The other night, the Keelhauler decided that he wanted a CD burner right away, and suggested repeatedly in his intensely focused but quiet way that we drive over to Circuit City ("It's right next to Home Deep-io, and I have to go there anyway!"). So we went, and got a CD burner, and went back home.

The Keelhauler helped plug in some of the cords, and got all the pieces out of the box, but unsurprisingly showed little interest in the software installation or diagnostics. Once I'd installed the software, a program called "Nero," and was preparing to copy a CD, I asked him to pay attention, so that he could
follow the steps later on his own.

"So," I told him, "The first thing you do is open up Nero..."

"Who's Nero?"

"That's the CD-burning software," I explained.

"... And it's called Nero."

"Well," I explained, "Do you know who Nero was?"

"No."

"There's a famous saying about him... he was the emperor when everything was going to Hell in Rome..."

"Never heard a the guy," said the Keelhauler.

"Well, anyway, there's a saying, 'Nero fiddled while Rome burned.'"

"Well, I don't think Rome really BURNED..." he said.

"Well, I think it probably did, but anyway, it wasn't like he really played the violin, either. It's just a shorthanded way of saying that he ignored the state of affairs while the empire fell apart around him."

The Keelhauler thought about this for a second, then said, decisively, "He played FUCKAROUND."

Star of the day. . .Bob Guccione