Come Heller high water…

∫ Best moment of the week: Seeing the first-ever image of an actual black hole 55 million lightyears away. How amazing was that? That’s the kind of thing that restores my faith in humanity. We can be really, really smart and cool when we want to be.

∫ One news report described black holes as “the universe’s most powerful vacuum.” I’ll bet it still doesn’t work very well on pet hair.

∫ Forget politics. I want to know what we as a nation are doing about Russian interference in our elections. Have you noticed the silence on this? I don’t get it. If there’s one thing we can come together on, shouldn’t it be this?

∫ So glad to see Julian Assange kicked out of the Ecuadoran embassy and arrested. If there’s a guy who deserves to spend eternity in prison, it’s him. (And can you imagine living inside an embassy for seven years and never going out? I’d have permanent spring fever within a month. Even worse would be hosting him that long. I don’t care how nice you are, a seven-year house guest would annoy anyone).

∫ I got an email from a dealership: “Your recent service experience.” Experience? I didn’t have an experience. I had an oil change. Everything isn’t an “experience.” In fact, few things are.

∫ Don’t you think colleges should give a legacy discount to your kid if you went there?

∫ “Journey” is suddenly an annoyingly popular buzzword. People don’t have careers, lives, relationships, projects or medical problems anymore, they have “journeys.” As in: “Boy, getting the dog in for his deworming was quite the journey.” Really? I’m going on a vacation soon, which involves travel, meaning it’s an actual journey. I think I’ll stick to calling it a vacation, though.

∫ Last week, I griped about companies that don’t put prices on their website. Here’s gripe No. 2: Websites that don’t put their phone number, address and hours at the top. That’s the main reason most people GO to websites. Why do I have to do a scavenger hunt for basic information because your web designer thought it looked nicer to hide that stuff?

∫ Gas is getting pricey again. Within 10 years, though, no one will care. Electric cars will be the norm by then. Kiss gas-gouging goodbye. What will the Middle East peddle then?

∫ The Masters is on. I love playing golf, but I’ve never been able to enjoy more than five minutes of watching other people play it. The best part of watching it on TV is when someone flubs a shot or scores a triple bogey. That lets me feel momentarily superior.

∫ I like to picture the guy who invented golf explaining it to a friend. “So, the object is to use this stick to hit this ball into a little hole that I dug over that way.” “What hole? I don’t see a hole. Where is it?” “Are you blind — 450 yards over that way, right over the pond and near that pile of sand.” Golf and hockey would be better sports if they doubled the size of the hole and net.

∫ Thank you for reading this far, by the way. It’s been a real journey.

∫ Words I love: fizzle, cracker, ethereal.

∫ “Lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being around other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.” — David Foster Wallace