Have you tried Netflix? It's an online service where you queue up all the movies you could ever imagine and find them most days in your mailbox. Whereas I used to watch movies only on occasion, I’m now watching four, five, six movies a week. When I feel that it’s too many, I just take NoDoz.

Recently I figured out my tailspin: I, like other simpletons, am compelled by a feeling of progress. Every time I watch a movie, I remove an item from some unseen to-do list. It doesn't matter that the list will never end; the important thing is that I make progress.

Netflix has me right where it wants me -- watching movies I would never rent at Blockbuster. Yesterday I saw a children's movie from Serbia! Who would have thought that claymation could be that horrible. But it wasn’t a waste of time because I am building secret credits toward a degree in ... in ... Ebertology.

These Port Hueneme houses were burned down as part of a local fire drill. I'm pretty sure they removed the residents first.

On my website is a guestbook where people sign in and say hey. We have a good time and, outside the innuendo, nobody gets hurt.

In recent days, though, spammers have come to graffiti the guestbook 15 times a day. It's not enough to be stalked by voicemail, email, and postal mail; now we're being molested by website.

I'm not sure what to do about it. So far I've tried yelling at the world and punching the monitor.

My wife's computer doesn't work at all. She went online without protection, so now she has a virus. Every time she boots up, Yahaira is shelled with pop-up ads until Windows finally crashes. Experts say that she can either reformat the hard drive or keep getting The Big Blue Screen of Death.

The virus is called AdDestroyer, a program that installs itself on your computer then promises to protect you from the same danger that the program itself imposes. Reminds me of a certain presidential administration.

The Internet was supposed to transform communication, bringing humans to a new level of understanding; but as with TV, the revolution was tempered by the ongoing movement of advertisers to suck our soul out through the eyeballs.

In the time it took to write this, two new spams have appeared in my guestbook. And somewhere in the distance God is shaking his head saying, "They just can't have nice things, can they?"

My wife is a crack head. She eats sunflower seeds by the bushel -- cracking, chewing, always cracking. I guess that means she eats like a bird.

It's not the seed she's after: It's the salt. My wife craves salt the way fire craves oxygen. Nutrition Facts say that her sunflower seeds contain eight grams of sodium per bag, enough to dry up Lake Casitas.

I've tried everything to stop her. I've hidden her stash, lectured her, downloaded pictures of withered arteries. I even made up a story about how the Morton Salt girl died of sodium overdose. Yet my wife keeps on cracking.

If you or someone you love is a crack head, please act now. Don't let it spiral out of control the way I have. The other day I found under the couch a bowl of gnawed-on sunflower shells. My wife denied it with the conviction of O.J.

"Those are definitely, one hundred percent, absolutely not my shells."

After much ado, I convinced my wife to wean herself from the habit. We are going to start slowly, with something that contains slightly less sodium. A salt lick, perhaps.

Coors Light bills itself as the "coldest tasting beer in the world."

Is that the best they could do? An executive stood up and said, "We're not the lightest beer, and we're certainly not the best-tasting ... To hell with it; we'll be the coldest! Turn those fridges down, and I mean way down."

The madness started when M&M's decided, "You know, we can't think of any reason to buy our product. How about, 'Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.'"

But companies have to stand out, so you get nonsense like, "Dan's Paper Clips: Titanium reinforced for your toughest clipping needs." "Acme Glass: Transparency you can depend on." "Jason Love's Mental Blog: You would have to eat ten bowls of bran cereal to match this kind of fertilizer."

The register guy at Target beeped my underwear and gave me a total. As he bagged the purchase, I said, "It's okay -- they're already in a bag. Save that for the next guy."

The cashier laughed and swiped my card and just as I reached the exit, I glanced back to see him stuffing the bag into his trashcan. I almost went back, but how many times can you have the same conversation? We've gained too much momentum in our overpackaging, ten-mile-per-gallon, consume-and-dispose march toward doing without.

Next time I'll go with my first instinct -- to let my privates roam free.

They say that a thousand monkeys banging at a thousand keyboards will eventually produce Shakespeare. I disagree. I think that long before the monkeys approach Shakespeare, they will be sidetracked by a career in daytime TV.

I almost called this blog "The Thousandth Monkey," but only a handful of people would appreciate it, and they would expect Shakespeare. So we'll go with "Mental Blog," a name hokey enough for everyone to enjoy without hurting themselves.

"Mental Blog" will consist of random entries, plus my cartoon "Snapshots," a column called "So It Goes," some pictures, a little video, and who knows what. Your suggestions are always welcome. I may laugh at them with friends, but they're welcome.

Entries will be short like this one because we've all got better things to do. I, for one, have to feed the monkeys that are writing my columns.