pitch it in the garbage and save the fruitcake. And yet ... and yet this icing stuff is so bad it has a hold on me, and has actually become a part of my fruitcake eating ritual.

����Each time I cut myself a small piece of this fruitcake I cut off the icing and set it to one side of my plate. In my heart of hearts I know I should leave it alone, but some dark corner of my being compels me to put a tiny little dab of this white evil on my tongue.

����It's as if I cannot believe there is this much wrongness concentrated in one place, that this black hole of food horror is actually possible.

����Yep, we're talking about the food equivalent of picking at a scab.

����Ewwwwww, now isn't *that* just the image you want to contemplate for the rest of your day, huh? Yes, like it or not, today I'm taking both my readers on the twisted joyride that is my own personal heck.

����But don't worry, soon the depravity will end, soon my stash of the fruitcake with the evil icing will be gone. And I will be forced into full withdrawal, to kick my fruitcake habit cold turkey, eh.

����Until next Christmas, that is, when the dark cycle starts all over again ...

--Marn

SETI@home

There has been an outpouring of sympathy for the plight of one small moose. The incredibly cute and deeply talented Paul of Rilting fame has even made a button for the Do It For The Moose Campaign.