I spent part of the evening completing a questionnaire for Something I Will Announce Shortly, and when I got here:

3. What’s a good first line for a story you’re not going to write yourself?

I responded:

The Devil arrives on cloven ice skates, scraping up a rime of concrete as he skids to a stop.

“Nice haircut,” I say.

“I have great respect for Miss Dorothy Hamill,” the Devil says.

…and then realized I was lying, because I totally have to write that story someday.

While I was in the States I had a request to bring back a box of Cap’n Crunch for a fellow Mercan. As a kid I didn’t spend much time in the company of the Cap’n — when my brother and I were allowed the occasional sugary breakfast treat I was more likely to go for Corn Pops or Apple Jacks. So “Aye!” or “Yarrr!” or even “Kirk” are more likely responses to “Cap’n” in my word association universe.

But because I had just picked up this box of cereal I was set to go off at work when I got an e-mail summary of capitalization guidelines with an attached PowerPoint slide labeled “Cap’n on a Page” (no kidding). And now the nautical purveyor of morning candy will always be “Capitalization Crunch” to me.

Also part of this complete breakfast: a wacky cocoa-puffin’ bird that says, “I’m cuckoo for accounting standards!” and a cartoon rabbit behind bars with the voice over, “Silly Tyco – tricks are for thieving bastards!”