Lately I've noticed rather extreme eye fatigue while reading on the computer screen. Hadn't happened before that I can remember, unless I was reading lots and lots of text for a long period of time. Part of me figured I'm just getting old (which is absolutely not true!), or still drinking too much on the job.

Although I've never been a cashier, I have always thought it would be fun to criticize the odd assemblage of goods each person purchases. I imagine sometimes you would find the makings of a meal or a party, but other times the basket full of purchases would appear more disconnected or even sinister. Often I don't pay too much attention to the person in front of me, but occasionally some break in checkout routine catches my eye.

It was all in one pot together, stewing in his brain as the years passed. His unavoidable death had a smell and taste to it. He hated the smell and taste until he came to realize that he had control, though not absolute, over it.

Living in the Midwest for the first 29 years of my life has left me with an anxious feeling on Memorial Day weekend. Enduring months (usually six) of cold temperatures, freezing rain, snowstorms, ice, and howling winds; and the activities that go with them: shoveling, scraping ice off a windshield, cautious driving and wearing multiple layers of clothing makes the arrival of summer the most anticipated event of the year for me.

World seen through boxer shorts that I thought had reached the end of their life.

This morning I took my son to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. Neither of us had been there before. And it was free, so there wasn't much to lose. So obviously there were tons of other kids there...school groups and kids with their parents. I had one of those moments that made me feel like I was walking a dog, though.

This story was originally going to be called, The Greatest Oppressor in the United States? It was just going to be me bashing television and television watching in general. But, then I though about it some more and realized the greatest oppressor is not television but the greatest oppressor is us. In oppressing ourselves I mean we are holding ourselves back from achieving things. Why haven't we had another "Age of Enlightenment" since the eighteenth century? Maybe it's just me, but I haven't heard or seen any new ideas, new approaches or great revolutions. It's easy to blame an inanimate object for these problems and not blame ourselves. But we make these decisions, we all make choices. We have all these freedoms and seem just to waste them.

Yesterday we attended my nephew's 1st birthday party. Since one of the things that a kid is "supposed" to do on his/her 1st birthday is get really messy eating their first piece of cake, that's what I was expecting. (Our son totally destroyed an entire cake, while sticking gobs of chocolate icing in his mouth every now and then. However, I don't give my son cake or other sweets except on special occasion. A kid just doesn't need all that sugar. He'll discover it later on his own, I'm sure.)

I decided to take my indoor kitty for a shoulder-ride out into the carport (kitty liked shoulder-rides, and had been known to leap onto my vertical chest if I didn't go straight to her and pick her up). Older neighbor (now deceased) noticed and came over to pet Cheaumea (said kit's name). We chatted for a few moments, then he returned to what he was doing (blowing leaves or edging the sidewalk or something).

We took a week off from posting the Weekly Digest because of family visiting GUTSY headquarters. This week's version has been double-sized to accomodate all the highlights.

Pete Hofmann started us out by spinning a tale of a man in overly tight underpants while Mark Sanders uncovered a building that looked like a modern brassiere. Heather Mann shared her required lunchtime reading and Sandie Maxa posed as an employee. Fortunately, Evan Mann didn't lose it all in Atlantic City nor did Ann Whitehurst's neighbors get the best of her.

New guest contributor Alice Marie has a hard time being content, but Sandie Maxa happily won a poodle. Paul Pereira crashed his bike while nobody was looking. Evan Mann likes clean clothes and Guido Alvarez is in love with a window. And don't forget that Mark Sanders gets drunk and steals things.

Tell a friend about GUTSY and have a great weekend.

A family trip to Coney Island included a few wild rounds of Skeeball. We soon found ourselves with 97 tickets. A look at the prize gallery told us that nothing worth having was priced under 100 tickets so we headed back to the Skeeball court. 13 more tickets were quickly won, making us proud owners of a pink poodle (value 110 tickets).

Every morning I swap the contents of my pockets from yesterday's pair of pants to today's. A wallet, keys, coins, cash and receipts are all normal items that get the switcheroo. This past Saturday morning while my in-laws were in town visiting, I also found 3 golf balls.

Last week was probably the worst week I've had at work. Friday came and all I was looking forward to was getting the hell out of there and getting home. I ride my bike to and from work everyday. I usually ride my bike on the sidewalk because in Newark, NJ there is no room to ride on the street. Cars are usually parked on the streets and sometimes double parked so it makes it hard for moving cars to get by when there is a bicyclist sharing an already narrow road. As I'm heading home and come upon another new block, I notice a guy on a ladder wearing a walkman washing his storefront sign with a hose. He's selling potted plants on one side and he's got the hose all over the sidewalk. So I slow down because I see potential for an accident.

In Confessions of an Opium Eater (1821), a book in which he detailed his slow descent into a tortured state of insatiability and endless agitation, Thomas de Quincy proffered an apology for "breaking through that delicate and honorable reserve, which, for the most part, restrains us from the public exposure of our own errors and infirmities." There is nothing, he wrote, "more revolting to English feelings that the spectacle of a human being obtruding on our notice his moral ulcers or scars," or "tearing away that 'decent drapery'" that separates gratuitously self-humiliating individuals from the "decent and self-respecting part of society." Despite his heightened sense of propriety, de Quincy went to great lengths to explain his addled state. It was his hope that, by providing instruction about the seductive qualities of opium, he might save his readers from harrowing addictions.

If you're anything like me, you often eat lunch at your desk and spend a little time visiting all of your favorite "news" sites. And, if you're like me, the fluffier the content, the better. What are your favorites?

Mine, besides Gutsy, of course, include (in some particular order), the following: Page Six, Gawker, Gothamist, E Online Gossip, Curbed, New York Times Real Estate.

My neighborhood is full of unusual characters, many of which are the reason I don't spend much time in my front yard. The following live either next door or across the street (names have been changed):

"Our team works hard to bring you the highest quality products."

If any of you don't know what I look like, you will now. I am the short dark-haired one in the first row. I am not part of a large staff. I work in a small home office with one other person. There are no red bricks on my sidewalk. I make high-quality products, but not the Mean Green Machines, Pak-A-Punches or 2-in-1 Automatic Cutter/Strippers that most of the folks in this photo do.

I have been misunderstood. My sense of humor must be such a rare species as that there are no others like it. My world stands alone. There is a Venus-like shroud permitting none to see or understand fully. I can point to many moments in my life for evidence of this theory. One such experience I call the Ames Iowa Skinny Briefs.

This past week on GUTSY Tom Graham was overcome by a photobooth and Mark Sanders was immersed in spring. Paul Pereira committed hit-and-run in a dream while Ann Whitehurst pointed out the surreal editing that is a Super Walmart. Sandie Maxa found architects who hate walls and Bob Holling watched the decline of Hitler. Last but not least, Evan Mann showed the people that he sees each day and one cool day.

Have a great weekend and tell a friend about GUTSY.

Short and sweet is the order of the day, though not the order of this docu-drama about the last days of the Third Reich, and more specifically of Adolf Hitler. Bruno Ganz is a force of nature playing a physically and mentally declining Hitler. The film was based on the book by his secretary, Traudl Jung, and pulls out all of the stops. (I'm really going for cliche here.) It's powerful. Hitler has no compassion for his civilian followers (and he says so, even)...

The first time I shopped in a Super Walmart (one that has a grocery store included) was like a dream. I don't mean that it was great or anything, though. Just that going from the clothing area to the produce section directly across the aisle was like one of those dreams where you suddenly find yourself in a different place but can't explain how you got there and can't make sense of it. This happened several years ago, but it sticks in my mind as one of those surreal experiences that I can't forget...sort of like the Duplin Winery "Tour 'n' Tastin'."

From the New York Times. Arts Briefly, April 29, 2005.

A guerrilla artists' group called Heavy Trash, making a statement against gated communities, has erected "viewing platforms" outside three well-off Los Angeles neighborhoods, including Laughlin Park.

My dreams in the past eight years have been easily forgettable. They are usually based on some sort of anxiety at work. But lately, I���ve been having some vividly strange dreams.